Over the years we've seen RPGs with all sorts of weird and wonderful skill systems.. Skill trees (Diablo, WoW) with branching paths and dependency on particular lower level skills to allow you to learn more powerful ones. Usually being able to spend points upgrading each skill to a higher level. With this (as well as other skill systems) players can tend to just follow a "perfect build" from the internet to avoid making a choice they later regret. Also, it can be annoying to have to "purchase" a skill you don't even want just to get to one higher up. However, it can be fun to look forward to skills you know you'll be getting later and plan your route through the tree. A variation on this was the FF10 skill grid which was basically a graph full of interconnected nodes which the player traversed, learning skills at each node. Experience points allowed you to move, like points on the dice in a game of Monopoly. This was really interesting as not only did the game include items such as keys to unlock nodes and otherwise affect the skill grid, it allowed you to move in any direction and really vary your characters' progression. Skill Link in Lost Odyssey was another interesting system. Any others that you particularly like or dislike?

I particularly like skill trees or (again) UO's way of learning. Even better is a mix of both, which is what I'd like in my game should I ever get programming down (someone help me!!! lol) The reason being is, UO's way, you learn by repetition, its very real world -ish. Skill trees... for pretty much the same reason. Like in Diablo 2. You learn ice skills, and you get better (in a way) by adding points to the skills. And then as you go into that branch, more skills are open to you since you are, in an essence continuing your way down that skill path.

The ways in LO, FFT, Vandal Hearts and FFX and all are new and that makes it nice, but I still prefer the stuff I mentioned.

I very much enjoy skill trees. I find it fulfilling and it gives me something to look forward to/ carefully plan.

My ideal system would be some kind of exploration-based system. I wish there was a way you could experiment with something like the 'dark side' and discover/create your own skills once you've worked your way to the top of the tree.

I've always been fond of token based skills. Finding magic spell scrolls and fetishes rather than "learning" new skills. A system like that leans more towards action RPGs and rougelikes rather than traditional RPGs, but eh.

I've always thought a well thought out skill tree is nice, but I prefer a skill grid over a skill tree, simply because I want to be more schizophrenic when I play single RPGs, and skill grids allow me to relax and play the game. Skill trees can lead me to a poor / difficult build when I get closer to the end game.

I would enjoy a system where some exploration is required to find or learn new tricks, where using those tricks or spending experience points on them will improve them.

However, if you do increase skills by use, make sure to study Oblivion to understand how not to do it. Make sure the actions that can increase a skill are not things that can be automated with a piece of duct tape on a keyboard key. Destroying enemies to gain experience in a combat-focused RPG may be pretty old-school, but it is a system that's very stable and difficult to exploit. Other actions should follow the same pattern - actions that increase abilities should be directly related to fun gameplay elements. If an action can be repeated to gain skills, make sure that action is something the game hinges its gameplay on. There's nothing wrong with letting players exploit a system when exploiting the system is loads of fun.

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Original post by WavyVirus With this (as well as other skill systems) players can tend to just follow a "perfect build" from the internet to avoid making a choice they later regret.

The only players who enjoy character advancement that I could imagine doing this would be the type who follow a walk-through to complete a game. That would be the drones of the real world - those who do not know how to have fun with the responsibility of choices, and don't like to think for themselves. You shouldn't sway your game's design one way or the other for those types of players. Their fun will be mostly ruined anyway, regardless of your design.

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Original post by WavyVirus players can tend to just follow a "perfect build" from the internet to avoid making a choice they later regret.

I do not think this has be achieved yet, and it would require huge amounts of balancing and hiding many of the game mechanics from the player. However, I think a system where the player do regret their decisions would be ideal. Although, at first, this seems like a stupid idea; by making the player regret, they will take future choices more seriously, and thus will feel, dare I say, more immersed because it is more like real life.

Feeling like real life is not immersion. Immersion is when you forget its a game because you are absorbed by it. When you dont notice the clock next to the screen is 10 hours later, you've had to pee for 3 hours and you havent eaten yet for the day.

Anyway, making a player regret their decision is not a good thing. They will either return to a save before that decision and be mad at all the gameplay you made then redo. If they can't go back they will fume at having a bad decision or outright restart. Making players regret their decision with nothing to offset that negative feeling is only bad and you risk losing players.



I've always liked skill trees, they make since and I enjoy playing with builds and trying out ideas. I start over often, but I enjoy it because I'm testing Ideas. A system that allows that without making me restart to try new things out would be even better.

Btw, what exactly is a skill grid? I've never played a game with that in it.

Skill trees were created because authors wanted to simulate necessity to learn basics of some skill, before learning more powerful version. WOW skill trees have prerequisites for some of more powerful skills.
For example cooking would be difficult to be done without having some skill with knife. (imagine all these hurt fingers)

Skill grids are based on relationship between skills, skills that are related are close on the skill grid, skills that are distant are distant. Skill grids often allow to learn running first, walking later.

Skills are better when they behave realistically, in RPGs. RPGs are more at arts side of games than other genres, and foolishly flashy skills might drop immersion quite a lot.

Non combat skills are also interesting. For example cooking skill was extremely important in Star ocean.

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Original post by Kest & Binomine I would enjoy a system where some exploration is required to find or learn new tricks, where using those tricks or spending experience points on them will improve them. ------ I've always been fond of token based skills. Finding magic spell scrolls and fetishes rather than "learning" new skills.

I liked how in Lost Odyssey you might learn "Level 5 Black Magic" but particular individual spells would have to be discovered around the world; learning this would only allow you to use them once found.

And I agree about Oblivion.. you felt compelled to spam spells you didn't really use just because you wanted to level them up.. No fun at all

There was a useful spell i wanted in nearly all the schools of magic, in Oblivion. All that did is made me spam spells to level to get that one spell in the school at a usably level. It sucked.

EDIT: PS. I also loved the Diablo 2 system because of the synergies they added in. It made the system more interesting my adding a horizontal component to the vertically oriented skill trees. It jazzed up the tree a bit, which was good, but it had great power in making the low level spells powerful enough to use in late game by synergizing them.