MaddMaxx, on 18 February 2012 - 08:57 AM, said:
And no one has really thought to try and discuss how WE might change or re-align what was shown. Ideas people, the Dev needs our ideas.
P.S. I will need another look at the sheets before I can help LOL
Damn, you really made me write up something now. Okay, wall o'text incoming and y'all can blame MaddMaxx for it now!
(Mind me, just some ideas, needn't be in any way relevant to MWO, but just maybe PGI can glean something usful from it.)
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1. Basic structure of a skill tree
First and foremost matter would have to be the decision of how the tree is built without looking at individual content. Does one want a tree that gives the player access to all "fruits" and/or branches and thus enables a "horizontal progression"? Or does one want a tree that makes it necessary to opt for one of the branches and thus leave out another for a "vertical progression"?
The former tree has the advantage that every player can at some point acquire each and every single skill in game. Step-by-step the player can reach the higher-up branches and on his way there covr all of the "fruits"/skills located on the lower levels. Downside of such a model usually is that it takes forever to get to the higher levels with horizontal progression. Which might not become an issue though, if there would be an option to have more than one pilot (character) per account.
The latter tree requires the player to make a decision on what to specialize in at a point where the tree starts branching off. Meaning his pilot has to go up one branch and ignore the other one (eventually employing that mechanism multiple times). Advantage being that you can get specialized to a high degree in one role/profession faster, disadvnatge being that you exclude some skills from your pilot's skillset necessarily. This vertical progression model is actually closer to the genuine "tree" model as you have to decide for a "branch" and stick with it, might require the option of more than one pilot in game per player though for variety/versatility.
The basic conceptual decision to be made, which is lingering in the background here, is of course the pilot character issue. Would MWO have one pilot char per account or more than one pilot slot? If you go with a single pilot per account, obviously horizontal progression model would make more sense. As otherwise the players would just get multiple accounts (which they might anyway though) to cover all specializations in game. If you enable each account to have multiple char slots (referencing STO here, where you get 2 for free and have to purchase additional ones in the cash store), the vertical progression model seems more attractive. Enabling both a higher level of pilot specialization (with the entailed sense of achievement by that) and the additional option to sell extra char slots for PGI.
2. The paradigm of choice
A second basic conceptual matter is the question how much you can skip certain skills. Take for example a hypothetical skill like "minefield deployment". That could be related to using certain missile munitions types or later on eventually some Battle Armor types (NPC'd eventually). Or even as an option to be done by ground NPCs as a subsidiary function for the commander role. Does everybody want to have that skill? Highly doubtful.
So if player A want to specialize in energy-weapon based Mechs, he'D rather have the option to skip that skill ("fruit" on the skill tree). Now with the horizontal progression model (see 1.), there has to be made a decision how many skills of a given level across all branches you will have to take before you can progress to the next higher one. Basically a tiered model. For example, if you have 10 skills available on the Tier-2 branches, you might have to learn at least 8 of them before you can progress to Tier-3 ones. With the vertical progression model, once you opted for one specialization branching off, you basically stick with all the skills in that branch, with the additional option of acquiring some "genuine" skills which are located in each different branch. But you won't likely have the option to acquire the "minefield deployment" skill once you went up the specilaized branch for energy weapons (in the example). Would give a more distinct profile to role specializations.
Which kind of choice would the player want now after all? That's the question you can hardly answer conclusively as both models have their merits. It would be beneficial though to have the player make some choice, as it serves the general purpose of identification if the pilot character hasd a distict profile at some point. Meaning it is not yet another pilots of several thousnad with the exact same skill set. Is the player/pilot identification higher with having all pilots being basically clones of each other in terms of what skills they got, or is it higher when a pilot differs significantly in terms of skills from another? The answer is obviously the latter.
Thus having the option implemented that a player has to make a choice and can/must leave out some skills is more advantageous on a meta level. To gain a more distinct pilot profile and thus a higher level of identification from the player. There might be some slight balancing issues involved with this, but that's a matter I can hardly address without having a lot of details on skills handy.
