What are some games I should try? I'm always open to video suggestions 👌 Check out Secrets of Shadows if you like tactics RPGs store.steampowered.com/app/3111150/Secrets_of_Shadows Also, some of the voice over/audio is a bit messed up and I didn't notice til I was editing - it will be fixed for next time, my bad 😅
Space Rangers (2002) it is freeware The game has a lot of mechanics I haven't seen in other games. for instance there is actually inflation which makes it difficult for the player to get too rich, the way it is implemented is also nice. Also They have a different genre for each part of the game. Turn based in space you click on a point and it maps the route, real time in hyper space when you go into one of the nodes you can fight pirates in an arcade style top down shooter, menus for when you are on a planet or space station, text adventure when you are in a mission on a planet(or if you are in jail). I just wish there were more side quests, since they are core of the game. It seems they planned out only enough content for a certain amount of time. Some of the quests seemed to be generated based on aspects of the environment, for instance if there were a lot of pirates in a system a quest could be available on a planet which asks you to protect the civilian ships for the next x days. Then there are the kill quests where they ask you to blow up a specific ship. I think those two are the only ones that are not one time quests. They made a sequel or multiple sequels... It is a bit confusing. 2 Reboot, 2, and HD. None of them are actually the original, and I am not sure if they are different games, they just have different names, or if 2 failed so they made reboot then possibly improved the art and called it HD.
I guess poe 2 :p but yeah tree wise, FF10 is a great suggestion, imo factorio or other similar games like satisfactory. there's the obvious trees, but the more hidden one is the crafting tree, to make an early game unlock in satisfactory, the smart plating, you need reinforced iron plates, and rotors, and for those you need screws, iron plates and iron rods, which you get from smelting iron ore into iron ingots. (minecraft and terraria also have similar hidden trees, to get a diamond pickaxe you need diamonds, for which you need iron pickaxe
Depends on what games you like. I'm playing Gemcraft lately, wonderful game but time-consuming with grind. It's amazing how much they created in a Flash game. Latest parts are Steam-based but keep the style. Timberborn is a lovely peaceful game. But... you probably like more Diablo-likes? Disgaea\Makai Kingdom are wonderful. Their dark humor is priceless. Noita is for those who want unfair level of hardcore difficulty. Nox is a lovely old game. Most fun as a mage. Kenshi is definitely worth trying. Really, many excellent titles. From all genres and time periods. Except for moderns games, they are cheap splooge.
One thing about skill tree design you didn't mention a lot was that mechanical and thematic connection should go hand in hand, i.e. prerequisites should make sense. I love skill trees, but too many of them just put thing behinds each other because the latter one is deemed more powerful, therefore you should have to take something else first to increase its price. Parry as a reprequisite for Riposte makes sense, Multishot for Sniper Shot doesn't.
@@MrRafagigapr Most of the tree in PoE is +x life, +y% fire damage, etc though. There are interesting nodes, sure. But you have a lot of filler between them. It'd be both more interesting and more approachable if they cut out most of the tree.
Just wanted to say, I really love the way you're presenting these videos. Going in-depth on a topic of game design and then relating it back to your own game and process is a great mix of content.
What I love about the skill tree in Path of Exile is the fact that it is shared by all classes as they start all on the same tree, just in different places. You wanna play a duelist who summons the corpses of his enemies? Sure, it might take you a while to get there but go nuts! This does not only work great for creativity but it also makes sense in general that a frail witch for example take longer to be a threat with two-handed-swords whereas making her Zombies explode would come far more natural to her than to said duelist.
Yep my thoughts exactly having all the classes share a tree enables so many options. What you said about a Witch taking longer to use 2H sword is on point too and I never really thought about it like that before
@secretsofshadowsgame yeah, it's a neat Detail that's so natural to us that we don't really notice it I think. And the impicit message of "You can be anything you want if you're willing to put the effort into it" is kinda nice in a way too. Though one thing I would like to see in all those customization-heavy games (and especially PoE) would be a way to try out your build ideas in an isolated area. That doesn't even have to be part of the core game itself but could be just like a tutorial Mode in some blank Region, just so you can verify that certain passives and skill gems interact in the way you think they do. Because sinking hours upon hours and Lots of currency into a build you theory-crafted only to THEN realize some interaction does not work the way you assumed can be frustrating enough to put the game down entirely.
An example of a good linear skill tree with branching paths is the "tech tree" from Civilization series. Each node unlocks cool abilities, crossing oceans, building forts, new units. I can't think of another skill tree that has so many unique abilities per unlock, instead of basic stat upgrades.
Having a layout that is not a grid opens another possibility: Don't pick a theme ahead of time. Pay attention to the playtesting/early-adopter discussions about builds. Many times communities wind up coming up with names for various builds. Once they have settled on some builds that are community favorites and have names (and you aren't going to re-balance to destroy them), re-arrange your skill tree slightly and put in a background of constellations to highlight and match the community names for various builds. Now people who do not participate in the community discussion also get to see some hints toward builds they can try, you have demonstrated awareness of and interest in the community discussions, and you have a thematic element to the skill tree which matches gameplay.
If the skill tree isn't the focus of your game, consider allowing players to opt for default builds that automatically make their choices for them, or at least suggest choices. There are games where I really want to make those choices, and there are games where I just want to poke stuff with a long pointy stick.
If I never have to touch another skill tree, leveling system, or xp system, I’d be fine. I prefer getting an upgrade in the form of an item/ability that you acquire in the game world.
I didn’t see them mentioned: The first Dragon’s Dogma lets you swap classes as much as you want, being able to try the abilities from all of them (all of them are cool and interesting), but your stat growth is affected by which class you are at the time of leveling up. Plus, passive abilities are cross class, and can be mixed and matched. Not really a skill tree, but a very interesting approach. Outward is really cool as you can go to trainers and learn skills from their specific trees, but you only get 3 points to pass to the next level of learning with a trainer, and learn the most powerful abilities they have to teach you. Basically, everything is broken up into mini-skill trees. It’s not overwhelming, and it presents an interesting choice for the player. I’m trying to develop my own game, and I wanted to use a skill tree, but ended up scrapping the idea entirely. It just didn’t work well with what I wanted to do. The current project looks almost entirely different from the original. The research and analysis about it was very interesting though, and I guess that’s part of the fun. Your video was awesome, and I hope your game will do well! The Japanese setting is very alluring, I hope lots of Yokai will make their appearance!
Quick correction, in Sekiro you can by default parry thrusts just like normal attacks. Mikiri counter is just a much better and easier way to counter them.
Games with large skill trees like Path of Exile sound like they should be fun, but when the emphasis is put on quantity like this, each skill often ends up being just small stat changes with barely any effect on gameplay, and is ultimately very boring. Having such huge trees also often leads to players having decision paralysis. One game that I think did skills very well was Ragnarok Online. Playing RO as a kid, I was always excited to try out my brand new skills whenever I reached a new character class. Every skill in this game is interesting in my opinion, and there is a rather wide array of different classes to try out. In addition, the developers have since added 3rd and now 4th classes with brand new interesting skills which I'm excited again to try out, but the late game gets very, very grindy.
Yeah, PoE's skill tree is 80% filler. It's a really good game and a good skill tree in many ways, but so many levels I just have to put another point into a +10 stat node that changes nothing about my playing experience.
@@NotMeButAnother yea I totally get that which why there's a meme about people "playing" PoE by only making builds on PoB (a 3rd party tool used for planning and making builds) and not actually in game
yeah the main thing poe-like trees do is making skills that would be "costs 5 points to unlock" into 4 [small increase] and 1 [what you actually want] so you don't have to hoard your passive points.
@Pat315 I think the filler is why it's good, instead of having a 3 point passive where you have nothing to do for 3 levels, you get a minor boost, it also allows to have different costs depending where you are coming from in a way that's pretty intuitive, and, while it's minor, it also gives a lot of granularity to do minor tweaks in a way that looks good, a big node with 37% damage looks weird, but if you change 3 nodes in front from 9% to 8% no one would find them weird. (Note that in practice that exact example isn't great, because you can nerf down to 35 without issue in most cases as the granularity isn't necessary, but it's nice to have)
I always liked the idea of leveling up weapon mastery for each specific weapon type instead of having a finite number of points (max level) that you need to allocate between specific skills. First of all, this reduces the price of an error - what if you thought that you like using spear, but after 10-20 hours you realized that you actually want to use a big two handed sword? Just go to a low-level area and grind a little bit and now you can use big two-handed swords. Changed your mind again? No problem - you can always equip a different weapon and grind a little bit to upgrade the mastery. I think Bloodborne* is a good example of this approach - you can upgrade pretty much any weapon to +7+8 without any issues and try out different styles in one playthrough, and upgrade to +10 only the weapon you like. * While Dark Souls has similar mechanic, I don't think it's as good as BB's - having many variations of titanite (especially in the DS1) makes it harder to grind, and they drop not as often as blood stones in BB On the other hand, stat upgrades affect the effectiveness of weapons, so you still kinda forced to decide which weapon to use quite early in the game (this can be alleviated to some degree by grinding more levels since the level cap is around 700+, but it takes a lot of time) And this approach kinda makes sense in real life - the more you practice something the more proficient you become. This, or a big list of very small skill trees (like 2-3-4 skills per tree, maybe gated by character level), similar to Knight of the Old Republic - I don't feel like I'm forced to commit to any specific skill-tree/play-style, and even if I fully upgrade 2 skill-trees for mutually exclusive skill-sets/weapons, it doesn't ruin my character
Another example of a "skill tree" similar to KotOR is Sea Dogs series - it has a bunch of different skills like better store prices, more crew members on your ship, longer ranges for boarding other ships, increased damage with cannons, increased durability of your sails and so on, and each skill has 2-3 levels. Each skill affects only a specific aspect of the game and you can choose which play-style you like more - naval combat, trading, quickly boarding ships and fighting in melee, etc, without the other parts suffering too much
I love skill trees that don't just modify existing stats but actually change the mechanics of your moves. It's especially fun when the moves combo into each other. If I recall correctly, the DmC series does a decent job of this. I'm also fond of skill trees that make upgrades mutually exclusive so you can't just buy everything. I feel like I'm actually crafting a tailored experience. Give me the choice between a big super jump or a double jump that's not as high but allows me to redirect mid jump. That's a consideration worth making.
yea I personally don't care for skill trees that can be maxed out too - especially through grinding XP and not through quests/other more meaningful ways of unlocking points
I would say that jump example should not be mutually exclusive, mostly because it effects platforming and there will be areas not accessible without one of them in specific. Something you do not want in a platformer.
I still like the Diablo II skill tree. There are skills at all tiers that work end-game, and most of them have a significant impact on gameplay. There are so many viable builds, and even more if you get creative and want a challenge. There's also been a significant evolution within the game's lifespan. They added skill cooldowns, which encourages lower tier skills, synergies to boost some skills to make specialisation stronger, and finally an actual respec option.
I'm playing Mario & Rabids Spark of Hope. It and Kingdom Battles are beautiful blasphemy against their genre. Instead of a slow, hyper-cautious approach like in X-COM, the game is built around high mobility and flanking. Cover is such a powerful effect, yet it's also very easy to bypass e.g. with good movement or skill use, and both the player and AI can use this masterfully. Its skill tree also slaughters sacred cows, and I love this just as much. All your skill points are refundable. You can respec between any battles, as manly times as you want, for free; you're completely unpunished for experimenting. But I don't respec constantly -- once I settle on how I want to use a character, they stay relatively stable for a long time. The skills are also relatively impactful, with some adding totally new ways your character behaves (such as stomping on or shooting enemies while you fly, or demolishing cover, or disabling enemies when you dash them). Despite each character being a distinct class, the customization within also feels very meaningful. It also helps that the skill points come from both doing missions and leveling up, so you have a strong incentive to progress the plot and do side quests, not just grind.
Nice video! I suggest if making more videos on this topic, you could focus on how skill trees change throughout a franchise/series. For example, the progression from Diablo, to Diablo 2, to 3, to 4.
Absolutely, though it's not likely to be only on skill trees. I definitely wanna make a video about how a series evolves between each entry to see what elements they kept (and improved on) vs removed. Haven't decided on which series yet but Diablo is up there
Thanks for the video. Finding sources and content that's more on the theory and abstract of stuff is really nice and appreciated. The theoretical explanations and history of mechanics and concepts is exactly what I was looking for.
