Signature skill - Revision history

MrFrye at 23:21, 12 August 2011

2011-08-12T23:21:25Z

Flux: /* References */

2011-02-17T23:13:06Z

‎References

Flux: /* References */

2010-11-14T10:53:11Z

‎References

Leord at 14:43, 16 September 2009

2009-09-16T14:43:43Z

Bran Maniac at 21:03, 11 September 2009

2009-09-11T21:03:47Z

Leord at 16:21, 9 September 2009

2009-09-09T16:21:24Z

Leord: Typo

2009-09-02T15:44:58Z

Typo

Leord: Added links

2009-09-02T15:44:30Z

Added links

Bran Maniac: /* Signature Skills Listing */

2009-08-29T18:26:08Z

‎Signature Skills Listing

Flux at 12:43, 25 June 2009

2009-06-25T12:43:11Z

@@ Line 68: / Line 68: @@
-{{Master Nav|skill}}
+{{Skill_navbox_Diablo_III|Barbarian}}
 [[category:skills]]
 [[category:reference]]

@@ Line 68: / Line 68: @@
-{{Template:Skill navbox}}
+{{Master Nav|skill}}
 [[category:skills]]
 [[category:reference]]

@@ Line 67: / Line 67: @@
 * [[WWI_2008:_Denizens_of_Diablo_Panel#Signature_Skills|WWI 2008: Denizens of Diablo Panel]]
 [[category:skills]]
 [[category:reference]]

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 ==Overview==
-The team describes signature skills as the skills that really define the characters, and it's through developing these skills that the design team comes to understand just how that character is to be played and what sort of space they will occupy in the game world.
+The team describes signature skills [http://www.diablowiki.net/WWI_2008:_Denizens_of_Diablo_Panel#Signature_Skills] as the skills that really define the characters, and it's through developing these skills that the design team comes to understand just how that character is to be played and what sort of space they will occupy in the game world.
-For instance, the design goal of the [[Barbarian|Diablo III Barbarian]] is to make a huge, powerful, thundering brute of a [[melee]] fighter. So his signature skills are things that crush hordes of enemies in front of him, shake the entire screen, rip holes in the earth, etc.
+For instance, the design goal of the [[Barbarian|Diablo III Barbarian]] is to make a huge, powerful, thundering brute of a [[melee]] fighter. So his signature skills are things that crush hordes of enemies in front of him, shake the entire screen, rip holes in the earth, etc. [[Wizard]]s are deadly, reckless mages, so their signature skills are spells that wreak massive havoc upon monsters with fire, cold, and other elements.
 [[Passive skill]]s are never "signature skills." Even though passive skills can be essential and powerful, they're not visually impressive enough to be named a "signature skill."
 ==Signature Skills Debut==
 The first reference to signature skills came at the WWI 2008, during [[WWI_2008:_Denizens_of_Diablo_Panel#Signature_Skills|the Denizens of Diablo Panel]]. In that discussion, [[Jay Wilson]] detailed the concept of signature skills and showed off a couple of examples.
@@ Line 62: / Line 62: @@
 ** [[Blizzard]]
 ** [[Disintegrate]]
 [[category:skills]]
 [[category:reference]]

@@ Line 53: / Line 53: @@
-'''Skills that are basically signature skills'''
+'''Skills that are generally regarded as unofficial signature skills:'''
 * [[Barbarian skill]]
 ** [[Whirlwind]]

