Van's Sigma 3 ideas and thoughts on game design

[TopDimas]

a tak + konechno

[Vanarchy]

- The OoB skill is inadequate with your creativity.

Thank you, that's the best compliment I've heard in a while )

Wanna know my initial idea for the OoA secondary?

- A skill that that interacts with existing OoAs. It would allow you to freeze/unfreeze them mid-flight, changing their damage, seek range and extending the duration. Basically a toggle. The playstyle of such concept would be: you quickly create OoAs - as many as your manapool and cast speed allows - and then you try to time the toggle perfectly, freezing as many of them as you can on top of the boss. Orb travel speed and distance to target would both be a factor to play around. It wouldn't be rocket science, but It would still be a more thoughtful playstyle than spam-skill-from-afar thing most ARPG builds usually do.

That was the overall idea. But then I talked to devs and learned that you cannot modify behavior of skills that are already mid-flight.

And thus I truncated and simplified the concept to what it looks right now. It's kinda boring in this state, I fully agree. But passable as a basic ST OOA sketch. And - most importantly - 100% codeable. Codability is the biggest obstacle for absolute majority of my ideas. Old af engine, what can you do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I hardly see any O-skills pop up on my crafts so, it might save me possibly 3-5% of my shines, but not enough to make a huge difference, IMO. Perhaps I am simply misunderstanding your suggestion, if you'd like to elaborate?

Chance of something from group #217 (oskill group) popping up varies from item to item. Gloves only have 4 oskills they can roll, boots have 5, body armors have 10, Barb helms 8, Necro crossbows 7 and so on. On some bases you see oskills popping up all the time, while on others - like with your gloves example - you do not encounter them as often, that is true.

More so, different oskills have different "weight" to them - and different level requirements, for instance if you start rolling a pair of boots right now, you will often see level requirement jumping to 115 - it means boots rolled Apocalypse; or jumping to 110 - it means you rolled an Ice Lance. Which is a dead roll for anyone who's not looking specifically for those oskills - loosing 30 levels of MO/multibless space + an affix slot to a mod that you do not want is not an option.

My suggestion helps both people who want oskills and those who don't. It's a win-win in both cases. You would no longer loose mod space to something that you do not want, you would have less "dead rolls". And sure, the gain is not proportional when we compare your gloves to body armors, but that's just how the system works.

You have easier time rolling + you can slap some oskill on top of your perfected craft later on if you wish. That's the point. And the pool of oskills is likely to be updated for Sigma 3 either way. Maybe there's gonna be something juicy every item type can have - buff-wise or utility-wise.

[midknight]

To-do list

» Shrinecrafting and rares in general - updates to the pool of mods
» UMOs and effigies
» Some redesigns for the existing unique items
» Thoughts on how to prolong season longevity so that they don't die as fast
» Summoner Barb skill tree and itemization updates
» Trap Assa rework?
» Some QoL changes
» Special Orbs from Endgame Bosses
» More custom uniques and oskills
» Better formatting for better readability

Interesting ideas but I dont think u have been playing many patches on 2.x.

UMO's - there have been a lot of changes to UMO's in the last few ladders. TBF I think the devs have been on top of this with the UM0 limitation on items and adjustment of UMO's themselves like solitude, farnham's lost marble, they introduced a few new umo's as well.

On Freedom of choice you missed out one very big item

Angel's Wrath

Angel's Wrath
Chain Boots (Sacred)
Defense: (1625 - 2217) to (1762 - 2403)
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 575
Item Level: 120
+(0 to 2) to Paladin Skill Levels
+(0 to 2) to Sorceress Skill Levels
+(0 to 2) to Necromancer Skill Levels
+(0 to 2) to Druid Skill Levels
+(0 to 2) to Barbarian Skill Levels
+(0 to 2) to Amazon Skill Levels
+(0 to 2) to Assassin Skill Levels
(10 to 40)% Movement Speed
+(120 to 200)% Enhanced Defense
Maximum Life +5%
Physical Resist 10%
Socketed (4)

. 14 skill boots would be incredibly broken . The dev's have attempted to address 0 skills in one big patch when the dev's did a lot of rework on 0 skills: avalanche, searing glow, apocalypse,death star etc. There have been some small changes to a few 0 skills since then. I think the issue with an item like this is something like funeral pyre would become even more broken, pre nerf wyrd sorc as well (not sure how well searing glow scales with + skills), + skills scale very well on poison builds like death star, + skills would be more abusable on prebuff gear as well. If they did introduce this freedom of choice effigy you would also be kind of gating these 0 skill build behind labs as well. I would rather see them boosting slvl on 0 skills to make them a bit more competitive, in the case of apocalypse i think the lvl 60 threshold to be able to use the skill is too high.

