{
"post": {
"title": "What's an ideal \"skills tree\" or \"skills system\" in your opinion?",
"selftext": "Hi, first time poster, long time lurker. I've always wanted to make my own game, and the one I envision is one with an RPG element. I've looked at (skimmed) countless articles and posts regarding skill trees, and a general skill system. I think I'm getting the hang of designing one but another opinion can do wonders and help think outside the box. Any games I should look to to get a better hang of one?",
"url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedesign/comments/11w3mb6/whats_an_ideal_skills_tree_or_skills_system_in/"
},
"comments": [
{
"body": "There seem to be two schools of thought\n\n1) Skill trees should not lock players into decisions as they will miss out on \"content\". ie skills/abilities that they cannot get due to choices\n\n2) Skill trees should allow the player to select the abilities they want at the cost of others \n\nReddit seems to dislike skill trees because of the first point, personally I like them because of the second.\n\nBeyond this skill trees should probably steer away from boring % increases and aim to have meaningful choices that add to existing gameplay.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "With Reddit, you mean game design reddit, or gamer reddit?\n\nActually haven't really stumbled over either where \"I should be able to unlock everything in a skill tree by the end of the game\".\n\nPersonally I agree with you. A skill tree should give you meaningful choices about how you want to play the game. Personally I'm not very interested in skill trees where the only \"choice\" I have is \"do I want skill A 20 minutes earlier than skill B or the other way round\"",
"replies": [
{
"body": "This sub. It is not phrased as \"I should be able to unlock everything\" and more as \"it limits what the player can experience and is bad because of this\" or \"It waters games with skill trees to 1-3 abilities that players put all their points into\".",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I feel like people who think that way kind of misunderstand the core function of a skill tree.\n\nFirst statement indicates that there are skills in a skill tree, a player just can't go without (like locking some core functionality behind it) which, if you want to control when the player gets access to certain core skills, you should lock those behind either some narrative/quest step, or just a normal level unlock that you get when you hit level X.\n\nSecond one would be a sign of a bad skill tree where there is just one meta combination that makes a character OP, instead of giving options for the player to focus on their specific playstyle."
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "So, a skill tree should rely less on \"increase x by percentage\" and rely more on \"Add ability to do something\"?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "You should look at original wow trees and how they have progressed over time. You will even be able to find in depth discussions on the topic from the community.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Stupid question time: WOW as in World Of Warcraft?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Yes.\n\n>increase x by percentage\n\nThis can obviously be meaningful, but if your tree boils down to \n\n\n>Get 5% more damage for fireball\n\nvs\n\n>Get 5% more damage for Frostbolt\n\nThat is not very interesting. There is nothing stopping you from doing it (and personally I don't mind that much).\n\nAt the same time if you look at the original wow skill trees you will see abilities alongside % increases. These % increases, while small, were generally preferable (for end game PVE) to the abilities that one could take, as the abilities were not useful for PVE, or did not fulfil what a class was meant to do. This would be another danger of mixing I guess, putting effort into making abilities that are skipped over for % increases."
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "A great example of this are the various skyrim skill tree overhauls, I'm personally most familiar with Vokrii and Ordinator. Both have a great mix of new and vanilla skills, sometimes basic % increases, but often playstyle-defining abilities and passives where each tree has a great deal of flavour"
}
]
},
{
"body": "I think both these lines of thoughts are valid. You can have fans like dx where every player upgrade locks you or of an alternate one, but both have different use cases(for example, in dx, combat strength boosts melee damage, but microfibrial strength gives you more lateral access to areas, allowing you to bypass those encounters. ).\n\nConversely, if all you are choosing is whether your attacks deal lime colored damage or strawberry, or one option is markedly better than the others, it can be a bad idea."
},
{
"body": "Another thing, make sure players can build their character as they want and don't need to abuse the save system to change what they skill into. Atomic heart had a skill tree that had no penalty to change and helped promote trying new skill combinations.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Depends entirely on the game. A 60 hour epic where you are stuck with your poor decision from level 1 is one thing but a 20 minute per run rogue style game this isn't important. In fact it may be beneficial to not allow respeccing in order for the player to understand their poor choice.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I'll fully agree there."
