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Skill / talent trees are a way of granting the player choice in developing their character, particularly within the confines of a fixed class. Yet balancing them is rather difficult.
How many skills does a good skill tree have? Should skills be purchased with skill points from level ups and/or quests, making each point precious, or should players be able to grind for skill points in battle? How many branches does a good skill tree have? Should skills be leveled, growing incrementally stronger with each small investment (e.g. Ignis I, Ignis II, Ignis III, Ignis IV, Ignis V, etc.) and with iteration replacing the last? Or should there be fewer and more costly skills, with more dramatic power jumps between them? Do you gate certain skills by level to keep players from rushing them (e.g. as in Etrian Odyssey IV)? How deep should the skill tree be in terms of prerequisite skills. Should the player be able to plan out their skill tree far ahead, or should one value the experience of discovering the skill tree, perhaps over multiple playthroughs?
These are all ideas that I am pondering as I work on my first game, inspired by dungeon crawlers such as Etrian Odyssey. The theoretical concerns are broad enough that I thought I would start a discussion on skill trees in general here. Have any of you used a skill tree in your games before? What worked for you?
To provide an example of a skill tree and help spur along the discussion, here is one that I've been drafting lately.
Obviously, this isn't a game screenshot, just a chart showing the structure of a hypothetical skill tree. The orange skills are stat-boosting passives. Blue skills are MP abilities, green skills are TP abilities, and purple skills are trait-bestowing passive skills. Each skill has a maximum level which it may be upgraded to (at left), and perquisites (noted by arrows and the smaller text in the boxes). The yellow circles show what level a skill needs to be to unlock the next.
One flaw with this particular example is that all of the incremental skill levels creates a lot of skills! Sure, most of these can be copied and pasted with small modifications, and the database limit is pretty large. Hence my question about having fewer but costlier to acquire skills. It simplifies things immensely for the developer - but there's more of a risk of players pouring lots of skill points into a skill that they may not like later.
How many skills does a good skill tree have? Should skills be purchased with skill points from level ups and/or quests, making each point precious, or should players be able to grind for skill points in battle? How many branches does a good skill tree have? Should skills be leveled, growing incrementally stronger with each small investment (e.g. Ignis I, Ignis II, Ignis III, Ignis IV, Ignis V, etc.) and with iteration replacing the last? Or should there be fewer and more costly skills, with more dramatic power jumps between them? Do you gate certain skills by level to keep players from rushing them (e.g. as in Etrian Odyssey IV)? How deep should the skill tree be in terms of prerequisite skills. Should the player be able to plan out their skill tree far ahead, or should one value the experience of discovering the skill tree, perhaps over multiple playthroughs?
These are all ideas that I am pondering as I work on my first game, inspired by dungeon crawlers such as Etrian Odyssey. The theoretical concerns are broad enough that I thought I would start a discussion on skill trees in general here. Have any of you used a skill tree in your games before? What worked for you?
To provide an example of a skill tree and help spur along the discussion, here is one that I've been drafting lately.
Obviously, this isn't a game screenshot, just a chart showing the structure of a hypothetical skill tree. The orange skills are stat-boosting passives. Blue skills are MP abilities, green skills are TP abilities, and purple skills are trait-bestowing passive skills. Each skill has a maximum level which it may be upgraded to (at left), and perquisites (noted by arrows and the smaller text in the boxes). The yellow circles show what level a skill needs to be to unlock the next.
One flaw with this particular example is that all of the incremental skill levels creates a lot of skills! Sure, most of these can be copied and pasted with small modifications, and the database limit is pretty large. Hence my question about having fewer but costlier to acquire skills. It simplifies things immensely for the developer - but there's more of a risk of players pouring lots of skill points into a skill that they may not like later.
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