Ideas to improve (and replace) the skill tree system

First I have to start by saying that I've never been a fan of skills trees and skill points. I've always been a fan of use-to-gain systems with structures for specializing in a specific area. I also like freedom to tweak certain things (like the deck config) with out the restriction of points or trees (but instead trade-offs). Based off of that, I've come up with what I think would be a great compliment to the innovative new deck combat system (which I love by the way!)


First, scrap the skill tree. Keep the groups, and do a little re-categorizing. Then implement a use-to-gain skill system similar to what I've outlined below, and a basic attribute system (also use-to-gain):

BASIC (PAERNT) SKILL GROUPS
Combat
Defense
Magic

SPECIALIZED (SUB) SKILL GROUPS
Combat:
Blades
Bludgeon
Polearms
Ranged
Shields (offensive only)
Defense:
Acrobatics (dodges, sprints, rolls, etc.)
Combat Defense (parries, blocks, counter-attacks)
Magic Defense (resistances)
Magic:
Air
Water
Fire
Earth
Life
Sun
Lunar
Death
Chaos

(note on shields: offensive cards such as Shield Slam, will belong to the Combat>Shields category, where’s defensive cards such as Shield Block, will belong to the Defense>Combat Defense category)

Remove armor from the skills because we should not need skill to wear armor. However, keep the advantages and disadvantages of wearing light vs. heavy (I talk about this later)

I won’t discuss crafting because I believe they were planning on using a skill system for that anyways.

SKILL GROUP LEVELS AND TIERS
-Basic and Specialized skill groups will range from 1-100 skill
-The option to increase the max skill for a group will be available via a questline for both basic and specialized skill groups
-Skill group caps can be increased to 110, and further to 120, incrementally (not straight from 100 to 120)
-Specialized skill groups will have tiers: Common (1-70ish), Advanced (70ish-100), Expert (100-110), and Master (110-120)
-Common tiers include cards that require skill only from its parent (basic) group to use in a players hand
Example: Thrust (Common) – Requires 20 Combat
-Advanced, Expert, and Master tiers will require skill from both the parent group, and sub group to use in a players hand
Example: Fireball (Advanced) – Requires 40 Magic, 70 Fire
Example: If a player has 40 Magic Skill, and 65 Fire Skill, they will have to wait until their skill in Fire is increased to 70 before they can use the card Fireball in their hand
-With minimal training in a basic group, a player will have access to all common tier cards in all sub groups (of the respective parent group)
Example: 20 Combat may give access to all common tier cards in Blades, Bludgeon, Polearms, Ranged, and Shields (offensive). But in order to gain access to the advanced tier cards in Polearms, a player must increase the skill level of that sub group to the required amount
-Skill group trainers can be hired by the player to teach them the basics, rewarding them with X amount of skill to start with
Example: A player with 0 skill wants to learn to fight with swords. He will hire a trainer to teach him combat, and then further his training to learn blades. In the end he may be rewarded with 20 Combat and 20 Blades skill.
-A player can only be trained to a certain point before they must continue to increase their skill level by using cards from that category
-Each groups (both basic and specialized) skill level will increase by using cards in that category
Example: Using the card Fireball (belongs to the basic group Magic, and specialized group Fire) will increase both the Magic and Fire skill group levels. Fizzles don’t count
-Specialized skill group levels will impact mostly the direct effectiveness of the card (damage, radius, effect, etc.). In other words, the higher your Fire group skill, the better Fire cards will be
-Basic skill group levels will mostly impact the general success functions of the card (fizzle chance, focus cost, hit/miss, block chance, etc.). The higher your skinll in the Magic or Combat skill group, the better the cards in those groups will function
-Increasing the cap of a skill group from 100 to 110, or 110 to 120 will introduce new perks
Example#1: +1% chance (per every level over 110 for a max of +10%) to do double damage when using a card from that group
Example#2: +5% chance (per every two levels over 100, for a max of 25%) for a card in that group to cost 50% less focus when used
This should encourage players to specialized their skills