I'll add that hiding also allows to not overwhelm players with complex trees, and also if you hide, players should have an idea what to expect. I don't remember which game did that, but with a huge passive tree, instead of seeing all the effects in detail, you'd see a zone marked "swords" or "fire spells". that way you have like 30-50 points that are clear, for ~1000 actual allocable points. (similarly to poe's atlas tree, except you only see the points for each type.) an other type of skill tree that imo is underrated is city building-inspired systems, you don't just allocate an abstract "flurry of fists" point, you build a dojo, but for that you need a carpenter. but it can also be less about cities, you might have souls in the netherworld, and each biome corresponds to a skill archetype. and now that you have physical areas, you might have to battle to unlock it. then there's 2 ways to do it, either you have a trial with the skill unlocked temporarily, and it helps you a lot or is necessary, or you have a trial that would be way easier, even trivial with the skill you will unlock so you build high anticipation for it, and you can have a final thing right after you unlock the skill where you come back using it. e.g. you have a tricky jumping puzzle, and then you unlock double jump or a grappling hook. or you have shielded/armored enemies and you unlock a backstab, critical hit, or armor break. (trials can be also done without skill tree physicality, you can make it as a "trials of the gods" or it requires an item found in a specific dungeon.) physicality can also be no skill tree, but you can have the dungeons/trials require a skill to beat, that's basically a skill tree because let's say to unlock the item from dungeon G you need to have the items from dungeons A and C or even any 2 items from dungeon A, B,E and F, you can draw all your dungeons on paper and draw those dependency lines and have your skill tree/graph, but people never actually see a skill tree unless they do that. addendum: imo interactibles are way underrated to make a game people are fond of and stay immersed in. (though it requires a decent game in the first place, and does take development time, but if you can like, add a few breakable items, some critters that go away when you attack etc...) it's basically the "can you pet the dog?" metric.
Excellent post, I really like that city building system. Also, the dungeon type progression system immediately reminds me of Zelda games and metroidvanias though they typically don't have optional progression paths
@@AlansQuickSave yeah I was mostly thinking about zelda-like games, there's a few optional ones like the biggoron sword in oot, but they're usually dead ends. breath of the wild and totk have the most open systems where only a few upgrades are needed to complete the game. ittle dew is short but is a good showcase for alternate options where you need 2/3 items to complete the game. as for city building hundred heroes is a good example, where you unlock things by bringing heroes with you, for example you unlock teleporting by finding a mage who knows how to teleport. though the progress is pretty flat, it's more of a cornfield than a tree, only a few heroes require other ones (directly or indirectly, for example if you need to forge an armour to get someone on board, you need a blacksmith). though the actual city building is presented as a tree. (great game btw, I do recommend it even if I forgot in my other comment)
6:17 for me it's an issue of Skill Trees not being mechanically interesting; the only skill tree system I find mechanically interesting is PoE skill tree system because it's not only an investment but the color and stats clearly identify what elements of the tree can be changed AND some minor flexible spots being the gem slots as an example.
I didn't want to spend too long on PoE but it has a ton of cool interactions with other systems too like unique jewels and tattoos. You're almost customizing your own passive tree at that point
I think cyberpunk 2077 has a good skill tree, is very simple and is nothing crazy but is very impacful. deflecting bullets with melee, hacking the same enemy multiple times, regenerating a lot of hp in melee combat, advantages while being crouch and stuff, like that, it could be better but i think is good
small correction at 9:28 you can parry thrust attacks in sekiro without mikiri by perfect blocking but the window to do so is way smaller so in practice mikiri is essential
To my game, I've added a never-ending expanding passive bonus grid, using procedural generation! I've thought a lot about what fun things to add and now it has 18 different upgrades. It also has a respec button that regenerates the grid and refunds your claimed points, but sacrificing some. The more points sacrificed, the higher chance node spawn enhanced when you regenerate. It's been fun in testing so far. Like popping bubble wrap...
That specializes the most vilified part of skill tree: small stat bonuses. Is also sounds like you won't have too much leeway to choose a theme for how you build your character, since you reset known trees and wait for rng to choose for you.
the Trails in the Sky/Sora no Kiseki trilogy, as well as the following Crossbell arc (Trails from Zero/Zero no Kiseki and Trails into Azure/Ao no Kiseki) are definitely an interesting hybrid of different systems. For one, each character has pre-determined stats and innate abilities determines linearly by who they are and their current level - the innate abilities are called Crafts and use Craft Points that are primarily gained through dealing and taking damage. But the part that makes it interesting is that everyone has their own Battle Orbment (orbments are the in-world magic-like technology) that can be fully customized with a slew of different elemental "quartz" synthesized from sepith crystals. Each character's battle orbment has a set amount of slots (usually around 6-8, depending on the game), and each quartz has its own special effect - usually a % stat increase, but sometimes a unique effect such as being able to randomly instant-kill when using a Craft, automatic HP regeneration, or overworld abilities like being able to see enemies or treasure chests on the mini map. However, the really intriguing part with quartz in these earlier games in the series is that each one provides different "sepith values" that determine what Orbal Arts (basically spells) that character can use. Quartz and Orbal Arts are divided among seven different elements (Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Time, Space, Mirage), yet many quartz may have values for multiple elements and many Orbal Arts require values from multiple different elements. Players have access to a battle orbment user manual that also spells out the different elemental sepith value recipes to unlock each Orbal Art, as well as what the different Orbal Arts are meant to accomplish upon casting, which ultimately creates something akin to a universal skill tree that all characters have varying levels of access to, but instead of grinding levels to gain more points to spend in a tree, the player instead has a puzzle of how they want to arrange their different quartz load-outs to best define their intended builds for each character in the party, with stronger quartz providing more elemental value and providing greater Orbal Arts flexibility as the player progresses through each game. To add an additional layer of nuance to this system, different characters have different pre-determined circuit configurations for their Battle Orbments; with some slots only accepting quarts of a particular element and different orbments having different sets of lines within their circuit. Lines effectively partition the elemental sepith values gained from slotted quartz (the central slot feeds into all lines). More lines means a character has less access to powerful and more advanced Orbal Arts, and therefor is better suited to choosing quartz for their stat increases and unique passive abilities while a character with only a single line can hypothetically access any art in the game and will want to focus their elemental speith values above all else in order to acquire the best Orbal Arts available. Sadly in the Trails of Cold Steel/Sen no Kiseki games this system was drastically simplified into quartz simply having either Orbal Arts or unique abilities innately tied to them along with stat increases, but I hear either Daybreak or Farewell Zemuria is trying to do something more interesting with the battle orbments again.
For your system, as it is Japanese adjacent, rather than trying to divide your six attributes into two groups for Yin and Yang, you could asign each of them an Element: Water, Fire, Wind, Wood, Metal, Lightning
@@AlansQuickSave Chinese wuxing doesn't have wind or lightning elements, they only have wood, metal, fire, air, and earth. In Japanese they use fire, air, earth, wind, and void. Look into godai for more information on this; you can think of void/wood and wind/metal as similar concepts but it's not a 1:1 correlation.
I think the order of unlockable abilities also matters. If you get something cool but you can only use it for the last 10% of the game, it leads to player disappointment and they might feel that their effort was wasted
I really don't like skill trees, which is a shame, because I end of playing a lot of games that have them. So they end up just being another interaction cost I have to pay to enjoy the game. Before I can even start having fun with the game, I have to go look up a build and then have that open to refer to throughout playing. A few of the key problems I have: (some of which were discussed in the video, but just to voice my own preferences on this.) - They're too overwhelming up front. Sure, you can look at being able to see the whole tree as something that can generate excitement for future options, but for me it immediately hits me with a wall of complexity and decision paralysis. In order to even begin to make informed decisions about the tree, I have to consider all the nodes, even for choices that won't be relevant to me for many hours. Sure I could just pick semi-randomly as I go, but that's often not going to work out and even if it does because the game is just that easy, I'm still not making real choices. - A related point is that ironically there's a problem of lack of information when you first start looking at the tree. Sure, you can see all the nodes, but you don't really have context for understanding what their value is. For skills you don't really know how they're going to play. (The video clips that have been added in some games recently helps with that to some extent, but there's only so much you can gather from them without getting to actually see how the skill feels when you use it.) You often don't know how many total points you will have to spend by the end, so it's tough to have an idea of what combinations of things are realistically accessible. You also don't really know how much you need of various stats. You might want to grab all these cool effects, but if you need to make sure you have a certain amount of defenses, you need to know what that number is so you know the constraints you're working with. - Continuing along that same line of thought, depending on the respec options, one of two bad things happen: If respecing isn't available or is very costly, then you basically require the player to plan out the full build in advance so that they don't make a mistake and then regret their decision later and need to start over. It discourages experimentation. On the flip side, games that make it really easy to respec encourage players to frequently make changes to their build based on the situation, which reduces build identity and depending on how much you need to change, can add a lot of interaction cost. A player might have some endgame build in mind, but it's bad to take the points in the build until you get everything together, so it's better to play some cookie cutter leveling build and then swap to the build you actually want. Even worse, you might have a build configuration for AoE and single target, so every time you want to go fight a boss that poses any challenge, you have to spend time respecing. - A lot of these trees end of having boring filler options that make the act of making a build more like solving a math problem than. I'm kind of surprised you picked PoE as a good example after talking about this point. Sure, it has some interesting options, but like 90%+ of the tree is +x stats. So I get to make like, 1-3 interesting decisions for each build and then I have to waste a lot more time figuring out the optimal path through the variety of "a bit of stats" nodes. - The structure of the tree and the number of points available have some weird implications. If there are only just enough points to get you straight to the keystone abilities, then like you said, you get very few choices if you want to actually reach that powerful ability. On the other hand, if there are more than enough points to hit the keystone, then you get this weird curve of power/excitement: As you progress towards the top of the tree, you are progressively getting more powerful and interesting abilities until you reach that endpoint. After that though, every additional point is spent on a node that wasn't good enough to have already been taken and this decrease in marginal utility continues until the very last point, so at max level, a moment that ought to be an exciting achievement, you take the least useful node in your build. And that's assuming there are even enough things that affect your build available. Some more niche builds might just not have a lot of the tree they care about, so the last few points might actually just be useless. It's not a tree, but I really liked it when WoW moved away from the skill tree in I think it was Mists of Pandaria. Instead of the usual thing, you now had several tiers of 3 mutually exclusive choices at regular level intervals. These choices were all pretty significant changes to your playstyle or the utility available to you. There aren't a ton of them, there's no path dependency, and it's easy to respec, so even though you can see all the options at the start, it's not overwhelming. The cheap respecing did mean you were meant to swap talents for different situations, but because this was pretty quick to do, it wasn't bad in the way it would be if you had to respec an old talent tree. For example, I mained Paladin. I can't actually find all the talents anymore (on WoWHead some of the links are broken) so I'll try to see what I remember from what I do have. At lv 15 you had 3 movement speed options. One was a low but always on passive boost. One was a 1 minute CD spell that was the highest speed for a short burst. One was a boost that activated when you used one of your ranged abilities, so you could use it for gap closing. At 30 you got to chose a crowd control ability. At 45 you got a healing option. One hooked in to your resource system and was fairly consistent, one was a burst heal option, and one was a shield. Lv 60 were defensive CD options. I don't remember them exactly, but I think they also followed a pattern of some being more consistent but low reduction and some being higher CD higher impact choices. lv 75 were I think all resource related. Some CDs and some passives. This was probably the tier that was most "do the math," but there were still some fight or gear specific decisions to be made like if burst damage is really important. Lv 90 were 3 big, flashy abilities. One was a light you could put on an enemy or ally and it would single target heal and AoE damage on an ally, or single target damage, AoE heal on an enemy. There was a hammer you'd throw down to make a big AoE to heal and damage things. Then I think the last one was this single target hammer than slowly dropped on a target to heal or damage. They were all fairly meaningful choices you could very directly feel the impact of in your gameplay and there were good reasons to use one or the other in different situations. Beyond that though, I think I like random drafting games a lot more for build making/progression. Roguelikes and and autobattlers are the big ones that come to mind. Because it's random, you can't/don't have to already have a build going in. I can just boot up a rogue-like and play a run without any prep. I can't do that with something like PoE or a CCG. The choices get made in small batches, so you never get overwhelmed, but you still get to make interesting choices that hopefully come together into some cool build. In fact, a lot of roguelikes allow you to make even more wild, broken builds than a game with a fixed skill tree BECAUSE you can't do the same thing every time, so it's ok if you occasionally high roll something busted. Plus the permadeath, short run structure manages to make a good compromise on the respec issue. You get locked in to your choices, so you build up that identity, but only for like an hour or two at most and then you get to try a new thing regardless of how your decisions turned out.
