Author Topic: Skill Tree System  (Read 64088 times)

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Offline Kvetch

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Re: Skill Tree System
« Reply #45 on: August 27, 2009, 06:00:26 pm »
Hey, last I heard Horus hadn't had time to code for a few weeks.  :P  Because I asked him about this system and how it was going.  *heh*  ONe step ahead of ya Tochy.

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Offline Tocharaeh

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Re: Skill Tree System
« Reply #46 on: August 28, 2009, 05:17:06 am »
I love you kvetchy
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Offline Virisin

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Re: Skill Tree System
« Reply #47 on: October 30, 2009, 05:18:42 pm »
I get home in like 5 days and will have access to 4d again then, as well as all my old notes. I do believe I had a pretty in-depth skill-tree system written out at one point. I was always a big fan of the idea. Good stuff Horus.

Offline Natalya B.

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Re: Skill Tree System
« Reply #48 on: November 10, 2009, 04:39:25 pm »
Too tired/don't have time to read through everything, but I did spot a post talking about how a change like this could be a gamble in relation to losing current players.

Just wanted to put my two cents in that I totally agree with a skill tree implementation. The current system... well, it sucks. But if you were to put in levels, instead of remorts, like up to 170 or 200 or whatever, and have the progressions like, say, Tocharaeh mentioned (Horay for pretty pictures), I'd be totally keen for that. Man I'd be playing as much as I could for that actually.

Be a huge job though, I'd imagine. I guess in my mind I'm imagining new skills as well, and advancements in skills with each level progression perhaps? I actually remember trying to say something along these lines many years ago, inspired from when I used to play DragonRealms, but my ideas were rejected - possibly because it was way too much work (understandable).

But yeah. In short. I'd love a skill tree dealy, and be able to pick which way you go from a basic class (again, referring to toch's pretty pictures on page 1 as an example). This would also mean I'd have to make alts because there's so many cool looking options. Mage to arch wizard? Psychic classes? Etc etc? Squeeee! *bounce* I'm excited just thinking about the possibilities, hehe =p

Offline horus

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Re: Skill Tree System
« Reply #49 on: November 27, 2009, 08:48:40 am »
I re-read my original post and realised I was very scant on details, so I will update some information to skill trees, although I have made mention of certain features of skill trees in other threads.

Each skill/spell can be trained to 20 ranks, and only then, can you quest to attain mastery of that particular skill/spell. Mastery of any skill will gain a greater bonus than the usual rank addition. For example, stone skin spell will provide 1.5% damage absorption per rank, so at rank 20, the stone skin will provide 30% damage reduction. However, if the caster has mastery of stone skin, the protection increases to 50% less damage.

Each rank will cost 1 practice to gain - this is different from my original post.

There isnt just one main trunk in which players then choose different branches. There are actually many various "trunks" for each class, and players can choose as many trunks as they have practices available. For example, a weapons trunk will have slashing/piercing/blunt proficiencies which will lead to specialisations in specific weapons ie. sword, short sword, dagger, spear, etc. A unarmed combat trunk will lead to various martial arts branches. So a warrior may choose a particular branch which will lead them to specialise in swords, and choose another branch in the unarmed trunk which will give them monkey style martial arts. In this case, the warrior must choose slashing proficiency (accuracy bonus for all slashing type weapons) --> sword proficiency (accuracy bonus for swords only) --> sword specialisation (damage bonus for swords only), and also choose unarmed combat --> monkey stance (basic monkey fighting style) --> then various special monkey attacks (a few branches here for the warrior to choose from).

A player can choose any pathway they wish, as long as they have practiced the skill leading to it. A warrior cannot just choose sword specialisation without choosing the previous branches (in this case, slashing proficiency and sword proficiency).

Right now, all spells are categorised into 10 spheres, which I think is quite excessive, but thats besides the point. I am undecided whether to allow mages to just practice ranks in a particular sphere and they gain ALL the spells in those spheres, or the mages have to learn ranks in individual spells. I am leaning towards the latter option, as that will create a greater variety of mages. I will also compensate the latter option by providing more pracs for mages.