On redesign's to existing unique's and more custom unique's - I think the dev's have been on top of this as well there have been quite a few changes to existing uniques plus the introduction of new unique's. A few changes that come to mind are eternal vigil's -poison resisitance to all resisistance, ahriman rw was introduced as another option for ied's which was kind of needed. UHM got

Orationis Tenebris

Orationis Tenebris
Rondache (Sacred)
Defense: (3669 - 4503) to (4048 - 4968)
Chance to Block: 2%
(Paladin Only)
Required Level: 100
Required Dexterity: 440
Item Level: 105
Sanguine Covenant Regenerates 2% of Maximum Life per Second
+(2 to 3) to Paladin Skill Levels
40% Hit Recovery
+(25 to 50)% to Fire Spell Damage
+(25 to 50)% to Cold Spell Damage
+(120 to 170)% Enhanced Defense
Cannot Be Frozen
Socketed (4)

a big buff to fire and cold spd bis for endgame builds now. Kukri and maiden bow are both pretty good and interesting designs. With the mastercrafted staff introduced this ladder.

On Summoner Barb skill tree and itemization updates and Trap Assa - both these builds have received reworks plus numerous adjustments in 2.x. Pretty sure summoner barb has done sescheron plus t9/t10 labs a lot of crafted gear iirc. Trapsin has done samael and secheron with the set plus t9/10 pre pandemonium season when labs had a bit more difficulty. I am sure with gg gear like nats deception etc it is more than fine.

IM0 the problem comes when you compare them to other builds, for example Ben- was the first to kill deimoss with melee sorc one ladder, the next ladder they decide to increase melee sorc's main attack by 300-400%. Fire bear is an incredibly silly build as well u just run around in tu's and everything dies plus its insanely tanky with 0 issues to solve, warmonger is such a cheap build for its power. For me i would consider Unholy caster paladin and javazon as balanced builds, they can do all content (not sure about nithogur), they have numerous issues to solve as well. I don't think trapsin and summon barb are too far off them. Every rework post melee sorc has seen far too much damage on the baseline skill which makes a lot of previous reworks seem awful in comparison. .

Some QoL changes There have been a lot of really nice QOL changes, Devs have been on top of this.

[Siosilvar]

Interesting ideas but I dont think u have been playing many patches on 2.x.

-snip-

As much as you're right and I appreciate the support, there's always more to do

[CaoBao]

As for season longevity prolongueing,maybe add paragon soul stone like charm,that we transmute after reaching certain milestones.After xx monsters killed/bosses killed/hours spent in-game etc with decent rewards.Either adding some stats/mods to charm or items/umos.

[midknight]

Interesting ideas but I dont think u have been playing many patches on 2.x.

-snip-

As much as you're right and I appreciate the support, there's always more to do

Ironically its been a case of one step forward then two steps backs. 110+ game balance is awful now every rework is seemingly more powerful than the previous one. For example neutraldin was a pretty good build in the early part of 2.x. a build that required a decent amount of effort to make it good and farm fast. If you compare it to firebear ( similar type of build) for example, its an awful build now. Firebear has free 50pr, bigger aoe. Better simgle target, free 300k defense, pretty much no buffs, tanky huge regen, no delays between attacks, plus loma if needed. You dont really need to invest in str or energy either. Melee sorc probably one of the best ied/ phys magic builds kept getting buffed while all the other ied builds barely get touched.

The current trend means that any good rework done in early 2.x is in comparison an awful build. Inevitably people will cry about these builds and there is a vicious cycle of over buffing builds.

The OP said balance is unimportant which i disagree with, builds like havoc, melee sorc have trivialised the mod. The thing about arpg is replayability is an important aspect making builds that delete the content gives people very little incentive to come back. They have essentially done it all in one ladder.

[midknight]

For me median was at its best in early 2.x when Marco and Ben-- were more active. Feels like there has been a huge gutting of difficulty and too many op builds since then.

[p2w]

mxl boring now

[Siosilvar]

Interesting ideas but I dont think u have been playing many patches on 2.x.

-snip-

As much as you're right and I appreciate the support, there's always more to do

Ironically its been a case of one step forward then two steps backs. 110+ game balance is awful now every rework is seemingly more powerful than the previous one. For example neutraldin was a pretty good build in the early part of 2.x. a build that required a decent amount of effort to make it good and farm fast. If you compare it to firebear ( similar type of build) for example, its an awful build now. Firebear has free 50pr, bigger aoe. Better simgle target, free 300k defense, pretty much no buffs, tanky huge regen, no delays between attacks, plus loma if needed. You dont really need to invest in str or energy either. Melee sorc probably one of the best ied/ phys magic builds kept getting buffed while all the other ied builds barely get touched.

The current trend means that any good rework done in early 2.x is in comparison an awful build. Inevitably people will cry about these builds and there is a vicious cycle of over buffing builds.

The OP said balance is unimportant which i disagree with, builds like havoc, melee sorc have trivialised the mod. The thing about arpg is replayability is an important aspect making builds that delete the content gives people very little incentive to come back. They have essentially done it all in one ladder.

Tell me something I don't know

[MUS01]

Assasin: free 50 pdr thanks to shadow refuge. Also get some absorb.
Paladin: same 50% pdr for all builds. Maybe get extra 20% elemental damage reduction thanks to melee devotion.
Druid: at least 30% (idol of scosglen). 50% in melee builds thanks to melee devotion
Sorc: 30% pdr and all sources in all builds (ranged). 50% in melee sorc thanks to melee devotion. Ahh and don't forget the good absorb.

Barbarian (historical tank build) don't get any love with dr.
Amazon: don't get love.

So, almost all classes have nearly free dr except barbarian and amazon.... it's a bit weird xd