I have designed a trait tree for my vapourware mmorpg. I was wondering what you people thought. Trait tree image This isnt the final design for the tree. Here is some more information. I designed this along with the idea that in real life you can be a programmer/gamer/footballer/student/etc at the same time. Down the left side of the tree there are the numbers 0-8. This is your stage in life (or something to that effect). Everyone becomes a citizen once they have chosen a place to live. when you get 2x experience you can choose a pathway to level 1 aslong as you are connected to it. when you get 3x experience you can choose a pathway to level 2 aslong as you are connected to it. etc you may also require other stats related to the trait you wish to learn. For example. to become an advanced axeman you may need 30 in "axe" skill. Or something to that effect. These skills are increased through fighting and stuff. Scholars can learn from books to increase the skills aswell. experience is reset back to 0 after each progression. all of the traits in the tree have their own level aswell. So to become a level 5 basic swordman you would have to hit 2x experience 5 times and reselect basic swordman. To become a level 2 Sourceror you would have to hit 8x experience 5 times and reselect sourceror each time. The benefit of levelling up in each trait is that your skills for that trait will increase faster. So a level 4 basic swordman will increase his sword skill quicker than a level 1 basic swordman. When leveling up as a citizen all of your skills are increased by 1. x experience is required to level up as a citizen. (thats axe,sword, bow,strength etc(not traits in the tree)) Each trait will give you 1 or more new actions you can perform. E.g. heal/block/swing/stab. Or something to that effect. the entire tree would not be visible. Only the next available traits will be visible. the lines with circles on them mean you cant go both ways. E.g. you cant be a master swordman and a magical swordman. The lines with 2 lines strokes through them indicate that 2 of these are required for that trait E.g. To become a gladiator you require 2 double stroked lines. etc There can only be 1 demi-god so if you want that position you must kill the current demi-god, if there is one. This is an incredibly powerful position which should hopefully be very hard to reach. Horse pathways may be added. It is possible for someone to become a master in all combat traits and therefore could never become a warlock and then never become a sourceror and then a demi-god. However the player will be informed of this so tough luck if it happens. Some of the traits have an evil counterpart. You would need to achieve a certain evil rating to become the evil equivalent of the priest/wizard/warlock/sourceror/demi-god. Same names for traits may need to be changed. [Edited by - Riviera Kid on May 10, 2005 5:45:11 AM]

This will obviously be a combat-oriented game, since "scholar" is obviously an afterthought and all the other skills are military. You even put "bowman" above "hunter", which seems counterintuitive to me. There's a lot more to hunting than there is to simply operating a bow. In fact, I'd say that bowmanship should be a pre-requisite for hunting, not the other way 'round.

There's no denying that you've put thought into this. Your .png looks a little bit like a neural network diagram. You might want to look into how those work for some good ideas on how to relate your nodes to one another.

I'll pretend I didn't see the "MMO" at the top and ask you a basic question: What will players get out of this trait tree? How will the character develop? Experience? Job Points? Play Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for the GameBoy Advance. It has a system very similar to yours. You have to have three thief skills and two archer skills to become a ninja, or whatever. It's a fun system. Try it out.

The eyes of your average player will glaze over if they have to navigate that. You must either make it invisible to the player via your interface design or simplify it.

I don't think a mapped implementation of trait tree is necessary. Most games can do this just based on the actual stats. Example:

Types of Magic Skills:
Nature, Divine, Elemental, Dark ...

Types of Combat Skills:
Axe, Box, Sword, Shield, Throwing, ...

Types of Other Skills:
Tracking, Assassination, Stealing, Smithing, Enchanting, ...


The game engine can simply use rules to mix and match the titles of the dominant classifications, such as:

1) +Divine = Cleric (Character with dominant Divine magic skill is called a cleric.
2) +Bow = Archer (You can scale the title based on level, like bowman, sharpshooter, etc. )
. . .
16) +Combat(3) = Weapon Master (Characters with no dominant combat skill)
. . .
27) +Dark +Tracking = Soul Seeker
28) +Divine +Tracking = Prophet
29) +Divine +Shield +Sword = Paladin (pretty standard)
30) +Bow +Tracking (+Nature) = Hunter (Magics not required)
. . .

You can see that you will end up with a lot more titles, it is probably desirable in an MMORPG. It makes people want to be different things.

The bonus on experience gain is already there in this system. What kind of skills do you think a Hunter will learn and use anyway. The skills that the character is able to learn (discriminated by skill level requirements, e.g. "Enlighten" requires the character to have a prophet status to acquire) is going to dictate how fast they can get their experience. It is built-in, you don't need to make your own rule to add bonus to it.

Quote:

Original post by Iron Chef Carnage This will obviously be a combat-oriented game, since "scholar" is obviously an afterthought and all the other skills are military. You even put "bowman" above "hunter", which seems counterintuitive to me. There's a lot more to hunting than there is to simply operating a bow. In fact, I'd say that bowmanship should be a pre-requisite for hunting, not the other way 'round.

its not the finished diagram. I am thinking about crafting and merchants. Its hard to fit stuff in.

I feel hunting can be a pre requisite for bowman and vice versa. Its not impossible to do either from the start physical speaking. But my way allows my table to flow better, i hope. Maybe i could put them on the same level, and when you have them both you would could become an advanced bowman.

Hunter/fisher/miner/forester are jobs which you will be able to get.
E.g."here is a bow/spear, go hunt me some dear and you will be paid".
If use the bow you are going to develop bow skills, if use the spear you will develop spear skills. Or you could just hunt them youself and sell food at the market. I was thinking you would go to the barracks and join the army and then you could dual in a training arena. Or you could buy a sword and go cut up some animals. I want to give people lots to do at low levels.

Quote:

Original post by Ned_K The eyes of your average player will glaze over if they have to navigate that. You must either make it invisible to the player via your interface design or simplify it.

yeah i think it should be invisible until you that trait becomes available.

Estok, thats quite a good way of doing things and under different circumstances it would be better, however the game i have in my head requires a tree for other reasons which are pretty far out.

Thanks for the replies

Hello - I was looking over the tree, and while it is cool, I dont think its nesscary. I am not a fan of the Lineage 2 style class branches, as they limit characters too much. Instead, why dont you seperate classes into qualification. This was mentioned earlier, but think of a system similar to Morrowind. Your class was not defined by what you choose, but what type of skills you had. I think it would be a great idea to make it so that if I have 50 Bow skill, plus 30 Fishing skill, I could qualify as a bowman, and thus recieve the benfits of that class. However, a pure system of requirements leads into a massive treadmill of grinding to get to classes, so make completing quests a strong requirement too. To become a hunter you must complete various trials in the wildrness like slaying the big wolf or catching a big fish.

Some fuel to feed the fire.

Being brought up on UO I'm not a class based player either. It's much more fun having so many skill points and then designing an almost infinite number of possible variations. You have basic classes, named by the players, based on the most obvious skills such as magery but there are easily 30+ variations based on how you want to play such as roach mages (impossible to kill), damage mages (massive damage), archer mages etc etc...

Each skills goes from 0-100 and if you find special scrolls you can improved them up to 120 although these are very valuable.

Your diagram could be made clearer by having the number of pre-requisite skills required drawn in the box then having required skills drawn in red, optional in blue (for instance)

I don't understand how you can make skills mutually exclusive though (you can have this skill but not this one if you want to do this)