For sure, I think a ton of games - indies especially have transitioned to roguelikes for the reasons you mentioned. Pick 1 of 3 random power ups (dead cells and hades) type systems seem to be the default way to go for a lot of smaller games now
I love skill trees. And great breakdown here. I will also add that sometimes, skill trees can just be too much. A game like PoE might inherently cater to people desiring to spend a ton of time in the game. But I remember when Final Fantasy 10 came out, I took one look at it's skill tree and decided not to play the game. It was bad enough that it was too large, but I actually really dislike the "non-direct path" designs, because it adds a layer of complexity where the aesthetic actually undermines the ability to understand that system. Third, it actually cost XP to unlearn things you'd learned! Ain't nobody got time for dat.
Absolutely, I also love that PoE isn't afraid to show it so early (when you level up on the first zone). Some players have suggested the tree to be revealed slowly as you level so it's more beginner friendly but IMO that just "baits" players into sinking time into a system they might realize isn't for them
So the thing I really liked about the Diablo 2 skill tree was that while there were higher level spells and abilities the tree, it was designed to let you spend more or less points on a single one depending on your build. It works differently but gives a similar level of choice to skill tree's that force you to choose between two or more abilities as your capstones(or even potentially for each skill point spent). Contrast this with a lot of skill tree's where there is little choice, for instance Dragon Age origins skill tree worked for spell casters because even though each spell tree was just 4 points and they were linear you had to pick and choose which spells you wanted, but for the fighting styles you just picked which two or three skill tree's to go down based on the chosen fighting style and then went down them making them a lot less interesting and letting you max out one set of skill tree's early but not giving you enough points to max a second along with the characters other class trees... and no real reason to even try. As far as your yin yang skill tree I could easily see one of the two dots being for a monk or blademage letting you deal elemental damage with your sword or fists, and maybe the other one being a summoning style skill for your mages to do physical damage. In either case you would probably want to build to that and then head over to the other side of the tree for more support nodes for elemental or physical damage buffs building out your mana to summon more stuff but then needing fighter nodes to make your creatures actually dangerous, with your counterpart option probably wanting lot's of normal attack and critical hit nodes but then pairing them with elemental damage and secondary elemental effects(shock damage stunning etc).
I've never tried titan quest but I just looked up what the skill tree is like - looks very cool and the combining of 2 skill masteries looks right down my alley lol
One of the keypoints of Witcher(2, at least) and Nocturne: Rebirth's skill tree is making each node a notable skill effect AND having stat bonuses of a particular spread. So getting flexibility on your elemental spells also makes you a better mage in general, without the busywork of picking individual stat buffs in a bigger, more meaningless skill tree. You can also focus on one particular skill for its stat spread just as much as improving that skill. I don't agree with making full respecs easily available. I would do something like partial resets. If you have 1 tree for every class, being able to refund ONE tree with a fairly uncommon reset item gives you essentially the same option as switching out subjobs. That lets you try out transitional builds before you get around to the pre-planned one, adding variety and unforeseen synergies into the mix.
The Sekiro example is the kind that really deflates me. I hate getting deep into the game just to realize something that I'm not all that interested in, is pretty much required to play the game. I'm being handicapped for indulging in the options the game presents.
In Sekiro, saying you can't parry perilous thrusting attacks by default or without Mikiri Counter isn't correct. You can't block a thrust attack, but it can be deflected. The timing is just much more precise than deflecting normal attacks. The Mikiri Counter has much easier timing and inflicts much more posture damage, so it is the better option.
Oh wow you're right, my bad. I haven't played sekiro in a while and i dont remember ever successfully deflecting a thrust attack myself lol. Good catch
Great video. But I'm don't really agree about the "don't make respect too easy". I will take Baldur's gate 3 as an example. The respect is nearly free, and I think it was a great idea. Most of the time making the respec prideful will make people not want to experience new things and player wanting to experience build will just save sum the cost to test different things. In fine it will discourage some and make other find way around mean to archive free rebuild. And all heil to the mighty algorithm.
Yeah I actually agree with that, the gold cost for BG3 respeccing was low and I ended up trying a lot of new content cus of it. I think it works cuz you have to be in camp to do it and you can't go to camp when you're in dungeons IFAIK - like if you could respec right before entering a boss fight that would harm the overall experience imo
@secretsofshadowsgame I agree but the whole thing is letting the player choose if he thinks it's the right time. Most players wouldn't respec before each encounter. They would try to breakthrough with what they got before even thinking about respec. The kind of player that would do that are min maxer and I think unlimited respec would make them very happy. The only moment where I can think that would be a problem is if the next encounter is too difficult and the player NEED to respec to pass. But in that case the problem is not really the respec. But at the same time I find myself quite happy in games that don't have repec at all because it feels like a commitment, but it's also easily the source of too much frustration. Anyway great video I'm looking forward to your next one
@@AlansQuickSave Personally if a respec is expensive I never respec. I would need to be caught in a situation where I cannot progress unless I respec to do it. That ties in with the mentality of not wasting consumables = never using them. Except it is even worse because a respec is a side grade rather than a temporary upgrade. Spending limited resources on something that doesn't provide a clear advantage simply feels bad. Making respec limited by requiring some effort to perform it on the other hand is a much better idea. If you have to go to this one particular location to perform it, then you aren't going to abuse the fact that it is essentially free by respecing perfectly before every battle, while being able to safely try out new playstyles without overcommitting to them.
Awesome vid! I would like to recommend one more indie game as an example of good skill tree - Soulstone Survivors (I’m not the dev and it’s not an as). It’s rogue like game which shares both common and character based skill trees with good progression of unique class features. Worth checking out for sure!
@@MaksimSalomatin Ooh that sounds interesting for sure. I feel like a lot of indies lean into roguelite/roguelike mechanics and use temporary/random power ups (pick 1 of 3 upgrades kind of thing). Definitely gonna check out Soulstone Survivors
Strange to present them as boring or outdated. It's a rock solid design pattern and visual presentation of that pattern. A. "One new rule at a time" is a proven design formula. The best way to explain game rules to players isn't to slam them with every rule at once, but to step them through those rules. Now this point by itself doesn't require any UI visualization: Portal steps players through gradually learning each "rule" of how the puzzle elements interact with each other. Also I think basically no games do the simplest visualization of it, which would just be a _Leveling Bar_ that shows your progress to next level but also lets you "rewind" to see the earlier skills (ie rules) that you unlocked in prior levels. B. Instead, most do the step past that "leveling bar", which is a talent tree with player decisions. So they create the simplest system: you get points, and spend them on these nodes. C. Then they might additionally create more explicit choices in the tree, either by (1) choosing the left path locks the right path, (2) choosing a dynamic node which lets you pick only one of two options, like modern WOW has, or (3) doing it a bit more ambiguously like Darktide does where when you mouseover or buy an exclusive node a few nearby nodes are locked. This is in addition to the implied exclusivity that's already there with Talent point: you only have a limited number of htem so if you spend them all on nodes A->D, you won't have points left for nodes X->Z So basically all these things are some of the simplest design rules to create and they have to be simple so players understand them (though I'm not arguing this is the only simple way to do things, most alternatives are just fancy footwork where any knowledgeable player would be like, _"oh, that's actually just a talent tree under the hood"_ ). So if anyone feels talents are boring, that's more the *Talent Content Specific to a Game,* rather than an issue with the system itself. After all, nearly every Darktide and WOW talent nowadays is a pretty meaty rule to learn, and if you memorize them all you're going to be playing those classes at a level _way_ beyond the average Joe who copy/pasted a build without learning all those rules.
Letting a player do a full respec is a bit dangerous, since as soon as they do so they are left with a bunch of skill points to reallocate all at once. A good skill tree should let a player get a taste of the experience they will receive so that they can pivot away if they don't like the type of game play it enables. PoE, I believe limits respects to undoing one skill at a time via an in-game item. You can also address some of the balance issues of skill trees by limiting a player on how they progress though the tree more on the first playthrough but open it more if they want to experiment on a new playthrough.
I feel conflicted about full respecs - on one hand it is pretty convenient compared to respeccing 1 by 1 if you're an experienced player that know what you're doing, but on the other hand sometimes it can feel a bit jarring if you full respec halfway thru a game and you're not used to the new playstyle. One work around would be to have presets/pages you can swap back and forth on so you can have 1 tree that "works" and experiment on another 1
On that topic being able to full respec at anytime isn't as bad. Unless game is balanced around that most people won't really do it. Or you could make that it's still free but only accessible in a certain places like a base/town so you can still experiment all you won't without that minority respecing before every fight.
I think the reason for the reputation comes down to the fact that skill trees are usually not a natural extension of a game's design. Some games it is natural, but if the game isn't focusing on it then it is artificial. So, very often a dev will add a skill tree in a game that doesn't focus on it _(typically due to a misunderstanding about how to create depth in their game),_ which is frustrating to any kind of player.
It's not fatigue. It's blandness. The player sees the skill tree as progression and unlocking abilities. From the _devs POV,_ the skill tree is a way to craft unique situations based on abilities. _Modern devs_ tend to make all skills equally viable, and thus, exchangeable (or bland, as I said). If picking a skill (or the right skill, even) has no impact on the game, and there's no consequences to it over another, then there's no point in a skill tree. Just unlock skills based on level up and stop making players deal with the tedium.
I think, the Skill Web is better than a Skill Tree. It offers more choice and can be therefor more meaningful. It can also offer more freedom, if the options not chosen are not locked out from being chosen later.
The game that popularised that version was Final Fantasy X. It allowed for a lot of customisation, while still guiding the players towards a workable path. If you didn't want to, you didn't have to think much about it, or you could get creative with a bit more effort. Just like Diablo II, it was a popular game with a skill tree that worked well, so other devs copied it.
I generally like the modern approach of multiple parallel mini-skill trees, but one thing that frustrates me is that it is hard to estimate the number of total skill points you get on your first playthrough. How many mini-trees can I complete? How many of the cool cross-tree combos I see are actually possible? Can I actually re-spec? It's hard to plan ahead with so many unknowns. I don't know what the answer is. Should the skill tree tutorial just tell you that you will be able to complete about 3-4 sub-trees? Late in the story you will be able to respec 1-2 times? Should the UI tell you the maximum amount of skill points from the start of the game? Is this already a spoiler?
That's a great point. I think some games do have the UI show something like 1/40 when you gain a new point, and let you map out roughly how many skills are accessible yourself. One thing I really like though is when games just have a little window saying "This can be changed later", seeing that makes me much more comfortable with experimenting
Commenting before watching. The mechanics i think any good skill tree need: 1. It is impossible to get all or even most of the skill tree. 1/3-1/2 at most. 2. No single part of the skill tree is so impactful that it ends up defining the entire meta. 3. As many parts of the skill tree as possible create new options, as opposed to directly enhancing existing strategies directly.
I have never liked skill trees. However, I love the kinds of games that often have skill trees. I wish they would implement more diegetic progression, or even dispense with progression entirely, because it isn't fun to interrupt the game world while I look through a menu. It also interrupts my ability to identify with the protagonist. What is my character doing while I look through the skill tree? Is he visualizing abilities he wants to learn in the future? "Hmm...I need 3 more points before I can learn to swing my axe like that." No one thinks that way. The abstraction is disruptive to the fantasy.
Does anyone know of a game that uses a skill tree, but you don't get to simply pick your next skill? I'm thinking something like a JRPG where I can see the skill tree, know what sorts of abilities I'm likely to unlock soon, but then I have a regular dialog menu, and depending on what I choose, that determines which skill unlocks. If not, please feel free to use this!
I mean skill trees are pretty inevitable if you do two things. Make optionally unlockable perks, and have some that require others to be unlocked first. Have both these things, and you have a skill tree.
As I play more and more RPGs I just wish for small skill trees with new game features. and not skills like "one-hand sword does +5% damage". I remember in cyberpunk the skill tree actually fine for the most part but there is a skill that does : "you get 5% less fall damage" I think it's the worst skill I ever seen in a video game even more so when almost no-one ever die form fall damage in cyberpunk and even than 5% isn't likely to save you.
I haven't played cyberpunk yet I've heard it's gotten a lot better now but man that 5% less fall damage skill sounds hilarious. Literally the perfect example of a nothing node on a skill tree, even better if its required for you to unlock something way better/more fun 😂
It's too bad you didn't bring up FFX, which was what inspired the PoE skill tree (almost certainly at least). One of the best skill trees that inspired a lot of games.
