[blue]This character sort of has more duality and has a more unusual field in that the Demon Hunter is so personally obsessed with fighting demons that they almost can’t control themselves. But at the same time, like any good hunter or vigilante, they have to be deliberate so they don’t get themselves killed, because they are outnumbered and largely outgunned, so they have to be careful. So what we’ve done is taken a look at the Hatred side of things and said OK, what does an obsessed hunter do? Lots of damage, just out of control, burstiness that allows you to do long range burst damage and get out of trouble short range by willing yourself out of that situation with close ranged attacks. On the other side is the preparation and the knowledge that goes into hunting something without that outnumbers you a million to one. That’s the Discipline side of things, these are abilities that are a little more elaborate that you’ll generally use less often, so you really have to plan when you want to use these skills. So we can’t draw out the resource system in specific details but that is the theme you’re going to see.[/blue]
With these characteristics backing the resource systems, what possible resources names/functions do you feel will fit well with the Demon Hunter?
I have brainstormed a few ideas that might fit:
Sanity: You gain more power as your resource decreases. Thus, you are encouraged to use skills often, but you gain your true potency when you're on your last shred of hope and plays well into the tactical side of the character.
Focus: Similar to the Hunter, focus is a resource that is similar to energy that constantly regenerates. (Kind of boring, I hope this isn't what they choose)
Stratagem and Execution: This plays on the dual aspect of the hero. This could work situationally - the currency would be a split sphere where some skills use the strategem. The more of this resource used before fighting, when you expend execution, you gain potency in damage, duration, etc.
Anyways, this was a few ideas. Any other thoughts/ideas?|||interesting ideas but it feels like your last idea would just ensure that demon hunter players would move slow through a area to ensure they get the most use of the stratagem skills and buff their skills used with execution.
i would personally like it as a like to use more strategy and tactics when i play hack and slash games.|||Ok... this is fun *taking a deep breath*
Facts:
1. SKills are more or less divided into Discipline and Hatred-types of skills.
2. Hatred skills could be used anytime
3. Discipline skills can be used less often ("you really have to plan when to use")
4. Discipline skills are traps and the kind of skills you prepare before you use, such as deciding on where to best place a Sentry.
5. Hatred skills are direct damage-dealing skills. Some are AoE, some are single arrows altered somehow, and some and better used on 'shorter' distance (like a shotgun?)
Guesses :
I'm asuming moving/escaping skills (are there more than one?) counts as hatred (or neither H or D), so you can use them spontanously and often. The exception is when you are low on resoruce and when your tactic is to make a HARD hit n run with short-range-skills or instant AoE skills (those that starts at the location of the DH, like fanofknives) :P I.e. you skill-move in close to a mob, use a lot of Hatred and still have resource left to skill-escape out if the mob survives the onslaught.
Anyways ...
Brainstorming
DH uses mana. Discipline skills have a longer cooldown than Hatred skills. The dowside with that is that players feel forced to use discipline when the cooldown has lifted, even though it is not the right moment for it. Also, you'll want some hatred skills have longer cooldown.
DH uses mana. Discipline skills have a higher mana cost than Hatred skills. This is bad .. you'll want some high cost Hatred skills.
DH uses mana. A mix of the latter two - Discipline skills cost more mana and have longer cooldowns. More flexible system .. but wouldn't that limit Hatred skills to be all low-cost spamming skills? Darn.
No, we need something like this:
'Mood Shifting Essence'
Let's make a built-in cooldown-system that's in the resource rather than the individual skills!
This is mana that shifts from green to black color, depending on what skill type you just used. If you use Hatred type of skills, the resource turns into liquid green and regenerates faster. If you use Discipline, it turns into more solid black and regenerates slower for a set 'cooldown' before turning liquid green again.
The theory is that this will lead to players using Hatred skills most of the time when in battle, but using Discipline skills less often, before and after battles.
Traits shortens the cooldown and alters the max amount of Essence available. Points into Willpower alters the overall regeneration rate.
OR
Divided Resources
The DH has two resources for 'mana'. A black mana bar that Discipline skills use, and one green bar that Hatred skills use. The green bar regenerates faster than the black. This way, you'll have more (green) Hatred to spend than (black) Discipline, thus you use D skills less often. Any mechanic that have you regain resoruce will give you some black, but more green.
Some traits alters the regen rate of black and some alters the max green amount. Points in Willpower alters regen rate for both.
The downside with dual resource is that it penalizes players who wants to concentrate in one type of skills only, thus making fewer builds effective. BUT it also makes it less likely that the best build will be a one-skill spamming one.|||You guys had covered some of the points already here, but I made a main page post about this issue and much discussion of it went on there. I'll quote my attempted-to-be-factual summary here.
