Grand Masteries (1st draft of plan)

[mothwentbad]

Hello, everyone. I have an idea for adding further flexibility to the game by adding a single skill, Grand Mastery, to each skill tree, unlockable at 40 mastery points. The idea is to reward characters for favoring one of their two masteries heavily, or skipping a second one altogether. At level 80, it should be possible to reap benefits of both Grand Mastery, but only with +skills items to fill in the gaps.

I'd like two kinds of help from you all, if you'd like to chip in.

1. Comments/suggestions/balance advice.

I just started TQIT a week ago, and I have no idea how high-level characters play. As such, I might not actually know whether my proposed bonuses are trivial, balanced, or game-breakingly awesome. I also made wild guesses about how to correct certain skills which I’ve heard quickly become obsolete outside of normal mode. These in particular need comments.

2. Technical advice

Of course, I don't know how to mod yet, either. I will mention a lot of things that sound to me like something that shouldn't be too hard to do, but I may stumble across something that for some reason isn't designed to be moddable. Please let me know in advance if you see something like this, and maybe suggest something else that could be done to achieve something similar much more easily.

3. Programming

If for some reason you really like this build and can't wait to see it done, I have no objection to you doing it for me as long as I get partial credit. It would probably take me 10 times as long to figure it out compared to someone who already understands things. And honestly, I wouldn't lose much sleep over not getting credit, but it's the decent thing to do all the same. If I have to do it myself, I don't know when or if it will get done.

So let's get started. These can change, but let's say this is what we're going with for now:

Overview

All masteries now can be increased to 40. At level 40, Grand Mastery is unlocked at the top tier, above all normal tiers. Grand Mastery is a skill in which 50 points may be spent. Each point adds stat points much like ordinary mastery levels, except not quite as quickly, making it a decent place to dump extra points when nothing else looks good. At skill level 25, Grand Mastery grants +1 to all skills in that mastery. At each level above 25, Grand Mastery also grants a special bonus specific to that mastery, and then at level 50, your character gets another +1 to all skills in that mastery, and -25% recharge time to all skills in that mastery.

For example, a Grand Master Hunter (all 50 points of Grand Mastery spent) would get +2 to all hunting skills, +25% attack speed, +500 health, +50 strength, +50 dexterity, +12.5% offensive ability, and -25% recharge time for all hunting skills.
At 25 Grand Mastery points, a Hunter would only get +1 to hunting skills, +250 health, +25 strength, and +25 dexterity, but begins getting +1% attack speed and .5% offensive ability per level beyond that in addition to the other bonuses.
The per level stat bonuses are small, but it goes over what is currently possible so that it may still be overly strong for some builds. I don’t know enough about tweaking to really know whether it’s balanced or not as is – I could increase or decrease these bonuses based on informed advice.

To get 40 points of mastery and 50 points of Grand Mastery costs 90 skill points, or 30 dedicated levels. A level 40 character could have a couple maxed skills and several level 3 skills, together with some nice bonuses. At level 50, a character could have this setup as well as some minor support from an additional class, while at level 80, a character could conceivably have two Grand Masteries filled out with +skills items to boost some primary skills, and such a character would have very powerful stats at the cost of some skill points.

Grand Mastery (Hunting)

50 points possible

By further dedication to the art of the hunt, a Grand Master Hunter becomes stronger, more skilled, and more nimble, eventually gaining the ability to fire faster, hit with greater accuracy, and use powerful skills much more often, graced by the favor of Artemis.

Bonuses for each skill point spent

+1 str
+1 dex
+10 health

Additional bonuses for each skill point spent above 25 points

+1% attack speed
+.5% offensive ability
-1% recharge time for all hunting skills

Level 25 bonus

+1 to all hunting skills

Level 50 bonus

+2 to all hunting skills

Grand Mastery (Spirit)

50 points possible

A Grand Master Spiritualist is hardly distinguishable from a Lich King. While technically still among the living, he or she is not exactly at home there anymore. Increasing in intelligence, dexterity, health, and mana, the Spiritualist eventually learns to do increased vitality damage, while becoming nearly immune to vitality, poison, and bleeding damage himself or herself, while casting spells more often and summoning more powerful spirit beings, bringing the cold touch of Hades everywhere he or she goes.

