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 😅
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.
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.
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.
Yeah, PoE's skill tree is 80% filler. It's a really good game and a good skill tree in many ways, but so many levels I just have to put another point into a +10 stat node that changes nothing about my playing experience.
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.
I feel conflicted about full respecs - on one hand it is pretty convenient compared to respeccing 1 by 1 if you're an experienced player that know what you're doing, but on the other hand sometimes it can feel a bit jarring if you full respec halfway thru a game and you're not used to the new playstyle. One work around would be to have presets/pages you can swap back and forth on so you can have 1 tree that "works" and experiment on another 1
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.
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.
I didn't want to spend too long on PoE but it has a ton of cool interactions with other systems too like unique jewels and tattoos. You're almost customizing your own passive tree at that point
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've never tried titan quest but I just looked up what the skill tree is like - looks very cool and the combining of 2 skill masteries looks right down my alley lol
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!
@@MaksimSalomatin Ooh that sounds interesting for sure. I feel like a lot of indies lean into roguelite/roguelike mechanics and use temporary/random power ups (pick 1 of 3 upgrades kind of thing). Definitely gonna check out Soulstone Survivors
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).
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
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.
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.
The game that popularised that version was Final Fantasy X. It allowed for a lot of customisation, while still guiding the players towards a workable path. If you didn't want to, you didn't have to think much about it, or you could get creative with a bit more effort. Just like Diablo II, it was a popular game with a skill tree that worked well, so other devs copied it.
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.
Oh wow you're right, my bad. I haven't played sekiro in a while and i dont remember ever successfully deflecting a thrust attack myself lol. Good catch
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.
Yeah I actually agree with that, the gold cost for BG3 respeccing was low and I ended up trying a lot of new content cus of it. I think it works cuz you have to be in camp to do it and you can't go to camp when you're in dungeons IFAIK - like if you could respec right before entering a boss fight that would harm the overall experience imo
@secretsofshadowsgame I agree but the whole thing is letting the player choose if he thinks it's the right time. Most players wouldn't respec before each encounter. They would try to breakthrough with what they got before even thinking about respec. The kind of player that would do that are min maxer and I think unlimited respec would make them very happy. The only moment where I can think that would be a problem is if the next encounter is too difficult and the player NEED to respec to pass. But in that case the problem is not really the respec. But at the same time I find myself quite happy in games that don't have repec at all because it feels like a commitment, but it's also easily the source of too much frustration. Anyway great video I'm looking forward to your next one
@@secretsofshadowsgame Personally if a respec is expensive I never respec. I would need to be caught in a situation where I cannot progress unless I respec to do it. That ties in with the mentality of not wasting consumables = never using them. Except it is even worse because a respec is a side grade rather than a temporary upgrade. Spending limited resources on something that doesn't provide a clear advantage simply feels bad. Making respec limited by requiring some effort to perform it on the other hand is a much better idea. If you have to go to this one particular location to perform it, then you aren't going to abuse the fact that it is essentially free by respecing perfectly before every battle, while being able to safely try out new playstyles without overcommitting to them.
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.
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.
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.
Yea sorry about that, I had some recording issues on my end but I didn't notice until I was editing and I didn't want to delay the video, I know the problem so it should be fixed from now on
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
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.
Yeah, no. I don't think you understand how people think when playing these skill-progression-based games. Players express themselves through their characters, so if the characters grow stronger, they do. And more skills means you get more combinations to work with, and mastering them gives you mastery. And as @CJWproductions say, there's skill involved in creating the build, which isn't present at all in those other games.
Well designed skill trees add options for the player rather than increasing numbers. This means the decision space becomes more complex and therefore also requires more skill from the player, forcing them to grow in mastery alongside the character. (And of course assembling the build requires mastery of the game mechanics on an intellectual level.)
@@NotMeButAnother Usually games that have a fixed moveset that the game designers can then design around have deeper combat than in games with lots of builds or skill trees. Games like Bayonetta 1 or Ninja Gaiden 2 have much deeper combat than something like Elden Ring or Horizon Zero Dawn. It's much harder to create an interesting combat system when accounting for moves and abilities that the player might not have. Having "more options" does not mean that the gameplay has suddenly become more deep.
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 😅
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.
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.
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.
Yeah, PoE's skill tree is 80% filler. It's a really good game and a good skill tree in many ways, but so many levels I just have to put another point into a +10 stat node that changes nothing about my playing experience.
love the in-depth analysis and conversation, really makes me think about what i want from my game as well!
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.