}
]
},
{
"body": "Bad advice. \n\nIf you can be everything, what you are means nothing. Meaningful choice is very important.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I think it matters in factors on: \n- is it a \"hardcore\" game? \n- are you expecting a lot of replayability? \n- who is your expected audience? \n\n\nIf you plan on lots of playthrough for most players (like roguelikes) or are a more difficult and punishing game (souls), then preventing a player from changing what skills they use can be more valuable. \n\nIf you are planning to do an rpg that gets 1-2 playthroughs at most for your playerbase, maybe allowing changing skills could be useful. It could allow the player to correct mistakes long term which may hurt their desire to play. This also allows a player to explore the game more fully if they don't have time to replay it again multiple times to try each path. Players can choose to ignore this option and keep their skills if they value their choices more."
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "Keep in mind the skill tree should support the experience you want to create. If you want your players to be able to learn everything in one playthrough the design your skill system to allow them to do so (in this case, they are simply picking the order in which they get their abilities). A skill tree is a way to gate progression, over time you hand the player \"keys\" to the skill tree that let them move up at their own pace (usually that pace is \"asap\" but upgrade paths and varied prices can change how they progress).\n\nIf you haven't, check out the GMTK YouTube channel for a video on this topic.\n\nMy closing point is that there is no perfect skill tree because every game is different. Consider if you even want a skill tree: Elder Scrolls 3 doesn't have one.",
"replies": [
{
"body": ">Elder Scrolls 3 doesn't have one.\n\nAnd to this day remains my favourite skill progression system"
},
{
"body": "Thank you for the insight, I'll take a look at the video. Much obliged"
}
]
},
{
"body": "There is tons of options. For example on \"point sinks\" vs qualitative new abilities:\n\n- Diablo 2 has a skill system, where each skill can be given 20 points. To unlock a skill you need just one point in the previous skills of that branch (and a lvl req). They also have some synergy system, where a skill can benefit by points in other skills. Overall this means that you only really unlock new skills fairly early in the game and spend most of your time putting points over and over into the same skill to make that as powerful as possible. An endgame character with 100 skill points to spend might very well spend 80 of those to push their main damage skill and then the rest are passing points and maybe some utility skill here and there, which often just needs 1 point to be somewhat effective.\n\n- Borderlands uses a slightly different system (which is similar to classic WoW btw): every skill can only be given 5 points and to unlock the next level in a tree you need 5 points of that previous tree. This also naturally locks the nodes far down the tree by a high point commitment. You also get \"capstones\" - skills at certain levels of the tree which only take 1 point and provide some big new ability. Overall you still spend a lot of your time sinking points into small increases, but say a character with 50 skill points would have at least 10 different skills as part of their build. It might be worth noticing that this is mostly a passive skill tree though, while the tree in D2 has mostly active abilities. So then you don't need 10 keybinds for 10 different spells\n\n- Ori has a system where each \"tree\" is linear, but each skill only takes one point and always gives some qualitative new ability. Skills can cost more than one point though, so this kinda prevents you from just rushing to the end of a tree very early. \n\nThen there are also differences with having classes vs no classes, being able to unlock everything vs making choices, etc."
},
{
"body": "I like them in games like rpgs where I want to specialise some of my characters. \n\nI dislike them in games like horizon zero dawn where I should just be able to do all the cool mechanics anyway. \n\nI like them when they limit the number of choices to choose between to limit overload.\n\nI dislike them when they present 20 different options at once, requiring a lot of comprehension and analysis to make it feel like you're making a good choice."
},
{
"body": "The main thing I personally care about, is to be able to have control over character build, i.e. I like the skill system where I get skill points and I am free to distribute them to whatever I like vs the system where I'm offered a choice between several randomly selected skills."
},
{
"body": "A skill tree is basically a customizable class system.\n\nA class system is where a player picks specific mechanics to use to cater towards a specific play style. By isolating what mechanics players have access to, it gives the developer more space to design those \"classes\" without them blowing up due to unforseen synergies or something.\n\nThere are three reasons this is important:\n\nFirst, players are choosing what game mechanics they are losing to specify how they prefer to play. If the skills they gain are boring and uninteractive, you will end up with a boring class and a boring play style.\n\nYou don't want a game that has repetitive gunplay with a Gunner class that only relies on gunplay, or else you'll end up with a class that's pretty niche for players who want something mindless. The Borderlands Gunner classes are bad examples of this, while the Deep Rock Galactic Gunner class is great because the gunplay is inherently interactive. Figure out what a class is supposed to have fun doing, and confirm that it's fun doing only that.\n\nSecondly, isolating mechanical options means you're allowed to go crazy within those isolated class systems. Maybe a Warlock gains mana when attacking at high health, but gains health when attacking at low health, and casts some of his spells using HP. A system like that would be broken if it interacted willy-nilly with an infinite number of fewtures, but could work completely fine as long as it stays in it's lane.\n\nIf you're going to be removing some of your game to specialize into the rest, then it needs to be *special*. If it's not, you might as well not have classes at all and let players figure it out how to make their gameplay *special* for themselves.\n\nLastly, if you're cutting away content to specialize a character, you need to understand that it may mean taking away options for the player to interact with the game. You will need to reinsert interactive levers built into each skill tree, otherwise you could easily end up with a situation where someone puts all 100 of their skill points into Axe Attack, and then spend the entire game spamming one button because you decided it was optimal for them to do so.\n\nPlayers will almost always choose what's optimal over what's challenging or fun, even if they know it makes the game boring, which is why it's our responsibility to make sure that's what's optimal *is* challenging and fun. You want to reward the people who put effort into mastering your game, and that requires something to master. Add multiple abilities, cooldowns, use mobility to control your abilities, anything that rewards the player for adapting their strategies.\n\nIn summary:\n\n - Base trees off of gameplay you already know is fun\n - Make each tree feel special or get rid of it\n - Make sure each tree rewards adaptation, you don’t want the game to become more boring the more you specialize."
