I am done with masteries. Their archetypes and number are locked in place. Adding even just one more would also mess up my really cool selection interface. And while that is not a great reason, I also feel that a large proportion of the 15 current masteries are redundant. Adding a new mastery also means planning new items, ect.
That being said, I am open to adding additional skills that might be missing. Either to a mastery or, if I feel no mastery is thematic, to an item. I also plan to rework the masteries a bit more now that I have figured out how to use the extended skills template, especially the Monk mastery (I would really like him to be an unarmed warrior - easier said than done).
BTW, if I ever redid the masteries (as a separate mod), there would only be six plus a set of basic skills. You would start out with the basic skills to get you by till about level 10. At level ten, you would select from Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Spirit, Entropy (death) mastery. Just one. Each mastery would include a melee attack, major melee attack with cooldown, elemental attack, elemental attack with cool down, elemental barrier defense, and an elemental pet. Each skill would have multiple modifiers that would adjust damage, area-of-effect, cooldown, ect. Will probably never happen though, since my next project is a space strategy game loosely based on the original Masters of Orion (no star lanes) using GLUT (OpenGL) and C, which I hope to sell on the Steam platform. I expect that project to take me several years.
As for my future plans, I have several goals in mind.
The first is the loot system. This is an evolving system. I want items, that even though quite rare, are almost game changing. It is something that I really loved in D2, but seems to have disappeared to very careful leveling out of increases in power. It is also something that is really hard to do in GD due to there being 13 item slots that also allow 13 components and 13 augments for a total of 39 variation slots. Add the artifact for a total of 40. And while there is a hierarchy of power (Items>Components>Augments), I still feel it greatly decreases diversity. It makes it very easy to fill in weaknesses of a build. To be honest, I feel that removing augments and the ability to apply components would greatly increase the potential diversity (and strength) of the items. If I do this, it will have to be in a major update (disabling components/augments, while increasing stats of items simultaneously).
The second is tuning the game more towards hardcore play. In that respect, I want it easier to be overwhelmed by multiple attacks, but getting one-shotted easier to avoid (a cheap mechanic mainly used by POE). And I have been slowly adjust everything in that direction. I have also been using a monster spawn mechanic that often kicks in when you kill one mob and it can release other dangerous creatures. You can see this already in act I.
The last, hardest, and my main goal. A single play through. You play the campaign once on veteran and you are done. You will still get almost as much game play, since farming will become important to progress. I want a player to feel like they are getting real progress. Not just starting over at a higher level. Monsters will start to get powerful built in debuffs to simulate the negative resistances of Elite and Ultimate. My plan is for the original GD will go to about level 75, AoM to about level 90, and the FG will take place at level 90+. The final areas being 100+.
I expect to finish this mod sometime in 2020.