CARDS
-A player starts with a certain number of common cards from each category
-In order to obtain new cards, a player must purchase them from card dealers and add them to their deck. They can be purchased separately, or in packs. Some cards can be found fighting monsters or in treasure chests. Some may be rewards from quests. Some may even be craftable. All cards will be tradeable
-All players may add a maximum of 5 of the same card to their deck (you can do this from the start, and is never limited). However a player must own multiple copies of the card to add the desired amount to their deck
-All cards belong to a basic (parent) skill group, and a specialized (sub) skill group
Example#1: Thrust – Combat, Blades
Example#2: Fireball – Magic, Fire
-In addition to belonging to basic and specialized skill groups, all cards belong to a specialized group tier (Common, Advanced, Expert, or Master)
-All cards have a minimum required skill level (from either only basic, or both basic and specialized groups) in order to be used in a player’s hand
Example#1: Thrust – Requires 20 Combat
Example#2: Fireball – Requires 40 Magic, 70 Fire
-All cards have a target (or preferred) skill level in order to be used effectively in a player’s hand
Example: A player with 40 Magic Skill, and 70 Fire Skill, may use the card Fireball in their hand. However, the card may fizzle more often, do less damage, have reduced draw chance, or have reduced effect. If Fireball required a target skill level of 50 Magic Skill, and 75 Fire Skill, and a player had 65 Magic Skill, and 80 Fire Skill, the card will likely never fizzle, have no penalties and be much more effective
-Basic and Specialized group minimum/target skill requirements will each affect the cards effectiveness differently
Example: Basic skill may affect the chance to fizzle, focus cost, hit/miss, penalties to draw/discard speed, or draw chance. Whereas specialized skill may affect the damage, range, radius, and effect of the card (stun, knockback, slow, etc.). If the player above with 40 Magic Skill, and 70 Fire Skill decides to use the Fireball card in their hand, they may see a reduced chance at drawing the card, it may discard quicker, or the explosion radius may be slightly reduced. If said player were to reach the target skill level (or higher), they would likely not see much (if any) penalty to their card and would likely never fizzle
-Obviously there will be sometype of cap on the total amount of skill points you can have

DECK CONFIGURATION
I really believe the deck configuration is going to be completely personal preference. There will be many advantages and disadvantages to a slower draw speed/high discard speed, vise-versa, etc. I believe the player should have freedom (with trade-offs) to tweak their deck how they wish to suit their play style or the situation. This is how I’d like to see the deck configuration window (with no restrictions from skill points or skill trees, only trade-offs)

Deck Size Minimum: 20 (less cards will introduce slugs, like it is currently)
Hand Size (Select: 4-9)
Draw:Lock Slots (Default [assuming a hand size of 8]: Draw=8, Lock=0) Will Always default to 1:0
Example: Linear slider that will start to the left (Default)
If moved to the center [assuming a hand size of 8]: Draw=4, Lock=4)
If moved to the right [assuming a hand size of 8]: Draw=0, Lock=8)
Draw:Lock Cost (Default: Draw=1.0xFocusCost, Lock=2.0xFocusCost + Cooldown) Will always default to 1:2
Example: Linear slider that will start to the left (Default)
If moved to the center: Draw=1.5xFocusCost, Lock=1.5xFocusCost
If moved to the right: Draw=2.0xFocusCost, Lock=1.0xFocusCost
Draw Speed: Pick from the list
Discard Speed: Pick from the list

ARMOR PENALTIES AND SLUGS
Remove the slug penalty from armor. It’s silly and I believe there are much better ways to encourage or discourage the use of different types of armor
Example#1: Heavy armor makes for slower movement and/or attack speed with increased defense/resistance etc. It may also reduce the rate at which focus is generated and the chance cards from the magic group have to fizzle. Counter this by specializing in combat and defensive skill (the higher they get, the more attack/movement speed you might receive) or raising your Dexterity. Trade-off: unless you also specialized in magic skill, you will probably fizzle cards from that group more often
Example#2: Similar idea for light armor except pretty much the opposite. You get the idea.

ATTRITBUTES
Introduce the basic Str, Dex, Int system. Keep it simple. Increased by using skills (depending on their group), crafting, harvesting, etc. Give it a total cap and cap per attribute. Str = life, melee dmg. Dex = speed (attack and move), range damage. Int = focus, magic damage. You get the idea here, something along those lines.


Pretty much a mash-up of The SoTA deck combat system, Hearthstones deck building system and UOs skill and spellbook system.

 

I admit I haven't read that entire proposal, but let me just say I HATE use-to-gain systems. They're grindy. They force you to use things that should be saved for special occasions all the time, just so you can be good at them when you actually need them.

The absolutely worst part of the Elder Scroll games was jumping everywhere to increase athletics, casting spells when you didn't need to just to bring up a skill. Casting illusion spells randomly in town, because you needed to make your illusion skill stronger.

Yeeeuuuck!

I'll pass.

