🛈 Announcement
Greetings! The Division forums are now archived and accessible in read-only mode, please go to the new platform to discuss the game
  1. #1

    A thought experiment on "skills" and "classes"

    The longer I play, the more I realise that a lot of this game's combat complexity comes down to skill selection and appropriate use. As such, I wanted to take a stab at talking about it. However, I know that skill builds have been a hot-button issue for a long time - since The Division 1, even. What I'm about to talk about is probably not going to sit well with a lot of you guys running Skill Builds now, so don't take it as a suggestion. Take it as a "what if" thought experiment. Hear me out, see what you think, and if you still don't agree then that's fair.


    Central premise:
    Right now, only players with a heavy skill build really get to play around with Skills in The Division 2. Yes, everyone gets access to all skills, but few are potent enough to affect gameplay to a significant extent at Skill Tier 0. There are some, certainly, but the majority of skills have such diminished effects that they make comparatively little difference. This got me wondering if it's possible to split skills between the game's de-facto classes, make them ALL into "skill builds" and in the process reconceptualise current Skill Builds into something slightly more specialised but also slightly more powerful. Hear me out, I'm going somewhere with this. Let's cover the basics first.


    Classes? What?
    Currently, the Division 2 offers us three colour-coded Core Attributes - blue, red and yellow. While we can mix-and-match those colours as we choose, I'm going to speak from the perspective of builds predominantly built on one of these colours. I'm going to call Blue the "Tank" build and Red the "Damage" build, while yellow I'm going to reclassify as the "Control" build. Skill Tiers would still exist, but not as a separate stat. Instead, different skills would scale off of different Core Attributes, based on the skill in question. Some potentially even off of multiple ones. The Ballistic Shield is a good example of this. Its power scales both off of Yellow Core Attributes and off of Blue Core Attributes. A Skill Tier 0 Tank build right now can still use a Tier 6 Ballistic Shield. This is the general design I'm aiming for. Let's go over the "classes" and what they'd focus on:

    Tanks would predominantly focus on damage mitigation, using defensive and healing skills - essentially, EHP and sustain. The role of Tank on a team would be to draw attention, engage the enemy, absorb or at least attract damage and keep others on the team from getting focused down. The playstyle of Tank when solo would be to outlast the enemy through clever use of terrain and relentless fire.

    Damage would predominantly focus on... well, dealing damage, using damage-dealing skills - essentially, DPS DPS DPS. The role of Damage on a team would similarly be to kill things fast, preferably either from outside the fight or under the cover of their team-mates. The playstyle of Damage when solo would be that of a high-risk glass cannon - a fragile combatant who nevertheless hit really hard and comes with a lot of heavy firepower.

    Control would predominantly focus on crowd control and buff/debuff abilities - essentially your classic MMO Controller/Defender/Support character. The role of Control on a team would be lock enemies down, restrict their movement, pop them out of cover and otherwise expose them for their team-mates to kill. The playstyle of Control while solo would be to troll enemies and do their best to turn every fight into a turkey shoot, at least to some extent.

    Again, I need to emphasise that nobody would be locked into one of these classes. Since they're determined by Core Stats, players would be free to mix-and-match, or specialise as they see fit. Additionally, yes - there are no more "skill builds." Rather, all builds are skill builds, with the selection of High-Tier skills varying depending on the de-facto class the player goes for. I'm also speaking loosely, so do note that what I say here is subject to reinterpretation.


