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What I love about the skill tree in Path of Exile is the fact that it is shared by all classes as they start all on the same tree, just in different places. You wanna play a duelist who summons the corpses of his enemies? Sure, it might take you a while to get there but go nuts! This does not only work great for creativity but it also makes sense in general that a frail witch for example take longer to be a threat with two-handed-swords whereas making her Zombies explode would come far more natural to her than to said duelist.

small correction at 9:28 you can parry thrust attacks in sekiro without mikiri by perfect blocking but the window to do so is way smaller so in practice mikiri is essential

Awesome vid! I would like to recommend one more indie game as an example of good skill tree - Soulstone Survivors (I’m not the dev and it’s not an as). It’s rogue like game which shares both common and character based skill trees with good progression of unique class features. Worth checking out for sure!

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Great video! Really appreciated the section on reliable crits as I think it really builds into what makes risk/reward so important in game design.

Not sure how titan quest is not mentioned, but it is one of my favorite games. And has such a simple yet awesome skill tree system!

Great channel, I like what you're doing here

Quick correction, in Sekiro you can by default parry thrusts just like normal attacks. Mikiri counter is just a much better and easier way to counter them.

Nice and quick analysis of the topic, super cool. I like that you include perfect blocks in the topic, I am too pedantic to have ever thought of it that way, but it's very valid.

In Sekiro, saying you can't parry perilous thrusting attacks by default or without Mikiri Counter isn't correct. You can't block a thrust attack, but it can be deflected. The timing is just much more precise than deflecting normal attacks. The Mikiri Counter has much easier timing and inflicts much more posture damage, so it is the better option.

What are some games I should try? I'm always open to video suggestions 👌 Check out Secrets of Shadows if you like tactics RPGs store.steampowered.com/app/3111150/Secrets_of_Shadows Also, some of the voice over/audio is a bit messed up and I didn't notice til I was editing - it will be fixed for next time, my bad 😅

6:17 for me it's an issue of Skill Trees not being mechanically interesting; the only skill tree system I find mechanically interesting is PoE skill tree system because it's not only an investment but the color and stats clearly identify what elements of the tree can be changed AND some minor flexible spots being the gem slots as an example.

Skill trees are just very popular as progression system for games that want a bare minimum RPG element.

Letting a player do a full respec is a bit dangerous, since as soon as they do so they are left with a bunch of skill points to reallocate all at once. A good skill tree should let a player get a taste of the experience they will receive so that they can pivot away if they don't like the type of game play it enables. PoE, I believe limits respects to undoing one skill at a time via an in-game item. You can also address some of the balance issues of skill trees by limiting a player on how they progress though the tree more on the first playthrough but open it more if they want to experiment on a new playthrough.

One thing about skill tree design you didn't mention a lot was that mechanical and thematic connection should go hand in hand, i.e. prerequisites should make sense. I love skill trees, but too many of them just put thing behinds each other because the latter one is deemed more powerful, therefore you should have to take something else first to increase its price. Parry as a reprequisite for Riposte makes sense, Multishot for Sniper Shot doesn't.

I still like the Diablo II skill tree. There are skills at all tiers that work end-game, and most of them have a significant impact on gameplay. There are so many viable builds, and even more if you get creative and want a challenge. There's also been a significant evolution within the game's lifespan. They added skill cooldowns, which encourages lower tier skills, synergies to boost some skills to make specialisation stronger, and finally an actual respec option.

I really liked the skill tree in monster sanctuary the upgrade limit + the wide variety of skills really helped the game pop off

For your system, as it is Japanese adjacent, rather than trying to divide your six attributes into two groups for Yin and Yang, you could asign each of them an Element: Water, Fire, Wind, Wood, Metal, Lightning

I think, the Skill Web is better than a Skill Tree. It offers more choice and can be therefor more meaningful. It can also offer more freedom, if the options not chosen are not locked out from being chosen later.

I mean skill trees are pretty inevitable if you do two things. Make optionally unlockable perks, and have some that require others to be unlocked first. Have both these things, and you have a skill tree.

