Please revisit the skill trees

What Redfish said.

Also, thank you for taking the time to explain yourself. While I'm still mildly confused as to what you're asking for (admittedly, our responses MIGHT be hindering that process), I'm glad to see you trying to help us understand.

A question: Would you be able to provide us with some sort of drawing or other visual that would illustrate to us what you'd like to see SotA doing with their skill tree? That may serve to clear up several misunderstandings.

When I have time, I'll take at look at "The Repopulation", and try to post some feedback after I've compared it to what you're saying.

 

Yea, but if we're just talking about the skill progression, its about the same. In UO you might increase your skill in Magery, but you still couldn't cast Fireball until after you could cast Magic Arrow. In SotA, you invest points in Fire Magic, and can cast Fire Arrow before Fireball.

Same thing with everything else. In UO, there was a Swordsmanship skill. In SotA, you're investing in a Blade's tree. They progress similarly, though.

The difference is in UO having a gain on use system, and thats an entirely different topic. I've read some comments suggesting that the devs have given some thought about how that might work in SotA as a backup plan.

 

That's not quite right I think. I mean sure, if you tried to raise your magery skill from zero you would have started with magic arrow maybe, but since you could buy the skill up to 30 points from a trainer there was effectively no reason to ever use magic arrow or even put it in your book. There was no system in place that made you get magic arrow to get to fireball.

 

Redfish example was little off: " you still couldn't cast Fireball until after you could cast Magic Arrow"

It would have been better if is said: You still couldn't cast flame strike until after you cast fireball

To be fair current skill tree are simulating that kind of skills development pretty good.

 

What If: combining the 2 glyphs of the same spell gave the one a tier up?

example if fire magic had the spells: Flame arrow, Fire breath(cone attack), Fireball(small area attack), Fire storm(large area attack).

so as beginner fire mage would place some skills in flame arrow. If he had enough glyphs in his deck he would often cast flame arrow and occasionally (when had the glyphs and situation was suitable)
he could combine two 'flame arrow' glyphs into one 'fire breath' glyph

 

Theoretically you could even get to Flamestrike without ever touching the fireball spell. But yea, I get what he's saying, in UO some spells are better than others and you need to be sufficiently skilled to cast them.

 

I am perfectly ok with having to invest points down a path to make it more powerful. Lightning, then Chain Lightning, then Massive Chain Lightning, etc. That makes sense is not likely to cause me to waste points on things I don't want in order to get what I want. What I object to is something like having to put points into Body Slam in order to improve my Heavy Armor skills, or Healthy in order to get Dual Wielding. That's not even logical. It's arbitrary and inefficient.

I appreciate that so many of you like it just fine the way it is and that's ok. I've heard a couple of acknowledgments that I have a point but I really haven't heard anyone attempt to address it, just "I like it like it is". That's ok, too, everyone's entitled to their feelings and opinions, but I guess we're not really advancing the conversation here. I'll try and start a parallel discussion on reddit and see what happens there.

Thanks, tho.

 

I also hate the fact that we need to take unwanted skills to get the ones we want. I also dislike the fact it forces us to specialize so. Give us a list of skills/spells and either make the amount of points we put into them gauge the amount of damage they do, or have them grow with use.

I would LOVE to see the UO system back, or something similar. Archeage does it great too...

 

Even in UO you got abilities you didn't really want on the way so there is no big difference in that aspect.

 

Yes and no, you did not HAVE to take a particular skill but there were definite skill synergies that required you to gain in some skills to make use of others properly - e.g. taming+animal lore, any weapon skill+anatomy+tactics, magery+eval int, etc. Yes you could be a mage with no eval int and cast gate spells but combat would suck.

Just about every MMO has synergistic or progresional skills.

 

Ok, an example that someone referenced above. In ArcheAge, there are level requirements to progress through a tree, but there are *no* prerequisites. I can start a tree with the fifth skill from the top, and then skip to the eighth, etc. This is much preferred not only because of its efficiency (I only have to spend points where I want then) but also creates a vastly more diverse set of builds. With the SotA system, every single heavy armor skill user is going to have to take Body Slam, etc. In ArcheAge, every single skill chosen by every single player can be unique, creating truly diverse character builds.

 

I was hoping a bit for a level-less system (to go along with the classless part)... Didn't happen, I was surprised and the same with skill trees being like they are.

Yes people can play them and still have fun but I find the urge to not do this style even more compelling. And it's not like this "alternative" doesn't have drawbacks unlike the skill system (UO) method.

I find Portalarium could have made a mistake by claiming that the UO system was not worth revisiting... Maybe... It's not impossible yet but not likely...

 

I find it amusing that so many IMMEDIATELY felt the need to jump on this thread and bash the OP. THIS is why the game suffers from such a serious lack of critical input from US, the core TESTERS. FEW will freely admit there could be a better way to implement something, even though it is an ALPHA BUILD. Or even just come out and say they don't like the direction something is headed in. IMHO the skill system is pretty bad in this game - yes its been improving, but is still a very long ways from writing home about. Instead of trying to explain to the blasphemer why they are so wrong and you are so right, maybe just take a minute and actually LISTEN to what they have to say. We should be EMBRACING this type of input on these forums. It's like free QA and it is sorely needed at this point (if the game is going to launch anywhere close to this year).

 

I agree that skills that are logically inconsistent as a requirement in a tree should be switched around or changed, but I do not feel the need for a totally free-form skill system. I do not think anyone was bashing the OP but maybe people tend to be a bit too resistant to criticism.

I hope they keep iterating the skill tree so that everything makes more sense, and the players will not feel like they are picking a useless skill, just to get further in the tree. Thank you for your patient approach Wanderlust. It is appreciated.

 

I agree totally with OP skill tree needs a lot of revision.
If we are going to have prerequisites at least there should have some consistency.
Anyone that tested Skill trees at 70 level knows you have to spend a lot of useless points in skills
you are never going to use, and that is weird. I cant remember a game with such a chaotic skill tree.

And finally I say SotA is not a "real classless game", Skill trees and prerequisites don't fit on a classless system.

 

I would argue it's totally a "class" based game, but it really can't be helped. No, you don't have to declare a class and subsequently be limited to using skills in that class, but to get the better skills in blades you have to forgo magic or ranged to a point. So if you want to be competitive you don't "declare" a class, but you need to "focus" on a particular tree.

From that point of view, even in UO we had classes... "tank-mage", "dexxer", etc.. Weren't those classes, albeit with more freedom?