},
{
"body": "I can only speak from my experience, but, I personally would do things the other way around: first, you polish the core gameplay / combat system; then, you assess what's your design space in terms of what can be tweaked within that system; then, if (and only if) you think you have enough space to let the player choose their own \"style\", then assess what the player can change, and what it should cost them. Once you've established that, you create a system that accommodates exactly that. I think it doesn't make sense to think of the RPG system first, and bend the core gameplay to accomodate it.\n\nI can give you a fresh example from our little 2d souls-like game. At first we went for a souls-like stats system, because that's what we liked, and assumed it would work just fine in our game. But then we realized that we didn't have the design space to make each stat (strength, dexterity, intelligence) have interesting effects on its own; they would be just a gate-keeping tool for builds and weapons, which doesn't really add much to the game other than friction for players' freedom. So, we went the other way around, and asked, what CAN we tweak within our combat? The answer was: \n\n- stamina recharge rate\n- critical damage (kind of a finishing move for when you hit enemies a lot consecutively) and stagger buildup\n- focus buildup (a resource that recharges over time and by attacking enemies that can be spent for more powerful attacks) and focus attacks damage\n- health / defense\n- other more situational stuff\n\nSo, we couldn't easily represent these things by souls-like stats, and we went for a completely different system instead, where armors would have bonuses attached to them and you can tweak smaller things with other tools.\n\nHope this helps!"
},
{
"body": "One idea to consider that I haven't seen done is requiring the player to do something to unlock each skill instead of simply spending points they have passively earned. \n\nFor example, to unlock an ability I want, I may have to complete some quest where I meet a character who teaches me the ability, then I have to use it to complete the quest (which also serves as a tutorial)."
},
{
"body": "Ideally, a skill tree the player WANTS to engage with, nit what they NEED to.\n\nLet me explain\nStuffs like bonus stats in skill trees are so boring and usually only to boost player's raw power, which meand the player will feel the need to get it, knowing it will make their lives easier later on. \n\nThat's not the stuff you want. You want an engaging loop that keeps the player playing your game. A skill tree that gives the player access to special skills that alter their playstyle, give them another fun tool, or a really nice refreshing change to the character overall. This keeps them working for that skill, using it in battle, and getting xp to get another skill from that. \n\nMy personal favorite is Middle Earth: Shadow of War. The skill tree is relatively short, but each perk gives a whole new tool (like smashing campfire, quick assassinations, parries, etc.) These are cool cause now I have another tool at my disposal (and even more fun). It doesn't compromise the balance of the game by much, it keeps me playing to get other skills as well."