Games with large skill trees like Path of Exile sound like they should be fun, but when the emphasis is put on quantity like this, each skill often ends up being just small stat changes with barely any effect on gameplay, and are ultimately very boring. Having such huge trees also often leads to player having decision paralysis. One game that I think did skills very well was Ragnarok Online. Playing RO as a kid, I was always excited to try out my brand new skills whenever I reached a new character class. Every skill in this game is interesting in my opinion, and there is a rather wide array of different classes to try out. In addition, the developers have since added 3rd and now 4th classes with brand new interesting skills which I'm excited again to try out, but the late game gets very, very grindy.

So the thing I really liked about the Diablo 2 skill tree was that while there were higher level spells and abilities the tree, it was designed to let you spend more or less points on a single one depending on your build. It works differently but gives a similar level of choice to skill tree's that force you to choose between two or more abilities as your capstones(or even potentially for each skill point spent). Contrast this with a lot of skill tree's where there is little choice, for instance Dragon Age origins skill tree worked for spell casters because even though each spell tree was just 4 points and they were linear you had to pick and choose which spells you wanted, but for the fighting styles you just picked which two or three skill tree's to go down based on the chosen fighting style and then went down them making them a lot less interesting and letting you max out one set of skill tree's early but not giving you enough points to max a second along with the characters other class trees... and no real reason to even try. As far as your yin yang skill tree I could easily see one of the two dots being for a monk or blademage letting you deal elemental damage with your sword or fists, and maybe the other one being a summoning style skill for your mages to do physical damage. In either case you would probably want to build to that and then head over to the other side of the tree for more support nodes for elemental or physical damage buffs building out your mana to summon more stuff but then needing fighter nodes to make your creatures actually dangerous, with your counterpart option probably wanting lot's of normal attack and critical hit nodes but then pairing them with elemental damage and secondary elemental effects(shock damage stunning etc).

Every game has a skill tree because Diablo 2 was successful. The Civ example is apt, but Diablo brought it to RPGs and into the mainstream. But it's essentially just a visual way to represent character entitlement picks that have prerequisites (whether a previous skill or just a tier reached). You could write a skill tree for 3e D&D feats, but in the core rules it would mainly serve the Whirlwind Attack chain and everything else would crowd at the beginning. So the skill tree's existence encourages the designer to add prerequisites where they otherwise wouldn't just to serve the format. BTW that page of Shadowrun 2e isn't a skill tree, it's the roll default chart for when you don't have a skill and must use an attribute instead. SR2 skills don't have prerequisites.

When I think about interesting crit mechanics, I think of Pequod 1st Mate Yi Sang from Limbus Company. In Limbus Company, Crit is controlled by Poise. It's a status effect on the character. For every point in poise Potency, you gain 5% chance to crit. When you crit, however, the poise Count goes down by 1, and you lose all potency if poise count reaches zero (you also lose 1 count per turn, so some characters aren't very good at maintaining their poise). Pequod Yi Sang isn't very strong, but he has a very powerful skill called Relentless Stabbing. Keeping details brief, every time the attack crits, it's reused, getting more powerful each time. There is a limit on how many times this re-use can go off, but it leads to very satisfying moments where he has enough potency to guarantee the crit, and enough count to get the full use out of the skill.

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It's pretty odd to say that that progression systems satisfy a desire for growth and mastery, when that is the opposite of what they do. Your character becomes stronger, but you don't. You don't get a 1CC in Ikaruga, a 2-All in DoDonPachi or Ketsui or an all S-rank run in DMC1 on Dante must Die difficulty by grinding your character or maxing out your skill tree, you do it by deliberate practice, often for hundreds or thousands of hours. You learn general skills of the genre and apply them constantly, and become more proficient as a person since you completed a really difficult task. That is what true growth and mastery looks like. I recommend watching The Electric Underground's video "Why Permadeath Matters", which goes deeper in the distinction between progression vs. performance-based games.

skills trees are awesome, But a easy Respect for "excludin" unless for stroy reasons should be mandatory, people like to try paths, and getting locked of one for a decision you maded 3 hours ago

For the algorithm!!

