Felgor wrote on Feb 21
st, 2012 at 10:57pm:
I remember that now.
Anyone else want to comment on the ability trees on Kingdoms in comparison to the mock ups on the DDO forums?
They look almost identical. You get three trees ("Might", "Finesse", and "Sorcery"), and each has about a dozen or so abilities/boosts arranged in rows, that require a certain amount of points spent in-tree (it scales up faster than 5 per row, though). Each has from 3 to 6 possible levels that can bought up. Many are linked together in columns by lines. They're even shaped according to whether they are passive or active, much like DDO (square and circle instead of hexagon and square, respectively).
The Destinies system is kind of sort of like the free PrE-tiers. You can choose a Destiny once you've spent enough points in the trees. There are pure-"class" Destinies, but also hybrids (approximately even split among two trees), and a Jack of all trades (even split among all three).
Biggest differences from the proposed DDO trees are that there are only three trees, period. Not three per class or whatever that you choose among. Your tree-point allocation is basically like a multiclass split. It's a lot more limited in build options than DDO, but from what I've heard, more flexible than most CRPGs/MMOs. The balance between the trees in Amalur is quite good. Finesse is on the weaker side, but still very much within the ballpark of the others. Balance compared to the content is a different story; the challenge is really lacking, especially if you use the crafting systems to their full potential.
A minor difference: the DDO proposal requires points spent in a successor enhancement to be less than or equal to the prerequisite enhancement. In Amalur, a single point opens up full access to the higher ability.
Overall I've definitely been enjoying it. Haven't played DDO much recently...