Skillz

Grim Dawn Development Updates
1

Making an effort to get a few of the classes more or less finalized in terms of skills and UI layout. Too many skill trees, so few rows!

The skill pages tier from left to right now instead of bottom to top. I was able to add an extra row, so that helps.

I’m thinking I may try for somewhere around 24-28 skills per mastery as opposed to TQ’s 20. I think it would be good to design each class with more different build possibilities.

2

Uh more skills is always nice.

How will you handle skillpoints per level? It was already hard spending the points on two Masteries with 20 skills. Now it would be even harder I guess?

Aside from that its nice to see that you want to increase the number of skills per mastery. More variety and ofc it means you have put alot of thought into it, amirite?^^

3

With more skillz we can pay more billz. I like this idea.

Also, we can now have two shield bashes, one for each arm. That means that dual wielding shields will be even more effective than ever before.

4

Sounds good…maybe even throw in a headbutt and groin kick…that way dual-wielding-shield characters are extra lethal!

Who needs weapons?!?!? :smiley:

5

The best attack is defense. :wink:

6

“skill pages tier from left to right”

LOL,that speaks for the amount of skills in itself.

Me likeeeeey

7

Awsome. you guys should make duel weild shields i always wanted to try it in a game. but they never let you…

8

And of course with the addition of dual wielding shields means a new sub-class of shield! Maybe a type that is more like a weapon but retains the ability to block, at least in some minor capacity. :wink:

9

titulni_359_buckler_glove_spike_iron_brass_shield.jpg541×600

I wanna dual wield that!

10

The best attack is defense.

Totally agree! I hope we’ll have lots of passive skills, I know, I know, I’m the laziest creature in nature, but my favorite skill in TQ is ‘Stone Form’. I can just stand there, completely invulnerable to damage and let my summons do all the work :D.

11

Sounds cool, man. Curious to see what the classes are gonna be :slight_smile:

I’m hoping that one of them isn’t, like, Professional Chef

12

Are you sure it’s a shield ? It looks like a Mario Bros jellyfish. :stuck_out_tongue:

marioswim.jpg804×400

13

More skills sounds good to me :smiley:
Please tell me that dual wielding shields is actually going to be in the game though! I love shields!

Sounds like it actually has potential. Someone should mod it in some day!

Skill names & descriptions:

  • Grill - Summons a giant otherworldly grill under enemies for a short time. Smaller enemies fall in and restore health to the Chef, larger enemies take fire damage and have their movement increased while on the grill then slowed after.
  • Knife Mastery - Passive. Increases damage and attack speed with all knives (doesn’t apply to swords)
  • Pan Fry - Mercelesly beats a single monster to death with a heated pan.
  • Blanch - Douses an area with boiling water then ice water. Inflicts fire and cold damage over a short period of time, also reduces resistance to physical damage.
  • Rotisserie - Skewers all monsters in a straight line for a distance and knocks them to the ground.
  • On A Platter (Ultimate) - Removes the hindquarters of a single enemy, cooks it to perfection, and serves it back on a tasteful silver platter. Deals massive damage and stuns for 6 seconds.

Edit: Hmm… Firefox 4 Beta is having issues with adding smilies… and all the formatting! Have to do it manually.

14

So, the way I’m reading the post is that more skillz in each class mean that diverse gameplay styles exist beyond the choice of two different skillz trees to invest in. One tree/mastery could have 2,3,4 unique gameplay styles in it, tied to a central theme. Having the option to choose two different trees to make a hybrid character means the options for gamestyle extend dramatically?

15

Am I correct in the assumption that Grim Dawn’s skill system will work much like TQ’s, with the ability to choose two masteries? I always thought it was the best skill system for an ARPG I had ever seen.

Also, @Opal Monkey. Your sig is pure win.

16

Yup, it is.

17

UI Question:
Will all the skills within a mastery exist within one UI panel (like TQ) or will they be grouped, then separated (with tabs, for example) into separate UI panels (Like Diablo II)?

Design Question:
How many masteries will a character be able to fully master?

18

One question I have; are there plans for dlc’s to add skills to existing masteries?

19

I would imagine that would be hard to do (for balance reasons). I never say never though.

Medierra has hit the nail on the head again. More skills, more variety, more potential builds, that’s what we want to see. Combining those builds with a wide variety of weapons that helps support them is what makes these games so fun to play. Honestly, I hope that we, the players, find ways to manipulate skills into combinations you never even thought about.

20

Probably not for reasons Kardiophylax has eluded to - balance. The only way I think that would really work is if I planned most of it out ahead of time but then just didn’t ship with them. An alternative would be do ship with the full mastery completed but lock the top tiers until the expansion. This might actually make some sense given that we will probably need to cap the levels at something reasonable for the scope of the first release. There will probably be something of a soft-cap on skills anyway just because with a lower level cap there won’t be enough skill-point to really fill out the mastery.

I haven’t really made a final call on any of this yet. Kind of want to get everything in-game and see how it plays out first.