Bonus Mastery Passive & Skill Point Rune System (Idea)

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Hi there,

lately i was thinking about how to add certain new mechanics and interactions with the current Skilltrees and Mastery Passive Points. Feel free to discuss the idea with me in the thread.

Introduction
The idea and concept came from the current system in Grim Dawn which has quite a similar Mastery Skill System to LE by adding points into active skills or passive points. In GD items have the ability to roll with +x number to skill y, so that you can save points on the mastery tree to cap or even overcap a specific skill/passive. In the LE version we leave out the ability to overcap for now.
I thought that LE can have a similar system both for all passive trees and skills in the game, because we currently have not the ability to get extra/bonus points on both Skill Trees and Passive Points.
To make the system more interesting we interact the new Runes, i’m about to introduce, with Class Specific Items (Helmet & Body Armour) and Class Specific Idols (only the large ones). I chose class specific items and big idols ONLY to prevent power creeping by adding to many points on all the gear slots.

Let’s do all the examples with a Void Knight Warpath Build.

Mastery Runes

  • drops with a guaranteed Mastery class implicit (Void Knight, Shaman…)
  • the Mastery Class implicit is displayed on the Rune when you hover the mouse over the Rune
  • can only be crafted on class specific Idols
  • can only be crafted on Ornate, Huge & Adorned Idols (4x1, 1x4, 2x2)
  • Mastery Runes can drop as Normal (+1), Empowered (+2) & Mythic (+3) versions
  • Example: Craft an Empowered Mastery Rune of Void Knight on an Idol to get +2 points to a random Void Knight Mastery Point (World Eater)
  • You need to allocate atleast 1 Point into World Eater in the Void Knight Passive Tree to get the +2 Bonus, so by adding 1 Point you automatically have 3/8 in World Eater
  • Minimum Number of Bonus Passive Points you can get via Idols are +4 (4x1) on random Mastery Points (with 4 Normal Mastery Rune)
  • Maximum Number of Bonus Passive Points you can get via Idols are +12 (4x3) on random Mastery Points (with 4 Mythic Mastery Runes)

Skill Runes

  • drops with a guaranteed Base Class implicit (Sentinel, Primalist…)
  • can only be crafted on class specific items (Helmet & Body Armour)
  • a Sentinel Skill Rune can only be crafted on Sentinel Helmets & Body Armours
  • ability to get +(1-2) points into random minor skillnode of a random skill (example: Warpath - Void Spiral)
  • Skill Runes can drop as Normal +(1-2) to minor nodes and Ultimate (+1) in keynodes
  • Ultimate Runes can unlock a keynode on the skill tree without allocating points before to unlock the big keynode (From the Abyss, no points needed into Void Spiral & Apoclypse Whirl)
  • crafting a Skill Rune on Class specific Items will lock/corrupt the item, so it can’t be modified anymore
  • fractured items can not be crafted with a Skill Rune, so you have to choose wisely when to add the Rune on a Item

Bonus Point Display:
If you allocate Bonus Points into World Eater with an Idol, the first number will be displayed with the blue colour, so you can immediatly see where you have Bonus Points on the Passive tree. By hovering the mouse over World Eater, a new information box will tell you, you have allocated +x number to this passive point via Idol y.
The same goes for Bonus Points into the Skilltree of a certain Skill.

Conclusion
Bonus Passive Points into Skill and Passive nodes can improve your build by adding more points into your build, which is always appreciated. They can improve build diversity (unlocking a keynode in Skilltree can save many points to the desired keynode you want to play, therefore you can allocate your 20 Skill points into another direction in the tree). Bonus Passive points can make it easier for you to cap a desired Passive node you want to max.

I hope the system is not to complex and i also hope i gave you good examples to understand the idea.
I’m looking forward to your ideas and feedback on the system.
Cheers

2 Likes
2

This and all interactions with the passive tree really sound interesting and are possibly not “game-breaking”.

Extra Points in an Skill Spec Tree on the other hand could lead to some major blancing issues.

I think the devs took very great thought into designing the skill spec trees. Some combinations of certain Key Nodes are not possible, without sacrificing alot of skill spec points.

So this part makes me really nervous:

Especially the part, where you do not need to allocate points in the nodes leading to that key node.
This example you gave, would save you 5 skill points, which is huge

Don’t get me wrong i like the idea, but this kind of power needs to be carefully balanced and not accessable easy. One of those things should be max on each character.
Or change it so you need to have all “follow up nodes”, to be able to make this Umtimate Runes unlock the Keynode.

Another question is: Could you now spend points into the follow up node of “From The Abyss”, the “Abyssal Flurry” Node, which increases the frequency of the “From The Abyss” Node.

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Agree with you here, it can definitly get too powerful. I was hesitating a bit while writing the ideas for this Ultimate Rune system. I had 3 levels of mastery runes, so i wanted to give skill runes at least 2 versions aswell. The keynode interaction could definitly be replaced by another way to avoid powerful skilltrees. I was already limiting the skill runes to only 2 possible gear slots, since we can only allocate 20 points now into one skill the possible bonus points should not go over 5 for sure.

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