I wouldn't classify monster hunter weapon upgrades as a skill tree, for the weapons mostly only provide slots to place decorations which have the skills, and those are obtained randomly, or at the cost of those random drops. And I wouldn't call elemental damage a skill, nor a larger number on damage, affinity or sharpness; If you were to count those as skills, might as well count any game with equipment drops. Armors and Decorations provide the skills in MonHun, which don't follow the tree structure as you mentioned, and even ignoring that, it doesn't follow your description of a "good" skill tree, because the skills are passives, with little incremental upgrades, with only a few providing actual combat changes. There are better examples of good skill trees. Ragnarok Online did have interesting options for each class, but didn't allow too much for generalists, more specialization than anything because the limit on job lvl. Full Metal Furies also has a decent skill tree system, bit short tho. It gave passive and combat upgrades, and after the first run they become more or less irrelevant since you can max everything with enough xp. Cyberpunk did an ok job with its skill trees imo, but you can always reset them, not the stats tho, and those define the access to the skill trees. Borderlands 2 also had decent skill trees. If I remember well Blasphemous also had a simple skill tree? can't remember the details, but I don't remember hating it, so it might be also worth checking out. Those are some that I can remember rn. Best of luck with your game~!
I think there are good alternatives, too, that should be considered. Souls games & Elden Ring don't have a skill tree, nor need it. That's because the game's other systems already fulfil the same purpose. You find new abilities and attacks through the gear you acquire, and subsequently 'unlock' using them through meeting the stat requirements by leveling your attributes. When you look through this lens, the entire game is a skill tree.
Yea there are always a lot of underrated alternatives for so many aspects of a game. Fromsoft is great because they don't follow trends for trend's sake. Elden Ring for example could've easily have map markers, quest logs, and characters with skill trees but then it would lose a ton of its charm
I'll say this without any context: the AAA industry should be embarrassed by taking so long to learn the lesson the Borderlands franchise and Path of Exile learned from Day 1 - "just make Diablo but slightly better"
PoE is just bloated for no reason, when you have section with "+one melee weapon dmg" and two hand, then a couple of section for EACH type of weapon you can have, axe, sword, rapier, whatever, it's not more "choice", it more bloat for no good reason, the worst is when you see two nearly identical talent group next to each other on the tree and one is being +sword and the other +axe, what the point? obviously if you are axe you go axe side, and vice versa for sword, its not a "CHOICE". It's also extremely painful to understand, I had all the +life, armor and reist for a the barbarian type character (sorry forget the name) and was still being killed extremely quickly, that were I drew the line of stupidity
I personally don't have plan to make skill tree on any of my game's it's very hard to balance ⚖️ and to do right. The game I'm working now is multiplayer fps game and the last thing I want it's complex system like that. But even in other projects I have plan to make in the future like a open world single player rpg. I thought it will make the game better if it's not leveling system at all. Even if it's not leveling system I will still be progression because although the Player I will not have level I will have stronger items and enemy's depends on the areas. In that way if the player wand to have challenge it will go deficult areas I personally don't understand why repatative graid it's requirements. As for way shomene to want to fight instead of avoid it's for enemy's drops and because people like to fight. For in Zelda breath of wild I will have problem fighting enemy if the don't have very low HP weapon but because they weapon break very often people like hate battle on this game
Yea sorry about that, I had some recording issues on my end but I didn't notice until I was editing and I didn't want to delay the video, I know the problem so it should be fixed from now on
The monster hunter trees are pretty bad though. The narrative and mechanical progression of weapons is half assed, the difference of one weapon to another is actually quite limited, and world is infamous for having the most boring and samey looking weapons. They also necessaily have to throw the tree concept away when dealing with special event gear. They have completely standalone trees with tickets that can be obtained in only one place. And then they throw it away AGAIN by having endgame weapons run on rng gacha. And that's not even getting to armor skills and talismans.
If you look at it purely as a skill tree I can see why it's lacking, esp like you said with event gear being standalone. I think as a skill tree/crafting system it's done quite well since a good amount of weapons from weaker monsters can branch off to stronger weapons from higher rank monsters, rewarding you for keeping up with upgrades, as opposed to having a lot of weapons you out grow immediately whenever you progress to the next rank. I also agree with world having the most amount of samey looking weapons, I just chose that title specifically because I have in game footage I can show for it lol
@@AlansQuickSave They almost had something going with sidegrade subspecies, but the latter half of the fancy new thing capcom adds to create monster variants makes weapons that are straight better than the original for the same purpose. More raw less element? Total damage is still better. No element hidden status? Actually the pure raw makes it better for plain damage anyway. Less raw more element? Hold up, this doesn't HAVE a default upgrade, this is the only path the weapon could take! And again, rusted or gold weapons.
i think in most case, find alternative to avoid skill tree is an improvement. like, link the improvement of the character to the items instead of the skill tree. or link the ability just to level/progression, with the only choice to do being "what to equip" (may-be with restriction like "only one ultimate, only one movement ability") exemple of great complexe game without skill tree : Warframe ; Armored Core 6 ; Genshin Impact The biggest problem of skill tree is : it make impossible, or hard, to change what we do. in lot of case : why design a complex system with lot of possibility, if the player will only be able to experiment some of them. not have skill tree allow to change the gameplay just by changing the items (and/or the character)
Most often skill trees are added "just to have it". Even a bit of thinking before implementing would fix many (potential) problems. Take these +10% exp perks. Even back in HoMM3 it was a dumb perk since it took the valuable spot for skills, each point could be spent on something useful instead and reaching higher levels faster doesn't make much sense if you waste the levels you already reached. Sadly, we get them even today, like Medieval Dynasty, where you spend 3 skill points in a tree of like 9 skills to gain 10-20-30% more exp. Especially in the game where getting +10% exp is as easy as just... doing 10% more work. Or double. Or quadruple, no problem. Damage is often boosted mindlessly, like +10% damage in a game where you mostly 1-shot everything or kill in 2 hits. Energy regen speed falls flat when you can't use a skill that often, like Magical Mixture Mill. Lovely game but the character has like 2 min cooldown on a skill that you need way more often. And a day lasts like 10 min. So if you can manage without the skill all this time, why would you even use it? Especially if the skill is almost as fast as farming by hand. You run around after the cooldown for like 1 more min seeking where to apply it more effectively, so why have 20% faster CDR? This time is always lost. Health bonuses when you either get KO'd instantly or get overswarmed. Gathering more ingredients in Far Cry. Running 10% faster if you need to stand still half of the time or wait for some timings and cooldowns. It rarely works together with the game. Some bonuses you get too late. Raft, why would I want titanium tools AFTER I beat the game? Why would I need a windmill when I'm 2 hours away from the end? I no longer need accumulators. Sure, some people would love to keep playing but most would either start a new story or play a different game. And sometimes, like Grim Dawn, it's not clear why would it even have a skill tree if all skills make the same impact. Ults are not stronger than basic skills, synergies are random, everything is unlocked after a time so there's no choice other than taste. Also, like Pokemon, there's no point in growth since there is no difference, you can't choose a different path anyway. That problem is closer to rubberband leveling, like TES, where monsters just get stronger with you so... there's no race to stay as strong, no path of growing where you could go back and feel how much you've changed. You deal same or even less damage each level. So it may even be growing backwards. Borderlands has this pointless skill tree that doesn't even make different playstyles. You're always about the same. All characters get more or less same perks. Some have more recoil reduction, some reload faster but in the end nothing matters, you one-shot most targets, you deal the same DPS, no skills or weapons found make any difference whatsoever. It's all linear in the end. But you may feel unlucky if you don't find a more convenient weapon. So it's not as much bonuses as overcoming maluses. So most basically devs should answer simple questions like "what would this skill change?", "does it make sense growing it gradually or is it all-or-nothing?", "are there free alternatives that would make the skill useless?", "does this skill negate an artificial difficulty or does it actually help solve problems?", "why can't we give this skill right away ever give it?" It's not that hard, it doesn't even take complex balancing.
There is not a single game with a skill tree that doesn’t have a negative difficulty curve. (Meaning that the game gets easier the more you progress in the game) The reason is simple - the challenges the game presents have to be beatable with the core skill set that you know the player will have. So you balance the entire game around the basic skills and every single thing you unlock from there just serves to make it easier.
I'm sure it's a great video, but the background music makes it really hard to listen to. I'm very interesting in designing a good skill tree, but even OG Pokemon music has it's place, and it might not be here :)
skills trees are awesome, But a easy Respect for "excludin" unless for stroy reasons should be mandatory, people like to try paths, and getting locked of one for a decision you maded 3 hours ago
Every game has a skill tree because Diablo 2 was successful. The Civ example is apt, but Diablo brought it to RPGs and into the mainstream. But it's essentially just a visual way to represent character entitlement picks that have prerequisites (whether a previous skill or just a tier reached). You could write a skill tree for 3e D&D feats, but in the core rules it would mainly serve the Whirlwind Attack chain and everything else would crowd at the beginning. So the skill tree's existence encourages the designer to add prerequisites where they otherwise wouldn't just to serve the format. BTW that page of Shadowrun 2e isn't a skill tree, it's the roll default chart for when you don't have a skill and must use an attribute instead. SR2 skills don't have prerequisites.
It's pretty odd to say that that progression systems satisfy a desire for growth and mastery, when that is the opposite of what they do. Your character becomes stronger, but you don't. You don't get a 1CC in Ikaruga, a 2-All in DoDonPachi or Ketsui or an all S-rank run in DMC1 on Dante must Die difficulty by grinding your character or maxing out your skill tree, you do it by deliberate practice, often for hundreds or thousands of hours. You learn general skills of the genre and apply them constantly, and become more proficient as a person since you completed a really difficult task. That is what true growth and mastery looks like. I recommend watching The Electric Underground's video "Why Permadeath Matters", which goes deeper in the distinction between progression vs. performance-based games.
Yeah, no. I don't think you understand how people think when playing these skill-progression-based games. Players express themselves through their characters, so if the characters grow stronger, they do. And more skills means you get more combinations to work with, and mastering them gives you mastery. And as @CJWproductions say, there's skill involved in creating the build, which isn't present at all in those other games.
Well designed skill trees add options for the player rather than increasing numbers. This means the decision space becomes more complex and therefore also requires more skill from the player, forcing them to grow in mastery alongside the character. (And of course assembling the build requires mastery of the game mechanics on an intellectual level.)
@@NotMeButAnother Usually games that have a fixed moveset that the game designers can then design around have deeper combat than in games with lots of builds or skill trees. Games like Bayonetta 1 or Ninja Gaiden 2 have much deeper combat than something like Elden Ring or Horizon Zero Dawn. It's much harder to create an interesting combat system when accounting for moves and abilities that the player might not have. Having "more options" does not mean that the gameplay has suddenly become more deep.
What are some games I should try? I'm always open to video suggestions 👌
Check out Secrets of Shadows if you like tactics RPGs
store.steampowered.com/app/3111150/Secrets_of_Shadows
Also, some of the voice over/audio is a bit messed up and I didn't notice til I was editing - it will be fixed for next time, my bad 😅
Space Rangers (2002) it is freeware
The game has a lot of mechanics I haven't seen in other games. for instance there is actually inflation which makes it difficult for the player to get too rich, the way it is implemented is also nice.
Also They have a different genre for each part of the game. Turn based in space you click on a point and it maps the route, real time in hyper space when you go into one of the nodes you can fight pirates in an arcade style top down shooter, menus for when you are on a planet or space station, text adventure when you are in a mission on a planet(or if you are in jail).
I just wish there were more side quests, since they are core of the game. It seems they planned out only enough content for a certain amount of time.
Some of the quests seemed to be generated based on aspects of the environment, for instance if there were a lot of pirates in a system a quest could be available on a planet which asks you to protect the civilian ships for the next x days. Then there are the kill quests where they ask you to blow up a specific ship. I think those two are the only ones that are not one time quests.
They made a sequel or multiple sequels... It is a bit confusing. 2 Reboot, 2, and HD. None of them are actually the original, and I am not sure if they are different games, they just have different names, or if 2 failed so they made reboot then possibly improved the art and called it HD.
If you wanna do a PoE skill tree, you have to play Final Fantasy 10! I'm almost 100% certain, it was the inspiration for the PoE skill tree.
