Just Started, My view on things.

Information and teasers from the upcoming mod, Underkill. If you have any questions or suggestions for the mod, please post them here. Click here to visit the official web site.

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DiabloClone16
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Just Started, My view on things.

Post by DiabloClone16 » Tue Nov 09, 2004 7:02 am

Hey, thanks for the copy, I got underway with my character, she's a Lightning build sorc. So far it is incredibly fun, the skills are great, later on i can grab a magic find skill, or faster cast, very cool.

A couple things though, when i saw a chipped gem it didnt say anything about boots/belts gloves to socket? And the difficulty is really easy, i can kill 15 fallen with one lightning shot at level 4. Just some things ive seen, im about to get back to the game and keep testing, great job so far with the mod, the borders and skills are really pretty/well chosen.

BTW, im kind of a noob at forums, but ive been playing diablo for 5~ years, so i hope my ideas and issues i bring up help things out for the better.

Synergies look very fair and i can't wait to try lightning storm, although fire nova sounds sweet too heh.

Also, im used to map hack, and not using it is hard, why? Two words- Light Radius. I can't see crap, lol. But not knowing where im going makes it feel more mysterious. Armors are colored very well now, and my black rings of damage are very good, since rings could never get colored before. All in all, awesome, i'm off to see more now.

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Seaular
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Re: Just Started, My view on things.

Post by Seaular » Tue Nov 09, 2004 8:08 am

A couple things though, when i saw a chipped gem it didnt say anything about boots/belts gloves to socket?
Boots/Belts/Gloves will all fall under the Armor category.
And the difficulty is really easy, i can kill 15 fallen with one lightning shot at level 4
Yeah, I'm having trouble balancing low-level skills in the early game while giving them enough fire power to last till the end game (if you ever wanted to).
BTW, im kind of a noob at forums, but ive been playing diablo for 5~ years, so i hope my ideas and issues i bring up help things out for the better.
Believe it or not, all the feedback (good or bad) that I get helps me form a better idea of how the mod is progressing and what changes need to be made. I'm glad you're having fun so far, that's what it's all about. :)

Molmoch
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Re: Just Started, My view on things.

Post by Molmoch » Tue Nov 09, 2004 5:18 pm

Seaular,

A philosophical point here to think about. I am not sure that level 1 skills should be useful at later difficulty levels. I understand the issue in that you don't want players to only invest in a few high powered skills, but perhaps level 1 skills should have diminishing returns, and a character who wants to specialize in one of these be considered a variant.

One potential way to do this is to change when skills are acquired. If my uber skill is not available until level 50 instead of 30, I might be more inclined to try out temporary skills, especially if there are synergies.

Lets face it. There will always be an "easy" "uber" build in any character in any mod in any game. The problem is not in its existence, but in the fact that you need to have uber in order to survive.

I think those early sorc skills are pretty powerful. You'll need to tone down the damage increases, especially when you have masteries and pierces.

One way to make level 1 skills more useful without ruining the early game is to have skill effectiveness plateaus. For random example:

Firebolt. Lvl 1 2-4. 2 mana
Lvl 2 3-5 2.2 mana
Lvl 3 4-6 2.5 mana
Lvl 4 5-7 3 mana
Lvl 5 8-10 5 mana
Lvl 6 9-11 5.5 mana
Lvl 7 10-12 6 mana
Lvl 8 12-14 7 mana
Lvl 9 14 -16 7 mana
Lvl 10 20-22 6 mana

Now, admittedly, this is a bad example, but with a major jump at levels 5 and 10, there might be some interest in soaking points, especially if the jumps are considerable at higher points.

Just an idea.

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Re: Just Started, My view on things.

Post by Seaular » Tue Nov 09, 2004 6:29 pm

I understand completely, but I'm not giving up until I fall flat on my face! :)

I can't tell you enough how sick I was of playing a game with a frozen orb sorc/frozen orb sorc/frozen orb sorc/meteor sorc/meteor sorc... You can't tell me that everyone in that game bought D2 and thought, "MAN! I can't wait until I make a Frozen Orb Sorc!!" But why did they? Because there weren't any other feasibly options, well there were, but it's not fun if you can't kill anything.