    Who gets what skills?
    We've talked about it generally, now let's get into specifics. Which class gets which skills? Or rather, which skills would scale off the Core Attributes of each class? Here's a list:


    • Sticky Bomb
      • Burn - Control
      • Explosive - Damage

    • Trap
      • Shock Trap - Control

    • Decoy
      • Holographic Distraction Decoy - Control

    • Pulse
      • Scanner - Control
      • Remote - Control
      • Jammer - Control
      • Banshee - Control

    • Turret
      • Assault - Damage
      • Incinerator - Control
      • Sniper - Damage
      • Mortar - Damage

    • Hive
      • Restorer - Tank
      • Stinger - Control
      • Reviver - this one needs a redesign, so hard pass
      • Booster - Control
      • Artificer - Control

    • Chem Launcher
      • Reinforcer - Tank
      • Firestarter - Control, Damage
      • Riot Foam - Control
      • Oxidiser - Damage

    • Firefly
      • Blinder - Control
      • Burster - Damage
      • Demolisher - Control

    • Seeker Mine
      • Explosive - Damage
      • Airburst - Damage
      • Seeker - Damage
      • Mender - Tank

    • Drone
      • Striker - Damage
      • Defender - Tank
      • Bombardier - Damage
      • Fixer - Tank
      • Tactician - Control

    • Ballistic Shield
      • Bulwark - Tank
      • Crusader - Tank
      • Deflector - Tank
      • Striker - Tank


    Some of these might be a bit contenious, largely because had to move quite a few skills from Damage to Control. Yeah, turns out this game has A LOT of skills that straight-up just do damage. Somehow I hadn't noticed before... I also ended up with fairly few skills for Tanks, which is a bit disappointing given that I myself play exclusively tank builds. Oh, well - this is a thought experiment, not a wish upon a star. Basically, though, I gave every ability which predominantly deals damage to Damage, every ability with a heavy Status Effect or Control Effect to Control (hence the Flame Turret) and every defensive/healing ability to Tank.


    So what happens to yellow Core Attributes?
    If Tank and Damage builds can get Skill Tiers out of their own Core Attributes which ALSO boost their stats, what about yellows? They'd have to do something more than just up Skill Tier. I agree, and I have a few ideas. Crucially, though, I would revamp Yellows inot a +%Control stat. Control would increase status effect duration and status effect damage per tick. Essentially, yellow builds would move away from "any skills, all the skills" and more towards "shooting fish in a barrel" sort of design, focusing on shocking enemies, setting them on fire, encasing them in foam, etc.

    And yes, that does mean that some of what currently constitutes "Skill Builds" would move towards other classes. To give you a few anecdotal examples just among my group of friends. I have a friend whose build focuses on sniper rifles, weapon damage, criticals and the like. His is a Damage build and would remain so. Another friend of mine, however, is a "grenadier." He has a heavy Skill build but predominantly relies on the Mortar Turret, the MGL and grenades. His Skill build would transition more towards a Damage build, instead. I have another friend who plays a "medic" - Repair Drone, Healing Chem Launcher and a fairly weak combat spec. His build would naturally migrate towards Tank, instead.


    Repair Kits, Grenades and Elemental Ammo:
    One final point I'd like to raise is the use of Repair Kits, Grenades and Elemental ammo (flame rounds, shock rounds, high-velocity rounds, etc.) to differentiate "classes." This will naturally come with some proposed changes, but the gist of what I'm getting at here is that each build would receive more of those consumables the more of a particular stat that build has. Tanks would get an extra Armour Kit for every 3 blue Core Attributes, Damage would get an extra 2 grenades for every 3 reds and Control will get an extra 2 uses of elemental ammo (I'll get to that). Essentially, each de-facto class would get more of a consumable which best fits that class' role. Let's address a few issues here.

    I talked about Elemental Ammo as a consumable even though it isn't one in The Division 2. This is because I propose MAKING it a consumable similar to how it worked in The Division 1, though with some changes. First of all, yes - players would be able to carry Elemental Ammo with them and trigger it on demand, drawing on a limited inventory of Elemental Ammo reloads. This inventory would be shared between ALL Elemental Ammo types, rather than separate per ammo type. You won't be carrying 3 stacks of flame rounds, 3 stacks of shock rounds and 3 stacks of high-velocity rounds. You would be carrying 3 stacks of "elemental rounds," but able to choose any type of elemental rounds that you have access to. Additionally, not all types of elemental rounds would be available at all times. Like grenades, players would have access to only High Velocity Rounds normally, but gain access to one other type depending on their Specialisation. This extra elemental ammo type would be unlocked with each Specialisation's Grenade ability. I would cap elemental ammo reloads to 6 by default.