 

I understand your points completely. I'm not suggesting a long, grindy system like what you have mentioned with countless categories and skills. I'm suggesting a more condensed system where your everyday battles will directly increase your skill level without the need to do random tedious actions. To clarify, jumping will not increase atheltics. Because athletics has to do with defensive combat techniques such as Dodging, Sprinting, Rolling, Side-Stepping, or Ducking a Blow. Therefore, anytime you fight anyone or anything, you are almost guaranteed gains in those categories, all of which increase Defense as a main category. You will be motivated to fight, not jump on your neighbors trampoline.

The problem I have with skill trees is this:

What motivation to I have to fight the random encounters, or the monsters I come across while traveling, if I know I won't gain anything from it? If I knew that taking 30 seconds to fight the Giant Spider that just attacked me might give me a few points increase to my favorite skills, I'll probably fight him. Otherwise, I'm just going to run passed it and not waste my time.

 

Moving to Skills sub forum.

 

First I would like to respond to your reasoning above. When I am playing a game, and I have achieved MAX level (in games that use levels, and thus the skill tree is COMPLETE, with no chance of me gaining anything) I still engage random creatures in combat. The reason I do this is that it's FUN. I like using my character's complex system of abilities, that I painstakingly put together. Frequently there is some reason (storyline or economic gain come to mind) but often on my way from one place to another I will leap from my horse, speeder, gecko, car, motorcycle, or whatnot to run screaming into combat with... whoever those guys were. Then loot them, remount, and ride off to my actual destination. I will fight through hordes of them if they are hostile and "in my way", and if there aren't any, I will occasionally go looking. I don't have to get a progress point any more than I have to NEED the refresher course in "how to use your sword".

The advantage of skill trees is that each point can contribute to an overall build, sometimes with the FIRST ability you purchase being fundamental to your character design. In many use to skill systems, the first 90% of the skill is just filler, attempting to imitate the long road to mastery, but really just being a time dump, a grind.

So, suffice to say, I kinda disagree with you on this.

Now, totally other point, I don't like how you divvy up shields. I wouldn't mind shield use being solely in the defense category, I wouldn't mind it being in the weapon category. But I don't like the idea of having to practice two skill sets to use one item. I just do NOT buy the idea of a master shield defender, who has no clue how to attack with his shield, and I am even less impressed with the idea of a master shield ATTACKER, to whom it never occurs that a shield can be used to block. Thus I point out that regardless of where you put it, the shield skill, origin of all shield MOVES, should be a single skill. Let the individual players customizing their build decide what they use the shield for, and how they go about it.

 

Running is a valid approach to an encounter

Sometimes you might not be able to run, and sometimes you might want the loot. Ultimately, it doesn't make much sense to fight random monsters just to increase your skills ; it makes sense to have a real-world motive. Not sure how your system is different on this from that in the game though, since if you fight in the game, it should increase your level, allowing you to add skill points.

The best arguments for your system is a bit more flexibility and a bit more realism imo.

 

I love skills that raise while you use them...It makes sense...and the layout you have here is very detailed and great!

I am the first to say I hate 'Grindy' systems that force you to cast spells for no good reason. Giving them reason to be cast is how they should raise...Hence you should have to be in a battle for your fireball spell to raise when you use it.

I am not a fan of just getting a pool of points you can use to raise whatever un-related skill you want to as it makes no sense as to what my character has been working. Skills that increase should be directly related to what your character is doing, as that makes the most sense.

Level based systems are too easy to Max out. The fun and longevity of an MMO is the ability to forever improve your character. With Levels it's easy to finish...hence finish the game and have nothing else to look forward to!

 

OK im going to chime in here now, im a firm believer of gaining skill based on what you do instead of points you put in, crafter and warrior or mage alike, if i cast healing stuff mostly and boosts, then i should have a higher rating (% ) to perform that than someone that only fishes, shoots arrows. as far as crafting if i do metal work more often than i do wood work, then i should have a higher rating in metal work than a woodworker does and vice versus. Yeah it may seem like a grind but lets be honest here if i hardly do one skill why should i be good at it? So everyone can have skills? Thats dumb since there will be a lot of other skills i will never use.
This system would be better for players for one simple reason, they would be valuable. If i want to get some healing potions i would go to an alchemist to make them (another player) and purchase them (economy in the game) Others would come to me, to have me blacksmith them the best weapons since that would be my skill (economy again) that i work on the most. Crafting skill and economy can go hand in hand. Personally i would rather buy from a player than am NPC. They did say that we as players would be making the best weapons and armor if i remember correctly, hence no fighting or battling grind to get the best gear etc..
So thats what i have as far as this thread. Before blatantly disagreeing with things think it through, and come up with an explanation why its not a good idea.

So i totally agree with the OP