The Skill Map

[Helton]

Path of Exile is an action RPG in the vain of Diablo 2. It has a number of interesting systems but the one I wish to discuss in particular is its Passive Skill Tree. Here is a picture of its current incarnation:

Spoiler

Passive Skill Tree Article

Introduction (if you've never played PoE):

Spoiler

Every character class shares this tree, but begins in a different location on it. The nodes in each area have a general theme, which is what gives each class its particular style, but most effects have relevant nodes all over the map in various densities.

Not all nodes are equal. Many nodes offer a generic attribute boost and serve the primary purpose of navigating to more valuable nodes. There are neighborhoods and cul-de-sacs of nodes which have similar or related boosts, usually capped off with a kind of "super-node" which gives those boosts in higher effect. Much of character development is effectively collecting relevant "super-nodes".

Then there are "keystone passives", which fundamentally alter the way a character is played. A keystone might remove all of a characters mana and allow them to cast spells using health; or else remove all of a characters health but make them immune to shield-piercing attacks; or perhaps prevent a character from dealing direct damage, but increase his number of sources for indirect damage. Many character concepts are built entirely around one or two keystone passives, and navigating to them often determines which other nodes are feasible to take.

A relatively recent addition to the skill tree are empty "jewel nodes". Jewels are items and have random properties like most other items. They are generally in the same range of power as a "super-node" but can be much more specialized. A few of these nodes can usually be picked up trivially as you navigate the tree, but they can be powerful enough to be worth going out of your way for certain builds. These allow for significant customization.

Some jewels are "unique" in that their properties are not random, and they more resemble keystone passives with both positive and negative effects which significantly alter playstyle. Some of these unique jewels have a "radius" and their effects are determined by the skills nearby on the skill tree.

And this is where jewels start to get very interesting. There is a unique jewel called "intuitive leap" which allows you to take skills within a radius of the jewel which you had not connected to normally. This is the first "navigation jewel", whose only purpose is to help you navigate the skill tree.

I hope to see more of such jewels, for instance a "tunnel jewel" which, at the cost of two valuable jewel slots, will let you traverse across vast distances in the skill tree.

And this skill system, complete with navigation jewels, is what I want to discuss. This is a superior character development system. There have been several nights where I couldn't sleep because my mind was active theory-crafting slight improvements to a build I found online.

Most character development systems involve a combination of stat-distribution and feat-selection.

Stat-distribution suffers from being too fine, too coarse, or both at once. There are a couple dichotomies:
1. Lots of 'points' versus few 'points'. In fallout or DnD terms, "skills" versus "attributes". In the former case, each individual skill point doesn't matter much. In the latter, there is not much viable variation between characters.
2. Macro versus Micro abstraction. If you only have a few stats, and most characteristics are derived from those stats, your player's choices are boring and distant. If they want more run speed but don't care about criticals, they have to put points in dexterity all the same. On the other hand, if you allow them to change such stats directly it can be a) overwhelming and b) difficult to impossible to balance.

The feat system holds up better, in my opinion, and is more similar to PoE's skill city. The trouble generally is:
1. Too few available feats. A given character might only be able to make 10 or 15 feat choices.
2. Lots of useless feats.
3. Too many options too soon. Even if all of the feats are good and worth considering, there are usually so many available at character creation or in the first few levels that it can be daunting, and this perhaps before you even understand the game's mechanics to adequately analyze them. (Underrail is a great example of this last concern)

The skill city fixes this because:
1. Simple at the beginning. A first time player picks an archetype, and has literally only 2 options for their first level. Complexity increases geometrically from there, but so does the player's understanding of what is needed for their play style. There is a huge diversity of builds and choices, but the player isn't given those choices until they have an informed opinion on the outcomes.
2. The player can directly target those skills they want to prioritize, but only to a certain amount. They can't just pump points into runspeed every level, but they can target that specific effect in the relevant nodes, and shun the non-relevant critical strike nodes nearby.
3. By midgame the player has a very fine granularity of choices. Yet each choice is either specifically improving the stats they want, or navigating to nodes which will. Every point matters, and there are LOTS of points.

The outcome is that players have lots of viable choices, huge variety in builds, very direct control of the stats they care about, but the developer also has a reasonable grasp on what is obtainable. If you want to soft or hard cap runspeed, you can. You can quantify every node. And all of the freedom and complexity need not worry you when you first start playing, because early advancement is very gated.

