My take on the skill system in Grim Dawn

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
1

Here are some of my thoughts on the skill system in Grim Dawn, including some suggestions to improve certain aspects about the topic. Many of my ideas may be hard to implement in running games, so just see them as food for thought, rather than specific demands.

1. Issue:
Many skills need different amounts of points to max. I think this makes the game harder to balance, especially for skills that replace each other like attack replacements. For example, how much more scaling do you grant swappable skills that have a higher maximum, without making them too good to skip?

Suggestion:
Having the same max for every skill would fix that. Or the less strict approach would be to at least streamline the maximum for comparable skills, functionality- and mastery-wise.

2. Issue:
“One point wonders” and “max outs”. I think most skills can be put in one of those two categories for most builds. Either you put one point in it for the utility or some secondary effect, or you max it to optimize your damage output or survivability.

Suggestion:
I think the main reason for this is because of the scaling of numbers. The more points you put in something, the more each point contributes. Just reversing this effect, like diminishing the value each point gives, would give more incentive to level up other skills first, instead of maxing a single skill, or not maxing some skills at all, but still putting some points in it.

3. Issue:
For me, leveling mastery feels boring. I agree, there should be some kind of system in place, so you cant use the biggest and fanciest skills right from the start, but putting half the points into passive stats doesnt feel right for me.

Suggestion:
I have to admit, I dont really like my suggestions.
Still, here are three approaches, maybe someone else can think of something better:

  1. Unlocking mastery through progression in the story, though this would make “rush certain skill” -builds impossible, which would subtract possibilities when leveling up.
  2. Leveling mastery by leveling skills, though than there should be less skill points overall and it would make builds impossible that are concetrated on many high mastery skills.
  3. All skills being available after mastery 25 instead of 50, but still being able to increase mastery to 50. This could actually increase build diversity, as not all builds really need to max mastery, but others are still able to if they need raw stats.

Your Opinion:
What could be benefits of skills having different maximum points?
Are there any skills you neither max nor one point, but something in between?
Do you like leveling mastery?
What do you think could be improved in the skill system of Grim Dawn?

2

The game is finished and has been for 2 years now. Devs aren’t going to be doing major reworking of skills at this point in time.

3
  1. There’s nothing hard to balance. If one skill needs 16 points, and should deal incredible amount of damage every few seconds, for example 550 base damage every 4 seconds, a skill with max level 10 can have the same amount of damage, but do less stuff than the other.

Example:
Doom bolt has level 12, deals 1*086 base damage and also reduces health by an incredible amount, also has “OP” skill modifiers, but Word of Pain does high damage, big AoE and RR, but requires 40 skill points.

  1. That’s called efficiency and preferences. You max out skills that you base on, and leave skill with one point added for skills that increases these stats that you would like, but don’t really need. For example, WPS. Many people max them out, but also many people leave only one or few points in them. Another examples might be Inquisitor’s Seal Arcane empowerment, many people ignore that skill, some people max it.

  2. That’s actually not how it looks. If we would be able to add skills without wasting them on masteries, Crate would most likely reduce skillpoints per level by 100 at level 100. 100 more points would make the game bullshit and boring as fuck.

4

Part of the fun for min-maxers is finding the thresholds of when a skill stops giving big returns, or to discover which skills have extra high bonuses on their ultimate ranks.

Your idea would kill a lot of that exploration.

1 Like
5

I found what you were looking for OP!

Merry Christmas!

2 Likes
6

*All skills with the same level cap
*No one point wonders
*No investing all your points into passives

Holy shit he’s right its a great game

1 Like
7

I have to agree with some of the others… what you just described is basically turning GD into D3. GD’s customizability concerning skill points is its main attraction and selling point over D3 specifically and many people who were fans of the D2 approach like GD for precisely this reason. Theorycrafting is a thing and there is a crowd out there who enjoy doing that thing.

1 Like
8

I disagree with nearly everything. The only changes I’d like is maybe spacing the last levels of mastery a little closer. 5 all the way up. Or maybe 30, 37, 45.

I really hate sinking those 10 or 18 points in my second mastery bar.