I guess poe 2 :p
but yeah tree wise, FF10 is a great suggestion, imo factorio or other similar games like satisfactory. there's the obvious trees, but the more hidden one is the crafting tree, to make an early game unlock in satisfactory, the smart plating, you need reinforced iron plates, and rotors, and for those you need screws, iron plates and iron rods, which you get from smelting iron ore into iron ingots. (minecraft and terraria also have similar hidden trees, to get a diamond pickaxe you need diamonds, for which you need iron pickaxe
Depends on what games you like. I'm playing Gemcraft lately, wonderful game but time-consuming with grind. It's amazing how much they created in a Flash game. Latest parts are Steam-based but keep the style. Timberborn is a lovely peaceful game. But... you probably like more Diablo-likes? Disgaea\Makai Kingdom are wonderful. Their dark humor is priceless. Noita is for those who want unfair level of hardcore difficulty. Nox is a lovely old game. Most fun as a mage. Kenshi is definitely worth trying. Really, many excellent titles. From all genres and time periods. Except for moderns games, they are cheap splooge.
One thing about skill tree design you didn't mention a lot was that mechanical and thematic connection should go hand in hand, i.e. prerequisites should make sense. I love skill trees, but too many of them just put thing behinds each other because the latter one is deemed more powerful, therefore you should have to take something else first to increase its price. Parry as a reprequisite for Riposte makes sense, Multishot for Sniper Shot doesn't.
100%, this is definitely something I'll have to keep in mind too.
> huge skill tree
> look inside
> 3% increased fire damage.
meanwhile path of exile skill tree - maximum life becomes 1, immune to chaos dmg .
@@MrRafagigapr Most of the tree in PoE is +x life, +y% fire damage, etc though. There are interesting nodes, sure. But you have a lot of filler between them. It'd be both more interesting and more approachable if they cut out most of the tree.
@@darthelmet1 L take
@@Cobaltz246 What part of that statement is wrong? Does the PoE skill tree NOT have a ton of basic stat increases?
@@darthelmet1 the L is for them cutting most of the tree. POE is unique because of the tree.
Just wanted to say, I really love the way you're presenting these videos. Going in-depth on a topic of game design and then relating it back to your own game and process is a great mix of content.
What I love about the skill tree in Path of Exile is the fact that it is shared by all classes as they start all on the same tree, just in different places. You wanna play a duelist who summons the corpses of his enemies? Sure, it might take you a while to get there but go nuts! This does not only work great for creativity but it also makes sense in general that a frail witch for example take longer to be a threat with two-handed-swords whereas making her Zombies explode would come far more natural to her than to said duelist.
Yep my thoughts exactly having all the classes share a tree enables so many options. What you said about a Witch taking longer to use 2H sword is on point too and I never really thought about it like that before
@secretsofshadowsgame yeah, it's a neat Detail that's so natural to us that we don't really notice it I think. And the impicit message of "You can be anything you want if you're willing to put the effort into it" is kinda nice in a way too.
Though one thing I would like to see in all those customization-heavy games (and especially PoE) would be a way to try out your build ideas in an isolated area. That doesn't even have to be part of the core game itself but could be just like a tutorial Mode in some blank Region, just so you can verify that certain passives and skill gems interact in the way you think they do. Because sinking hours upon hours and Lots of currency into a build you theory-crafted only to THEN realize some interaction does not work the way you assumed can be frustrating enough to put the game down entirely.
An example of a good linear skill tree with branching paths is the "tech tree" from Civilization series. Each node unlocks cool abilities, crossing oceans, building forts, new units. I can't think of another skill tree that has so many unique abilities per unlock, instead of basic stat upgrades.
Having a layout that is not a grid opens another possibility: Don't pick a theme ahead of time.
Pay attention to the playtesting/early-adopter discussions about builds. Many times communities wind up coming up with names for various builds.
Once they have settled on some builds that are community favorites and have names (and you aren't going to re-balance to destroy them), re-arrange your skill tree slightly and put in a background of constellations to highlight and match the community names for various builds. Now people who do not participate in the community discussion also get to see some hints toward builds they can try, you have demonstrated awareness of and interest in the community discussions, and you have a thematic element to the skill tree which matches gameplay.
Solid advice, thanks for sharing!
love the in-depth analysis and conversation, really makes me think about what i want from my game as well!
If the skill tree isn't the focus of your game, consider allowing players to opt for default builds that automatically make their choices for them, or at least suggest choices. There are games where I really want to make those choices, and there are games where I just want to poke stuff with a long pointy stick.
If I never have to touch another skill tree, leveling system, or xp system, I’d be fine. I prefer getting an upgrade in the form of an item/ability that you acquire in the game world.
I didn’t see them mentioned:
The first Dragon’s Dogma lets you swap classes as much as you want, being able to try the abilities from all of them (all of them are cool and interesting), but your stat growth is affected by which class you are at the time of leveling up. Plus, passive abilities are cross class, and can be mixed and matched. Not really a skill tree, but a very interesting approach.
Outward is really cool as you can go to trainers and learn skills from their specific trees, but you only get 3 points to pass to the next level of learning with a trainer, and learn the most powerful abilities they have to teach you. Basically, everything is broken up into mini-skill trees. It’s not overwhelming, and it presents an interesting choice for the player.
I’m trying to develop my own game, and I wanted to use a skill tree, but ended up scrapping the idea entirely. It just didn’t work well with what I wanted to do. The current project looks almost entirely different from the original. The research and analysis about it was very interesting though, and I guess that’s part of the fun. Your video was awesome, and I hope your game will do well! The Japanese setting is very alluring, I hope lots of Yokai will make their appearance!
Quick correction, in Sekiro you can by default parry thrusts just like normal attacks. Mikiri counter is just a much better and easier way to counter them.
Wait really? I thought all the attacks with red warning attacks can't be parried?
Games with large skill trees like Path of Exile sound like they should be fun, but when the emphasis is put on quantity like this, each skill often ends up being just small stat changes with barely any effect on gameplay, and is ultimately very boring. Having such huge trees also often leads to players having decision paralysis.
One game that I think did skills very well was Ragnarok Online. Playing RO as a kid, I was always excited to try out my brand new skills whenever I reached a new character class. Every skill in this game is interesting in my opinion, and there is a rather wide array of different classes to try out. In addition, the developers have since added 3rd and now 4th classes with brand new interesting skills which I'm excited again to try out, but the late game gets very, very grindy.
Yeah, PoE's skill tree is 80% filler. It's a really good game and a good skill tree in many ways, but so many levels I just have to put another point into a +10 stat node that changes nothing about my playing experience.
@@NotMeButAnother yea I totally get that which why there's a meme about people "playing" PoE by only making builds on PoB (a 3rd party tool used for planning and making builds) and not actually in game
yeah the main thing poe-like trees do is making skills that would be "costs 5 points to unlock" into 4 [small increase] and 1 [what you actually want] so you don't have to hoard your passive points.
Except Poe still has the best tree even with filler.
@Pat315 I think the filler is why it's good, instead of having a 3 point passive where you have nothing to do for 3 levels, you get a minor boost, it also allows to have different costs depending where you are coming from in a way that's pretty intuitive, and, while it's minor, it also gives a lot of granularity to do minor tweaks in a way that looks good, a big node with 37% damage looks weird, but if you change 3 nodes in front from 9% to 8% no one would find them weird. (Note that in practice that exact example isn't great, because you can nerf down to 35 without issue in most cases as the granularity isn't necessary, but it's nice to have)
I always liked the idea of leveling up weapon mastery for each specific weapon type instead of having a finite number of points (max level) that you need to allocate between specific skills.
First of all, this reduces the price of an error - what if you thought that you like using spear, but after 10-20 hours you realized that you actually want to use a big two handed sword? Just go to a low-level area and grind a little bit and now you can use big two-handed swords. Changed your mind again? No problem - you can always equip a different weapon and grind a little bit to upgrade the mastery.
I think Bloodborne* is a good example of this approach - you can upgrade pretty much any weapon to +7+8 without any issues and try out different styles in one playthrough, and upgrade to +10 only the weapon you like.
* While Dark Souls has similar mechanic, I don't think it's as good as BB's - having many variations of titanite (especially in the DS1) makes it harder to grind, and they drop not as often as blood stones in BB
On the other hand, stat upgrades affect the effectiveness of weapons, so you still kinda forced to decide which weapon to use quite early in the game (this can be alleviated to some degree by grinding more levels since the level cap is around 700+, but it takes a lot of time)
And this approach kinda makes sense in real life - the more you practice something the more proficient you become.
This, or a big list of very small skill trees (like 2-3-4 skills per tree, maybe gated by character level), similar to Knight of the Old Republic - I don't feel like I'm forced to commit to any specific skill-tree/play-style, and even if I fully upgrade 2 skill-trees for mutually exclusive skill-sets/weapons, it doesn't ruin my character
Another example of a "skill tree" similar to KotOR is Sea Dogs series - it has a bunch of different skills like better store prices, more crew members on your ship, longer ranges for boarding other ships, increased damage with cannons, increased durability of your sails and so on, and each skill has 2-3 levels. Each skill affects only a specific aspect of the game and you can choose which play-style you like more - naval combat, trading, quickly boarding ships and fighting in melee, etc, without the other parts suffering too much
I love skill trees that don't just modify existing stats but actually change the mechanics of your moves. It's especially fun when the moves combo into each other. If I recall correctly, the DmC series does a decent job of this. I'm also fond of skill trees that make upgrades mutually exclusive so you can't just buy everything. I feel like I'm actually crafting a tailored experience. Give me the choice between a big super jump or a double jump that's not as high but allows me to redirect mid jump. That's a consideration worth making.
yea I personally don't care for skill trees that can be maxed out too - especially through grinding XP and not through quests/other more meaningful ways of unlocking points
I would say that jump example should not be mutually exclusive, mostly because it effects platforming and there will be areas not accessible without one of them in specific. Something you do not want in a platformer.
I still like the Diablo II skill tree. There are skills at all tiers that work end-game, and most of them have a significant impact on gameplay. There are so many viable builds, and even more if you get creative and want a challenge. There's also been a significant evolution within the game's lifespan. They added skill cooldowns, which encourages lower tier skills, synergies to boost some skills to make specialisation stronger, and finally an actual respec option.
I'm playing Mario & Rabids Spark of Hope. It and Kingdom Battles are beautiful blasphemy against their genre. Instead of a slow, hyper-cautious approach like in X-COM, the game is built around high mobility and flanking. Cover is such a powerful effect, yet it's also very easy to bypass e.g. with good movement or skill use, and both the player and AI can use this masterfully. Its skill tree also slaughters sacred cows, and I love this just as much. All your skill points are refundable. You can respec between any battles, as manly times as you want, for free; you're completely unpunished for experimenting. But I don't respec constantly -- once I settle on how I want to use a character, they stay relatively stable for a long time.
The skills are also relatively impactful, with some adding totally new ways your character behaves (such as stomping on or shooting enemies while you fly, or demolishing cover, or disabling enemies when you dash them). Despite each character being a distinct class, the customization within also feels very meaningful.
It also helps that the skill points come from both doing missions and leveling up, so you have a strong incentive to progress the plot and do side quests, not just grind.
Nice video! I suggest if making more videos on this topic, you could focus on how skill trees change throughout a franchise/series. For example, the progression from Diablo, to Diablo 2, to 3, to 4.
Absolutely, though it's not likely to be only on skill trees. I definitely wanna make a video about how a series evolves between each entry to see what elements they kept (and improved on) vs removed. Haven't decided on which series yet but Diablo is up there
@@AlansQuickSave the atelier series would be really interesting imo but it's very long, same with dragon quest or final fantasy.
Thanks for the video. Finding sources and content that's more on the theory and abstract of stuff is really nice and appreciated. The theoretical explanations and history of mechanics and concepts is exactly what I was looking for.
I'll add that hiding also allows to not overwhelm players with complex trees, and also if you hide, players should have an idea what to expect.
I don't remember which game did that, but with a huge passive tree, instead of seeing all the effects in detail, you'd see a zone marked "swords" or "fire spells". that way you have like 30-50 points that are clear, for ~1000 actual allocable points. (similarly to poe's atlas tree, except you only see the points for each type.)
an other type of skill tree that imo is underrated is city building-inspired systems, you don't just allocate an abstract "flurry of fists" point, you build a dojo, but for that you need a carpenter.
but it can also be less about cities, you might have souls in the netherworld, and each biome corresponds to a skill archetype. and now that you have physical areas, you might have to battle to unlock it. then there's 2 ways to do it, either you have a trial with the skill unlocked temporarily, and it helps you a lot or is necessary, or you have a trial that would be way easier, even trivial with the skill you will unlock so you build high anticipation for it, and you can have a final thing right after you unlock the skill where you come back using it.
e.g. you have a tricky jumping puzzle, and then you unlock double jump or a grappling hook. or you have shielded/armored enemies and you unlock a backstab, critical hit, or armor break.