I feel conflicted about full respecs - on one hand it is pretty convenient compared to respeccing 1 by 1 if you're an experienced player that know what you're doing, but on the other hand sometimes it can feel a bit jarring if you full respec halfway thru a game and you're not used to the new playstyle. One work around would be to have presets/pages you can swap back and forth on so you can have 1 tree that "works" and experiment on another 1
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.
100%, this is definitely something I'll have to keep in mind too.
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.
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.
I didn't want to spend too long on PoE but it has a ton of cool interactions with other systems too like unique jewels and tattoos. You're almost customizing your own passive tree at that point
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
Yea this could work, I alrdy planned having an element be associated with each starting location and I really like these
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!
I've never tried titan quest but I just looked up what the skill tree is like - looks very cool and the combining of 2 skill masteries looks right down my alley lol
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!
@@MaksimSalomatin Ooh that sounds interesting for sure. I feel like a lot of indies lean into roguelite/roguelike mechanics and use temporary/random power ups (pick 1 of 3 upgrades kind of thing). Definitely gonna check out Soulstone Survivors
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).
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
I really liked the skill tree in monster sanctuary the upgrade limit + the wide variety of skills really helped the game pop off
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.
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.
The game that popularised that version was Final Fantasy X. It allowed for a lot of customisation, while still guiding the players towards a workable path. If you didn't want to, you didn't have to think much about it, or you could get creative with a bit more effort. Just like Diablo II, it was a popular game with a skill tree that worked well, so other devs copied it.
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.
Oh wow you're right, my bad. I haven't played sekiro in a while and i dont remember ever successfully deflecting a thrust attack myself lol. Good catch
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.
Yeah I actually agree with that, the gold cost for BG3 respeccing was low and I ended up trying a lot of new content cus of it. I think it works cuz you have to be in camp to do it and you can't go to camp when you're in dungeons IFAIK - like if you could respec right before entering a boss fight that would harm the overall experience imo
@secretsofshadowsgame I agree but the whole thing is letting the player choose if he thinks it's the right time. Most players wouldn't respec before each encounter. They would try to breakthrough with what they got before even thinking about respec. The kind of player that would do that are min maxer and I think unlimited respec would make them very happy. The only moment where I can think that would be a problem is if the next encounter is too difficult and the player NEED to respec to pass. But in that case the problem is not really the respec.
But at the same time I find myself quite happy in games that don't have repec at all because it feels like a commitment, but it's also easily the source of too much frustration.
Anyway great video I'm looking forward to your next one
@@secretsofshadowsgame Personally if a respec is expensive I never respec. I would need to be caught in a situation where I cannot progress unless I respec to do it. That ties in with the mentality of not wasting consumables = never using them. Except it is even worse because a respec is a side grade rather than a temporary upgrade. Spending limited resources on something that doesn't provide a clear advantage simply feels bad.
Making respec limited by requiring some effort to perform it on the other hand is a much better idea. If you have to go to this one particular location to perform it, then you aren't going to abuse the fact that it is essentially free by respecing perfectly before every battle, while being able to safely try out new playstyles without overcommitting to them.
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.
For the algorithm.
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.
Great channel, I like what you're doing here
Skill trees are just very popular as progression system for games that want a bare minimum RPG element.
🤩
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.
Little root town woo! and lake. Sootapolis city is my fav! Route 104 have a comment for the alg
Dat algorithm 3.0
Future Hideo
For the algorithm 2.
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
Yea sorry about that, I had some recording issues on my end but I didn't notice until I was editing and I didn't want to delay the video, I know the problem so it should be fixed from now on
謝謝！
Thank you so much!
For the algorithm!!
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
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.
yea, for example, the dark souls games are mostly progression based.
The mastery comes from assembling the build. Picking the right options that work well together.
It's usually not very difficult but still
Yeah, no. I don't think you understand how people think when playing these skill-progression-based games. Players express themselves through their characters, so if the characters grow stronger, they do. And more skills means you get more combinations to work with, and mastering them gives you mastery. And as @CJWproductions say, there's skill involved in creating the build, which isn't present at all in those other games.
Well designed skill trees add options for the player rather than increasing numbers. This means the decision space becomes more complex and therefore also requires more skill from the player, forcing them to grow in mastery alongside the character. (And of course assembling the build requires mastery of the game mechanics on an intellectual level.)
@@NotMeButAnother Usually games that have a fixed moveset that the game designers can then design around have deeper combat than in games with lots of builds or skill trees. Games like Bayonetta 1 or Ninja Gaiden 2 have much deeper combat than something like Elden Ring or Horizon Zero Dawn. It's much harder to create an interesting combat system when accounting for moves and abilities that the player might not have. Having "more options" does not mean that the gameplay has suddenly become more deep.