@@ Line 41: / Line 41: @@
 ==Signature Skills Listing==
-There's no full listing of signature skills, since it's just a descriptive term the team uses to refer to some of the skills possessed by each character. Any impressive, active skill that seems uniquely tied to the character who possesses it is a good candidate for this expression.
+There's no full official listing of signature skills, since it's just a descriptive term the team uses to refer to some of the skills possessed by each character. Any impressive, active skill that seems uniquely tied to the character who possesses it is a good candidate for this expression.
 [[category:skills]]
 [[category:reference]]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-"Signature Skills" is a term used by the [[D3 Team]] to refer to the most important, visual, significant skills possessed by each of the playable characters in Diablo III. As the team describes it, these skills really define the characters, and it's through developing these skills that the design team comes to understand just how that character is to be played and what sort of space they will occupy in the game world.
+'''Signature Skills''' is a term used by the [[D3 Team]] to refer to the most important, visual, significant skills possessed by each of the playable classes in [[Diablo III]].
 For instance, the design goal of the Diablo III Barbarian is to make a huge, powerful, thundering brute of a melee fighter. So his signature skills are things that crush hordes of enemies in front of him, shake the entire screen, rip holes in the earth, etc.
 [[Passive skill]]s are never "signature skills." Even though passive skills can be essential and powerful, they're not visually impressive enough to be named a "signature skill."
@@ Line 10: / Line 14: @@
 The first reference to signature skills came at the WWI 2008, during [[WWI_2008:_Denizens_of_Diablo_Panel#Signature_Skills|the Denizens of Diablo Panel]]. In that discussion, [[Jay Wilson]] detailed the concept of signature skills and showed off a couple of examples.
-::'''Jay Wilson''': These are where we bring the design and art together. We focus on a small set of skills, and poick ones that are very cool to work on. By this we focus on defining a character's essential nature. When we star to work on a character, we can sit in a room and come up with 100 skills. Ideas for them isn't hard. We don't make them all though. We figure which are really cool and defining of that character, and those are the ones we pursue. We have a saying, "don't balance too soon" The goal here isn't to crate a skill that's fair and balanced gameplay. The point is to make a skill that people will think awesome. And that can be edited by worrying about balancing it too soon.
+::'''Jay Wilson''': These are where we bring the design and art together. We focus on a small set of skills, and pick ones that are very cool to work on. By this we focus on defining a character's essential nature. When we start to work on a character, we can sit in a room and come up with 100 skills. Ideas for them isn't hard. We don't make them all though. We figure which are really cool and defining of that character, and those are the ones we pursue. We have a saying, "don't balance too soon". The goal here isn't to crate a skill that's fair and balanced gameplay. The point is to make a skill that people will think awesome. And that can be edited by worrying about balancing it too soon.
 ::I'm not trying to trivialize balance. It's important; but not too soon. Don't balance at the beginning. At the beginning you're trying to make the heroes as awesome as possible. One cool thing that happens is that we have an arms race between the characters as we design them. The first one is awesome, and then we make the next one a little bit more awesome. So we have to go back to the first one and up their awesomeness, and back and forth. It makes them better and better over time.
-::Barbarian: Seismic Slam
+::[[Barbarian]]: [[Seismic Slam]]
 ::This is a skill where barb raises weapon over head. Slams it down. Anything in front of him gets rocked and destroyed. This skill was first skill we made for Barb, and one of the first we did in the game. Getting it right took longer than it did with most skills. We did many iterations. Animation especially. Had to make barb feel physically powerful. Traditionally we associate big bold movements with power. But if you want a game that feels fast and responsive, you want the movements to be really fast. Getting balance of fast movements and powerful feel. It's a big challenge in many ways to get that animation right.
@@ Line 20: / Line 24: @@
 ::Once we got through all that, we didn't still didn't really like the skill. We got programming done and wasn't that great. Got effects done, and still not that great. Somehow didn't quite sing to us. Wasn't until we got sound that it was really awesome. Really fun. Key to that was faith to get through process. Once you do get through it, all the skills that come after that come much quicker. What's the Barbarian about? Look at Seismic Slam. With that he rocks the world with power. Next few skills we did almost required no communication between art and programming, since art knew what the barb was about. Knew what we were designing for, since we had a great example.
-::Witch Doctor: Firebomb
+::[[Witch Doctor]]: [[Firebomb]]
-::Interesting evolution of this skill. It was one of our first skills for him. Originally it was a sort of fireball spell; when cast it traveled in a direct line from the WD to the target and would hit anything in the path. It exploded nicely. Explosions are cool. Everyone likes them.
+::Interesting evolution of this skill. It was one of our first skills for him. Originally it was a sort of fireball spell; when cast it travelled in a direct line from the WD to the target and would hit anything in the path. It exploded nicely. Explosions are cool. Everyone likes them.
 ::Problem was, not really problem, but we've all seen that kind of Fireball spell before. The artists came back said we didn't imagine him that way. We saw Firebomb as more of a physical magic. Like concocting some alchemical recipe in a skull and hurling that, and it explodes.
@@ Line 28: / Line 32: @@
 ::Once it was a physical projectile designers liked. It became a physical thing to throw, could go over walls. Become different tactics and use. Great example of how art and design can work together to iterate to make cool skill.
-::Last thing artists wanted to do was put the image of the witch doctor into the fire effect. When fire goes off it's big form of his hands and face in the flame. We thought that idea was so cool that we put that into the graphics of his other skills. Horrify, Mass Confuse. Just shows how one skill can inform whole class.
+::Last thing artists wanted to do was put the image of the witch doctor into the fire effect. When fire goes off it's big form of his hands and face in the flame. We thought that idea was so cool that we put that into the graphics of his other skills. [[Horrify]], [[Mass Confuse]]. Just shows how one skill can inform whole class.
 ::This is how we develop skills. Rinse and repeat this idea. First few are hard and time consuming, but the rest come easier and makes for a really cool character.