(trials can be also done without skill tree physicality, you can make it as a "trials of the gods" or it requires an item found in a specific dungeon.)
physicality can also be no skill tree, but you can have the dungeons/trials require a skill to beat, that's basically a skill tree because let's say to unlock the item from dungeon G you need to have the items from dungeons A and C or even any 2 items from dungeon A, B,E and F, you can draw all your dungeons on paper and draw those dependency lines and have your skill tree/graph, but people never actually see a skill tree unless they do that.
addendum: imo interactibles are way underrated to make a game people are fond of and stay immersed in. (though it requires a decent game in the first place, and does take development time, but if you can like, add a few breakable items, some critters that go away when you attack etc...) it's basically the "can you pet the dog?" metric.
Excellent post, I really like that city building system. Also, the dungeon type progression system immediately reminds me of Zelda games and metroidvanias though they typically don't have optional progression paths
@@AlansQuickSave yeah I was mostly thinking about zelda-like games, there's a few optional ones like the biggoron sword in oot, but they're usually dead ends.
breath of the wild and totk have the most open systems where only a few upgrades are needed to complete the game.
ittle dew is short but is a good showcase for alternate options where you need 2/3 items to complete the game.
as for city building hundred heroes is a good example, where you unlock things by bringing heroes with you, for example you unlock teleporting by finding a mage who knows how to teleport. though the progress is pretty flat, it's more of a cornfield than a tree, only a few heroes require other ones (directly or indirectly, for example if you need to forge an armour to get someone on board, you need a blacksmith).
though the actual city building is presented as a tree. (great game btw, I do recommend it even if I forgot in my other comment)
6:17 for me it's an issue of Skill Trees not being mechanically interesting; the only skill tree system I find mechanically interesting is PoE skill tree system because it's not only an investment but the color and stats clearly identify what elements of the tree can be changed AND some minor flexible spots being the gem slots as an example.
I didn't want to spend too long on PoE but it has a ton of cool interactions with other systems too like unique jewels and tattoos. You're almost customizing your own passive tree at that point
I think cyberpunk 2077 has a good skill tree, is very simple and is nothing crazy but is very impacful. deflecting bullets with melee, hacking the same enemy multiple times, regenerating a lot of hp in melee combat, advantages while being crouch and stuff, like that, it could be better but i think is good
small correction at 9:28 you can parry thrust attacks in sekiro without mikiri by perfect blocking but the window to do so is way smaller so in practice mikiri is essential
To my game, I've added a never-ending expanding passive bonus grid, using procedural generation! I've thought a lot about what fun things to add and now it has 18 different upgrades. It also has a respec button that regenerates the grid and refunds your claimed points, but sacrificing some. The more points sacrificed, the higher chance node spawn enhanced when you regenerate. It's been fun in testing so far. Like popping bubble wrap...
Wow this sounds amazing, do you mind sharing the name of the game and is there a steam page I can check out?
That specializes the most vilified part of skill tree: small stat bonuses. Is also sounds like you won't have too much leeway to choose a theme for how you build your character, since you reset known trees and wait for rng to choose for you.
the Trails in the Sky/Sora no Kiseki trilogy, as well as the following Crossbell arc (Trails from Zero/Zero no Kiseki and Trails into Azure/Ao no Kiseki) are definitely an interesting hybrid of different systems.
For one, each character has pre-determined stats and innate abilities determines linearly by who they are and their current level - the innate abilities are called Crafts and use Craft Points that are primarily gained through dealing and taking damage.
But the part that makes it interesting is that everyone has their own Battle Orbment (orbments are the in-world magic-like technology) that can be fully customized with a slew of different elemental "quartz" synthesized from sepith crystals.
Each character's battle orbment has a set amount of slots (usually around 6-8, depending on the game), and each quartz has its own special effect - usually a % stat increase, but sometimes a unique effect such as being able to randomly instant-kill when using a Craft, automatic HP regeneration, or overworld abilities like being able to see enemies or treasure chests on the mini map.
However, the really intriguing part with quartz in these earlier games in the series is that each one provides different "sepith values" that determine what Orbal Arts (basically spells) that character can use. Quartz and Orbal Arts are divided among seven different elements (Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Time, Space, Mirage), yet many quartz may have values for multiple elements and many Orbal Arts require values from multiple different elements.
Players have access to a battle orbment user manual that also spells out the different elemental sepith value recipes to unlock each Orbal Art, as well as what the different Orbal Arts are meant to accomplish upon casting, which ultimately creates something akin to a universal skill tree that all characters have varying levels of access to, but instead of grinding levels to gain more points to spend in a tree, the player instead has a puzzle of how they want to arrange their different quartz load-outs to best define their intended builds for each character in the party, with stronger quartz providing more elemental value and providing greater Orbal Arts flexibility as the player progresses through each game.
To add an additional layer of nuance to this system, different characters have different pre-determined circuit configurations for their Battle Orbments; with some slots only accepting quarts of a particular element and different orbments having different sets of lines within their circuit.
Lines effectively partition the elemental sepith values gained from slotted quartz (the central slot feeds into all lines). More lines means a character has less access to powerful and more advanced Orbal Arts, and therefor is better suited to choosing quartz for their stat increases and unique passive abilities while a character with only a single line can hypothetically access any art in the game and will want to focus their elemental speith values above all else in order to acquire the best Orbal Arts available.
Sadly in the Trails of Cold Steel/Sen no Kiseki games this system was drastically simplified into quartz simply having either Orbal Arts or unique abilities innately tied to them along with stat increases, but I hear either Daybreak or Farewell Zemuria is trying to do something more interesting with the battle orbments again.
For your system, as it is Japanese adjacent, rather than trying to divide your six attributes into two groups for Yin and Yang, you could asign each of them an Element: Water, Fire, Wind, Wood, Metal, Lightning
Yea this could work, I alrdy planned having an element be associated with each starting location and I really like these
@@AlansQuickSave Chinese wuxing doesn't have wind or lightning elements, they only have wood, metal, fire, air, and earth. In Japanese they use fire, air, earth, wind, and void. Look into godai for more information on this; you can think of void/wood and wind/metal as similar concepts but it's not a 1:1 correlation.
Great video! looking forward to trying your game, and following the channel
Thanks for the support, public demo will be out early next year :)
I think the order of unlockable abilities also matters. If you get something cool but you can only use it for the last 10% of the game, it leads to player disappointment and they might feel that their effort was wasted
Great vid, enjoy seeing someone else doing the deep analysis
Sick content ty the RPG likewise looks sick
I really don't like skill trees, which is a shame, because I end of playing a lot of games that have them. So they end up just being another interaction cost I have to pay to enjoy the game. Before I can even start having fun with the game, I have to go look up a build and then have that open to refer to throughout playing. A few of the key problems I have: (some of which were discussed in the video, but just to voice my own preferences on this.)
- They're too overwhelming up front. Sure, you can look at being able to see the whole tree as something that can generate excitement for future options, but for me it immediately hits me with a wall of complexity and decision paralysis. In order to even begin to make informed decisions about the tree, I have to consider all the nodes, even for choices that won't be relevant to me for many hours. Sure I could just pick semi-randomly as I go, but that's often not going to work out and even if it does because the game is just that easy, I'm still not making real choices.
- A related point is that ironically there's a problem of lack of information when you first start looking at the tree. Sure, you can see all the nodes, but you don't really have context for understanding what their value is. For skills you don't really know how they're going to play. (The video clips that have been added in some games recently helps with that to some extent, but there's only so much you can gather from them without getting to actually see how the skill feels when you use it.) You often don't know how many total points you will have to spend by the end, so it's tough to have an idea of what combinations of things are realistically accessible. You also don't really know how much you need of various stats. You might want to grab all these cool effects, but if you need to make sure you have a certain amount of defenses, you need to know what that number is so you know the constraints you're working with.
- Continuing along that same line of thought, depending on the respec options, one of two bad things happen: If respecing isn't available or is very costly, then you basically require the player to plan out the full build in advance so that they don't make a mistake and then regret their decision later and need to start over. It discourages experimentation. On the flip side, games that make it really easy to respec encourage players to frequently make changes to their build based on the situation, which reduces build identity and depending on how much you need to change, can add a lot of interaction cost. A player might have some endgame build in mind, but it's bad to take the points in the build until you get everything together, so it's better to play some cookie cutter leveling build and then swap to the build you actually want. Even worse, you might have a build configuration for AoE and single target, so every time you want to go fight a boss that poses any challenge, you have to spend time respecing.
- A lot of these trees end of having boring filler options that make the act of making a build more like solving a math problem than. I'm kind of surprised you picked PoE as a good example after talking about this point. Sure, it has some interesting options, but like 90%+ of the tree is +x stats. So I get to make like, 1-3 interesting decisions for each build and then I have to waste a lot more time figuring out the optimal path through the variety of "a bit of stats" nodes.
- The structure of the tree and the number of points available have some weird implications. If there are only just enough points to get you straight to the keystone abilities, then like you said, you get very few choices if you want to actually reach that powerful ability. On the other hand, if there are more than enough points to hit the keystone, then you get this weird curve of power/excitement: As you progress towards the top of the tree, you are progressively getting more powerful and interesting abilities until you reach that endpoint. After that though, every additional point is spent on a node that wasn't good enough to have already been taken and this decrease in marginal utility continues until the very last point, so at max level, a moment that ought to be an exciting achievement, you take the least useful node in your build. And that's assuming there are even enough things that affect your build available. Some more niche builds might just not have a lot of the tree they care about, so the last few points might actually just be useless.
It's not a tree, but I really liked it when WoW moved away from the skill tree in I think it was Mists of Pandaria. Instead of the usual thing, you now had several tiers of 3 mutually exclusive choices at regular level intervals. These choices were all pretty significant changes to your playstyle or the utility available to you. There aren't a ton of them, there's no path dependency, and it's easy to respec, so even though you can see all the options at the start, it's not overwhelming. The cheap respecing did mean you were meant to swap talents for different situations, but because this was pretty quick to do, it wasn't bad in the way it would be if you had to respec an old talent tree.
For example, I mained Paladin. I can't actually find all the talents anymore (on WoWHead some of the links are broken) so I'll try to see what I remember from what I do have. At lv 15 you had 3 movement speed options. One was a low but always on passive boost. One was a 1 minute CD spell that was the highest speed for a short burst. One was a boost that activated when you used one of your ranged abilities, so you could use it for gap closing. At 30 you got to chose a crowd control ability. At 45 you got a healing option. One hooked in to your resource system and was fairly consistent, one was a burst heal option, and one was a shield. Lv 60 were defensive CD options. I don't remember them exactly, but I think they also followed a pattern of some being more consistent but low reduction and some being higher CD higher impact choices. lv 75 were I think all resource related. Some CDs and some passives. This was probably the tier that was most "do the math," but there were still some fight or gear specific decisions to be made like if burst damage is really important. Lv 90 were 3 big, flashy abilities. One was a light you could put on an enemy or ally and it would single target heal and AoE damage on an ally, or single target damage, AoE heal on an enemy. There was a hammer you'd throw down to make a big AoE to heal and damage things. Then I think the last one was this single target hammer than slowly dropped on a target to heal or damage. They were all fairly meaningful choices you could very directly feel the impact of in your gameplay and there were good reasons to use one or the other in different situations.
Beyond that though, I think I like random drafting games a lot more for build making/progression. Roguelikes and and autobattlers are the big ones that come to mind. Because it's random, you can't/don't have to already have a build going in. I can just boot up a rogue-like and play a run without any prep. I can't do that with something like PoE or a CCG. The choices get made in small batches, so you never get overwhelmed, but you still get to make interesting choices that hopefully come together into some cool build. In fact, a lot of roguelikes allow you to make even more wild, broken builds than a game with a fixed skill tree BECAUSE you can't do the same thing every time, so it's ok if you occasionally high roll something busted. Plus the permadeath, short run structure manages to make a good compromise on the respec issue. You get locked in to your choices, so you build up that identity, but only for like an hour or two at most and then you get to try a new thing regardless of how your decisions turned out.
For sure, I think a ton of games - indies especially have transitioned to roguelikes for the reasons you mentioned. Pick 1 of 3 random power ups (dead cells and hades) type systems seem to be the default way to go for a lot of smaller games now
I love skill trees. And great breakdown here. I will also add that sometimes, skill trees can just be too much. A game like PoE might inherently cater to people desiring to spend a ton of time in the game. But I remember when Final Fantasy 10 came out, I took one look at it's skill tree and decided not to play the game. It was bad enough that it was too large, but I actually really dislike the "non-direct path" designs, because it adds a layer of complexity where the aesthetic actually undermines the ability to understand that system. Third, it actually cost XP to unlearn things you'd learned! Ain't nobody got time for dat.
