Please revisit the skill trees

Its hard to believe that in 2015 a major MMO release would present a hierarchical skill tree that requires traversal through many unrelated skills in order to reach a particular skill. Skill points are extremely limited and it rankles every efficiency bone in my body that I have to spend them on things I explicitly do NOT want in order to get the skill I do want. Even WoW mitigates this by offering access to skills by tier attainment but here I have to slog through everything on the way to what I want, even if I will never use it.

DISAPPOINTMENT!

 

It does limit hybridization a little though, which i think is its intended purpose. I don't recall too many unrelated pre-requisites, though there are some i dont use that i only got to get something else.

 

Just because you saw you wont use does NOT men you didn't have to train on it to learn a higher skill, Sorry but before you impale someone you need to learn how to pierce something, before you learn how to hit everything around you, you need to learn how to do a double swing, In order to knock something back . etc..

As for spells before you can cast a fire ball you need to learn how to make your fist flame up ...

Asking to be able to learn to throw a fire ball without learning lower skills or doing some of the special without learning minor skills is jut not how things work.

 

This seems a little disjointed to me.

Any game that I can think of has some degree of linear progression. I mean, for pity's sake, your quote "a hierarchical skill tree that requires traversal through many unrelated skills in order to reach a particular skill" defines a "Class" in most MMOs, almost to a tee. And it doesn't get any better by pointing out the "mitigation" factors, really. I mean, MOBAs let you pick what order you get your abilities in, but in most cases, you're still stuck with the same skills at level cap. A skill in UO may let you choose how many points put into it, but you don't get to pick which abilities are granted by those skill points; that's defined by the # of points. And I'm genuinely struggling for a 'recent' release that doesn't follow this same general principle in some way (please feel free to cite an example, I'd like to know!). Linear progression is just part of it. Look at it this way: how are we measuring our progress in any game? By a series of numbers! And numbers have a linear progression. See how this all comes full circle?

I understand the want for efficiency, but I think there's a difference between "finding the best way to use your resources" and "picking whatever the heck you want". If that's the only thing that we all wanted, then we all could just have a joint storytelling session.

Of course, then we'd feel silly for all the pledge money we spent, eh?

 

As a chaser to my earlier post...

Perhaps a more constructive use of the OP's time would be to provide feedback on what else they'd like to see in the skill trees? I'm always interested to hear new ideas, and I'm certain the Devs would agree!

 

WoW has skill trees where you have to go through tiers. So does SWTOR. So does ESO.

I'm confused why you think a modern MMO would never do this.

What specifically do you want to see different? Can you clarify with an example how you would change it?

 

In a way, if you're comparing this to UO I can see his point. In UO were we not able to choose any skill without a prerequisite? We just "used" it and it went up regardless of whatever else we had. Or am I remembering it wrong? (it's been a long time, I may be, lol)

I also tend to remember in a video someone saying "there are no forced skills, train what you like", as well as "there are no levels in SoTA". What happened to this?

 

My issue is not with linear progression per se, it's with progression on rails as opposed to selection. If I want to decrease my fizzle chance, I have to take all the skills down that tree to get to the bottom, regardless of whether the skills on the way are related to fizzling or not.

Compare this to the skill trees in any number of MMO's lately. Let's take everyone's favorite whipping boy, ArcheAge, for example. Say I want Stealth. I do have to wait until I'm level 20 to get the skill, but I don't have to take a single skill in the Shadowplay tree prior to that, I can skip all of them and simply take stealth, saving my precious skill points for other skills I want anywhere in any tree. If I respec, I can allocate every one of my skill points to any individual skill in any tree without any prerequisites whatsoever. This is not revolutionary, it is common in modern MMOs.

Forcing the player to spend skill points on skills he doesn't want for his build just to get at a skill he wants at the bottom of the tree necessarily limits the number of builds mathematically possible, reducing diversity and causing efficiency heartburn. And for what game purpose? Did someone seriously argue "realism" in a fantasy RPG whose purpose is to provide fun and entertainment? When realism competes with fun, fun should always trump.

Seriously, guys, this skill tree is horrible and so 1990's. It's not a deal breaker but, if this exemplifies the kind of design decisions Shroud has to offer, the game risks becoming Tabula Rasa II.

 

I can see what you are saying, though could have left out the insults at the bottom. As it is, it seems harsh during lower levels, but once you hit level 60 you have enough points for some nice builds, and breaching the level 80 marks gives you enough points that you find yourself putting them into skills you never even felt that you needed.

 

Plenty of other examples, too. Someone mentioned WoW. Even there, when you take x number of points in a tree (5), you get to choose one of several at the next tier. And that game is 11 years old. Rift is similar. And omg, look at the choices presented in the Path of Exile skill tree! Linear, yes, but seemingly infinitely variable.

