{
"post": {
"title": "Preview of a reworked skill trees mod I'm working on",
"selftext": "",
"url": "https://v.redd.it/4lwqltmvfwl81"
},
"comments": [
{
"body": "This is a quick preview of a mod I'm working on with the goal of (eventually, 1000000 years in the future) reworking all lord and hero skill trees in the game. \n\nTo give a rundown on how exactly the new skill system works (for normal lords at least):\n\n- Each lord has 3 unique skill lines that each represent an aspect of their character. No longer divided between battle/army/campaign, these skill lines are designed to be like class choices in an RPG. They are different per-character, even within the same race. Everyone no longer gets all the same skills. \n\n- Each skill line is divided into skill sections and divider skills. The catch is that each skill section must be fully filled before you can progress to the next divider skill. This means you can no longer \"rush\" a skill line. You have to put a lot of levels into a skill line to get to the good shit. \n\n- There are almost no \"free floating\" skills anymore. Mounts, campaign buffs, army buffs, etc have all been folded into the 3 class skill lines. \n\n- Each skill line takes 23 points in total to get to the max skill. This means you just barely have enough to fully multi-class two skill lines. \n\n- There are also ascendancies. These are 2 sets of 3 mutually exclusive skills you can optionally pick up at ranks 20 and 40. They buff a specific class in a big way, but give you debuffs for the other classes. Think of them as going \"all-in\" on a single class.\n\n \n\nWith the Shugengan Yang lord, I've divided her into 3 classes. Melee hybrid caster, pure caster, and a \"noble\" class. The hybrid tree buffs the lord's damage and melee prowess, as well as contains the spells for buffing troops. The pure caster tree contains many bound spells, the powerful damage spells in the lore and buffs to casting and campaign skills. The noble tree is all about supporting regions and the army. \n\nMy idea for the Shugengan lords was to have the Yang lord be focused on offensive power and melee, while the Yin lord is to be focused on defensive power and ranged. So the Yin skill tree will be like a defensive/ranged mirror of this one. \n\n \n\nThe goals of this system is to make every single character feel unique, and to make players put more thought and have more fun in how they build them. Now there's many viable paths to go down for leveling your lords, but without being so complicated that it becomes tedious. \n\nI want to hear your feedback on this system and what you think. However I am *not* looking for feedback on particular values for skills or how balanced they are individually etc. That can all easily be tweaked. I want feedback on the system as a whole and what you think of it. And feel free to ask any questions!",
"replies": [
{
"body": "What are you considering doing when it comes to what most people consider \"mandatory\" skills in the Blue Line? Those have changed quite a bit from game to game, and will likely change when the combined map releases, but:\n\n1. Route Marcher is almost always the first skill point spent. Movement range is typically one of the most important stats for an army, as it dictates if you can even do anything in your current turn. Looking at Kislev and their inability to catch armies even stacking massive movement range buffs, suggests that any \"class\" with Route Marcher would be most player's first pick no matter what.\n2. Lightning Strike's importance was huge in WH2, as the AI tended to spam armies. In WH3 they don't seem to spam quite as hard, and reinforcements don't arrive immediately, so it isn't *as* important, but it may become important again.\n3. Upkeep reduction is pretty important for legendary campaigns due to the cost increases. Not *as* important with the reductions in Supply penalties, but economies are likely going to get heavily shifted around.\n4. Replenishment for certain factions is vital, as some factions don't have heroes to pick up the slack and provide them replenishment.\n5. Attrition has become huge in WH3 due to the way sieges work, the amount of plagues being thrown around by Nurgle and Skaven factions, and the plethora of corruption types.\n\nI feel that these \"mandatory\" skills should be addressed if you intend to move to a class-based system. It would be really easy to either put most of them into one \"class\" and make that class the primary choice that most players are going to go with, or to spread them around the \"classes\" and frustrate players that they have to invest into everything to get the skills that are most beneficial to them.\n\nI really like the idea, but there are a lot of ways that it can backfire if you're not careful.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "1: Route Marcher is always available, and stronger now. You can see it in the above video next to Immortality. It now has 2 levels, +10% move range and +20%. The catch is it’s now gated behind levels 10 and 20. This skill is so necessary I felt it had to be one of the only skills that wasn’t tied to a skill line, and that everyone needed it.\n\n2: I felt that lightning strike was the most powerful skill in the game. For a 7 (now 11 in wh3) point investment you could eliminate entire enemy armies. Some lords will still have lightning strike, but it will vary by faction and their need. For example Beastmen, being a hit-and-run faction, will probably have lightning strike on all of their lords. Cathay, being a very defensive economic powerhouse, probably won’t have it at all. We’ll see\n\n3: Some lords will have upkeep reduc, some will not. It will probably be more common than something like lightning strike. But I want to stray away from giving the powerful combat lords (like the Shugengan) access to it. If you can 1v20 an army, you shouldn’t get cheap troops.\n\n4: Replenishment will be much more common, but in smaller doses. For example you can see the “arcane healing” skill I have on this lord. At max level it’s +3%, but I plan on having that skill on basically every wizard lord and hero in the game. Other replen skills will vary by faction and their need.\n\n5: As with #4, same with attrition. You can see the attrition skill on this one too (magic warding). I felt that attrition resist was weak previously. This skill now gives +60% resist at max level. Again, planning to have this on most wizard characters. Will probably be much weaker on heroes.\n\nI realized that taking away mandatory skills would impact the game, so I’m trying to compensate by still having those skills in the game, just in differing locations and values.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Have you considered going the route that some modders have with Lightning Strike by removing the ability to lightning strike, and just making the final tier an even stronger delay?"