A wonderful example of this is, say mage casts a rank 15 wall of force, blocking people from going east. Another mage with rank 15 dispel magic will have 50/50 chance of dispelling that wall of force, whereas a mage with rank 5 dispel magic will have little chance of dispelling it. Same principle applies for someone with detect invisibility against a foe with invisibility spell. So it pays to have higher ranks for a particular spell when you are competing against other casters.

With this option, players will now get to choose whether to specialise in a defensive mage or combative mage, or be an all-rounder. As a previous example of this, an all-rounder may only have 10 ranks in stone skin, providing only 15% damage reduction, whereas a specialist defensive mage may have mastery of stone skin, providing them with a 50% damage reduction. Also, if a mage attains mastery in all spells in a particular sphere, they will become an elemental master and will gain special bonuses in that sphere!

With such a variety of characters for each class, players will need to find a good balance when they group together on hunts. It will be very interesting whether you need a bunch of specialists, or whether a group of all-rounders will prove more effective. Or perhaps, a mixture of both?

Just to be clear, we will retain our existing classes. Each class will have a selection of trunks in their skill tree list, some trunks will be exclusive, while there may be some trunks that are across several classes. There will also be general skill trunks available to all classes, for example, perception, athletics, crafting skills (armour and weapon making), etc.

I hope this clarifies some things.
« Last Edit: November 27, 2009, 09:55:16 am by horus »

Offline Kvetch

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Re: Skill Tree System
« Reply #50 on: November 27, 2009, 03:19:20 pm »
I believe it does quite a bit.  Thank you for taking the time and letting everyone know what's going on in the background with this idea.

Offline Virisin

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Re: Skill Tree System
« Reply #51 on: November 27, 2009, 03:39:53 pm »
Very good post. Nice to have a quite detailed plan of what's going down as far as skill trees go.

A question: what do you plan on doing regarding practice sessions themselves? How many will a player gain every level? Do you plan on altering the amount of sessions a player will gain every level - something like, 2 every level until level 50 and then 1 every level until level 100? Or even something like 3 every level until level 10, 2 every level until level 20, 1 every level until level 50 and then 1 every 5 levels until level 75 and then 1 every 10 levels until level 95 and then 1 on level 100?

Depending on how you distribute practices we will be able to alter the gradient of the difficulty level of 4d as a character progresses. With the latter option I came up with on the spot, it would make it much easier for new players until about level 50, as well as a lot more interesting until at least level 20 as players would have something to do every single level.

This also sort of ties in with how you plan on making the experience curve itself, currently a character has gained about half of the experience required to remort at level 42/50, making it much easier to get the majority of skills or spells a remort has to offer. Where do you plan on putting the halfway mark as far as experience goes in the 100 level system?

I like to know how these curves look. :)

Offline horus

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Re: Skill Tree System
« Reply #52 on: November 29, 2009, 08:36:34 pm »
XP per level and pracs gained will be tinkered around during ptesting, so I have no definitive answer. Generally, I'd like to see that a generalist player can have enough pracs to have 8 ranks in all their class specific skills/spells. In terms of XP, that is dependent on how well players fare in the new system against the existing mobs. I will have to discuss with the builders, but I believe some areas were designed for groups.

Offline Tocharaeh

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Re: Skill Tree System
« Reply #53 on: November 29, 2009, 08:56:26 pm »
Some areas were designed for groups, and a couple were specifically designed for the uber players by Sonya.

What needs to be looked at is how many of these uber mobs are going to be effected by this change. Will their tiers be taken away? Will their levels be appropriately calculated to create enough challenge for players without catering to only the uber/more skilled players?

-Tocharaeh D'Araesth
The Dirty Ol'' Drow that time left behind in fear of obliteration!

Offline Virisin

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Re: Skill Tree System
« Reply #54 on: November 29, 2009, 09:16:29 pm »
Cool, thanks Horus.

Which areas were designed specifically for groups?

I'm fairly sure tiers will be removed from the game completely, not 100% sure though but I don't think it'd be all that hard to convert tiers to their appropriate level in the new system. Might take a little alterations but I think it should definitely be done if we're removing tiers from players. As far as places like Dark Planet and Dragon Caves and places go, I think they should stay as catering only to the more uber players. Voltron and Gojira I imagine will stay being extremely hard to kill and aimed at the best level 100 players or groups. I just don't think they should be giving out such ridiculously high-powered rewards. But that should be changing so I think it's under control.

