Here is some more background info:
Originally the subskills were implemented because we ran out of skill slots - there was a cap on 200 skills in total. And since Mordecai didn't fancy expanding the number allowed, he decided to go for subskills instead, which I assume meant a lot less coding work.
Since then Anubis has done some coding and the #200 cap no longer exists.
However, only a very small part of the subskills that were originally planned were implemented, because Mord lost time and interest halfway. And somewhere along the way, the subskills changed character too, and became more like 'profession' skills. Only a few of them are actually combat related, most were meant to be about things like performing (juggling, acrobatics etc), transporting (the Dragon skills), manufacturing (like Cooking, Brewing, and the entire Craftskill group), spaceship related (like Dogfighting and Navigating). And then there was the Vampire group (Drainblood, Nightregen, Furyattack), which was supposed to be part of a vampiric affliction, which was never implemented, but for some reason some of the subskills related to it were. Too many things left unfinished...
As it stands, the big difference - and also the big advantage - with subskills is, that they are independent of Class and Tier/Level. Once you've learnt a subskill, you keep it through all remorts, regardless which class you remort to. The only exception, I think, are the combat related subskills Garotte and Throttle, for which you need to have the thief skill Strangle to be able to use. (At least that's how it was supposed to work, strangle and garotte are Thief exclusive skills).
Now if we keep the subskill system during the code change to skilltrees, the advantage of a subskill that is class-independent would be even more obvious.
If I have any say in it, I'd like to keep the subskills that actually were implemented, because a lot of work got into setting up the quests for those, and I hate to see work go to waste. Whether they will still be class independent, or integrated in the skill-trees is a decision the coder will have to make, and I'll discuss that with Anubis. Probably they need to be balanced in the new system too. I don't care much either way, as long as we keep the ones that are already in, at least in some form.
For now, I'd just like to clean up the way they are displayed to the players, because that is very confusing and vastly misleading. If you type
subslkills, or
professions in the game, you'll understand why.
Maybe the easiest way to go about it temporarily would be to simply disable those two commands for mortals, until we decided what to do about them.
I'll also have to remove the info about Professions and Subskills that I went ahead of time and put in the Travel Agency. I let myself get carried away and believe that what we dicussed would also actually happen. Should have known better...