9

There are plenty things you don’t max but keep at a certain level. Actually most things fall into this category, lol, if you include skills best softcapped. Vindictive Flame is best at 11/16. Pneumatic burst at 10/12 (or 6/12 iirc) Vigor at 9/10. Curse of Frailty at 6/10 if you only need Vulnerability, etc.

10

Don’t forget the Mastery bar isn’t just about unlocking skills, it’s the main survival stat for your char as it’s the main way of increasing your health / energy :wink:

11

I would agree with you, if I would be able to recognize a certain pattern to the differences, like for example high mastery, or defensive skills having higher maximum points.

Now I dont find your example really suitable, because youve described two skills with different purposes. Try to argue the same way when talking about interchangeable skills like WPS for example. Here is a short list of the maximum points of WPS skills:

  • Soldier 12 on two skills
  • Nightblade 8 on four skills
  • Shaman 10 on one skill
  • Inquisitor 10 on three skills
  • Necro 10 on one skill and 12 on another
    I would appreciate it, if you could explain to me, why those have different maximum points. On some of them, only the damage scales, even though they have different maximum points, so there are no secondary effects to be taken into account.

Maybe I am wrong and there really is a system behind it. If so, I would actually like to understand it, thats why I also asked about advantages of different maximum points in my initial post.

That doesnt really adress what I suggested. I know why its done, but that doesnt mean it is preferable. I would prefer it, if maxing and one pointing skills would only be the simple way, but not necessarily the most effective one for most builds.

I never meant to increase the max skill points for skills and actually adressed this in my first post:

12

Please name me an offensive, damage dealing skill that stops giving big returns on higher levels.
I think there would actually be more exploration to be done, because maxing and one pointing skills wouldnt be the most effective way in many cases anymore.

I dont see how any of my suggestions are connected to Diablo 3.

  1. Diablo 3 has no skill points. My suggestion does not remove skill points.
  2. Diablo 3 has no skill levels. My suggestion does not remove skill levels.
  3. Diablo 3 skills are unlocked by character level. My suggestions do not unlock abilities by character level. Even if I had, it wouldnt make the game like Diablo 3, because of so many other mechanics being different.

If you mean that my suggestions would dumb down the game, I tend to disagree. The first and third suggestion dont really mess with decision making all too much and the second one would actually increase decision making in my opinion.

I am an enthusiastic theory crafter myself and none of my suggestions are meant to change anything about having to decide, where to put how many points.

I respect your opinion, but I would really like to hear why. I know that my suggestions are not really realistic in this state of the game, but I still like to think about how the game could change for me, to become an even better experience. Obviously those are just my preferences, but thats why I post them, to see what others think and how they like to play the game.

Please explain to me why Vindictive Flame is best at 11/16, because I looked at the numbers and cant see any changes in the scaling that would justify that.
Now if you review the skills you chose, all of them are either supportive, utility or defensive. I agree that many of them are not necessarily maxed, but that is because they dont feature an absolute number scaling or already fulfill their utility purpose on less points. Now try the same with offensive abilities. Ive looked through some builds in the build compendium and didnt find any builds that feature more than 1 or 2 skills (especially active offensive ones) that arent maxed or one pointed.

Depending on the suggestion, there should obviously be a compensation to achieve similar stats while leveling.

13

There is certainly truth to this thread, but it’s likely too late to fix.

GD does have many arbitrary totals in skill value and particularly in the “over-cap” philosophy. Over-cap seems to mostly be the case for ultimate cap skill damage. But only with some skills.

For utility abilities (OA DA, RR, resists, speed, etc) most skills don’t significantly reward over-cap and some further reward not investing much as a good part of the usefulness comes with minimal points.

Further, breakpoints within the soft cap vary widely and some utility ability collections are far more desirable than others. And there seems to be a reluctance for Crate to outright admit that certain numbers are more significant (OA…etc… same list as always) .

For example:

Inquisitor’s Deadly Aim, a skill that can effectively be perpetually active such as it is almost seen as a constant. All parts of this skill are desireable -adding further crit% and %all damage. The most important is OA which is not trivial to find in large quantity on gear and devotions:
1 point = 6% OA,
4 points = 10% OA,
12 full softcap = 18%OA
and finally 6% more OA for 10 further investment to 24/24.