},
{
"body": "Wait, sorry, just to clarify: if replenishment skill gives +3% at max level (presumably third), so it's 1% per level? Okay, I *guess* with several characters that can still add up, but man, if I already think there are better options for skill point investment than 2% per skill point in some skill lines (I think in WH2 it would've at least added up to 7% at third level, so technically more), that one would be even less appealing (unless, of course, you gate the divisor behind fully completing all of those skill lines). Please consider that there is sometimes a bar at how weak you can make a skill before it stops registering on player's radar at all.\n\n(Especially at lower unit scales, a problem that is only exacerbated with the much worse performance of WH3 that can turn more players to decrease those. E.g. in a 23-model unit (typical ranged infantry at Low) it would require a 5% (well, 4.35%) increase in replenishment to register in-game at all.)\n\nI applaud your desire to rework skill trees, and particularly the finesse with which you are acknowledging and treating Route Marcher issue, but I also have some concerns about flavourful, but ultimately unimpactful skill bonuses. You're right to avoid OP values too, of course (or those that could add up to OP values with several characters); it's a tight-rope balancing act."
}
]
},
{
"body": "Are you running into any issues with bloodthirster lord's? I can get my modded skills onto every other lord, but for some reason it doesn't pick up when a herald changes to a bloodthirster after the dilemma.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I think you might have intended to respond to a comment one layer above. I'm not a modder, sadly."
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "I like the idea of giving the lords more distinct, unique skill trees that allow you to build Lords in different ways. Likewise, I appreciate the way that the yellow, blue and red line have been folded together in a more flavorful, less predictable package.\n\nDo you have any plans for the Lord Magistrate? As of now, he's a very unappealing Lord pick - he doesn't do real damage, his buffs are single target and mutually exclusive, he's frail and his mount options are either generic (horse) or shit (Sky Lantern).",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Big plans. The Shugengan is such a combat powerhouse, so I really want to contrast the Lord Magistrate with her. My plan is to give him essentially no combat skills (offensive ones anyway). But he will be loaded with campaign buffs, army buffs, and tons of battle abilities. Did anyone say summonable Sky-Junk?"
}
]
},
{
"body": "This is a great idea and I’d love to try it even if you only complete Cathay. It’s pretty ambitious to do this with every single lord in the game but I wish you all the luck!",
"replies": [
{
"body": "It's HUGELY ambitious. I have a special bottle saved away just for if I ever manage to make it to High Elves and the dreaded ***archmages***. \n\nHowever currently it took me about a week to do this first lord. And that time includes concepting the entire skill tree system (and revising it multiple times), building out a concept for how it work look, bug-fixing 20 things because it's been 2 years since I made custom skills for a lord and I was rusty, and making the actual skills.\n\nGoing forward I can see myself finishing a new character every 2 days if I'm really going hard. My plan is to save time by creating several \"general\" skills that will be used across all lords and heroes. Basically build up a big repository of skills along with the vanilla ones that I can throw onto skill trees so that every single individual skill doesn't have to be hand-made. That being said, I still want at least 1/3 of skills for a lord to be unique to just them.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Very exciting! 🙏"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "So with the level cap being raises to 50, I noticed the problem with heroes used as agents is larger than in WH2. You only need about 25 points to get all of your agent skills then you spend the rest of your points in combat stuff. Which is nice if you ever need to throw them in an army as an emergency but I feel like they peak too early with me never using the last 50% of the points earned on them. Is there a change to have around even 40 points used for agent actions?"
},
{
"body": "As someone who used to run TWWH2 with over 250 mods, I appreciate and cherish you. I hope you make this with compatibility in mind."
}
]
},
{
"body": "this is why we do mods\n\n​\n\nLOOK AT ALL THOSE CHOICES"
},
{
"body": "I really love these changes! I think everyone can agree that having more robust and meaningful choices in their skill trees is awesome. I look forward to using this when it hits the workshop! \n\nI don't know how hard it would be to implement, but having some diverging paths in the skill trees (similar to some tech trees) could be a cool idea.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I thought about doing the diverging skill tree thing, but honestly it's too difficult and *way* too janky to do with the current limitations. Skill trees don't work in exactly the same way as tech trees, so you can't really do the multiple paths thing. You sort of can by making skills mutually exclusive... but it would look like a total mess visually."
