Hey guys, it doesn't matter if the game is shit to play, it only lasts for one game!

You pick skills, but if you want to change, you still get your new skills just fine. If I'm the Rook and I get Hammer Smash rank 1, then decide I didn't really want it, I've still got it and I can still pick other skills. There's absolutely no reason to FORCE me into a particular path, it's not fun, it's repetitive, and it detracts from the skill of the game. It's just like picking a Demigod, except for you never pick the wrong one by mistake (or almost). Unlike choosing skill points.

I can't think of a single RPG that actually locks you out of new skills just because you chose old ones that operates in this fashion. Look at World of Warcraft. You can pick talents, and just because you part-did one tree doesn't mean you can't specialize in other trees, some of the most effective builds are hybrids. Even in WC3 (and DoTA), if you pick a skill, it doesn't hinder your ability to buy other skills later (as a general rule). In AD&D, you can dual-class.

There is absolutely no reason ever to remove choice from the player, it's a fundamentally BATSHIT INSANE idea. I mean, we want the player to play the game, and that means he should be able to do with his Demigod whatever the hell he wants, unless there's a real reason why not. Not some crappy artificial skill slot limitation bullshit, but a real actual reason, like, it would ruin the game if they could fly, or had infinite health. We can all see that these break the game. Not doing this won't break the game, and therefore, the player should be able to play the game however the hell he wants, because it's his game.

It is just like picking a demigod - do you want people to be able to switch their Demigod mid-game? "Oh I don't like how this Rook plays, I'd rather switch to Regulus" - of course not. It's the same reason you can't just switch which side you're playing in an RTS while the game is in progress or, to use your DnD example, why you can't just revoke your previous class choice and replace it with a different one.

That's all great - if it had anything to do with the actual situation. Having a limited amount of skill slots does not FORCE you to take the same path all the time. It's not repetitive unless you, deliberately, choose the same skills, every time. It does not detract skill from the game - it increases the variety, meaning that there is more skill involved, not less.

Yet, you can't have ALL the talents. Taking some things stops you from taking some others. And don't bother bringing up respecs - the only reason they're included in WoW (and with good reason) is because your character is, effectively, forever. Demigod's characters, are not. They last one match, which is only a few minutes.

Implementing more build variety does not REMOVE choice from the player. It increases choice. And more importantly, it increases the value of those choices. You don't let the player do whatever he wants in a game - by definition a game is something with a strict set of rules, and operating within those rules is what makes the game fun. Give people no limitations, and you make their choices and their options worthless.

DatonKallandor, great explanation.  You really explained a lot of peoples veiw on that in a non-jerk way.  I second all of DK points exactly in this reply.  Excellent post.  We'll talk later about the whole EPIC FAIL Fiasco further up.   

Like I've said for a while, give beta 2 a chance and realize that a dev that cleaned up on the awards this year (game of the year, strategy game of the year expansion of the year, and more) wants to put out a good game.  They may differ from your thoughts, but they will try and I hope they will suceed again.

Yes, I'm eagerly awaiting Beta 2 to see what they did with the skill trees. And believe me, no one would be happier than me if it turns out to be great - I'm not expecting it not to.

It is not like picking a Demigod, because the error required to pick the wrong Demigod is an order of magnitude more, and moreover, it's much easier to suck up the loss (ranked) or restart the game (custom). Picking the wrong skill is easy. Moreover, it's easy to see that 8 Demigods can be balanced overall, and not all 100 possible skills.

It only decreases variety and choice. Once I pick Hammer Smash, I MUST HAVE HAMMER SMASH. How the hell does that increase choice, because now, I can't have half Hammer Smash and half Boulder Throw. Seriously, tell me how the hell this possibly increases choice and variety? You can't choose to spec multiple abilities, which MASSIVELY reduces the number of possible combinations. Either you pick once, or you pick repeatedly. Are you aware of what the formulas are for how many combinations there are? Try throwing a dice and thinking about how many combinations, compared to throwing it repeatedly. I could choose to spec one point in every ability, or in your system, I can't. Can you give me an example of how a new spec is created, by locking out abilities?