Offline Molly

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Re: Skill Tree System
« Reply #55 on: December 03, 2009, 11:02:17 am »
The three so called Uber zones, (Dark Planet, Dragon Caves and Prehistoric Forest), were all meant for strong groups, although it seems that some players became so uber that they soloed them.

Other areas that were originally designed as hunting zones for groups, (although for a bit weaker players), are Starwars, and the Ocean zones in PreHistoric. Scriptloaded mobs, like the ones in Midlands and the desert of Wawat, would serve a similar purpose. I remember when players used to level on the archers of the Olde Yorke city wall, and in the past Downunder was also a popular goal for groups, but these seem to have gone a bit out of fashion. Nowadays it's mostly the dock workers in VE that people choose as targets for mass kill. And recently we also have the newly introduced Invasion feature, for group endeavors.

Actually any not too quest-heavy zone, with a large enough supply of mobs, or any hard-to-kill 'Boss Mob', would work fine for groups of various strength.

Offline Virisin

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Re: Skill Tree System
« Reply #56 on: December 03, 2009, 02:36:13 pm »
To be honest I think tiers fucked things up a lot in that department. It was really hard to go through and introduce tiers to the game in a balanced and thorough way. Some mobs were missed and some mobs became too tough to bother levelling with, etc. (Graypatch from Terramort is a good example of a 'boss' mob that never got tiered and stopped being a boss at all).

It ended up narrowing the areas people level at to those with tier 0, high level mobs in packed places. Aussie ended up having tier 0 but not high enough level mobs so they weren't worth the exp, same with Starwars. The Dock Workers in VE though are of the right strength and exp to be worthwhile. It comes back to the general problems with tiers, creating huge strength differences between players and mobs.

Tier 0: Levels 0-125
Tier 1: Levels 0-125
Tier 2: Levels 0-125
Tier 3: Levels 0-125
Tier 4: Levels 0-125

I forget what the highest mob level is, might be 175 or something. But looking at that it's very hard to balance tiers because all the ranges overlap in their strength. Tier 0: Level 125 is going to be stronger than Tier 1: Level 75 or Tier 2: Level 50, or even Tier 4: Level 15, but as soon as you get Tier 1: Level 125 it's pretty much pointless to level against, the experience isn't worth the hassle unless you've got a Priest around or are GM, and any Tier 2: Level 100 is going to rip a whole group apart if the group isn't paying attention enough to flee. Basically any high level tiered mobs become 'boss' mobs and experience gained from a fight is determined mainly by level (I think), so the only worthy mobs to fight are high level, Tier 0 mobs.

Hopefully when we switch to a 100 level system mobs will move to something similar, maybe a 175 level system or something, in which it's easy for builders to set levelling mobs at about 100 or so, boss mobs at anywhere between 150 and 175 etc. They won't have to worry about figuring out what level and what tier is appropriate.

And yeah, Sonya and Mord were a terrible team.. Sonya would make some uber zone and then encourage Mord to make the top players even stronger. She was a bad influence. :P

Offline Tocharaeh

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Re: Skill Tree System
« Reply #57 on: December 03, 2009, 04:47:21 pm »
hahaha I totally agree.

We need mobs back to what they were like in old code. There are just so many zones that were made useless when this system came in. I mean, does anyone actually level in Death Star or the Ewoks anymore? Now THOSE were classic leveling zones.

We need old mob level styles back :D
-Tocharaeh D'Araesth
The Dirty Ol'' Drow that time left behind in fear of obliteration!

Offline Virisin

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Re: Skill Tree System
« Reply #58 on: December 03, 2009, 07:55:13 pm »
These days it seems there are a few zones that have a high concentration of good eq, good potions, good mobs to level at, etc. It's sad when we have such a huge and awesome world and only about 10% of it is ever seen.

I have high hopes for the changes.

Offline Prometheus

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Re: Skill Tree System
« Reply #59 on: June 30, 2012, 12:46:14 pm »
Going to unsticky this topic as well.

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