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:43, 25 June 2009
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	#~~redirect~~ [[signature skills]]	+	"Signature Skills" is a term used by the [[D3 Team]] to refer to the most important, visual, significant skills possessed by each of the playable characters in Diablo III. As the team describes it, these skills really define the characters, and it's through developing these skills that the design team comes to understand just how that character is to be played and what sort of space they will occupy in the game world.
		+
		+	For instance, the design goal of the Diablo III Barbarian is to make a huge, powerful, thundering brute of a melee fighter. So his signature skills are things that crush hordes of enemies in front of him, shake the entire screen, rip holes in the earth, etc.
		+
		+	[[Passive skill]]s are never "signature skills." Even though passive skills can be essential and powerful, they're not visually impressive enough to be named a "signature skill."
		+
		+
		+	==Signature Skills Debut==
		+
		+	The first reference to signature skills came at the WWI 2008, during [[WWI_2008:_Denizens_of_Diablo_Panel#Signature_Skills\|the Denizens of Diablo Panel]]. In that discussion, [[Jay Wilson]] detailed the concept of signature skills and showed off a couple of examples.
		+
		+	::'''Jay Wilson''': These are where we bring the design and art together. We focus on a small set of skills, and poick ones that are very cool to work on. By this we focus on defining a character's essential nature. When we star to work on a character, we can sit in a room and come up with 100 skills. Ideas for them isn't hard. We don't make them all though. We figure which are really cool and defining of that character, and those are the ones we pursue. We have a saying, "don't balance too soon" The goal here isn't to crate a skill that's fair and balanced gameplay. The point is to make a skill that people will think awesome. And that can be edited by worrying about balancing it too soon.
		+
		+	::I'm not trying to trivialize balance. It's important; but not too soon. Don't balance at the beginning. At the beginning you're trying to make the heroes as awesome as possible. One cool thing that happens is that we have an arms race between the characters as we design them. The first one is awesome, and then we make the next one a little bit more awesome. So we have to go back to the first one and up their awesomeness, and back and forth. It makes them better and better over time.
		+
		+	::Barbarian: Seismic Slam
		+
		+	::This is a skill where barb raises weapon over head. Slams it down. Anything in front of him gets rocked and destroyed. This skill was first skill we made for Barb, and one of the first we did in the game. Getting it right took longer than it did with most skills. We did many iterations. Animation especially. Had to make barb feel physically powerful. Traditionally we associate big bold movements with power. But if you want a game that feels fast and responsive, you want the movements to be really fast. Getting balance of fast movements and powerful feel. It's a big challenge in many ways to get that animation right.
		+
		+	::Once we got through all that, we didn't still didn't really like the skill. We got programming done and wasn't that great. Got effects done, and still not that great. Somehow didn't quite sing to us. Wasn't until we got sound that it was really awesome. Really fun. Key to that was faith to get through process. Once you do get through it, all the skills that come after that come much quicker. What's the Barbarian about? Look at Seismic Slam. With that he rocks the world with power. Next few skills we did almost required no communication between art and programming, since art knew what the barb was about. Knew what we were designing for, since we had a great example.
		+
		+	::Witch Doctor: Firebomb
		+
		+	::Interesting evolution of this skill. It was one of our first skills for him. Originally it was a sort of fireball spell; when cast it traveled in a direct line from the WD to the target and would hit anything in the path. It exploded nicely. Explosions are cool. Everyone likes them.
		+
		+	::Problem was, not really problem, but we've all seen that kind of Fireball spell before. The artists came back said we didn't imagine him that way. We saw Firebomb as more of a physical magic. Like concocting some alchemical recipe in a skull and hurling that, and it explodes.
		+
		+	::Once it was a physical projectile designers liked. It became a physical thing to throw, could go over walls. Become different tactics and use. Great example of how art and design can work together to iterate to make cool skill.
		+
		+	::Last thing artists wanted to do was put the image of the witch doctor into the fire effect. When fire goes off it's big form of his hands and face in the flame. We thought that idea was so cool that we put that into the graphics of his other skills. Horrify, Mass Confuse. Just shows how one skill can inform whole class.
		+
		+	::This is how we develop skills. Rinse and repeat this idea. First few are hard and time consuming, but the rest come easier and makes for a really cool character.
		+
		+	[[Image:Skill_witchdoctor_firebomb.jpg\|frame\|center\|Sequence of Witch Doctor casting Skull of Flame, which was formerly called "Firebomb."]]
		+
		+
		+	==Signature Skills Listing==
		+
		+	There's no full listing of signature skills, since it's just a descriptive term the team uses to refer to some of the skills possessed by each character. Any impressive, active skill that seems uniquely tied to the character who possesses it is a good candidate for this expression.
		+
		+
		+	[[category:skills]]
		+	[[category:reference]]