I didn't even think about or mention respecs and they weren't relevant. The point was that your talents can be spent in anywhere you like if you satisfy the pre-reqs. You don't just pick a tree. You can have any combination you like, and I've had some weird and wonderful ones. Demigod in the current incarnation works this way too. It's like, Supreme Commander. Turtling is not a choice. That's shit. But equally, FA, where expanding is not a choice, that's shit too. The game is developed for me to play it and have fun, and that means doing with it what you like. Why the hell should you give me any choices at all? Let's just play random Demigod, movement and attack like creeps, random skills managed by an AI. Oh wait, because playing the game is defined by the player interacting with the game. The more possible interactions there are, the more variety there is in the game.

Rules exist only to enforce fair play, and create options, which means basic rules to establish how the game is played in as many different ways as possible. Any rules you make that detract from this, automatically fail. There is no reason to limit it. There is no reason to enforce rules that serve no purpose.

I still challenge you to find an RPG that forces skill lockouts in this way. I can give so many counter-examples. World of Warcraft, Warcraft 3 (inasof it's RPG elements), System Shock 2, even the failure that was BioShock, Diablo II, Dungeons and Dragons. In Diablo II, if you put a gem in a socketed item, that was it. Guess what? In WoW, they changed it so that it's not permanent. I might just take a hint.

There are only 4 skill slots. By NOT having skill lockouts, you limit each demigod to 4 active skills. Having the choice between more than 4 active skills means there's more possible combinations.

That is factually incorrect. You have a limited number of points, and there are more options that you can have points. You cannot "have any combination you like". That is a fact.

Also, you completely ignored parts of my post - what about changing demigods midgame? what about changing sides in an RTS midgame? How come you can't revoke your class choice in DnD mid-game?

As for RPG's that have skill lockouts - How about playing a Sorceror (or variant thereof) in DnD? You have to choose which spells you want to have, from a very large list. You can only have a very small amount, which cannot be changed (with a caveat that's a concession to the permanent nature of DnD characters). I can list more.

A player should always have to think carefully about his choices and make sacrifices when these choices are made if the game is to be fun. I think we should stop comparing this game so much to mmorpg, and more to RTS. If you can just pick Hammer Smash, and then unpick it whenever you like, then did the player even have to think about his choice of picking hammer smash? or just midlessely pick it, knowing that he would not have to sacrfice anything when he did pick it up and could simply unpick it whenver he wanted.

And there lots of RPG's with skill lockouts....lots. Basically every RPG infact. When you play WoW and you choose a Dwarf (or whatever the characters are..i never really played it), then you have just locked out all the skills from the other classes. In Guild Wars if you pick a Warrior/Necro, you now have all the skills from an elementalist, ranger, paragon etc. locked out. in POKEMON (yes im using pokemon as an example), when you level your little guys up and they learn new moves, you are forced to lockout one of your other moves for the new one....and who can honestly say they never enjoyed pokemon ?

true that true that. Thats what I'm saying and it really doesn't have to be a ton of skills u can't get or something. I think once u get something u get it and u shouldn't be able to get all the skills fully leveled up but u should be able to get all skills partially upped.

To the opnening poster: YES 4 abillitys to "choose" from are too little.

Especially for Assasins.

For Generals 4 active skills could be enough.

I hope character deepness/variousity will be in the focus after Beta 2 release

Simple, clear, useful =>

Agreed aswell

I did address them. You can't because balancing 2-4 sides or 8 Demigods is easier than balancing 100 skills. This makes your choice of side or class infinitely less likely to be a game-breaking error. Additionally, in Supreme Commander and D&D, there ARE some ways in which you can change, you can dual-class under certain conditions, capture or trade engineers. Additionally, in D&D or SupCom, picking your class is something you do in advance and generally speaking, it's the same every time. This isn't true of skills for your Demigod.

How is locking out skills, going to increase the number you can have? I'm arguing that there should be a skill slot for every active ability so that you can choose to have some of everything if you want. Your side is that there should be fewer so that you can't. Do you actually know what you're arguing for? What you said completely doesn't make sense.

You're just pissing on semantics and totally ignoring my point. I'm not arguing for infinite skill points to buy everything, I'm arguing that if you have a skill point, you should be able to put it in whatever the hell you like. In WoW, if you have satisfied the pre-req talents, you can place your talent wherever you want, regardless of what your other talents are. I've even put italics on the relevant point, just so that you don't miss it and pick some other entirely irrelevant fact of their system.

As for your caveat mentioned, I'm guessing that you mean that you can infact change them. Even if you can't, then that's still a minimum, compared to every other class. If you're a Fighter, you can pick whatever new weapon specialities you like, regardless of what the old ones were. With mages, you can memorize any new spells within your slots, regardless of before. Etc. You've got one poor example, against how many I have. Try more.