Future Hideo

I LOVE +1% bonus to money generated on tuesday evenings. really gets me excited to engage with the game and enjoy loot and leveling systems

An example of a good linear skill tree with branching paths is the "tech tree" from Civilization series. Each node unlocks cool abilities, crossing oceans, building forts, new units. I can't think of another skill tree that has so many unique abilities per unlock, instead of basic stat upgrades.

Dat algorithm 3.0

Just wanted to say, I really love the way you're presenting these videos. Going in-depth on a topic of game design and then relating it back to your own game and process is a great mix of content.

Great video. But I'm don't really agree about the "don't make respect too easy". I will take Baldur's gate 3 as an example. The respect is nearly free, and I think it was a great idea. Most of the time making the respec prideful will make people not want to experience new things and player wanting to experience build will just save sum the cost to test different things. In fine it will discourage some and make other find way around mean to archive free rebuild. And all heil to the mighty algorithm.

i don't know if my headset is messed up, but if its intentional to have a lecture hall echo, please no, it actually hurts my ears

love the in-depth analysis and conversation, really makes me think about what i want from my game as well!

For the algorithm 2.

For the algorithm.

Super interesting video about a topic i never thought about, well done

Random crits are fair and balanced

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This channel is gunna blow up. RockBark wuz here

I love stuff like this, keep it up!

you didn't really follow up on it after mentioning a game can fulfil multiple types of goals at the same time but a game can also have multiple types of crits that fall in different parts of the matrix to do this. in rogue legacy 2 for example, every weapon has a different way to "skill crit" for extra damage as well as random crit, or both for a super crit for even more damage. in the same way you're making the output of a crit for different weapons in your game unique to set them apart, you can set them apart in the way they can crit too. alternatively things like parries, dodging or really any improved output from a gameplay action can be made able to "crit" in whatever way fits, even varying within a game or even multiple types stacked on the same action like in rogue legacy 2. in a way something like wave dashing in melee to move faster could be considered a reliable low impact crit for example.

10:15 Laughs in Warframe with 700% crit chance and 11x crit damage (plus more of both with ability usage)

Fire Emblem is kind of odd to categorize how you did, because how much control you have over crits happening and how impactful they are vary wildly from game to game AND based on the context they're used in. For instance, Fire Emblem 4 has a support mechanic where if a unit is adjacent to their lover, they get a guaranteed critical hit. The formula for critical damage in FE4 is also different from FE7, the game you have pictured in graph. Even in the gameboy Fire Emblem games, you can build characters and supports in such a way that criticals are almost guaranteed. Rutger, from Fire Emblem 6, is a prime example of this. I'd go so far as to say Pokemon is just as, if not more, random than Fire Emblem in this regard.

A thing to mention on Fire Emblem is that while a majority of the time crits are on the unreliable and high impact scale, there are weapons and classes that can increase your crit rate, usually by several times. Weapons like killing edges or the legendary Wo Dao tend to have high crit rates, and Swordmasters have increased crit rates. Even supports can add crit chances. Then there's the wrath skill which in some games just lets you crit guaranteed under specific conditions. Additionally while in most games crits and effective damage (bows on fliers, horse killers on cavalry) are separate, in the 4th game you auto crit when dealing effective damage.

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An interesting take on "crits" is found in Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (and some other traditional roguelikes). The game has no mechanic named "critical hits", but the damage of every attack and most spells is HIGHLY variable (ranging from +/-100% of the average damage, with a uniform distribution), so in effect the game has the same very irregular damage that a game with proper random crits has. This ends up having a "comeback" effect in the game *for the enemies*, as even an enemy much lower level than you can get a series of lucky hits, forcing the player to play cautious even against trash mobs. There is a saying in the DCSS community that goes something like "A player with a 99% chance of winning each of their fights has a 99% chance of losing the game".