SotA forces you to take everything on the way to the one skill you want, whether it furthers your build concept or not. That is just not fun. Why have prerequisites at all? Let users pick any skill from any tree and let them make the build of their choice. Think of the diversity, think of the thematic consistency with UO, where skills were chosen and leveled based on your ACTIONS, not a forced linear path. For one of the best examples, check out The Repopulation, one of the best new sandbox games in pre-alpha, where the only way to gain and level skills is to choose the skill books you want and then USE THE SKILLS. Nothing forced, total freedom, vast diversity.

Please reconsider this, guys. I really want SotA to be successful.

 

I'm not being insulting I'm being very direct. My personal opinion is that the skill tree is horrible as it is. Should I sugarcoat this in order to spare feelings? I don't intend offense but I feel strongly and I will continue to use strong words if I feel they are justified.

 

Just out of curiosity, what level have you reached so far?

 

There is something I dislike with this approach and something I like. The example you just gave is one of things I like with this approach. It's only those that are actually invested some into the whole aspect of magic that can gain this skill. Just that tree with intelligence, meintal training, concentration, mental reflex, innercalm and finally follow through (the ones the lower fizzle) is quite logical skill tree, quick swapping is also in that tree and I do not think it's suitable for the rest of the chain.

As I said there is other places where this chains/trees that have much less relation to each other but I think that can be changed with some easy fixes, change some of the skill names and explanation where they are there.

 

I would concede there are benefits to this approach, one of them related to what you like about it, that the approach forces exposure to skills one might not otherwise have tried out. But the key objection there for me is *forced*, that is almost never a good idea. Let players experiment, discover for themselves the interesting combinations and widely variable possibilities.

The resistance I keep hearing is based on "realism" and logical real world progression, nothing about it being more fun or providing significant game benefits. The current approach limits build diversity and is more likely to lead to Flavor-of-the-month builds that require certain bottom level skills, meaning that everyone adopting those builds will all have the same ancillary skills. Who sees this as an advantage?

As for my level, I don't really recall because I haven't paid much attention to it. This morning I was fiddling with my skill points and had something like 120ish in combat and 30ish in magic, so perhaps not very high by some of your standards, but certainly high enough to feel the pain and inefficiency of having to use precious skill points on skills I didn't want.

 

I have no issues with the skill trees as designed, every tradesman, whether craftsmen or warrior , would learn things as they grew in their trade. We all learn things we never use again, yet they are building blocks to get us where we want to go.

I see NO value in just being able to put points where ever one wants to. All IMHO of course.

 

Skill trees also serve a purpose in that individual skills don't need to be perfectly balanced. More powerful skills can be down a few tiers to balance them out.

 

Well the option would be to make the whole tree to one skill, as example above with fizzle so can we call this skills "Innate". As you use the skills you're % in the skill rises, similar to UO. Once you get to a certain % to gain a new ability, for follow through we can say 80%. That means you will get intelligence, meintal training, concentration, mental reflex, innercalm and finally follow through abilities because it's development of the same base. This is an idea I would like better but to go straight to follow through on level 1? That would be way overpowered, effect must be lowered and cost increased so in the end you will get same cost vs effect that you get from current system, perhaps little less but still.

 

You have that in reverse though, which is why i asked. It seems painful at lower level and looks like you will never have the point you need, this gets better as you progress. The only thing i could suggest for a change like you are asking for would be a non linear skill-set with some skills still having a prerequisite (chain lightning still needing lightning). I really didn't see any problem with it as is though personally.

 

Wanderlust,

I think you're making your case more complicated than it is.

If all that's going on is you hate having to spend points on skills you don't want, then forget the fact that you're learning another skill first, and just think of it as certain skills needing more points to obtain than others.

The skill trees are arranged in tiers, where skills that have prerequisites are more powerful than the prerequisites. Blink requires you to spend points in two other spells in the tier above (Air's Embrace and Dash), but that's because its a powerful spell. So it requires more skill points first and foremost because its meant to be a powerful skill, not necessarily because you may want the skills that proceed it. The fact you get another skill in the meantime is a bonus.

On the other hand, if your problem is that you feel the skill point allocation system is too restrictive and forces you to specialize too much, that's another issue entirely.

 

I'm pretty sure no one forces you to put points into fire,water,earth classes..you choose. However what would be nice instead of buying multiple cards they add more skills and spells and once you buy fireball, it then has a 0-25 skill point. With a 1000 skill point cap for all skills combined. And the more you use it the higher it goes and the stronger it gets. That to me makes more sense than buying 5 cards and pumping attributes like you would on your WWF Custom wrestler..


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