Talent trees?

[rjshae]

How do you guys feel about the possible use of talent trees in OE? (That is, a branching tree of capabilities that you use to customize your character at level-up.) I have seen some nice implementations of talent trees, and others that were decidedly weak.

 

[Jasede]

Not a fan of trees myself. Would prefer pre-reqs that need to be met, like in Fallout. With a tree it's too easy to be led to believe you ought to follow certain stretches to the end, to get the most out of your investment. I feel a pre-req system like D&D Feats or like in Fallout gives you more freedom.

[Tsuga C]

If the trees are too narrowly branched, then I'd say it was poor design because of their inherently limiting nature. I'd prefer ones that are broad rather than narrow, else the characters having feat "x" at the third branch of the tree must needs be built alike.

 

No mandatory "cookie cutter" paths of advancement, please. I don't mind a few prerequisites here and there, but if we're to go with trees then let's keep the trees broad and well interlaced.

 

Overall, I prefer prerequisites like D&D 3.X.

Edited October 29, 2012 by Tsuga C

[Elerond]

I vote NO for talent trees in PE. In my opinion they are stuff of more action oriented games.

 

Talents in rpg's should be limited only by attributes or skills.

Edited October 29, 2012 by Elerond

[Heresiarch]

Actually, tree is merely a structure. You could form D&D talents into a tree (with many loose branches) and it would actually benefit you, since you will be able to see which prerequisite talents you have to obtain and what ultimate talents suit your gameplay style most.

 

That said, I am no big fan of many talents/feats. The old Fallout-style perks, which were few and had quite an impact on the character, did much better job of flavoring the gameplay in my opinion.

[rjshae]

That said, I am no big fan of many talents/feats. The old Fallout-style perks, which were few and had quite an impact on the character, did much better job of flavoring the gameplay in my opinion.

True, but then Fallout was a skill-based system so perks make more sense in that context. In a class-based system, talent trees can be better targeted toward individual classes. They may even provide a multi-class (or prestige class) like capability.

[BasaltineBadger]

I never really liked talent trees. They make character advancement too abstract for me.

[Tale]

I prefer feat selection. Talent trees tend to be too restrictive and with wildly varying utility to the talent selection.

[JOG]

Talent-trees and D&D feats often force you to invest in talents / feats you don't care about, just to be able to get to a rather exceptional one at the end of the branch.

Sometimes the next feat in the "tree" makes the previous obsolete (e.g. Mobility=>Spring Attack) so why not simply make it a feat with 2 levels?

Also, some dependencies are completely arbitrary and make no sense at all (most of Skyrim's skill/perk "trees")

Finally, while the tree sure is a nice way to display dependencies, it also limits modding to exchanging existing talents/feats/perks rather than adding new ones.

 

So all in all, I think I can live without talent trees. What I'd like to see in dependencies, is alternatives, though, so Whirlwind Attack, for example, could either be attained by the Combat Expertise path or by the Mobility path.

[Tigranes]

I'd like to see multiple forms of synergies rather than single dependences of trees.

 

E.g. you may not need Dodge to get Evasion, but if you were to pick both Evasion and Avoid Arrows you would get some kind of synergy bonus. Or a system in which you can pick any feat you like and they stand alone, but say, to become the Dodge Master you need to have learnt any 5 dodge-related feats.

[quechn1tlan]

 

Sometimes the next feat in the "tree" makes the previous obsolete (e.g. Mobility=>Spring Attack) so why not simply make it a feat with 2 levels?

 

 

I'm guessing because they wanted to have all feats from core rulebook, which didn't translate into real-time too well. So their effects were changed resulting in this redundancy.

[Heresiarch]

That said, I am no big fan of many talents/feats. The old Fallout-style perks, which were few and had quite an impact on the character, did much better job of flavoring the gameplay in my opinion.

True, but then Fallout was a skill-based system so perks make more sense in that context. In a class-based system, talent trees can be better targeted toward individual classes. They may even provide a multi-class (or prestige class) like capability.

I am trying to say that you can do the very same thing without trees. Or at least without making people spend x mandatory points for not-so-useful talents which were arbitrarily chosen as a prerequisite for the talent they actually wanted to get. Like all those placeholder +x% damage/spell power/whatnot talents in Skyrim, which I felt were a complete waste.

