Note that the skill tree that you see is a passive skill tree. Ones active skills come in the form of gems which drop in game or is offered as a quest rewards. Once socketed in the right colored socket in a piece of gear, does it become an active skill which is usable (it levels up and gains power; but also has level and stat restrictions on them).
And while it looks massive at first, once you start playing all the classes, the node patterns for each of those classes start becoming clearer as to which path leads more to damage, more to health, more to resource regeneration, or taking paths to balance these out.
With the exception of base vitality and evasion percentage, you attain your other stats (strength, dexterity, intelligence) and any other additional life increases from this passive skill tree. And in some parts of that tree, it is filled with filler 10+ (to str, dex, int) before you can get to the node that you want.
My first character started during open beta turned out to be a mess (passive tree was given a full respec at release last week but I’m not playing it anyway since I re-rolled over on the Domination league).
I need to be honest, even that passive skill tree is just an illusion of character customization. It’s only slightly better in that it does offer a bit more granularity. Reason I say that is if one has any intention of playing end game maps with any sort of efficiency, the reality is that players will go look up the latest flavor of the month/cookie cutter builds and put their skills points into nearly the same portions of the tree.
Furthermore, as one progresses, similar RNG issues that have been the complaints with D3 become apparent. And just as how players chase after certain stats, it isn’t very different in PoE (like a 6 socket chest piece where you then have to craft/gamble to get the right colors and links).
The biggest difference is that any class in PoE can really play a style far outside its intended build path if one chooses to move in that direction (it will be viable but not necessarily efficient unless they’ve properly theorycrafted and did the math on their skill allotments). So yes, if I wanted to play a ranged bow wielding marauder, it is possible. In this respect, one can then appreciate the breadth of the passive skill tree which allowed you to build a really oddball character.
The reality though is that only a small percentage of players will invest their time in using the skill tree in that manner. PoE’s main demographic is the competitive hardcore hack-n-slasher (thus the reason for why there are season races, challenges, ladders). The D3 devs have made it clear this isn’t the direction of the game (thus no punishing passive skill permanence, “end game for everyone”, overall reduction of complexity). Honestly, the most casual players (the ones who normally just play the first difficulty and progress no further) would rage quit playing PoE because the game play becomes more unforgiving as the difficulty scales if you made wrong choices in your passive skills AND don’t have the right gear/gems to support what you are trying to accomplish.
Myself, I’m just playing (completely self-found in terms of not trading for items/gear) and seeing how far I can get based on my choices (as opposed at copying someone elses build). In that respect, it’s highly likely that as my characters reach end game content (my highest is currently playing through Act 3 of Cruel difficulty w/o much problems except that I have to still play tactically since I don’t have enough damage output to take out monsters in one hit), they won’t be able to do those end game maps effectively. As a matter of fact, I already know that not trading for gear, that Merciless will end up feeling like how Inferno difficulty was at the start when it came to the Act 2 wall.
Thus while a portion of the D3 player base would like to see this type of skill tree, it’s highly unlikely they’ll go down that path for the remainder of this game. Also, they’ve already made it clear that with Diablo, that it’s a game which isn’t going to see a lot of content updates (which will be primarily in the form of an expansion like RoS).
This is one of the biggest understated difference between it and PoE when it comes to player engagement. PoE’s operations (server and bandwidth doesn’t come cheap) comes from microtransactions (thus totally different business model from Blizzard). Daily deals (even if they are rotating) has players engaged every day.
Furthermore, as the next season races begin, that too will engage players. They also plan on minor content updates (like new skill gems and cosmetic effects) every two weeks as well as larger content updates (first major one is next week). This continual engagement is important because it keeps players coming back and unsurprisingly, spending money in a very different way (for cosmetic effects or added stash space for example).
Thus at least for me, if there is one inspiration they could utilize from PoE, is somehow incorporating microtransaction content which creates this form of engagement. This requires a completely different mindset though and may not fit within Blizzard’s current business model.