I really want to be able to play a hell game with a lightning sorc/frost nova sorc/hydra sorc/soul pulse sorc (ok, well not all sorcs, but that sort of variety).

What if I just greatly lower skill damages of the early skills, and give them much higher synergies from the higher level skills? Maybe make the Masteries a 24 or 30 or ? lvl requirement? Or is this a bust too? :(

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DiabloClone16
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Re: Just Started, My view on things.

Post by DiabloClone16 » Wed Nov 10, 2004 7:45 am

My sorceress Wavedancer can't use her level 24 skill, chain lightning, until the level 30 skill, thunder storm has a point in it, could you fix this Seaular?

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Re: Just Started, My view on things.

Post by Seaular » Wed Nov 10, 2004 8:10 am

Ahhh crap. It's the little things like that which bother me the most. I don't know how I missed that. :(

Molmoch
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Re: Just Started, My view on things.

Post by Molmoch » Wed Nov 10, 2004 1:43 pm

Synergies is one way to solve it, as long as the skills are different enough for their to be strategic reasons to use slvl 1 skills. I think that is possible.

For example, why use teeth once I get bone spear? Multiple projectiles probably is not that big of an idea. In order to have it compete, its damage would have to be fairly close to bone spear. Spear has pierce, teeth has spread, spirit has tracking.

When we get to sorc damage, Im not sure some of the early spells would get used anymore.

If low level skills get more synergies from point in high level skills than high level skills get from low level skills (did that make sense?) that might encourage specialization in lower level skills.

As for the masteries, I'm sort of torn. Having low level masteries gives me a serious thing to put points into early. But, if they were not there, maybe I would put points into early skills? Maybe not.

Now if you could get it so that you could not save up those skill points, that would solve all your problems right there!

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Re: Just Started, My view on things.

Post by Seaular » Wed Nov 10, 2004 8:38 pm

Ok, what about this. First of all, low-level skills get dropped drastically in damage, so they're not so overwhelmingly powerful in the beginning. Now, even a lvl 20 lightning won't compete with the damage of say a lvl 10 chain lightning (just an example). Now normally, the natural progression will be for the character to use the higher lvl spells in order to be as efficient as possible since the early skills have been slowly phased out damage-wise.

Now what if I make a couple of sets/uniques/(charms?) that slowly but surely add lvls to these early skills. Sure, a lvl 20 fireball won't do much damage in hell difficulty, but what about a lvl 45+ fireball? This way, a character who actually looks hard to find these items or complete this set will be rewarded, but the option of a fireball that does more damage than meteor won't exist for a new player starting a character from scratch.

Does this make sense? Does it sound practical? Does it sound fun? I don't want skills to die, only to be temporarily retired.

Molmoch
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Re: Just Started, My view on things.

Post by Molmoch » Thu Nov 11, 2004 12:33 pm

Is there a skill level cap? That might make a difference in long term planning of skill points.

Your charm idea is a possible solution, although having it as a collectible means that only the truly dedicated will find it. How to get a charm without using the uber skills? And once I've used them for a while, why switch back?

What if you could craft a +skill charm? Make everything buyable, but fairly expensive. Make it so you can only buy the materials for + to lvl 1 skills in normal, 6 in night, and 12 in hell. If its expensive, it will act as a money sink.

I think this is an issue that can suck all your creative energy. I'd hate to see that happen. Realistically speaking, people will use higher level skills over lower level ones.

What about lengthening timers on high level skills as compensation?

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DiabloClone16
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Re: Just Started, My view on things.

Post by DiabloClone16 » Thu Nov 11, 2004 6:34 pm

If you are going to allow crafted Skill charms, make the maximum of these lil guys 4-6 or people will forget about the normal skill charms completely.

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