}
]
},
{
"body": "Really like that the mounts are worked into the blue line. Do they provide any bonuses to campaign map movement now?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "No, but that is a fantastic idea that I will almost definitely use",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I'll wait for my check in the post!"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "This is quite interesting. Most mods I see that add skills don't expand lengthwise like this. This is very much forcing the lords to dedicate a lot of points into specific lines, which may not be everyone's cup of tea, but could be a cool idea if done well. I would just be careful that it doesn't lead to the lords becoming too one sided in doing so."
},
{
"body": "Looks good! I can't wait till mods come out!!"
},
{
"body": "Im SO looking forward to this! Thank you for all your hard work!"
},
{
"body": "\"The Game stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the Modders are true.\""
},
{
"body": "Mad respect for your skills and effort here! Workshop can't come soon enough. \n\nWhen you say that you need to get every skill in a section, does that mean you need to max all of them out? If so, I feel like this leads to fewer choices than before, since you commit to a skill line for 23 levels and just pick every skill on that line the whole time. The base game leaves \"wiggle room\" which gives you customization while still letting you reach the capstone skill, so the journey and the destination are both important. If you want to keep the depth you're offering here you can keep that 23 point value to reach the capstone, but offer more optional points along the path (additional levels or new skills). \n\nI think the rest of the design is really coherent, although I personally am not sure if I'd use it. My issues with the skill trees are more in how the values are balanced, not the format. But that's I think a matter of taste, and I'm happy that mods like these exist. Best of luck!"
},
{
"body": "very bad",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Can you elaborate on why? Critical feedback is just as important as positive feedback, but I don't have much to go off of here."
}
]
},
{
"body": "My g."
},
{
"body": "Oh man it looks so good, thanks for the work!\n\nIs it possible to also move the skill lines as they were in WH1 and 2? Or cant that be done?\n\nBut man cant wait for this mod"
},
{
"body": "Oh nice. I also had the idea of putting the mounts in other skill lines as well. I was going to also put another effect in them to make them seem more desirable. For example, a gryphon or other large beast would give a leadership aura buff or something."
},
{
"body": "Looks interesting and tis certainly something new. \nNot sure if I really like it though.\nIfeel like there is gonna be a lot of useless skills that you have to take.\nThere are also some mandatory skills that you might not be able to take.\n\nHowever, if you manage to make all skills impactful it might be a really nice mod if you want to try out soemthing completely different.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "There are mandatory skills you have to take, but my goal was to try and make them all feel impactful. However not every skill is created equal. \n\nFor example in the magic tree. IMO magic skill lines were insanely OP in vanilla. If you have a shadows caster, you need a total of 2 skill points to get to Pendulum and be able to delete armies. Now I've spaced things out so to be able to get to the best spells in the lore, you need to put in a significant investment in skills you may otherwise have wanted to skip. However I've tried to make it so that none of those skills are just trash. For example you may not have taken the +3% cas replen skill normally, but now you have to if you want to get to that end-level spell.\n\nSo basically the magic tree is a few really powerful skills spaced out by padding skills, that while still impactful aren't the most powerful game-changers.\n\nThe melee tree is even, every skill on there is more or less the same power level\n\nThe noble tree has many powerfull skills, but really leaves your lord hanging with no combat or magic buffs."
}
]
},
{
"body": "Just a heads up, idk if it's something that's just happening on my end or across the game in general, but editing skills that affect battle stats causes desync in multiplayer battles (yes both players have the same mod)\n\nThings like editing MA, MD etc from the skill tree seem to trigger this. The desync happens in battle when the entities first close into melee combat. They weren't crazy buffs either, just a little boost to the existing army buff skills for lords. Everything works fine in single player though, and campaign effects like upkeep, recruitment and replenishment seem to work fine in MP campaign, no desync issues at all.\n\n\nThis is all from my own mod creating/testing."
},
{
"body": "Feedback: Instead of a fuckingly long side scroll, why don't use the dead space below? That horizontal scroll drives me mad. Same for the demon tech trees.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Can’t be done. You can’t connect skills vertically. Only horizontally."
}
]
},
{
"body": "I have zero experience using mods on these games but this looks so awesome! I will 100% be downloading this whenever you are able to release something. Thanks for the hard work!!"
},
{
"body": "This seems fun, but I also don't like being forced to take every point to advance across a tree. I think a more fun system could be powerful rewards for leveling up a skill, but having to invest in three different skills to reach the next branch. For example, putting one point each in Bound Earth Blood, Competent Attacker, and Might of Heaven and Earth to unlock Power of Yang, but also make the third level in Competent Attacker much more enticing than the first two levels. Probably not possible to do given that would require a different system, but those are the dynamic gameplay choices I enjoy."
},
{
"body": "Any plans for the greater deamons lords? i think some of them like the goc and the loc need a buff and more interesting skills aswell."
}
]
}