Your examples are not changes, they're additions - you can't change your side in SupCom, you can only add another one, through play. Ditto for multiclassing.

You are still wrong - you cannot place your talent wherever you want regardless of what your other talents are - you don't have enough points for every possibility. I italized the important part of your statement.

So first you want an example, and when provided it's not enough? How many do you want? Here's another one: the Sacred RPG series has your character gaining the option to get new skills as you rise in levels - there are more skills than skill slots. How about the majority of Korean MMORPGs (played by millions)? Almost all of them use a branching class system - choosing one sub-class, locks you out of the abilities and everything else that goes with the other sub-class.

Uh, I specifically said, if you have a skill point. The idea of "skill points" as a limiting factor is totally irrelevant and present in Demigod either way, so I still don't know what you're doing or what point you're trying to get at, because this is not new, or debated on either side. If I'm a Mage and I take a bunch of Frost talents and then level up and get a talent point, I can still start spending in the Frost or Arcane trees. This behaviour is what is stopped by locking out things because you have other things, even if they're only to a lesser extent.

By adding another one, what you really mean is that it's perfectly possible to play exclusively as your "added" side or class, especially noted in DnD. Nor did you counter my point about the relative number and ease of both balancing and making sure you pick your desired. I'm going to add that when you make a mistake with any of these, it's much easier to start over. Also, I'm not sure what you're on about, because you only ever add skills, not change them, so I'm seriously not seeing your argument here. I just think you should be free to add whichever ones you like with your points.

Given that I have a lot MORE examples (I'm going to add Deus Ex and Jedi Knight II to my list, by the way), and they qualify for the entire game, whereas yours is a subset of one game where I have an example for my side anyway and the vast majority of the game takes my side. Firstly, subclasses doesn't count for the same reasons as classes (which we are arguing on a separate point). Secondly, majority of korean mmorpgs.. hardly a specific example I can relate to or research, is it? Thirdly, your millions pale in comparison to World of Warcraft, let alone all the rest, especially given that the Korean market is a pretty small sector of global, unless you're Starcraft or a Korean MMO.

Doing a little research, what you didn't mention is that you can get your skills combined into a combo, and also, after more reading, the item-based skill system looks like it doesn't even remotely compare to Demigod (adding in that you can trade them, so you could trade an unusable rune for an upgrade one).

Then I'm gonna add Deus Ex 2 to the games that do lock out skills - by providing several options per biomod limb, where you can only choose one. Also, all the other Jedi Knight games except JK2 - you lock out light side/dark side by spending points in the other respectively. We can play this game forever.

I think this is a good idea as well.  If you've ever played Guild Wars that game was built entirely around this idea.  If this gets implemented then I think it is a MUST to allow me to drag and drop my skills to different hotkeys(like what you do in MMOs).

innociv,

I think you bring up a valid point and I really like your suggestions.

Admittedly, having to think carefully about character design and making decisions is - for me - one of the things that makes a lot of games fun. Particularly strategy and RPG games. However, clearly, what makes a game fun varies greatly from person to person.

It goes without saying that the developer would be wise to both cater to the majority of their target customer base (fans of realtime strategy and multiplayer RPGs) and aim to please as many gamers as possible within given budget and time constraints. One way to do this is to offer the players choices as to how they want to play the game. Hence the Generals / Assassins choice. Perhaps the Assassin type players should be given additional ability choices (like innociv suggests), while the Generals can keep their extremely limited choices as it is?

Personally, having very few options to choose from feels incredibly restraining to me. With some games it can feel like there's almost no real choices to make, (particularly if the game is unbalanced and there are only a few choices that offer distict advantages over all others).

Myself, I prefer more options and choices. If it's up to me, I choose this... every time.

What's wrong with being like a MMORPG or even an RPG? I thought that was the whole point of having the General vs the Assassin types? If you prefer to play Demigods as a strategy game, then play as a General. For those of us who like the idea of playing like an RPG, there's the Assassin type. Actually, I like both genres and I would probably try Demigods both ways. But when push comes to shove I prefer the RPG style as it seems more 'realistic' to me.

First of all, that's not entirely true. That's a pretty broad generalization. I've played a LOT of RPGs over the years, but not all of them have skill lockouts. (I'm an "old skool" RPG gamer.) And most RPGs I've played have significantly more choices to choose from than merely 4 abilities! Nearly every one I've played, actually.