Ascendancy kinda sucks

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drzpicu a écrit :

they should just let us use those skill points elsewhere...like you dont pick anything from these skills and instead pick from the regular tree.

That would actually be something to consider. For a class making use of those ascendancy classes the benefits are almost always greater than regular skill tree nodes. However a build being made with an off class like a Templer Marksman would still be able to get 6 regular skillpoints.

Despite not knowing all that much about Ascendancy right now, this suggestion is something they should really consider. After each completion you could simply choose between 2 ascendancy skillpoints or two regular skillpoints.

Have to agree...

I like my ballista ranger, or RAT witch. But now I'm most probably forced to play a marauder to take totems to the max. :(

Why not giving it the Dungeons & Dragons prestige-class approach? Some are also bound to core classes, true, but a lot are focused around other prerequesites, like a specific attribute score or a certain talent.

For PoE as an example to take the necromancer class you could need to have at least 3 +zombie/skeleton perks allocated. Or something like that.

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Seelenernter a écrit :

Have to agree...

I like my ballista ranger, or RAT witch. But now I'm most probably forced to play a marauder to take totems to the max. :(
t.

You sure about that? Wouldn't the Ranger's Extra Arrow or Chain give your Siege Ballista the extra arrow or chain? And since Witches are the "wand" class, surely one of the Ascendencies will give a boost to projectiles.

I dont care for that class aspect either but end game maybe is getting fixed. I really dislike the lazy mapping system and thats until you run out then it's worse. Ascendancy maybe fix end game.

i`m life time Magic Finder and i don't think Ascendancy is for most of MF builds due to lack of tankyness and 0 incentives

Oh, I know it will enable many new builds... there are some powerful perks in there that let you focus your path easier. In my opinion, this is the main goal for ascendancies: to show new players how to focus their paths to play certain pre-determined ways that "will work"... without having to visit the forums and follow a build guide.

The PROBLEM I see for the ascendancy class system is that it focuses on giving players perks for only 3 play styles per starting class, and that doesn't come near to supporting all the play styles available to creative people. I don't think (as it has been presented thus far) this is a good thing for THIS game's future. It will drive players to play only the play styles supported by the perks.

Super creative, inventive people will still be able to use the ascendancies in unexpected ways just like they make strange but brilliant use of the current trees. But the non-theorycrafting player who just sees what's presented will be pushed into those ascendancies (and there are far more of these players out there).



And I want to stress "as it has been presented thus far", because if they can add enough variety into these ascendancy options to nullify this concern, they'll avoid this problem. I've played other online games where they started out their design philosophy on extreme player freedom to build their player however they like... but as they neared the endgame had to chose perks to advance their characters, they only ended up restricting them from playing how they liked and really ruined the system.

"Oh, you 'can' make that character do 'that', but we don't support that play style, so do so at your own detriment." was the eventual developer response - which also became evident in gear selection being focused to how the developers wanted people to use the classes, instead of how players found they could be used. Without that support, the creativity of players was trumped by the extreme focus in the game on maximization of roles that made these player choices increasingly out of player hands, thus non-choices.




For a game that encourages players making meaningful choices, a game development path wherein the developers choose to support certain play styles only, removes many meaningful choices. Thus my concern.

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mark1030 a écrit :

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Seelenernter a écrit :

Have to agree...

I like my ballista ranger, or RAT witch. But now I'm most probably forced to play a marauder to take totems to the max. :(
t.

You sure about that? Wouldn't the Ranger's Extra Arrow or Chain give your Siege Ballista the extra arrow or chain? And since Witches are the "wand" class, surely one of the Ascendencies will give a boost to projectiles.

Or just take the new Bow and place down 10 Ballistas :P

I'm not really worried about the Ballista, the classes actually allow to get more benefits from the tree since they offer other things. The Ballista since it always pierces gets a free 100% crit chance, which isn`t that terrible.

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The PROBLEM I see for the ascendancy class system is that it focuses on giving players perks for only 3 play styles per starting class, and that doesn't come near to supporting all the play styles available to creative people. I don't think (as it has been presented thus far) this is a good thing for THIS game's future. It will drive players to play only the play styles supported by the perks.

Thats not entirely true. Each Ascendancy class focusses on one specific gameplay element while still offering benefits to different playstyles. The Assassin could work on a Trapper, Spellcaster, Marksman or any Melee Combatant. It is true that Spell Casting Duelists (which already have a hard time) would suffer and be limited to the Defensive Attributes, but there are actually some of those as well. The Champion could easily be a spellcaster with 30% increased damage aura and permanent Fortify, he wouldnt benefit from the Attack Speed but that is basically it.

So my two points here which need to be ensured to make those classes a success and still allow offbuilds is:

1. Make sure they offer very general attributes to some degree like the Champion as one example. So if possible the perks should give "Damage" instead of "Spelldamage" to allow for a wider use.

2. Eventually allow players to convert Ascendancy Skillpoints into regular skillpoints. A Templer Summoner would still not match the witch but they would be closer, since he could invest the 6 nodes into something at least.

In general most playstyles already benefit from a lot of things. Summoner is propably the only one that has a slight issue here, since right now Templer, Scion and Witch are about equally suited as Summoners, the Scion has one skillpoint advantage while the other two have stronger starting nodes, but in the end due to the location of the summoner nodes you have to go close to all 3 starting locations anyway. Templer is likely the best for Life based summoners, since he gets the regen node for summons early and has good Armor/Es nodes that give him decent durability later. The scion has one jewel advantage and safes one point but has the most terrible starting nodes. But those two are likely not comparable in terms of power to a witch. 100% Spectre Life and Damage is something you cannot compensate with any node on the tree, because you have all the minion nodes anyway.

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Johny_Snow a écrit :

And for the love of god try to understand my point of view:

It is about the small nodes between the big ones in the ascendancy trees and how they are tailored towards a specific playstyle, which means if I want to play a bow shadow I will end up picking nodes which give me precisely 0 benefits.

if you want a bow char there is duelist and ranger,
if you wanna bow shadow there is always less damage,

or

you can study c++ and you can write your own game

you want swim but you dont want to get wet!

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Johny_Snow a écrit :

Why do you need identity for classes? Isn't the whole point of this gigantic passive tree freedom and not getting locked because of the class you decided to pick? I don't understand why GGG are completely contradicting their initial design.

And for the love of god try to understand my point of view:

It is about the small nodes between the big ones in the ascendancy trees and how they are tailored towards a specific playstyle, which means if I want to play a bow shadow I will end up picking nodes which give me precisely 0 benefits.

You mean those nodes that all give crit chance don't help a bow shadow?

Eh, just looking at the ascendency trees, they give a ton of options, they are all done in a very general way and apply to many builds.

Gladiatior? Heck, that can be used for a Wander duelist.
Necromancer? Melee witch, caster witch, hybrid, dominating blow.
Assassin? Anything that uses crit, spells, bows, weapons.

And that was after i looked at the trees for about a minute. The way GGG implemented the trees allows for a huge number of options. People that say differently just didnt read what the keystones do properly.