Absolutely, I also love that PoE isn't afraid to show it so early (when you level up on the first zone). Some players have suggested the tree to be revealed slowly as you level so it's more beginner friendly but IMO that just "baits" players into sinking time into a system they might realize isn't for them
So the thing I really liked about the Diablo 2 skill tree was that while there were higher level spells and abilities the tree, it was designed to let you spend more or less points on a single one depending on your build. It works differently but gives a similar level of choice to skill tree's that force you to choose between two or more abilities as your capstones(or even potentially for each skill point spent). Contrast this with a lot of skill tree's where there is little choice, for instance Dragon Age origins skill tree worked for spell casters because even though each spell tree was just 4 points and they were linear you had to pick and choose which spells you wanted, but for the fighting styles you just picked which two or three skill tree's to go down based on the chosen fighting style and then went down them making them a lot less interesting and letting you max out one set of skill tree's early but not giving you enough points to max a second along with the characters other class trees... and no real reason to even try.
As far as your yin yang skill tree I could easily see one of the two dots being for a monk or blademage letting you deal elemental damage with your sword or fists, and maybe the other one being a summoning style skill for your mages to do physical damage. In either case you would probably want to build to that and then head over to the other side of the tree for more support nodes for elemental or physical damage buffs building out your mana to summon more stuff but then needing fighter nodes to make your creatures actually dangerous, with your counterpart option probably wanting lot's of normal attack and critical hit nodes but then pairing them with elemental damage and secondary elemental effects(shock damage stunning etc).
Not sure how titan quest is not mentioned, but it is one of my favorite games. And has such a simple yet awesome skill tree system!
I've never tried titan quest but I just looked up what the skill tree is like - looks very cool and the combining of 2 skill masteries looks right down my alley lol
One of the keypoints of Witcher(2, at least) and Nocturne: Rebirth's skill tree is making each node a notable skill effect AND having stat bonuses of a particular spread.
So getting flexibility on your elemental spells also makes you a better mage in general, without the busywork of picking individual stat buffs in a bigger, more meaningless skill tree. You can also focus on one particular skill for its stat spread just as much as improving that skill.
I don't agree with making full respecs easily available. I would do something like partial resets. If you have 1 tree for every class, being able to refund ONE tree with a fairly uncommon reset item gives you essentially the same option as switching out subjobs. That lets you try out transitional builds before you get around to the pre-planned one, adding variety and unforeseen synergies into the mix.
I really liked the skill tree in monster sanctuary the upgrade limit + the wide variety of skills really helped the game pop off
The Sekiro example is the kind that really deflates me. I hate getting deep into the game just to realize something that I'm not all that interested in, is pretty much required to play the game. I'm being handicapped for indulging in the options the game presents.
Sekiro skill tree is barely needed. I didn't touch it almost my entire run.
In Sekiro, saying you can't parry perilous thrusting attacks by default or without Mikiri Counter isn't correct. You can't block a thrust attack, but it can be deflected. The timing is just much more precise than deflecting normal attacks. The Mikiri Counter has much easier timing and inflicts much more posture damage, so it is the better option.
Oh wow you're right, my bad. I haven't played sekiro in a while and i dont remember ever successfully deflecting a thrust attack myself lol. Good catch
An interesting idea would be to have a mechanic, where the skill tree paths can be changed by the game, or manipulated by the player.
For the algorithm.
I personally like equippable skill sets. Something like Paper Mario Thousand Year Door or Fallout
Great video. But I'm don't really agree about the "don't make respect too easy". I will take Baldur's gate 3 as an example. The respect is nearly free, and I think it was a great idea. Most of the time making the respec prideful will make people not want to experience new things and player wanting to experience build will just save sum the cost to test different things. In fine it will discourage some and make other find way around mean to archive free rebuild.
And all heil to the mighty algorithm.
Yeah I actually agree with that, the gold cost for BG3 respeccing was low and I ended up trying a lot of new content cus of it. I think it works cuz you have to be in camp to do it and you can't go to camp when you're in dungeons IFAIK - like if you could respec right before entering a boss fight that would harm the overall experience imo
@secretsofshadowsgame I agree but the whole thing is letting the player choose if he thinks it's the right time. Most players wouldn't respec before each encounter. They would try to breakthrough with what they got before even thinking about respec. The kind of player that would do that are min maxer and I think unlimited respec would make them very happy. The only moment where I can think that would be a problem is if the next encounter is too difficult and the player NEED to respec to pass. But in that case the problem is not really the respec.
But at the same time I find myself quite happy in games that don't have repec at all because it feels like a commitment, but it's also easily the source of too much frustration.
Anyway great video I'm looking forward to your next one
@@AlansQuickSave Personally if a respec is expensive I never respec. I would need to be caught in a situation where I cannot progress unless I respec to do it. That ties in with the mentality of not wasting consumables = never using them. Except it is even worse because a respec is a side grade rather than a temporary upgrade. Spending limited resources on something that doesn't provide a clear advantage simply feels bad.
Making respec limited by requiring some effort to perform it on the other hand is a much better idea. If you have to go to this one particular location to perform it, then you aren't going to abuse the fact that it is essentially free by respecing perfectly before every battle, while being able to safely try out new playstyles without overcommitting to them.
Awesome vid! I would like to recommend one more indie game as an example of good skill tree - Soulstone Survivors (I’m not the dev and it’s not an as). It’s rogue like game which shares both common and character based skill trees with good progression of unique class features. Worth checking out for sure!
@@MaksimSalomatin Ooh that sounds interesting for sure. I feel like a lot of indies lean into roguelite/roguelike mechanics and use temporary/random power ups (pick 1 of 3 upgrades kind of thing). Definitely gonna check out Soulstone Survivors
Strange to present them as boring or outdated. It's a rock solid design pattern and visual presentation of that pattern.
A. "One new rule at a time" is a proven design formula. The best way to explain game rules to players isn't to slam them with every rule at once, but to step them through those rules. Now this point by itself doesn't require any UI visualization: Portal steps players through gradually learning each "rule" of how the puzzle elements interact with each other. Also I think basically no games do the simplest visualization of it, which would just be a _Leveling Bar_ that shows your progress to next level but also lets you "rewind" to see the earlier skills (ie rules) that you unlocked in prior levels.
B. Instead, most do the step past that "leveling bar", which is a talent tree with player decisions. So they create the simplest system: you get points, and spend them on these nodes.
C. Then they might additionally create more explicit choices in the tree, either by (1) choosing the left path locks the right path, (2) choosing a dynamic node which lets you pick only one of two options, like modern WOW has, or (3) doing it a bit more ambiguously like Darktide does where when you mouseover or buy an exclusive node a few nearby nodes are locked.
This is in addition to the implied exclusivity that's already there with Talent point: you only have a limited number of htem so if you spend them all on nodes A->D, you won't have points left for nodes X->Z
So basically all these things are some of the simplest design rules to create and they have to be simple so players understand them (though I'm not arguing this is the only simple way to do things, most alternatives are just fancy footwork where any knowledgeable player would be like, _"oh, that's actually just a talent tree under the hood"_ ).
So if anyone feels talents are boring, that's more the *Talent Content Specific to a Game,* rather than an issue with the system itself.
After all, nearly every Darktide and WOW talent nowadays is a pretty meaty rule to learn, and if you memorize them all you're going to be playing those classes at a level _way_ beyond the average Joe who copy/pasted a build without learning all those rules.
Skill trees are just very popular as progression system for games that want a bare minimum RPG element.
Letting a player do a full respec is a bit dangerous, since as soon as they do so they are left with a bunch of skill points to reallocate all at once. A good skill tree should let a player get a taste of the experience they will receive so that they can pivot away if they don't like the type of game play it enables. PoE, I believe limits respects to undoing one skill at a time via an in-game item. You can also address some of the balance issues of skill trees by limiting a player on how they progress though the tree more on the first playthrough but open it more if they want to experiment on a new playthrough.
I feel conflicted about full respecs - on one hand it is pretty convenient compared to respeccing 1 by 1 if you're an experienced player that know what you're doing, but on the other hand sometimes it can feel a bit jarring if you full respec halfway thru a game and you're not used to the new playstyle. One work around would be to have presets/pages you can swap back and forth on so you can have 1 tree that "works" and experiment on another 1
Full respecs are fine. There is nothing wrong with allocating a bunch of skill points at once, as long you earned them slowly previously.
On that topic being able to full respec at anytime isn't as bad. Unless game is balanced around that most people won't really do it. Or you could make that it's still free but only accessible in a certain places like a base/town so you can still experiment all you won't without that minority respecing before every fight.
I think the reason for the reputation comes down to the fact that skill trees are usually not a natural extension of a game's design. Some games it is natural, but if the game isn't focusing on it then it is artificial. So, very often a dev will add a skill tree in a game that doesn't focus on it _(typically due to a misunderstanding about how to create depth in their game),_ which is frustrating to any kind of player.
It's not fatigue. It's blandness.
The player sees the skill tree as progression and unlocking abilities.
From the _devs POV,_ the skill tree is a way to craft unique situations based on abilities. _Modern devs_ tend to make all skills equally viable, and thus, exchangeable (or bland, as I said).
If picking a skill (or the right skill, even) has no impact on the game, and there's no consequences to it over another, then there's no point in a skill tree. Just unlock skills based on level up and stop making players deal with the tedium.
I think, the Skill Web is better than a Skill Tree. It offers more choice and can be therefor more meaningful. It can also offer more freedom, if the options not chosen are not locked out from being chosen later.
The game that popularised that version was Final Fantasy X. It allowed for a lot of customisation, while still guiding the players towards a workable path. If you didn't want to, you didn't have to think much about it, or you could get creative with a bit more effort. Just like Diablo II, it was a popular game with a skill tree that worked well, so other devs copied it.
I generally like the modern approach of multiple parallel mini-skill trees, but one thing that frustrates me is that it is hard to estimate the number of total skill points you get on your first playthrough. How many mini-trees can I complete? How many of the cool cross-tree combos I see are actually possible? Can I actually re-spec? It's hard to plan ahead with so many unknowns.
I don't know what the answer is. Should the skill tree tutorial just tell you that you will be able to complete about 3-4 sub-trees? Late in the story you will be able to respec 1-2 times? Should the UI tell you the maximum amount of skill points from the start of the game? Is this already a spoiler?
That's a great point. I think some games do have the UI show something like 1/40 when you gain a new point, and let you map out roughly how many skills are accessible yourself.
One thing I really like though is when games just have a little window saying "This can be changed later", seeing that makes me much more comfortable with experimenting
Commenting before watching. The mechanics i think any good skill tree need:
1. It is impossible to get all or even most of the skill tree. 1/3-1/2 at most.
2. No single part of the skill tree is so impactful that it ends up defining the entire meta.
3. As many parts of the skill tree as possible create new options, as opposed to directly enhancing existing strategies directly.
Great channel, I like what you're doing here
I have never liked skill trees. However, I love the kinds of games that often have skill trees. I wish they would implement more diegetic progression, or even dispense with progression entirely, because it isn't fun to interrupt the game world while I look through a menu.
It also interrupts my ability to identify with the protagonist. What is my character doing while I look through the skill tree? Is he visualizing abilities he wants to learn in the future? "Hmm...I need 3 more points before I can learn to swing my axe like that." No one thinks that way. The abstraction is disruptive to the fantasy.
I've always enjoyed Nioh 2's skill trees. What are your thoughts on that game's implementation?
I learn a lot from your Video.
Does anyone know of a game that uses a skill tree, but you don't get to simply pick your next skill? I'm thinking something like a JRPG where I can see the skill tree, know what sorts of abilities I'm likely to unlock soon, but then I have a regular dialog menu, and depending on what I choose, that determines which skill unlocks.
If not, please feel free to use this!
Arco has great skill trees.
I mean skill trees are pretty inevitable if you do two things. Make optionally unlockable perks, and have some that require others to be unlocked first. Have both these things, and you have a skill tree.
As I play more and more RPGs I just wish for small skill trees with new game features. and not skills like "one-hand sword does +5% damage".
I remember in cyberpunk the skill tree actually fine for the most part but there is a skill that does : "you get 5% less fall damage" I think it's the worst skill I ever seen in a video game even more so when almost no-one ever die form fall damage in cyberpunk and even than 5% isn't likely to save you.
