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This does not directly discuss costs or fine balance of the skill tree, this is a conceptual change to the layout and how weapons and firepower are handled.
Here is an Imgur album walking you through how this system will look, some of the reasoning, and how it will function.
http://imgur.com/a/ou6tc
Here is a 12m video that covers how it will work.
Major Changes compared to PGI's skill tree:
- Firepower is no longer associated with the Skill Point Pool
- Each mech will have a Firepower Rating that determines the maximum nodes, per weapon tree, that you can activate
- Layout now presents direct choices between individual stats
- The strongest overall stats have less return than the niche stats. This allows the player to choose what is best for them given their build, playstyle, and goals
- Many less-effective nodes have been significantly increased in return per node and maximum achievable modifiers. This is aimed to make those node choices more attractive in comparison to the most-effective nodes. This also encourages players to explore niche builds and play styles by giving them significant returns that will actually be felt in a game.
Reasoning:
- The ability to affect your weapons via the skill tree is extremely powerful. The majority of players have stated they would allocate the majority of their points into the trees as I have them laid out. This change will remove the player's choice of investing skill points into weapon trees enables them to focus on more meaningful decisions and trade-offs within the system. They can allocate their skill points between more comparable valued benefits from the remaining trees.
- More meaningful decisions on the weapon trees and more direct player choice between comparable benefits.
- Separated weapon trees will no longer give an advantage to boating a specific weapon because every weapon can be modified by the same amount. This allows you to fully customize the efficiency of a mech with multiple weapon systems, making them more effective compared to boating.
- Each weapon will have its own tree
- Each tree will have a maximum active node amount determined by the mech's firepower rating
- Unlocking nodes will cost xp/gxp
- Activating nodes will cost cbills
- No cost for deactivating a nodes
- Only trees associated with your build will be shown by default. The other weapon trees will be collapsed by default
- Note: this does drastically increase the maximum potential xp sink into just the weapon trees. This can be addressed by their cost, but it also gives players something to continue investing xp into past their initial "maxed" skill tree.
- The layout I'm proposing will allow players to make direct choices between more comparably valued nodes
- This layout does not force a player to unlock and activate undesired nodes, but rather manipulates the value of typically undesired node to transform them into something that might be considered. More desirable nodes provide less return and have a higher investment cost. Less desirable nodes have much greater return and less investment cost
- Provides more satisfying and rewarding progress for the player
- Allows the player to choose between many more combinations of benefits, fueling and creating greater diversity
- Promotes niche setups that excel at many different things. For example: investing 20 points into Shock Absorbance and the Jump Jet branches will allow you to jump much better AND take zero leg damage. This is just one example of a way you can priorities your skill points to create a very unique experience for the player
- Instead of creating specialization from choosing one tree over another, you create specialization from combining many different branches from across all trees. The player can determine how he would like to specialize.
https://www.reddit.c...ockup_proposal/
Edited by Solahma, 10 March 2017 - 09:49 AM.