Compare to Vindictive Flame where the retaliation damage and regen are mostly irrelevant within the current model and mostly not worth the value. Global speed is the important ability:
1 point = 2% global speed
11/16 = 12% global speed
and 6% speed for the remaining 15 investment. At this point % speed bonuses are often better found through readily available components, gear, or devotions at less cost.

…And so on across many masteries.

14

Diminished returns on total speed kick in at 12/16.

15

Sorry, didnt recognize this. Quite strange actually, because the damage scaling is actually increased significantly on the last two levels. But I assume not many use the skill for damage anyway.

16

Medea already stated it and yeah, far too late for such a thing this late in development. Far too much balancing required for this with no payoff, Crate will not get more money from this.

17

For mastery bar, I actually really like mastery. You got 2 or 3 points to spend so I don’t ever feel like I’m JUST leveling mastery. Through most of the leveling experience, I invest in skills and mastery both. Getting toward level cap, I want to start trying to max my second mastery, skill points are coming at their slowest and I’ve also got the longest way to go on the bar. At that point I start like mastery bar a little bit less. So I just put it into skills and later respec if I really want to climb second mastery which I rarely do. I’d like to feel a little bit less starved with skill points when I go 50/50 (im non expansion player so ~30 less points). But other than that I love mastery bar.

For your other two points…

  1. skills with different caps is probably advantageous for balancing - but IDK that. Helps you balance defensive/utility skills versus additional damage skills while keeping the scaling per level feeling good for the former (which leads in to your second point).

  2. I find this game has way less “one pointers / versus max this” than D2. Vindicative flame has already been mentioned, but something like NB WPS I sometimes stop at 4 or 5, menhirs will and scars of battle or never capped but I almost always take them, I’ll level grasping vines for more radius even if its solely for proccing devotion, flashing bang, mend flesh, blood of dreeg modifier on occultist. I end up with a lot of things not maxed. I feel like its way less problem here.

18

On the topic of “one point wonders” vs “max skills”, having some skills as softcaps while others as max-outs still keeps the issue around to a level. Instead of one, it’s 3-5 points in a skill, and letting the equipment hit the cap for you. strictly 1 point for wps-es.

So, what would be good instead? if every skill had a reason to be softcapped for some players, and to be maxed by others.

Have vindictive flame’s total speed hit a softcap at 11, but from 11 to 26 make regeneration and counter-attacks skyrocket.

Softcap for one stat, soft-floor for another

and so on, and so forth…

19

I also like the concept, I just think that the implementation is suboptimal.
You describe the exact same feelings I get when I receive only 2 or 1 skill point per level but need to put the last ten points into mastery to get the last skills unlocked. This just feels so much slower than before, because not only do you need double the points, you also receive less each level and each levelup takes more time. Those are multiplicative factors, meaning the increase in time needed is huge.

I also feel starved a bit when putting half my points into passive stats, when many skills are already passive anyway.

I find it interesting that you have similar feelings like me but still dont want the mastery bar to be changed. Still thank you for your elaborate answer.

I would actually agree with you, if I could recognize a system. Many very similar skills of the same category feature different maximum values.

I definitely agree with you, that Diablo 2 had much more one pointers and “max or forget” -skills. But it also featured an even stronger scaling of numbers. Only because there are games which were worse in that aspect, doesnt mean Grim Dawn cant or shouldnt be improved on that aspect.

Like I already mentioned earlier, try to think about the damage skills rather than the utility ones, because many of them dont have absolute numbers scaling or arent skilled for them like Vindictive Flame. Many of those skills actually already feature some kind of diminished scaling which I suggested.

When I think about it, Vindictive Flame is actually an argument for my suggestion, as it reflects a skill which isnt one pointed or maxed because of diminished scaling.

20

I agree, with actual skill points system if you want meximize some skills, you are limited to play with only 3 or 4 skills, doing the game very bored at end game, I loved how Mervel Heroes Omega managed skills points