I haven't played cyberpunk yet I've heard it's gotten a lot better now but man that 5% less fall damage skill sounds hilarious. Literally the perfect example of a nothing node on a skill tree, even better if its required for you to unlock something way better/more fun 😂
I looked for it and it was 3 points skill 5%/10%/15% they removed it in 2.0 and now the icon used for a ground slam skill which is nice.
It's too bad you didn't bring up FFX, which was what inspired the PoE skill tree (almost certainly at least). One of the best skill trees that inspired a lot of games.
謝謝！
Thank you so much!
Damn. Another thing Sid Meier invented. Wild.
Future Hideo
I wouldn't classify monster hunter weapon upgrades as a skill tree, for the weapons mostly only provide slots to place decorations which have the skills, and those are obtained randomly, or at the cost of those random drops. And I wouldn't call elemental damage a skill, nor a larger number on damage, affinity or sharpness; If you were to count those as skills, might as well count any game with equipment drops.
Armors and Decorations provide the skills in MonHun, which don't follow the tree structure as you mentioned, and even ignoring that, it doesn't follow your description of a "good" skill tree, because the skills are passives, with little incremental upgrades, with only a few providing actual combat changes.
There are better examples of good skill trees.
Ragnarok Online did have interesting options for each class, but didn't allow too much for generalists, more specialization than anything because the limit on job lvl.
Full Metal Furies also has a decent skill tree system, bit short tho. It gave passive and combat upgrades, and after the first run they become more or less irrelevant since you can max everything with enough xp.
Cyberpunk did an ok job with its skill trees imo, but you can always reset them, not the stats tho, and those define the access to the skill trees.
Borderlands 2 also had decent skill trees.
If I remember well Blasphemous also had a simple skill tree? can't remember the details, but I don't remember hating it, so it might be also worth checking out.
Those are some that I can remember rn. Best of luck with your game~!
I think there are good alternatives, too, that should be considered. Souls games & Elden Ring don't have a skill tree, nor need it. That's because the game's other systems already fulfil the same purpose.
You find new abilities and attacks through the gear you acquire, and subsequently 'unlock' using them through meeting the stat requirements by leveling your attributes.
When you look through this lens, the entire game is a skill tree.
Yea there are always a lot of underrated alternatives for so many aspects of a game. Fromsoft is great because they don't follow trends for trend's sake. Elden Ring for example could've easily have map markers, quest logs, and characters with skill trees but then it would lose a ton of its charm
I'll say this without any context: the AAA industry should be embarrassed by taking so long to learn the lesson the Borderlands franchise and Path of Exile learned from Day 1 - "just make Diablo but slightly better"
Dat algorithm 3.0
Little root town woo! and lake. Sootapolis city is my fav! Route 104 have a comment for the alg
I see Diablo II, I like and subscribe.
PoE is just bloated for no reason, when you have section with "+one melee weapon dmg" and two hand, then a couple of section for EACH type of weapon you can have, axe, sword, rapier, whatever, it's not more "choice", it more bloat for no good reason, the worst is when you see two nearly identical talent group next to each other on the tree and one is being +sword and the other +axe, what the point? obviously if you are axe you go axe side, and vice versa for sword, its not a "CHOICE".
It's also extremely painful to understand, I had all the +life, armor and reist for a the barbarian type character (sorry forget the name) and was still being killed extremely quickly, that were I drew the line of stupidity
It's definitely not for everyone 😅
To be fer not every game have skill tree.
But yes the are many games that have it's pretty common.
For the algorithm 2.
I personally don't have plan to make skill tree on any of my game's it's very hard to balance ⚖️ and to do right.
The game I'm working now is multiplayer fps game and the last thing I want it's complex system like that.
But even in other projects I have plan to make in the future like a open world single player rpg.
I thought it will make the game better if it's not leveling system at all.
Even if it's not leveling system I will still be progression because although the Player I will not have level I will have stronger items and enemy's depends on the areas.
In that way if the player wand to have challenge it will go deficult areas I personally don't understand why repatative graid it's requirements.
As for way shomene to want to fight instead of avoid it's for enemy's drops and because people like to fight.
For in Zelda breath of wild I will have problem fighting enemy if the don't have very low HP weapon but because they weapon break very often people like hate battle on this game
i don't know if my headset is messed up, but if its intentional to have a lecture hall echo, please no, it actually hurts my ears
Yea sorry about that, I had some recording issues on my end but I didn't notice until I was editing and I didn't want to delay the video, I know the problem so it should be fixed from now on
why does your voice sound like god
The monster hunter trees are pretty bad though.
The narrative and mechanical progression of weapons is half assed, the difference of one weapon to another is actually quite limited, and world is infamous for having the most boring and samey looking weapons.
They also necessaily have to throw the tree concept away when dealing with special event gear. They have completely standalone trees with tickets that can be obtained in only one place.
And then they throw it away AGAIN by having endgame weapons run on rng gacha. And that's not even getting to armor skills and talismans.
If you look at it purely as a skill tree I can see why it's lacking, esp like you said with event gear being standalone.
I think as a skill tree/crafting system it's done quite well since a good amount of weapons from weaker monsters can branch off to stronger weapons from higher rank monsters, rewarding you for keeping up with upgrades, as opposed to having a lot of weapons you out grow immediately whenever you progress to the next rank.
I also agree with world having the most amount of samey looking weapons, I just chose that title specifically because I have in game footage I can show for it lol
@@AlansQuickSave They almost had something going with sidegrade subspecies, but the latter half of the fancy new thing capcom adds to create monster variants makes weapons that are straight better than the original for the same purpose.
More raw less element? Total damage is still better.
No element hidden status? Actually the pure raw makes it better for plain damage anyway.
Less raw more element? Hold up, this doesn't HAVE a default upgrade, this is the only path the weapon could take!
And again, rusted or gold weapons.
if you need to hide your skill tree, you already screwed up
i think in most case, find alternative to avoid skill tree is an improvement.
like, link the improvement of the character to the items instead of the skill tree.
or link the ability just to level/progression, with the only choice to do being "what to equip" (may-be with restriction like "only one ultimate, only one movement ability")
exemple of great complexe game without skill tree : Warframe ; Armored Core 6 ; Genshin Impact
The biggest problem of skill tree is :
it make impossible, or hard, to change what we do.
in lot of case : why design a complex system with lot of possibility, if the player will only be able to experiment some of them.
not have skill tree allow to change the gameplay just by changing the items (and/or the character)
Alternatives are under explored for sure - unless the game actively focuses on RPG aspects their skill tree tends to be weak anyways
Why are education not setup with skill trees? Wouldn't that make them more organized and help students learn more smoothly?
They're called college courses. That's why they're numbered 101, 201, etc.
Most often skill trees are added "just to have it". Even a bit of thinking before implementing would fix many (potential) problems.
Take these +10% exp perks. Even back in HoMM3 it was a dumb perk since it took the valuable spot for skills, each point could be spent on something useful instead and reaching higher levels faster doesn't make much sense if you waste the levels you already reached. Sadly, we get them even today, like Medieval Dynasty, where you spend 3 skill points in a tree of like 9 skills to gain 10-20-30% more exp. Especially in the game where getting +10% exp is as easy as just... doing 10% more work. Or double. Or quadruple, no problem.
Damage is often boosted mindlessly, like +10% damage in a game where you mostly 1-shot everything or kill in 2 hits. Energy regen speed falls flat when you can't use a skill that often, like Magical Mixture Mill. Lovely game but the character has like 2 min cooldown on a skill that you need way more often. And a day lasts like 10 min. So if you can manage without the skill all this time, why would you even use it? Especially if the skill is almost as fast as farming by hand. You run around after the cooldown for like 1 more min seeking where to apply it more effectively, so why have 20% faster CDR? This time is always lost.
Health bonuses when you either get KO'd instantly or get overswarmed. Gathering more ingredients in Far Cry. Running 10% faster if you need to stand still half of the time or wait for some timings and cooldowns. It rarely works together with the game.
Some bonuses you get too late. Raft, why would I want titanium tools AFTER I beat the game? Why would I need a windmill when I'm 2 hours away from the end? I no longer need accumulators. Sure, some people would love to keep playing but most would either start a new story or play a different game.
And sometimes, like Grim Dawn, it's not clear why would it even have a skill tree if all skills make the same impact. Ults are not stronger than basic skills, synergies are random, everything is unlocked after a time so there's no choice other than taste. Also, like Pokemon, there's no point in growth since there is no difference, you can't choose a different path anyway. That problem is closer to rubberband leveling, like TES, where monsters just get stronger with you so... there's no race to stay as strong, no path of growing where you could go back and feel how much you've changed. You deal same or even less damage each level. So it may even be growing backwards. Borderlands has this pointless skill tree that doesn't even make different playstyles. You're always about the same. All characters get more or less same perks. Some have more recoil reduction, some reload faster but in the end nothing matters, you one-shot most targets, you deal the same DPS, no skills or weapons found make any difference whatsoever. It's all linear in the end. But you may feel unlucky if you don't find a more convenient weapon. So it's not as much bonuses as overcoming maluses.
So most basically devs should answer simple questions like "what would this skill change?", "does it make sense growing it gradually or is it all-or-nothing?", "are there free alternatives that would make the skill useless?", "does this skill negate an artificial difficulty or does it actually help solve problems?", "why can't we give this skill right away
ever give it?" It's not that hard, it doesn't even take complex balancing.
There is not a single game with a skill tree that doesn’t have a negative difficulty curve. (Meaning that the game gets easier the more you progress in the game)
The reason is simple - the challenges the game presents have to be beatable with the core skill set that you know the player will have. So you balance the entire game around the basic skills and every single thing you unlock from there just serves to make it easier.
I'm sure it's a great video, but the background music makes it really hard to listen to. I'm very interesting in designing a good skill tree, but even OG Pokemon music has it's place, and it might not be here :)
🤩
For the algorithm!!
skills trees are awesome,
But a easy Respect for "excludin" unless for stroy reasons should be mandatory, people like to try paths, and getting locked of one for a decision you maded 3 hours ago
Every game has a skill tree because Diablo 2 was successful. The Civ example is apt, but Diablo brought it to RPGs and into the mainstream.
But it's essentially just a visual way to represent character entitlement picks that have prerequisites (whether a previous skill or just a tier reached). You could write a skill tree for 3e D&D feats, but in the core rules it would mainly serve the Whirlwind Attack chain and everything else would crowd at the beginning. So the skill tree's existence encourages the designer to add prerequisites where they otherwise wouldn't just to serve the format.
BTW that page of Shadowrun 2e isn't a skill tree, it's the roll default chart for when you don't have a skill and must use an attribute instead. SR2 skills don't have prerequisites.
Oh nice catch, thanks for the correction
jesus, turn down the reverb please!
Work isn't fun. Skill trees aren't fun.
ua-cam.com/video/r4IkgYQc4Os/v-deo.html over on the side: democracy (requires literacy). oh, so *that's* the problem?
lmao
It's pretty odd to say that that progression systems satisfy a desire for growth and mastery, when that is the opposite of what they do. Your character becomes stronger, but you don't. You don't get a 1CC in Ikaruga, a 2-All in DoDonPachi or Ketsui or an all S-rank run in DMC1 on Dante must Die difficulty by grinding your character or maxing out your skill tree, you do it by deliberate practice, often for hundreds or thousands of hours. You learn general skills of the genre and apply them constantly, and become more proficient as a person since you completed a really difficult task. That is what true growth and mastery looks like. I recommend watching The Electric Underground's video "Why Permadeath Matters", which goes deeper in the distinction between progression vs. performance-based games.
yea, for example, the dark souls games are mostly progression based.
The mastery comes from assembling the build. Picking the right options that work well together.
It's usually not very difficult but still
Yeah, no. I don't think you understand how people think when playing these skill-progression-based games. Players express themselves through their characters, so if the characters grow stronger, they do. And more skills means you get more combinations to work with, and mastering them gives you mastery. And as @CJWproductions say, there's skill involved in creating the build, which isn't present at all in those other games.
Well designed skill trees add options for the player rather than increasing numbers. This means the decision space becomes more complex and therefore also requires more skill from the player, forcing them to grow in mastery alongside the character. (And of course assembling the build requires mastery of the game mechanics on an intellectual level.)
@@NotMeButAnother Usually games that have a fixed moveset that the game designers can then design around have deeper combat than in games with lots of builds or skill trees. Games like Bayonetta 1 or Ninja Gaiden 2 have much deeper combat than something like Elden Ring or Horizon Zero Dawn. It's much harder to create an interesting combat system when accounting for moves and abilities that the player might not have. Having "more options" does not mean that the gameplay has suddenly become more deep.