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[Dev Blog #2] Your Skills, Your Creation

11K View2021-12-10

As we mentioned in the first dev blog, open-ended hero building is core to the Torchlight: Infinite gameplay in encouraging player creativity. We have a series of dev blogs in the coming months to illustrate everything that goes into this process. In this dev blog, let’s take a close look at the game’s skill system.

From Great to Greater

In Torchlight II, each of the three class-specific skill trees consists of 11 skills - eight active and three passive. In this system, players are able to create a number of different builds as they progressively allocate more points to their skills and infuse them with new and more powerful gears.

Now, what if the skills themselves could also be modified? What if we gave “Chromatic Shot” more projectiles or penetrating arrows, or we increased its speed with a devastating AOE that’d damage multiple enemies at once?

These, among an expansive list of “what ifs,” became the primary inspiration behind our design for the new skill system in Torchlight: Infinite, ultimately giving players more freedom to spec and fine tune their heroes with exciting new skills.

DIY “Chromatic Shot”

Skills in Torchlight: Infinite can be categorized into Active Skills and Support Skills, with the latter designed for players to make elaborate modifications to the form, effect, and damage output of their Active Skills.

Let’s look at “Chromatic Shot” again: this Active Skill shoots three tracking arrows by default, dealing physical, fire, lightning, cold, and chaos damage on impact.

With Support Skills “Greater Multiple Projectiles” and “Wind Projectiles” equipped, the modified “Chromatic Shot” now shoots seven arrows with increased speed with target-tracking ability.

Now comes the tough decision: what do you prefer for your “Chromatic Shot?” Lighting your foes on fire with “Fire Explosion,” freezing them with “Freeze Chance,” or even giving up any status effect altogether to deal greater elemental damage with “Elemental Fusion?”

Decisions like this are how you end up with your own custom skill: whether it’s “Chromatic Shot” that causes negative status conditions, “Ring of Ice” with a broader damage radius and freeze effect, or “Hammer of Ash” that shatters the battleground into multiple lava trails!