 

I don't have anything against structure I just dislike it when my choice in talent customization is limited to few paths. Such thing are better left for specializations or subclasses, since they don't really represent a choice, they merely make you spend points in the preallocated tree.

[Tamerlane]

I'd like to see multiple forms of synergies rather than single dependences of trees.

 

E.g. you may not need Dodge to get Evasion, but if you were to pick both Evasion and Avoid Arrows you would get some kind of synergy bonus.

Diablo-loving heathen!

[Director]

If that's how they decide to do it - I have no issue with it. Trees do fit a class / role based system well, but I'm not sure how well it would work with the stated goal of having Wizards wearing armour and using swords, (and presumably Fighters casting fireballs and arcane veil).

 

Trees tend to lock you into class /role specific paths.

[Archmage Silver]

I'd prefer something akin to feats à la Icewind Dale II's adaptation of 3.5E.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I prefer the feat system like the one found in 3/3.5E to be better than talent trees.

[Karkarov]

No thanks. While it is somewhat possible to force say... 3.0 D&D feats and such into trees the tree in question would be insanely huge and stupidly complex. If they can make it work, go for it. But I would prefer if each class had so many options that condensing them into a single tree just wouldn't work.

[Volourn]

Trees are fine and doable but not every game needs them. Let PE do things IE stryle since that is what it is supposed to. We don't need new skool crap lanymore sicne we already have two health bars as party of new skool stuff being thrown in

[Metabot]

Not a single good reason to not have talent trees in this entire thread. That being said, I'd rather not have them.

[Utukka]

Whatever works the best, old or new.

[Joukehainen]

No. Also hgnngngng Dragon Age II

[anubite]

I think most of us have had our fair-share of WoW-inspired, insipidly-shallow skill trees. If there's going to be a skill tree in this game, I want each class to have at least 100 talents to put one point in.

 

Path of Exile's kind of spoiled me (http://www.pathofexi...ive-skill-tree/) but not really - I'm not saying PE should be as ridiculously big as that, but I'm tired of the WOW-style "oh there's 7 to 15 passives to pick from!" - it's too narrow, there's not enough character building with a set-up like that. Especially when a majority of such nodes are worthless or don't impact your character enough.

 

Feats are probably more suited for this kind of game, but I really love the keystone idea PoE is developing, where you can significantly alter your character's performance by choosing a passive ability which makes some aspect of play difficult/tough, while making another aspect very powerful. Like, a keystone for PE blood-thirsty-rogue might be, "You cannot be healed by restorative spells. Your critical strikes leech 30% of their damage as life." Basically, a Feat with polarizing downside and upside.

Edited October 30, 2012 by anubite

[Metabot]

Talent-trees and D&D feats often force you to invest in talents / feats you don't care about, just to be able to get to a rather exceptional one at the end of the branch.

Sometimes the next feat in the "tree" makes the previous obsolete (e.g. Mobility=>Spring Attack) so why not simply make it a feat with 2 levels?

Also, some dependencies are completely arbitrary and make no sense at all (most of Skyrim's skill/perk "trees")

 

 

So what, so what, and so what? God I hate these talking points that seem to just float around the internet.

Edited October 30, 2012 by Metabot

[Sensuki]

I'd like to see multiple forms of synergies rather than single dependences of trees.

 

E.g. you may not need Dodge to get Evasion, but if you were to pick both Evasion and Avoid Arrows you would get some kind of synergy bonus.

Diablo-loving heathen!

 

This could be good.

[Ieo]

I'm not a fan of trees the way they were implemented, yes, in WoW. Locked-in and exclusive at the same time, sometimes requiring you to take prerequisite things you didn't want or care about. Feats--I only have a very vague memory of the D&D 3.x rules, so I can't speak to that. I do remember it was far more flexible than a locked tree-path system. Never played Diablo.

 

For class talents, I honestly like LotRO's implementation. You can pick exactly which trait you want from a given line (three lines per class) and get specific set bonuses the more traits you pick from a specific line. You can only slot 7 class traits total, forcing you to choose (which is fine to me). Much more flexible than a tree structure, but rewarding specialization as well.

 

Umm, no trees please....

Edited October 30, 2012 by Ieo