Build diversity

[Sampe]

So the games we all look back to when figuring out how this game is going to turn out are TQ and D2. These games are similar in many aspects, but also have some very large differencies. I would like to point out one of them in order to maybe someday get the good out of both into one game.

Skills.

D2 skills are in trees, only a few passive skills, while the others being active, but also giving out bonuses to other skills. This allows for the player to pick out any active skill(s) to use as the builds main way of damage dealing. This system creates great build diversity.

TQ skills are in panels, some skills are active, some passive. Significantly more passive skills when compared to D2. But then there is TQs major advantage in build diversity that is choosing 2 classes and combining them into one. This is the main source of build diversity in TQ.

As we know, GDs skill system will be a lot like TQs. Choosing 2 classes is great, but I personally would love to see more viable active skills introduced into each class compared to TQ.

I know they're called masteries.

[KondaImmortal]

The masteries in GD will have more skills then in TQ so I believe we can expect more actives. Personally I love passives, and weapon skills like Onslaught.

[Younghappy]

And as medierra has mentioned, different masteries have different amounts of actives and passives. For example, the majority of skills in the demolition mastery are actives, as it is an action-oriented mastery (tossing grenades and laying traps, etc.) while the combat mastery is half actives, half passives (actives such as shield smash and buffs that grant your hero higher stats, etc.)
And personally, the way TQ (and now GD) set out their skills is my favorite out of all ARPGs

[Sampe]

D2 skill system is in my opinion the better of the two. You can't have that kind of diversity with just a few active skills.

Pointing out the different number of actives / mastery was expected. That doesn't even come close to enabling the level of dissimilarity between D2 skill builds.

For example D2 barbarian. You can pick pretty much any of the active skills to work as your 'basic attack'.

Whirlwind, Frenzy, Concentrate, Double swing, Bash, Berserk and Double throw can all be used. All the classes have similar skill diversity.

I wouldn't have liked for my posts to sound as "I want diablo 2.1" as they do, but I want emphasize that combining the pros from D2 and other games would be very beneficial.

Going back to the bigger picture, having classes have a much wider array of skills than TQ or D2 wouldn't hurt. Whats wrong with only touching a fraction of the classes skills with a single character?

EDIT: Just wanted to remind everyone of how well D2 synergies between skills that are not in the same branch/tree work really well when encouraging different builds is conserned. Taking this idea further, all skills could synergise with other skills, some offering higher bonuses than others, some offer straight forward damage increase and some give more unique nuances.

[Stefouch]

I played both D2 and TQ, never felt one game has more actives skills than the other.

That's because I never used more than 3 or 4 active skills in the same build, although there is a lot of other active skills.

That"s the same number I found with 2 masteries in TQ

[Sampe]

Originally Posted by Stefouch

I played both D2 and TQ, never felt one game has more actives skills than the other.

That's because I never used more than 3 or 4 active skills in the same build, although there is a lot of other active skills.

That"s the same number I found with 2 masteries in TQ

Of course there is enough active skills for one build. I'm talking about having different active skills for several builds.

To clarify, this isn't something that is required for the game to be good, but it is something that makes the chances of the game being awesome better. Mainly it increases replayability and getting a feeling that you can really customize your character.

[Renevent]

I've actually counted both in some previous debates I've had about these two games...the reality is D2 only has a handful more active skills than any other TQ mastery combination. I think it's good that GD will have more of course