Check the link for more including quotes from all 4 interviews on the resource.
Quote:
Discipline is basically mana; slower regeneration, but perhaps a larger pool? The Discipline skills cost more per use, and the design is to have players cast them less frequently than the main attack skills. Perhaps they have cool downs, or else they use so much resource we�ll have to wait to regen more? This one seems to be mostly tied to the Traps, but there�s at least one movement skill and a bow skill (�his dead eye shot�) in this bunch. Likely any bow skills in this branch are sort of �sniper� skills, rather than the rapidfire arrow spam of the Hatred branch.
Hatred is basically Arcane Power; a very fast-refilling resource that is all about furious attack rate and speedy movement. Along with most of the bow skills, Grenades is in this one, and though Hatred seems like a better fit for the movement skills, one interview quote put at least one movement skill into Discipline. (Assuming Vault isn�t the only movement skill?)
It sounds like you�ll mostly use Hatred as you launch a steady stream of bolts/arrows at the monsters, while mixing in occasional traps when you want one for support or when you need to let the Hatred catch up. It doesn�t sound like the devs are thinking about Traps-only DH builds, at least from their comments about Discipline skills taking time and care to use. It�s not clear if a pure-bowazon style DH would work very well either; that build might be too heavy on the Hatred consumption, forcing you to slow down your firing rate?
Another point; lots of features in D3 are seemingly there to force players to play smarter. Auto-stat allocation, limits on how fast you can add skills and skill points, easy respecs to prevent point hoarding, etc. That might be part of the motivation behind this dual resource; it will be almost certainly be better to alternate your skills; lots of arrows mixed with traps for support and damage-type variety. Thus we've got a dual resource that strongly-encourages that sort of varied play style.
I like the idea, personally. I always enjoy mixing skill/spell types. I used to love the v1.09 static/frozen orb/hydra combo for a D2 sorc, since I was constantly casting and using 3 different types of spells. FO to chill/slow, static to take off the big bite of hps, then more FO for the kill mixed with Hydras for targeted fire dmg. And since Hydra had about a 3 sec cool down in that version, I'd cast 2 or 3 FOs, then a Hydra, and repeat.
I enjoyed that type of varied skills with earlier Bowazons too, back before elite bows and aura runewords made pure dmg so powerful. It was fun to alternate MS/Freezing Arrow/Immo Arrow. Stacking the fire walls for single target damage, freezing for crowd control, MS for multi-target damage. Almost never using the same skill two times in a row.
That was sort of how the DH worked in blizzcon 2010. Bolo Shot did good dmg with the delay before the explosion meant you didn't want to hit the same target with more than 2 in a row. Entangling shot was a great slowing debuff but not very big on dmg. Molten Arrow was the only piercing shot and big dmg but heavy mana cost. MS was great for many targets but not huge dmg and heavy mana cost. They had to be alternated between constantly, for best effect and mana price and having a trap or 2 to throw into that damage cocktail would make it even more fun.
I like play styles/builds that reward competence and fast fingers and situational strategy, rather than just single skill spamming.|||I saw the front page post! I was hoping to see some more discussion here, but alas.
Also, while I understand your logic and how you arrived at your conclusions, I'm divided on whether or not Blizzard will actually take that route. And here's why.
At Blizzcon 2010, Bliz had the constant refrain of "making the character 'yours'." With the current design and speculation, we are to assume that Blizzard is pressing the duality of the character as it's main gameplay style. However, this conflicts greatly with their hero mantra. It would be very difficult to become a trapper (as I intend to be) or to simply become a marksman(woman). By creating a divided resources while still maintaining the ability to focus on one resource or the other when there are people that are planning to stick with a single build, it will result in a resource that is seldom used and therefore problematic with the character design.
Conversely, if they impress upon the players to use the duality of the character as its paradigm, it will greatly limit the possible avenues for builds - something I don't think Blizzard intends on doing.
Thus, I think it is more likely that cooldowns will be more likely rather than a divided resource. (At least that is my hope) And perhaps with the use of other skills, those cooldowns can be sped up. Now, I still feel there are ample ways to reward strategic play and quick-fingered/thinking players. I just don't want to worry about the dual-status of my resources. It seems like an unnecessary complexity that Blizzard will steer clear of.
(I'll be playing a DH as my first hero either way, but it seems to be the pattern of Blizzard to keep things simple. I personally wouldn't mind a learning curve for once, though)|||Just a few random comments, which may or may not make sense...
Quote:
5. Hatred skills are direct damage-dealing skills. Some are AoE, some are single arrows altered somehow, and some and better used on 'shorter' distance (like a shotgun?)
Not related to the resource system, but personally, I hope there isn't too much reliance on short/midrange skills (sort of like the original Mythos shotguns). I like the long-distance archer style, and the DH gameplay videos worried me --- seemed like the DH there was really mixing it up a bit.