Bonuses for each skill point spent

+1 int
+1 dex
+5 health
+5 mana

Additional bonuses for each skill point spent above 25 points

+1% vitality damage
+1% damage from Spirit pets
+1% health for Spirit pets
-1% recharge time for all spirit skills
+1% vitality damage resistance
+1% poison resistance
+1% bleeding resistance

Level 25 bonus

+1 to all spirit skills

Level 50 bonus

+2 to all spirit skills

Grand Mastery (Earth)

50 points possible

A Grand Master of the Earth element, walking the smoldering path of Hephaestus, seems to breathe fire, growing in mana, health, dexterity, and intelligence, eventually learning to do incredible fire damage while being nearly immune to it himself or herself. He or she can cast spells and summons more often, and the Core Dweller becomes sturdier and stronger.

Bonuses for each skill point spent

+1 int
+1 dex
+5 health
+5 mana

Additional bonuses for each skill point spent above 25 points

+1% fire damage
+1% damage from Core Dweller
+1% health for Core Dweller
-1% recharge time for all Earth skills
+1% fire damage resistance

Level 25 bonus

+1 to all Earth skills

Level 50 bonus

+2 to all Earth skills

Grand Mastery (Defense)

50 points possible

A Grand Master Defender is extra sturdy, growing to become as difficult to kill as Achilles.

Bonuses for each skill point spent

+1 str
+1 dex
+15 health

Additional bonuses for each skill point spent above 25 points

+1% damage
+.5% defensive ability
-1% recharge time for all defense skills
+.5% damage absorption

Level 25 bonus

+1 to all defense skills

Level 50 bonus

+2 to all defense skills

Grand Mastery (Dream)

50 points possible

A Grand Master of Dreams can take on their foes in the land of the waking or the land of sleep, bending the distinction between the two to nil, dragging everything he or she touches into the realm of Morpheus. A Grand Master of Dreams grows in strength, intelligence, energy, and health, and eventually learns how to put enemies to sleep with melee attacks, while dealing additional electrical burn damage, also using powerful skills more often.

Bonuses for each skill point spent

+1 int
+1 str
+5 health
+5 mana

Additional bonuses for each skill point spent above 25 points

+1% electrical burn damage
-1% recharge time for all dream skills
+.5% chance to sleep chance on attack

Level 25 bonus

+1 to all dream skills

Level 50 bonus

+2 to all dream skills

Grand Mastery (Storm)

50 points possible

A Grand Master of the Storm channels the wrath of Poseidon. Growing in intelligence, health, dexterity, and energy, a Grand Master of the Storm eventually learns how to do additional cold and electrical damage, casting such spells more often and becoming nearly immune to such spells themselves.

Bonuses for each skill point spent

+1 int
+1 dex
+5 health
+5 mana

Additional bonuses for each skill point spent above 25 points

+1% electrical damage
+1% cold damage
-1% recharge time for all storm skills
+1% cold damage resistance
+1% electrical damage resistance

Level 25 bonus

+1 to all storm skills

Level 50 bonus

+2 to all storm skills

Grand Mastery (Warfare)

50 points possible

A Grand Master of Warfare can easily pass for Herakles to the eyes of most observers. Such a warrior is strong, dexterous, and hearty. Reaching higher levels of mastery, a Grand Master of Warfare deals frightening amounts of additional damage and uses powerful skills much more often than his or her foes would prefer. Ares, on the other hand, is overjoyed.

Bonuses for each skill point spent

+1 str
+1 dex
+10 health

Additional bonuses for each skill point spent above 25 points

+1.5% melee damage
-1% recharge time for all warfare skills

Level 25 bonus

+1 to all warfare skills

Level 50 bonus

+2 to all warfare skills

Grand Mastery (Rogue)

50 points possible

A Grand Master Rogue grows in strength, dexterity, and health, honing his or her skills, doing increased damage with poison and traps, and doing massively increased damage with bleeding, often sending wounded foes into a confused panic as the life bleeds out of them, playing a morbid trick on them that surely would make Hermes double over with laughter. A Grand Master Rogue also uses deadly skills more often.

(Note: I’ve been told that bleeding is seriously nerfed beyond normal, as it doesn’t scale with stats. Let me know if I’ve overdone the correction here.)

Bonuses for each skill point spent

+1 str
+1 dex
+10 health

Additional bonuses for each skill point spent above 25 points

+1% poison damage
+1% damage from traps
+1% trap health
+30% damage from bleeding
+.25% chance of confusion per hit

Level 25 bonus

+1 to all rogue skills

Level 50 bonus

+2 to all rogue skills

Grand Mastery (Nature)

50 points possible

A Grand Master of Nature draws on the latent powers of nature to grow in intelligence, dexterity, and energy. Eventually, a Grand Master of Nature becomes a focus of the will of Nature itself, casting spells almost at will and increasing the power and survivability of plants and the animals and spirit beings who dwell therein.

