Replacement of certain Utilities with 'Ability Upgrades'

[Chicktopus]

Something I would like to see is miniature 'upgrade trees' (one or two levels) for individual abilities, of which you may pick one path per ability to spend a Utility point on, rather than on a more 'general' Utility (e.g. Take 30% less AOE damage). This allows a greater diversity of skills on a player-by-player basis and a scalable method of adding new Utilities, whilst also maintaining a relatively simple method of class balancing.

 

Here's an example:

 

.....................Force Lightning:

........ ___________|__________

........|......................|...................|

Burn Effect Mobile Casting Stun Effect

........|

Burn Spreads

 

...........................Shock

.........___________|__________

........|......................|...................|

Slows Target 2nd Free atk. Hits 2 Targets

....................................................|

.........................Weakens Target to Force Powers

Edited September 1, 2015 by Chicktopus

[Muljo_Stpho]

I think you're suggesting something kind of similar (but more involved and probably more complicated to implement as well) to an idea that I've thrown out there for more customizable discipline paths.

 

My idea was drawing from the starfighter upgrade "trees" as a model for how the choice would be implemented. You would have places in the discipline path with two abilities in parallel instead of just one given ability. You can toggle between one or the other being active. You just can't make them both active (or both inactive).

 

Although for simplicity in squeezing this into the paths as they currently appear, I pictured these parallel choices showing as branches off of the sides of the path. So these would be options to upgrade at any of the following levels... 12, 20, 27, 35, 41, 48, 56, and 60 (in addition to the upgrades already at each of those levels). Otherwise there would be a lot of shifting and resizing to make everything fit and still have the linear order of the path be obvious.

 

With something like that they could offer some customization within the path itself. Do you select the upgrades that add dots to more of your abilities or the upgrades that add stuns to those abilities? Do you select the upgrades that turn more attacks into area attacks or the upgrades that enhance single target damage for those abilities? Or whatever other kinds of choices they could present us with.

 

There is a specific design goal on the devs' part for each specific discipline, but this would allow a little wiggle room in defining how we want to play within that design.

 

edit: Let's see here. Discipline paths in their current form feature 7 utility points, 4 active abilities, and 13 passive abilities. The "pick one of these two passive" spots in the paths wouldn't actually be in addition to that list of abilities like I hastily implied earlier. They'd have to take the place of some of those 13 passives, with the modified path still having 13 spots where you earn a passive but some of those spots would be just one passive and other spots would be a choice between two passives.

Edited September 1, 2015 by Muljo_Stpho