Quote:
'Mood Shifting Essence'
Let's make a built-in cooldown-system that's in the resource rather than the individual skills!
I like this possibility more than having two divided "mana" (are we still allowed to call it that?
) pools, which strikes me as a bit unweildy. I guess also there will be some arrow attacks that require preparation and maybe some trap-type skills that don't, so it won't break down in a completely simple way.Overall, though, while it's great that they're thinking of innovative gameplay elements, I end up with a feeling that they're trying to force a round peg into a predetermined square hole with these resource systems, but hopefully it'll all be to the good in the end.
Quote:
Another point; lots of features in D3 are seemingly there to force players to play smarter.
Can't say I'm entirely fond of this approach. If I want to play "dumb" then damn it I'll play dumb.
Quote:
That might be part of the motivation behind this dual resource; it will be almost certainly be better to alternate your skills; lots of arrows mixed with traps for support and damage-type variety. Thus we've got a dual resource that strongly-encourages that sort of varied play style.
And if I want to play an archer, then damit I'll play an archer.
Quote:
I like play styles/builds that reward competence and fast fingers and situational strategy, rather than just single skill spamming.
I like styles that reward competence and situational tactics without being overly complicated (the D1 archer-rogue comes to mind). So I'm glad that Bliz is designing D3 around a relatively small number of skills. I don't want to see all the characters depend on "fast-fingers" or depend on some assassin-type micro-management. In fact, I'm still a bit dissappointed that my favorite (bow-using) class got combined with my least favorite (trap-using) class, so I hope the resource system doesn't compound that unholy union too much.
Parenthetically, I found Jay Wilson's justification for separating passive traits from active skills ("that people would always choose the active skill over the passive skill") a bit ironic, since I prefer to make passive-heavy skill assignments as much as possible.
Quote:
Thus, I think it is more likely that cooldowns will be more likely rather than a divided resource. (At least that is my hope) And perhaps with the use of other skills, those cooldowns can be sped up. Now, I still feel there are ample ways to reward strategic play and quick-fingered/thinking players. I just don't want to worry about the dual-status of my resources. It seems like an unnecessary complexity that Blizzard will steer clear of.
I agree with you entirely about not wanting to worry about a dual-status resource and being kinda skeptical about its complexity for a game like D3. I can't really see cooldowns as a good alternative though, at least not based on my experience with skills like immolation arrow in D2.
Quote:
(I'll be playing a DH as my first hero either way, but it seems to be the pattern of Blizzard to keep things simple. I personally wouldn't mind a learning curve for once, though)
Me too, but on the complete opposite side of the skill tree it sounds like.
|||As Nizaris pointed out, the downside of dual resources is that it penalizes the player who wants to use discipline skills only, or hatred skills only. Is this bliz intent, or not? A better question might be - do we hope it is their intention or not?
Personaly, I'm always for a variety by choice. Being allowed to create 'dumb' builds sounds like a bad thing, but I think it's good to have the possibility to make those.
However, by forcing a shift of skill use with dual resources (or another system, like varied cooldowns) you prevent that the most effective build will be about one-skill-spamming. To clarify, I think one-skill-spamming should be allowed and doable, but not the ultimate effective way to play.|||Quote:
Is this bliz intent, or not? A better question might be - do we hope it is their intention or not?
I can't see that being Blizzard's intent. Every other class has the ability for one-move spamming, and the resource is calculable and easy to manage - I can't really see them departing from this style.
What is even more interesting is that the dual-resource was used in a game my team open-sourced a long time ago called Sunderworld. The hero used Demonic and Arcanomech energy sources for the duality of his character. The goal was to allow the character to define themselves based on the skills they choose to invest in. Skills that were demonic would change your character's appearance. Likewise, arcanomech skills would change your character's appearance to be more technological.
Anyways, I think it's really only a good idea if the game revolves around the sense of duality, because it fits. However, if the Demon Hunter were to use a divided resource, it would be the black sheep in the heard in terms of straight-forward play-style.|||I really don't see what's the problem with dual resource. Since you can't have all the traits in the game at once, you would have to choose to either be the jack of all trades or specialise in one side over another. You can't be maxed out on both skill trees; so there is a benefit in focusing on one area. However, dual resources is designed so that those who choose to play middle-of-the-road wouldn't feel gimped. It allows you to take advantage of both mana pools, with the price being you couldn't max out either skill.|||Lets say your total 'mana' is 100 value. If you have dual resources, one bulb would be 50 mana each. So if you limit yourself at using only 1 bulb, you would have a problem compared to those who don't.
BTW, what skill trees are you talkign about? There are no trees anylonger, or I've been misinformed.
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