Bonuses for each skill point spent

+1 int
+1 dex
+5 health
+5 mana

Additional bonuses for each skill point spent above 25 points

+2% damage from nature pets
+2% nature pet health
+2% briar thorn health (in addition to the above)
-1% recharge time for all nature skills

(These seem a bit high, but I thought I’d heard that summoning was a little weak. I need to know whether I’ve over- or under-corrected any of these)

Level 25 bonus

+1 to all nature skills
+1 wolf summon limit (can this actually be done?)

Level 50 bonus

+2 to all nature skills
+2 wolf summon limit (can this be done?)

Additional notes

For making an icon for each of the grand masteries, I thought the easiest thing might be to use a rescaled version of the “select mastery” image. Easy, right?
I also thought it may be a good idea to cook up a module that simply creates, say, a Level 50 character at the beginning of Epic Mode with, say, 5 million gold, no equipment, and all skill/attribute points unspent. This is probably easy to do, but I haven’t researched it yet. It would be an easy way to test out potential builds before deciding whether it’s worth the trouble of leveling up from scratch.

Alright. Let me know if it sounds interesting. I’m also not sure where it’s best to upload the files when I’m done, but maybe that’s in the documentation somewhere already, too. Any common mistake warnings and general modding advice would be appreciated.

p.s. - I hope the descriptions aren’t so corny as to be out of scale with the mood of TQ as a whole. Let me know what you think.

[olivewho]

Sounds like an interesting idea! I like it!

[Violos]

You can simply allow the palyer to put more points into the thermometer and then add whatever effects you like for those levels. That's quite an usual thing in mods nowadays. SL did that extensively in Paths.

Pet modifications need separate skills, though.

[mothwentbad]

Hmmmm. I kind of like the idea of there being *something* on the top tier to click on, even if it could be done a different way. Maybe I could make it just the thermometer with the stat bonuses as described up to 40+25=65 mastery, and then a separate skill for the bonuses that tack on beyond that? It might make more sense, since the interesting stuff starts after 25, and I should emphasize the change in the form of unlocking a skill. That takes care of the pet mods thing, too, and it would work the same way for all classes, so it wouldn't have anything funny making it look different for different classes.

[Violos]

If you wish... you would need a separate skill for every pet modification, though. Like the summon limit would be a modifier to the summon skill, and the thorn health would be a (passive) skill for that pet.

And you cannot directly assign skills to mastery levels. You'd have to bump the entire tier 7 from 40 to 65 (if possible) and forfeit the "normal" lvl 40 skills.

But even if that wasn't a limiting factor, the design question here is whether you want to burden players with all this in order to add those small skill changes, when the +skills alone basically achieve the same in a much simpler way.


In any case, you probably want to play the game a few times first, and then get back to this.
I like your enthusiasm, but changing the game balance is no small thing. And doing it based on guesses is not going to get you good results.

[mothwentbad]

Hmmmm. Having to make Grand Mastery live in three different places sounds sort of burdensome and contrary to the plan, and I'd rather compromise a little in places and keep it the same single class skill for all masteries.

The +skills, in my mind, just refunds part of the point investment. As far as I understand, the end game ultimate skill level limit is the true limiting factor, so +2 to all skills won't actually make wolves more hardy if a player has the right gear anyway.

I guess it's ok if I never get something with as much polish and balance as the main content. Some of this would most likely be much better dealt with through the balance patch the never came. I'd rather add more fun possibilities that someone more knowledgeable would be able to overexploit than make a yearlong project out of it that I probably won't ever finish, since this isn't related to my day job in any way.

Thanks for the comments. I didn't know that there wasn't any method of making one skill branch affect a specific other branch. I wouldn't have expected that in advance, and probably would've wasted an hour or so finding out the hard way, eventually.

[mothwentbad]

You're right, to make it really equivalent, I should put the last tier at 64 and reward the first +skills right away for spending the first point in the skill.

It'll probably be more fun to play through the game a few times than to wrestle with code and files right away anyway.

Ultimately, I'm not sure I'm going to be skilled enough to really understand fine balance, anyway. I've always had a harder time trying to survive Hell mode in D2 than a lot of people on the internet seem to claim.

[1cec0ld]

PS. I don't think there is a level 80 character, unless I'm missing some update or mod.
Regular cap is 75.

[mothwentbad]

Oh, ok. I didn't really need to up the cap anyway. I wasn't really planning on letting people exploit dual grand masteries from the start, anyway. And if for some reason I think that's a good idea later, I should just shave a few points off somewhere.

I thought I heard 80 somewhere, like I thought I'd heard it was 80 with vanilla IT, but I didn't check.