},
{
"body": "I've been mocking out and brainstorming the most cursed modular skill tree system you can imagine and oh my God is it glorious\n\nThe tree starts as an empty slot. One of the first interactable drops a player will pick up is an insertable for that slot. The insertable extends the skill tree. One of the next interactables is an insertable which extends the skill tree in a way that comes with two empty slots to further extend it. The next two interactsbles is are a skill insertable and an item insertable. \n\nPlayers have a \"potential\" value, which represents their level more or less. Different nodes on the tree cost different amounts of potential. A player can retract their potential but doing so withers the insertables, causing them to decay. A player's \"current\" potential doesn't have to be their maximum available -- PvP and various bespoke encounters / challenges / stories are going to be balanced around making the most of a character at a certain potential that will likely be far below their maximum. This encourages either large amounts of item churn or large amounts of new characters. \n\nAll of these insertables are craftable, rollable, and contain the ability to extend the skill tree. The insertables are balanced around extension (placing an insertable \"further\" from your roots increases modifier magnitude), ability (what sorts of benefits they grant) flexibility (how many benefits they grant) etc. \n\nSkills? Same thing. A player can receive a skill slot from an insertable. Skill slots are their own shallow trees that level up on their own skill experience based on using that skill. \n\nItem crafting is again similar -- an item will be a formless insertable that players spend currency to modify. Items and equipables can be specialized by rolling branches for various base types. \n\nInsertables are not all created equal. The norm is to have your typical spread of rarities, but then a number of hidden variables and pools. Generally, less rare insertables will be more focused on what they do, while rarer insertables will provide more flexibility and are more likely to provide additional slots. \n\nThe intent is to revisit the \"Deckard cain\" feeling by having skill tree benefits that can actually assess the potential of different insertables, giving players access to information about the different roll weights and paths an insertable is likely to take. \n\nThis creates a meta support niche i havent seen done anywhere else. Further support for meta crafting will also be tied into having players \"build\" a character for it. Meta support characters will be able to restore withered insertables, prune or encourage branches during crafting, and otherwise alter how insertables function when currencies are applied to them. \n\nService trading for the use of these meta/social interactions is something I still have no clue how I'm going to \"make fair\" -- will open source the problem most likely. I don't want to run into the PoE issues :^ l",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Super interesting, thanks for sharing the Abominable Skill Tree.\n\n> The insertables are balanced around extension (placing an insertable \"further\" from your roots increases modifier magnitude)\n\nVery tired and spitballing but: this alone sounds like it could be really fun in a fast-paced, team PvP game. If you want players to make hard tradeoffs about which skills to bring to their skill tree, which skills they want first, and which skills they want to be powerful, that could create a lot of interesting decisions. If an extremely short 1-deep skill tree isn't viable, and a really, really long one isn't viable either, they have to balance extremes while being aware of where other players might be putting power spikes in their own skill trees. It'd be similar to how item systems in MOBAs work.\n\n> This creates a meta support niche i havent seen done anywhere else. Further support for meta crafting will also be tied into having players \"build\" a character for it. Meta support characters will be able to restore withered insertables, prune or encourage branches during crafting, and otherwise alter how insertables function when currencies are applied to them.\n\nBuild support meta-roles is totally ridiculous and I love it"
}
]
},
{
"body": "Vague questions like this will get your some feedback, but you will probably see better feedback by describing YOUR system for feedback.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "...I don't have a system yet ;\\~;"
}
]
},
{
"body": "I'd say Mario+Rabbids Sparks of Hope has solid skill trees for each character.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I'd have to check that out. I don't own a Switch so I'd have to look up gameplay or look on the wiki"
}
]
},
{
"body": "\nGame Design is a subset of Game Development that concerns itself with **WHY** games are made the way they are. It's about the theory and crafting of **systems**, **mechanics**, and **rulesets** in games. \n\n* /r/GameDesign is a community **ONLY** about Game Design, **NOT** Game Development in general. If this post does not belong here, it should be reported or removed. Please help us keep this subreddit focused on Game Design.\n\n* This is **NOT** a place for discussing how games are produced. Posts about programming, making art assets, picking engines etc… will be removed and should go in /r/GameDev instead.\n\n* Posts about visual design, sound design and level design are only allowed if they are directly about game design. \n\n* No surveys, polls, job posts, or self-promotion. Please read the rest of the rules in the sidebar before posting.\n\n* If you're confused about what Game Designers do, [\"The Door Problem\" by Liz England ](https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LizEngland/20140423/216092/quotThe_Door_Problemquot_of_Game_Design.php)is a short article worth reading. We also recommend you read the [r/GameDesign wiki](/r/gamedesign/wiki/index) for useful resources and an FAQ.\n\n\n*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/gamedesign) if you have any questions or concerns.*",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Really hope I'm not breaking the rules...",
"replies": [
{
"body": "It is a bot, and the action was performed automatically. You most likely have not."
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "I personally like the \"Remnants, From the Ashes\" one, getting a new skill out of something to start investing on it"
},
{
"body": "Skills that talk like DE"
},
{
"body": "I saw people in the comments suggesting to not do simple stuff like increas damage but from a programmer point of view I disagree. If you want a big skilltree it would be easier to code simply more damage. Personally I think the best way you could do it is like in assassins creed valhalla. \n\nYou can search up a picture but it might not show the whole thing. There are alot of little upgrades wich are just increasing by a percent but there's also abilities. So basically 5 or 6 increasing percent things then one ability. Makes it pretty fun to gradually work towards the ability you want aswell.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "The question is:\n\nDo you really NEED a big tree?\n\nOr you can just make a small tree with important upgrades at that point?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "No but it adds playtime aswell as the other reasons I mentioned."
