Skill tree suggestion

[Nox 56]

Hi.  I'm nox.  Ex game designer, grumpy old man, and apparently person of poor impulse control who keeps playing this "game."

So anyhow, I had a brainstorm and wanted to share it with everyone.  I know the devs won't read it, but I had to say it.

This is how I think skill trees should work in this game.  

First everyone has 3 'core' skill trees - 

Survival

Gathering

Combat

And three 'scholastic' skill trees -

Engineering

Agriculture

Crafting

Finally, everyone has two 'open' job skill slots that can be selected by the player, out of a list of specializations.  These give access to cheaper versions of the other skill trees, more accessible specializations.  

For example you might have a job called "Mounted Man at Arms" - and it has two primary tracks, combat and horsemanship.  In combat it goes deep into 1h/shield, shallow into 2h, and teaches horsemanship.  

Another job might be "Light Infantry" which teaches light armor bonuses, stealth, archery, 1h, run speed, stamina recovery.

------------

Every level the player gets 1+Level/10 core skill points which can only be spent on core OR on job skills.

They also get 1+level/10 skill points to spend on scholastic OR core/job skills.  

Also, any level where the player raises their INT, they get bonus 1+INT score to spend on scholastic skills.

_______

 

Benefits of system - 

1) It's forgiving.  the player gets just a few points the first few levels, so spending them poorly doesn't make a difference in the end.

2) It's naturally broad.  The player gets lots of points near the end so can trivially diversify.

3) it's interesting

4) it's sensible

5) it's orthogonal

6) It sucks less

 

Thanks for ignoring this post devs.  

The rest of you, thanks for reading.  Feel free to make fun of me.

 

 

[SpeedInc 18]

4 minutes ago, Nox said:

6) It sucks less 

+1

 

5 minutes ago, Nox said:

apparently person of poor impulse control who keeps playing this "game."

+1
Sadly your not the only one... My wife is on ARK atm with our group on console. Im the test dummy for Atlas.

[LtSharpShooter 15]

 

32 minutes ago, Nox said:

and apparently person of poor impulse control who keeps playing this "game."

 

 

This is the truth and had me literally Laughing Out Loud.

[Xeno 1]

5 hours ago, SpeedInc said:

+1

 

+1
Sadly your not the only one... My wife is on ARK atm with our group on console. Im the test dummy for Atlas.

+1.  So far the best skill system rework suggestion i have read.

 

Its just nuts how many points you need to skill into the skill tree just to reach the pirate skill tree example right now.

 

[Nox 56]

furthering this suggestion - how trees would be set up in my imaginary skill system is that skills that are intended to be level locked, are just level locked.

The bonuses in the trees wouldn't be predications, they would be 'branches'

1. [engineering]
   1. Architecture
      1. Construction efficiency
         1. I - reduces cost of construction
         2. II - further...
         3. III
      2. Durability
         1. I - bonus durability to constructions
         2. II - further bonus, and now buildings have a damage threshold (can't be damaged with stone tools)
         3. ||| - etc.
      3. Decoration
         1. I - unlocks fancier versions of base items
         2. || - more etc.
      4. Thatch construction
      5. Wood construction (requires level 10, thatch construction)
      6. Stone construction (requires level 20, wood construction)
   2. Shipwright
   3. Ordinance

[Nox 56]

The current skill trees are actually pretty perverse if you dig down into them.  For example - 'beast mastery'.

Riding I - 1 skill point - no prereqs - unlocks crafting saddles, riding

Riting II - 4 skill points - 4 prereqs totalling 4 points - unlocks crafting saddles - prereqs include breeding, commands taming and riding I

 

So look at this - to ride horses, you have to know breeding animals, taming, and giving commands to other animals and you get saddle crafting.

In my opinion this 'feels' like an attempt to make taming a standalone skill where a person goes down the tree and is self sufficient.  Being able to tame, ride and craft all in the same skill tree feels like a solo skill tree.  To anyone else - someone who wants to tame creatures, or craft saddles or ride - it's a skill progression with awful skill taxation.

My suggestion is to break out saddles into their own progression - taming into a progression, and riding into a progression.  Riding is a skill tree that has plenty of opportunity for bonuses and skill sinks - speed, morale, stamina etc.  There's no need to encumber riding with things like breeding and taming.

 

Edited December 28, 2018 by Nox

[YoBerg 4]

This looks suspiciously like something normal survival and/or MMO games have for skill trees....

( = . = )

What kind of nonsensical logic are you trying to apply here? Your proposed method would make things clear, make planning into character skill growth easy, and would not only allow for specialized player choices but also actually make people feel like their choices matter! HERESY!
(you said make fun of you, so there you go)

I definitely like your approach, in all seriousness. If the idea behind higher skill costs and isolated trees is to "force" players to specialize and include others who know something that they don't, then stuff like Beast Mastery is self-defeating to this concept inherently. Remove saddle crafting from the Beast Mastery, create a Leatherworking tree that can make ALL things leather- and hide-related, and let's get some player-run trading ports going. I mean, let's stick to the perceived and implied spirit of where the devs are going with this. (personally I like the idea of being able to eventually know everything, but having to choose where to go at the very beginning. But that's just me).

Edited December 28, 2018 by YoBerg

[Lethality 2]

Everything you said we've been bored to death with in other games for the last 15 years. Go play those if that's the kind of progression you want.

Let Atlas be whatever Atlas is gonna be.

[Nox 56]

16 minutes ago, Lethality said:

Everything you said we've been bored to death with in other games for the last 15 years. Go play those if that's the kind of progression you want.

Let Atlas be whatever Atlas is gonna be.

Does that include duping and swarms of ghost ships or ?

 

[Nox 56]

ok so this came super clear to me last night what is missing.

Right now, you have to craft to use things which is not really great.  

There needs to be job trees that are 'practical' forms of the crafting trees we have now.  Maybe the crafting trees can also require the practical skills, but I see it being useful to have something like this :

Ranger
[Animal Command Tree]
[Riding Tree]
[Archery Tree]
 

so that if someone wanted to ride, scout, use archery - there is a build tree for that.