    Furthermore, I would apply the same logic to grenades. Rather than having separate socks of Concussion Grenades and Specialisation Grenades, players would have a single stock of "Grenades" shared between all types. Players would be able to choose which type of grenade to throw, with all types drawing one from that shared pool. I would cap grenades to a total of 10.

    So in short, Tanks get more Armour Kits, Damage get more Grenades and Control get more Elemental Ammo (and thus more chances to apply control effects and status effect damage).


    In conclusion:
    I'm aware that what I'm proposing is a fairly radical change that's not going to sit well with a lot of people. That's understandable and I don't blame you for your apprehension. However, if you've made it this far - especially if you're a Skill Build user now - let me know what you think. My primary goal here isn't to nerf or buff, but rather the spread the use of skills around to a broader range of builds, maybe even encourage a few more "multiclass" builds as well. The redefinition of yellow into pure control is going to be contentuous, I know, but I do feel that a crowd control role could be REALLY powerful - maybe to the point of disincentivising damage a bit.

    Crucially, though - I want everyone to have a chance to play around with skills, simply because they're so much fun in The Division 2 (more so than in the prequel, I'd argue). As well, I want to break up what it means to have a "skill build," since right now it's a bit of a catch-all which overlaps with a lot of non-skill builds. Skill builds for Mortars and Roller Mines are already pretty much a "yellow DPS" anyway, while skill builds focused on Ballistic Shields and Repair Drones are Tanks in all but name. I've always found the Division's class breakdown to be a bit too much Diablo, breakding down along the lines of Vitality/Dexterity/Magic, rather than along the lines of how people actually play.

    Hopefully this thought experiment has been interesting, even if we all know it's completely unrealistic.
    Share this post

  2. #2
    xcel30's Avatar Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
    Posts
    8,155
    Already made a suggestion similar to this but using weapons instead of skills (shotguns and pistols would also scale with blues but a lesser degree than reds, same with sniper and rifles with yellow), and even had taht stacking 2 main core attributes of the same color would grant a different reward (red gets armor damage, blue gets one extra armor kit, yellow would get an overcharge counter). While there would be a power boost to everyone in general (people going full red would also have some stronger backup skills), i think some skill players would not like this change as it takes a too much from them since people can invest in something else to get stronger skills, while this could help a bit with people trying out making hybrids.

    There's still the issue of how the game feels balanced around player having 6 reds for damage, yet they also expect him to have the health of 6 blues, and healing of a 6 yellow skills. So most people just went for 6 red since if you actually kill the enemy you shouldn't have to worry about him killing you first, they need to tone down extremes on enemies first before doing any kind of weird rework of the system, i would prefer they fix specialization and signature weapons that are just gathering dust and are honestly secondary or even thirdiary to making builds to make them fill the role of "classes" better
    Share this post

  3. #3
    Roflmao. This has to be the worst idea i have ever seen on the forums. So just give damage players these high damage skills that they can use to massively increase damage while yellow and blue builds still have zero weapon damage and take forever to kill everything. Lol.

    Here's an idea, if you want to mess around with skills get 6 pcs of skill tier gear and have your attributes be either damage and haste, repair and haste or status and haste. You can even mix them a bit seeing you apparently like hybrids. The setup for skills is fine currently, the issue is their functionality e.g. seekers disappearing after you toss or missing targets frequently, or npcs now moving around freely while under status effect. The other issue relates to ai health and armor vs. damage output of these skills.