}
]
},
{
"body": "> If you want a big skilltree it would be easier to code simply more damage.\n\nI read this and it sounded ridiculous, like there's no way a programmer would need something like a skill tree to be simplified to make it easier to program.\n\nBut if you expand this to \"development time\" I think you have a good point (and that's probably what you meant). A skill tree with lots of flashy, complicated mechanics is a lot of work, and when every perk is super impactful, they all blend together a little more for the player. The simple perks like +5% damage can still be satisfying to pick, while acting as filler between the bigger, flashier perks.\n\nThe stepping stone perks help make the bigger perks feel more meaningful, too, I think. If you imagine a skill tree that's mostly filler where every 5th perk majorly affects gameplay, and a second skill tree that progresses at 1/5th the speed but every perk is meaningful, the first one probably feels better. You get to see yourself making visual progress towards the perk you really want with each stepping stone perk."
}
]
},
{
"body": "It *totally* depend on the game you want to make. Call of Cthulhu doesn't need the same skill system as Super Mario which doesn't need the same as World of Warcraft which doesn't need the same as Settlers of Catan.\n\nSticking to rpg, if you're asking about either a generic system, or a good starting point, I personally like the FATE Core one a lot.\n\nWell, I *really* don't like one pillar of its implementation. But the rest of it, especially its [default skill list](https://fate-srd.com/fate-core/default-skill-list), is quite nice: it's effective, it's reasonably short, it's reasonably balanced.\n\nIf you're interested in how to design one, the game has a write up on that (although I'm not sure how much made its way through in its SRD, but the original book was cheap) that had some depth."
},
{
"body": "I really like the Path of Exile one (I dont play the game though) I just like the thought of sinking my teeth into that skill tree.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "That one is really fun. It breaks a lot of skill tree advice I see around though, like not having tons of filler perks, but I still really like it. I wanted to sink my teeth into it too and it was as much fun as I thought it'd be.\n\nA lot of my friends can't stand it, so maybe it's just a type of skill tree that only appeals to certain groups of players.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Yeah most people probably find it intimidating as hell"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "Here have a clear line drawn. Passive skill tree in Path of Exile is like a status tree, you got %increase in stats and some special utilities. But the skill customizations is on the itemization itself instead of the tree.\n\nAnother example is Last Epoch, you can specialize a set of skills. Each skills you specialized in will have their own tree. Sure they offered some %increase stuffs here and there, but they come with tradeoff from something else. Uniques interactions offered in the trees could be choose by spend points unique to each skills in them, some are conflict so you can't take them together.\n\nI'd love to offer you more ideas but Last Epoch just fixed the problem of \"I don't want to stuck on these skills\" because you can use most of skills on your class and the specialization only cost levels of skill to respec into something else.\n\nI'd say having access to an entire class's skills then specialized in a set of skills is a good way to offer players some freedom while not missing out on anything."
},
{
"body": "The tech tree that civilization beyond earth used was really interesting. It was a web instead of a tree with nested advanced technologies you could unlock after the base tech.\n\nI also really like skill trees that advance based on using the skill like in skyrim or Fable."
},
{
"body": "Worth noting a skill doesn’t have to be an actually tree, it can just be a part of your game where a player can choose 1 power up from a few choices. Noita does this very well"
},
{
"body": "1. Skill trees should either feel important and useful, or not exist in the first place.\n2. Skill trees should be diverse, with multiple builds and play styles supported at any point of the game\n3. Skill trees should either be able to be maxed out completely, or not let you get close to it\n\n a. Mario and Rabbids 1 did a skill tree where you could get within 100 skill orbs on every character, I was so pissed at having to give up like 2 upgrades per character when one more level would have filled the tree completely\n b. Just because you can max out a skill tree doesn't mean it should be practical to do so. In fact, players should probably go above and beyond what most would consider even 100% completion to get there.\n4. The best skill trees are the ones where you can sell individual skills to get the upgrade back to respec\n\n a. This might cost some sort of resource, but this resource should be something players can gather at any point if they decide to respec. I personally believe a low cost of a slightly uncommon currency with multiple purposes allows players to rebuild their character if they want with relatively low risk without giving players that won't do this a resource they won't use. In addition, it makes players think about their choice to redo their build, because the further in you get the more skills you have to pay to return."
}
]
}