What is your favorite "Skill Tree?"

[ro9ue]

Edit: The 4 games I posted are only for some examples , you don't have to pick from these 4 games or even these 4 iterations. Post whatever you want.

A lot of RPG/MMO/whatever games these days have their own "Skill Tree".

Just as an example, WoW started off with a 'traditional' skill tree, at the time, very similar to what Blizzard rolled with in Diablo 2. They decided that skill trees with incremental +1% bonuses and such "weren't interesting choices" and eventually went with the talent trees we have now. Essentially (if you haven't played WoW in a while), it's just a few tiers of a choice between 3 talents (screenshot below).

Interestingly Path of Exile decided to turn that whole philosophy on it's head and create a MASSIVE skill tree. Literally epic in scale.

I personally like something a little more balanced like what we have seen in D3. Skill selection from a small pool of abilities and then can enhance each one with a rune. I'm also a huge fan of Rift's soul system. Basically WoW's old talent trees, but you get to pick from a pool of several souls and set up 3 spec trees, and as you spend points, other stuff opens below as you go deeper into the tree.

What has been the best iteration of the "Skill Tree" you have seen?


WoW's Talent System:




Path of Exile's Skill Tree:




Rift's Soul Tree:




D3's Skills Thing:

[Thelxi]

Out of these, PoE.

[Hisholyness]

I think Heroes of the Storm has the "best" skill/ talent tree. I specifically like its simplicity, and the fact that you know EXACTLY what you are getting for your hero.

This is opposed to Rift, D3, or POE where you can easily not optimally place a point. I played Rift for 2 years and have a strong bias against their talent tree: the trees are redundant, completely non-special (except pyro for mage lulz), and very easy to make a mistake. Its not uncommon for your talent choice in rift to be between 10% weapon damage and attack power or 10% more damage, but which is better? How are you supposed to know?

[Zeta333]

Can you get rid of that fucking trash you listed for WoW and D3 and put old WoW skill tree and diablo 2's please. Current WoW and Current D3 are the retard friendly skill trees. And not really trees when you only have 3 fucking options.

[Hisholyness]

Can you get rid of that fucking trash you listed for WoW and D3 and put old WoW skill tree and diablo 2's please. Current WoW and Current D3 are the retard friendly skill trees. And not really trees when you only have 3 fucking options.

As much as you dislike the new WOW talent tree, and how much I assume we both appreciate the old talent tree, as a designer the new talent tree is better. It clearly (and yes, simply), shows you what you are getting and what you are losing. You trade 1 to not have 2. The old talent tree was far more complex and easier to create failure, especially for new players.

I hate to say it, but simpler is better.

"Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Einstein

[melodramocracy]

AC had the best 'skill' tree in my eyes. You were alloted a given set of points when you create your character, and will get additional ones as you level. Various 'professions' cost certain amounts of points, and you can take them up normally, or specialize in them, which would allow you to become more powerful. Beyond that, there were no limitations.

Want to spec war magic and unarmed combat? Go ahead. Want to specialize in 3 different physical weapons? Go ahead.

In the flavor of old school rpg's, you were also given free rein as to where to allot stat points, something sorely lacking in many modern games.

I don't mind the D3 setup, as builds are both tree and gear dependent, and it actually manages to be more interesting than WoW because of it. Warcraft has gone from 'eh' to decidedly worse over the years.

PoE's looks good, but I have very little experience with the game, so can't comment on it.

[Deleted]

Can you get rid of that fucking trash you listed for WoW and D3 and put old WoW skill tree and diablo 2's please. Current WoW and Current D3 are the retard friendly skill trees. And not really trees when you only have 3 fucking options.

Actually they are better than the old trees but completely different. They are, I think what glyphs should have been. A good skill tree should be best of both worlds, I think. Meaningful options as well as the ability to build your character as opposed to just adding flavor stuff.

[Fencers]

Path of Exile, clearly.

I like the concept of Rift's soul system and sometimes it worked great. But there was too much overlap and eventually it became homogenized.

[Zeta333]

As much as you dislike the new WOW talent tree, and how much I assume we both appreciate the old talent tree, as a designer the new talent tree is better. It clearly (and yes, simply), shows you what you are getting and what you are losing. You trade 1 to not have 2. The old talent tree was far more complex and easier to create failure, especially for new players.

I hate to say it, but simpler is better.

"Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Einstein

I did say it is simpler, I said its retard friendly, Blizzard stated the reason they went to this system was becuase people couldnt figure out how to spec. So yes its friendly to idiots but thats not why i play MMOs or RPGs. I want a vast tallent tree and list of skills or perks to take as i choose, Not pick one out of 3 becuase its windowlicker friendly. The title of the thread is Skill TREEEEEEE. The D3 and New wow skill systems is not a TREE.

I absolutely hate this system. The lack of complexity is what irks me. I dont care if the end step of a huge tree is alot of people use cookie cutter specs. Its the choice i love. There should be attribute points like in d2, There should be huge trees. I mean fuck that path of exile tree almost makes me want to get it JUST FOR THAT. Do this shit to DND and watch DND players laugh at you. We are playing RPG's. The moment you start to cater to the lowest common denominator is the moment you stop pushing people to learn more, get better, and figure shit out for themselves. Even the simple ass d3 skill system is nerfed from what it was in the beta. Where originall all the element modifiers that you have you would have goten from drops and of different qualities. but that got axed.

[Simulacrum]

Comparing these skill trees isn't really fair. These games have very different philosophies.

Take D3 vs PoE, for perhaps the most radical example. D3 is a game that's meant to be played for a few weeks before you stop and maybe come back for the next patch, while PoE is meant to be played almost forever.

The skill trees reflect this. D3's choices are all simple enough that you can understand them at a glance, and you can change them at a whim, while PoE's skill tree is extremely overwhelming and requires a lot of dedication and pre-planning to get something good out of.

So I actually think these are both examples of good skill trees, for their respective game designs.

...

I hate to say it, but simpler is better.

"Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Einstein

"As simple as possible, but not simpler" isn't the same thing as "simpler is better"... one says to remove unnecessary complexity, the other says to remove complexity fullstop. One is a good idea. The other is retarded. Just like the current WoW skill "trees" are... though, the old WoW skill trees were retarded as well. There just wasn't enough room for flexibility in them. Doesn't mean there couldn't easily have been, though... but that would've required increasing their complexity, and, well, "simpler is better", eh?

[Hotmail]

Going to go with the WoW tree since there is always a certain feeling of satisfaction which comes from switching to the right talent for the right task. Right now, a Rogue can have multiple, viable variations of a Subtlety build depending on what they want to do which is pretty awesome for class identity.

The price to pay for this is that the character feels a little less like the player's "avatar" once max level is reached but then again maybe that is the intent.

PoE's was appealing at a glance but I could never really get into since I had no idea what I was really progressing towards. In traditional WoW I had incremental 2% buffs on my way to a cool talent like Power Infusion, Pyroblast or Tree of Life. In PoE I couldn't really pinpoint anything interesting. That was years ago, though.

[barrsftw]

I LOVED rift's talent system. Easily the best thing about the game from what I remember.

[Pendulous]

Do mana eggs and adventure books in Grandia 2 count?

[Jester Joe]

Words cannot describe my distaste for skill trees like Path of Exile. Granted, the last skill tree I used like that was for FF10, but literally most of the choice are like "5% more block" or something really stupid that it's like, no, I don't want that, I want the cooler thing all the way over there, but the route there is really boring and grindy".

Out of those I guess I'd have to go with Rift's which is like WoW's old one, but I would of liked if it more if it was less cookie cutter.

[Aruhen]

I actually really liked the sphere grid system in FFX in expert mode. Another one is Mass Effect 3 which I liked for its simplicity while still offering a bit of choice.

[Sosoulsu]

Definetly Rift.

[Rambosaur]

Holy crap that Path of Exile skill tree would make me want to commit suicide.

[Jakexe]

Rift from those selections. Maybe PoE but I haven't played it so it's a jumble to me.

I like pointing points in things, not just unlocking abilities.

[Aori]

Can't we go back to Diablo 2 skill tree? -shrug-

[Tryuk]

Out of those PoE and D3. I haven't experienced the PoE skill tree enough to be that happy with it but I've always loved the idea of just how massive it is. D3 on the other hand lets me customize and create a subset of the class I play without being hard to work with. It may not be necessarily a min/max set of abilities I pick, but it's what I want to play. As a single player I can ignore horrible min/maxxing for fun play.

Ones that don't appear here I love.

EVE: Another one that combines pure massiveness (anyone got a visual map for it?) and customization. The create your own "class" idea really works out, but it's a bit held back by the time it takes to get anywhere.

Wildstar: The AMP system is a bit shitty imo, but ability tiers are awesome. Especially how it plays out in synergy for what utility you need on what fights.