Category points… raise skill cap instead of .2 bonus.

[Delmuir]

How about instead of adding .2 to the total category, they instead raise the cap from 5 to 6 on your skills for that category? Sure, it'd make it very powerful but you'd still have to spend additional skill or general points to make use of it. I'd also make it possible to spend more than one category point on a category, thus making hyper specialization possible. Or is that too much?

More so, it'd make the Cornac a legitimately cool race which I don't think it is currently.

Thoughts?

[SageAcrin]

Having Category points raise the cap by one instead of adding a .2 bonus is arguably a downgrade.

Barring the few rawtalent based talents, +0.2=1 over 5 levels, which is the same impact as one more talent level would be. Even on 1.3 categories, it's only a very tiny gain. And you'd need extra class/generic points for the impact.

Also, while I feel like there needs to be a bonus to category points on categories, I am strongly against giving them multiple stacking bonuses. I feel like that's a newbie trap for people used to Diablo's somewhat similar, but very heavy-specialization-oriented, talent trees.

And if you made multiple category point specialization powerful enough to compete, people would generally focus on that-players generally go for simple answers over complicated ones, if they know they work. So the game would rapidly degenerate into single obvious builds and be an utter nightmare to rebalance out of that hole.

[malboro_urchin]

How about instead of adding .2 to the total category, they instead raise the cap from 5 to 6 on your skills for that category? Sure, it'd make it very powerful but you'd still have to spend additional skill or general points to make use of it. I'd also make it possible to spend more than one category point on a category, thus making hyper specialization possible. Or is that too much?

More so, it'd make the Cornac a legitimately cool race which I don't think it is currently.

Thoughts?

This is basically a nerf to the current usage of cat points; increasing the mastery of a tree effectively increases the skill levels already, without needing to spend any more points. What little gain there is to be had from this would be overshadowed by having to spend cat points [i[and[/i] generic/class talent points to further improve the skill.

Spending a cat point to increase mastery is already a niche tactic (one that I think deserves a bit more of a benefit), and this would make Cornac worse, not better.

[Delmuir]

All right, so my math is crap. Good points.

Perhaps, it could do both, or some combination?

[IvenGray]

How about:
-Increase talent cap by 2.
-Increase every talent's current level by 1.

[Doctornull]

-Increase every talents' current level by 1.

This all by itself is a less exponential way to get the effect of +0.2 mastery at 5/5 investment, but it also offers some cute tricks to the Cornac who can instantly buy a whole tree at 1/1/1/1.

We'd have to decide if he gets early, illegal access to those talents for which his level does not yet qualify him.

[HousePet]

I'm still pushing for a fix passive effect for spending the category point.
Would take a bit more work, but we can be sure everything gets a benefit that way.

[Doctornull]

I'm still pushing for a fix passive effect for spending the category point.
Would take a bit more work, but we can be sure everything gets a benefit that way.

Do you get the same passive benefit if you're a 1.0 mastery Adventurer?

Do you get the same benefit if you're a 0.8 mastery escort mogul?

[HousePet]

I'd say yes, you would get the same benefit.
It still costs the same for everyone.

[Hachem_Muche]

Since talents can now scale up safely past level 5, I think that increasing the talent level limit based on the mastery of the tree would work and be a nice boost to talent mastery. So spending a category on a tree you have at 1.3 mastery would increase the mastery to 1.5 AND let you spend up to 6 points in all of it's various talents.

The formula would be something like mastery 1.4 let's you train up to TL 6, 1.6 up to TL 7, etc., but you have to spend extra points to actually train up -- you're already getting an increase in effective talent level from the mastery.

[Delmuir]

Since talents can now scale up safely past level 5, I think that increasing the talent level limit based on the mastery of the tree would work and be a nice boost to talent mastery. So spending a category on a tree you have at 1.3 mastery would increase the mastery to 1.5 AND let you spend up to 6 points in all of it's various talents.

I endorse this approach.

I'd very much like the chance to specialize in a particular skill and would happily trade an entire category, with some builds, in order to do so. I'm quite fond of this idea.

[SageAcrin]

I'm still pushing for a fix passive effect for spending the category point.
Would take a bit more work, but we can be sure everything gets a benefit that way.

I actually wouldn't mind writing up a list of bonuses I think would be balanced, if DarkGod is interested in this idea. (Blanket bonuses based on category type are boring, but a special bonus specific to the category could be really cool.)

Not sure how to code it, though.

[HousePet]

There is this hook:
'''PlayerLevelup:addTalentType'''
\mod\dialogs\LevelupDialog.lua\learnType
data = { actor=self.actor, tt=tt}
Triggers when a player spends a category point in a category.

Would make it easy to make up an addon quickly.

[Strongpoint]

Maybe, for start make it work like : some bonus for investing in XXX\Spells category, some bonus for XXX\Wild Gifts category, some bonus for investing in XXX\Curses and so on

Then when all categories will have a generic benefit, some may get specific ones. That approach requires significantly less work, allows to add new talent trees without making new special benefits

BTW, one of the possible benefits for unlocking a cat point may be an access to otherwise unavailable prodigies. Would be fun.

Since talents can now scale up safely past level 5, I think that increasing the talent level limit based on the mastery of the tree would work and be a nice boost to talent mastery. So spending a category on a tree you have at 1.3 mastery would increase the mastery to 1.5 AND let you spend up to 6 points in all of it's various talents.

Would love that. So many new builds open up

[Seian Verian]

I actually had the idea: Increase mastery by 0.5, and reduce cooldowns by 20%. This is quite a considerable boost, but not necessarily more powerful than an entire new category or inscription slot.