ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Okay, this idea is a little out there, so let me explain. Let's consider these factors:

First, mastery is a fractional multiplier to an integer, and some important bonuses occur at integer levels, so the math can be strange (e.g., 1.3 mastery at 3 points = 3, at 4 points = 5). A finer grained scale would give more room to tweak your progression.

Second, it's hard to balance abilities. Many of them scale poorly, or not really at all. Also, some of them are simply far better than others. This is true in most games, and this isn't fixable, but...

Third, it's easy to cherry pick with the talent tree system. To get 5 in the top tier ability, you just need 1 in all prior tier abilities. There's no reason to raise abilities along the way unless they're actually ones that scale well. This is compounded by 1 level being enough for many abilities.

Fourth, it's very hard to be an effective 'specialist' for many classes. For example, a Wyrmic has a very strong incentive to take stuff from all of the dragon types. This is not inherently bad, but is worth noting.

I think that raising mastery within a talent tree as you raise its talents would be beneficial for each of those points. Increasing mastery is a powerful effect, but not easily attainable in the game right now. If it progressed as you leveled, there would still be an incentive to 'dip', but now there would also be one to stick with one thing and get good at it.

This obviously has balance implications - some talents or talent trees might become too powerful if you could reach a higher effective mastery in them. However, I wouldn't anticipate this being a large global increase in power because dumping a lot of points into most trees would still be worse than taking a little bit from many.

I'm not sure what magnitude of effect I would want to see, but I am interested to hear what others have to say.

Problem is that different classes work differently. Cursed, for example, already have a fairly strong incentive to max out their Gloom and/or Rampage trees, and as someone who enjoys playing them from time to time, I'd hate to have another reason for them to get nerfed. On the flip side, as you've noted, Wyrmics are all about cherry-picking. I could see a lot of unpleasant rebalancing coming out of this one.

I'd have an alternate suggestion, actually. Instead of having this be the case for every skill, have it be the case for skills that are weak but contribute to the flavor of the class. Let specific skills add .050 or so per skill point to the mastery levels of their trees. They'd be weak enough as skills that they wouldn't be worth maxxing on their own, but if you had a wyrmic who, say, maxxed out icy breath and icy skin, it might give enough reason to max out the other two as well.

Also, unless I am terribly confused, 1.3 mastery at 3 points is 3.9, and that decimal is actually used in many cases when determining overall effect. Am I wrong on this?

Sirrocco wrote:I'd have an alternate suggestion, actually. Instead of having this be the case for every skill, have it be the case for skills that are weak but contribute to the flavor of the class. Let specific skills add .050 or so per skill point to the mastery levels of their trees. They'd be weak enough as skills that they wouldn't be worth maxxing on their own, but if you had a wyrmic who, say, maxxed out icy breath and icy skin, it might give enough reason to max out the other two as well.

This is definitely an option; it might work well for some of the weaker sustains for example.

Sirrocco wrote:Also, unless I am terribly confused, 1.3 mastery at 3 points is 3.9, and that decimal is actually used in many cases when determining overall effect. Am I wrong on this?

Yes, but some boosts occur at integer levels only - like Phase Door when it hits 4 / 5.

I like this idea. But rather than making all points spent gradually increase mastery, I'd implement bonuses that get assigned on a tree by tree basis. Let's say there are 10-point bonuses and 20-point bonuses. You get these if you spend 10 or 20 points in a given tree. Trees which we feel already reward specialization (like Rampage and Gloom) can have feeble or nonexistant bonuses. Trees which don't already reward specialization can get tantalizing bonuses. The bonuses can also be more interesting than a simple boost to mastery. Maybe a 10-point bonus for some tree is to increase the duration of all effects in the tree by X, and the 20-point bonus is to grant a special talent unobtainable anywhere else. These feel much more discrete and fun to me than a mastery increase.

In my original design I had the concept that you could be "talented" at something without having "mastery". You could also be a master without having any talent... Ideally to be a true master you should have Talent and Mastery.

The two go hand in hand. As has already been noted the Mastery multiplier is very powerful in its effect and impacts a lot of things in the game. Any changes to Mastery (not Talents) should be approached with full awareness of what is being proposed and what will happen if you make changes...

It will be interesting to see what you come up with!

Sorry but I don't really like this as a concept - especially using it to balance 'weak but flavourful' talents that people wouldn't spend points in otherwise.

I feel that the proper solution would be to make these talents better in themselves rather than have them boost OTHER talents.