3. Further development
As it is to be expected that MWO will get expansions in the future after launch, the point of how to add content in terms not only of extra Mechs, game modes, modules, maps, etc. has to be considered as well. How to add extra skill (-sets) in the future? Let'S assume at some point PGI wants to add e.g. a distinct "logistics" role to the roster. Most likely that will involve a couple of skills located on different levels/tiers of the skill tree.
With the horizontal progression model that would require to add them either at a higher tier completely, or to waive the tier restriction at all. Just plucking them in randomly into the tech tree would likely casue some discontent on the part of those players who have progressed significantly high up the tree already. Also it might not become a specialized, distinct role at all, if everybody would just add all these skills to his roster.
With the vertical progression model one could just add another branch "on the side". Meaning you might have either to purchase a new char slot to have a pilot go up that branch, or respec (cash shop token for it perhaps?) or erase an existing pilot and start anew on that char slot. Also that would make it relatively easy to add more new specific branches over time. This system would not necessarily becoms stastic as the exact location of where a given new specilaization branches off the "main tree" could be individually chosen. Meaning that i.e. the logistics role might brnach off at some point from the commander role, and not the basic skill tree before opting for a specialization. (I'd love to add in a graphic here, but that would require more insight into what PGI projected for the skill trees so far, I'm afraid).
A minor point in thsi context is that the relatively simple way to expanding the skill tree "sideways" negates the necessity to set it up very stretched out from the beginning. If you can expand it in width, you needn't bother with too much length at the start. Which doesn't preclude expanding it "upwards" later on, of course.
4. Complexity and the "newbie issue"
Quite obviously, once a skill tree becomes complicated enough, gradually a point will be reached where a newbie to the game looks wide-eyed at it and start gnawing his nails (slight exaggeration for effect here). So on the one hand a complex and detailed skill tree will be appreciated and relished by many players, on the other hand there needs to be a way to make it appealing enough to newbies to the game in order to not scare them off right away. Of course there will always be people who sigh and moan about any level of complexity that involves more than 2 minutes of looking at something, but I think we can safely ignore those. Many of them will cave in and play the games they badmouth as "too difficult" or something anyway (referencing EVE-Online as an example here, which doesn't exactly have a simple skill tree).
Best approach to this would likely be to have the complexity factor being gradually introduced. Meaning the fistr two levels/tiers of the skill tree should avoid branching off too much. That way, there won't be any important/difficult choices having to made already that would set you on the path to a specific role already without knowing what you're doing already. Make those low-tier skills generally available and just the order in which you pick/learn them a matter. Very basic stuff like e.g. a -1% cost to repairs for a "Field Repair" skill, or a 2.5 second reduction on power-up/shutdown for the "Control Interfacing" skill could work here.
Double effect of this would be to have already obtained a sense of achievement in any new player and additionally introduced the skill tree concept as well as sparked interest in further steps there. Pretty much a no-brainer here, once you are hooked to it, the likelihood of complaints about it becoming more complex diminishes. If additionally the skill tree was set up in a way (perhaps with in-game documenation supporting it) that you could just follow the "lead" and be railroaded towards one role, that would mean you won't necessarily have to bother with all the details and fineries of it. Unless you want to, being given the
choice there. And as sure as complexity is an issue to some newer players, it is seen as a boon (as in major feature to enhance identification with the game) to some others. In particular if you want to keep any eye on long-term commitment of players/customers. And at least the existing BT/MW community has sort of a track record for that one.
This won't likely address any issues though, that the so-called "instant gratification crowd" might have. Those who clamor loudly that they want it all, and right now. But any meaningful progression model won't appease them anyway. The whole concept of "instant gratification" is the very counter model to any sense of achievement. And as long as the very basic gameplay would work without any of the skills involved already (albeit at a "lower level"), noone is forced to even look at the skill tree. And those who won't are most likely not going to stick around for long anyway, and thus of little consequence for the angle of "paying customer" satisfaction.
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I think I'll leave it at this for now before I get issued a forum ban for spamming...
Also I'd like to add a disclaimer here (just as a precaution) that I'm not involved in the actual game design at PGI and thus this purely theorethical write-up is in no way responsible for any future game features that might arouse any player's ire.
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