    But moving to the system you propose will simply drive more players toward red builds. Most skill builds are already damage focused so what do you expect to happen if you make mortars and seekers a red tier build? Now skill builds can also hit 4 million headshots with an m1a. Sign everyone up
    Share this post

  4. #4
    Originally Posted by qpMaverickqp Go to original post
    But moving to the system you propose will simply drive more players toward red builds. Most skill builds are already damage focused so what do you expect to happen if you make mortars and seekers a red tier build? Now skill builds can also hit 4 million headshots with an m1a. Sign everyone up
    That's part of the reason I'm proposing this, though. I tend to look at game balance from the perspective of "how are people actually playing." If some people build all-red for damage and some build all-yellow also for damage, they are ostensibly making the same build. Yes, they're two different paths, but they lead to the same end goal - damage. In my view, trying to treat them as entirely separate builds is a distinction without a difference. Indeed, you'll notice I gave precisely this kind of example - a friend of mine who has an "all yellow" build specifically for the Mortar Turret. What he made is a damage build by another colour.

    Don't get me wrong - I don't claim that what I'm proposing would work with no for further rebalances. I knew going into this that it was going to be unpopular so there was only so much preparation I could put into a pure thought experiment. However, if Damage builds now also have high-Tier damage skills, then damage numbers (specifically damage buffs) would naturally need to be looked at. I'd argue they already do, but that's a separate conversation entirely. People will always gravitate towards damage builds - that's held true for every RPG (or game with RPG elements) I've ever played, whether it's actually practical or not. I don't think any amount of balance can change that, but I do think that granting wider availability to skills outside of dedicated "Skill Builds" could serve to add a bit more variety for those of us who look for that, if not necessarily diversity in the meta.

    I think you also misunderstand what I'm after here a bit, as well. I'm not actually looking for hybrid builds - far from it. I'm also not a Damage player looking for more power - quite the opposite. Right now, I'm sitting on an all-blue "Tank" build with a Repair Drone and a Foam Launcher. The changes proposed here wouldn't actually affect me all that much, other than disqualifying me for one of the abilities I rely one. Well, maybe not "disqualifying" but it would certainly not benefit my Foam Launcher, since that's an ability which by my design would scale off yellow Control Core Attributes. My goal here (beyond discussing a thought experiment) really is an attempt to let more people engage with the game's skill system in a meaningful fashion without having to specialise in them.



    Originally Posted by xcel30 Go to original post
    There's still the issue of how the game feels balanced around player having 6 reds for damage, yet they also expect him to have the health of 6 blues, and healing of a 6 yellow skills. So most people just went for 6 red since if you actually kill the enemy you shouldn't have to worry about him killing you first, they need to tone down extremes on enemies first before doing any kind of weird rework of the system, i would prefer they fix specialization and signature weapons that are just gathering dust and are honestly secondary or even thirdiary to making builds to make them fill the role of "classes" better
    No real disagreement here. As the game stands right now, it seems to encourage us to build almost exclusively for one thing if we want to see a meaningful impact, yet encounters seem scaled as though we have all three - even when solo. As stated, I run a heavy Tank build so I'm fairly good on damage mitigation, but the tradeoff for this is fairly lengthy firefights with a lot of mag-dumping into tanky enemies and bargain basement skills which hardly do much. Inversely, my friends running Damage builds (including the one running an all-Yellow but still Damage build) tend to have really satisfying DPS but end up facing SUCH high-stakes solo experience that it tends to turn them off playing by themselves. It feels like Massive redesigned The Division 2 as a traditional, early 2000s MMO with dedicated class roles. That does somewhat work on a team, but it does tend to make solo play fairly reductive.

    So you have a point. Player and enemy balance could use tweaks, ideally to somewhat reduce the reliance on all-red builds. I wouldn't be opposed to dropping enemy damage further, tweaking difficulties, etc. My thought experiment was more aimed at exploring ways of making skills more widely available, or rather at least more widely worth using. As it stands, only a small handful are worth even bothering with at Skill Tier 0, which is not something I can say about most other parts of the game.

    And a hard "agree" on Signature weapons. So far, I've only used the Minigun and the Flamethrower, and bother are criminally mediocre. Not BAD by any stretch, but certainly nothing to write home about. I'm led to believe most other Signature weapons share the same fate. That's a separate issue entirely, but I wouldn't be opposed to signature weapon buffs.
    Share this post