The system is amazing and I'm having trouble going back to other RPGs, despite being bored of the action-oriented gameplay. I really hope to see this system used in other games, with different gameplay focuses, and paired up with other systems.

Edit: BTW, Path of Exile is free of you want to try it out and see what I mean. https://www.pathofexile.com/

 

[PulsatingBrain]

The skill web reminded me of the one from the Witcher 2 a little, except PoE's is obviously on a much grander scale and looks more interesting

PoE's certainly looks good.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

I think I'll give PoE a go, how good or bad is the F2P system it uses?

 

[Helton]

The only utility item you might want to spend money on is stash tabs. You start with 4 which should get you pretty far depending on how much of a hoarder you are. Everything else is just skins and other aesthetic stuff. Nothing pay-2-win.

 

[Ivan]

I remember melee being shit. You aoe to win. Thats why I bailed.

 

[Severian Silk]

Boring game.

 

[Zdzisiu]

I remember melee being shit. You aoe to win. Thats why I bailed.

Well, killing a single monster with each hit will always be worse than killing a few of them in one hit. So with that in mind, any aoe skill will be better than single-target skills, as long as both of them can kill the mob in the same span of time.

Recently, PoE decided to go in the direction of giving the player either the possibility of changing a single target skill into an aoe one, or using some of the new melee aoe skills. Yes, there still is a fair amount of discussion whether melee will ever be as good/safe/fast clearing as any form of ranged. Im not sure it can be, not without making ranged significantly weaker, so you would either have a choice of slower clear speed but safer with ranger skills, and faster clear speed but more dangerous with melee. But that would require an introduction of some fundamental changes, which I dont believe are in the pipeline. But I was surprised before.

All in all, melee is definitly better than a year or two ago.

 

[ghostdog]

 

[Helton]

I consider PoE a good game but of course aRPG is not for everyone, and I agree the gameplay can get old. I hope you guys are capable of detaching a single mechanic from the entire experience and discuss the pros and cons of that mechanic? Whether or not you like aRPG gameplay or Diablo 2 clones doesn't really have much to do with the efficacy of the skill system.

 

[Delterius]

I consider PoE a good game but of course aRPG is not for everyone

I wonder if newfags are going to complain about this use of 'aRPG'.

 

[Grauken]

I'm not sure whether I'm in favor or completely against skill trees, though I must admit I haven't encountered a game yet where I think doing it as a skill trees vs a list of skills really does add anything to character building. To me it always seems to provide the illusion of high granularity but instead actually gates your progression much more strongly than lists, while the overwhelming mass of choices seems more like fluff progress that actually makes it harder to make meaningful choices in terms of how you want to build your character.

I can imagine if you have a very good understanding of the system at hand, a skill tree could allow you to build extremely strong characters (if the tree is as expansive and deep as the one from PoE looks like), but I'm not too versed in games with skill trees to say whether its actually true or not.

 

[V_K]

Lots of 'points' versus few 'points'. In fallout or DnD terms, "skills" versus "attributes". In the former case, each individual skill point doesn't matter much. In the latter, there is not much viable variation between characters.

Neither Fallout nor DnD attributes are good examples of a "few points" approach. The problem here is mostly of a psychological nature: both these systems have average value as the baseline, which means players strive to meet this baseline in all stats, unless they are completely useless for their build. On the other hand, something like the World of Darkness system uses zero value the baseline, and no universally useful stats (like e.g. Con providing HP). This allows the character to specialize in a small subset of stats and skills, while the interconnectedness of stats, skills and tasks ensures there's some leeway for the situations that the character is ill-prepared for. Unfortunately neither VtMR, nor VtMB really does this system justice. In the CRPG realm you may look at skill systems of Grimrock 2 or Dragon Wars, which both strongly encourage the players to specialize precisely because there are very few points available.

If they want more run speed but don't care about criticals, they have to put points in dexterity all the same. On the other hand, if you allow them to change such stats directly it can be a) overwhelming and b) difficult to impossible to balance.

That's what feats, enchanted gear, consumables and buffs are for. It's called tactical depth.

To be honest, I just don't see a use for this sort of granularity outside or ARPG realm, where the whole point is to make a build and test it against tons of trash mobs. Traditional CRPGs are at their best when they allow for a variety of broadly different approaches (e.g. combat vs. stealth vs. magic etc.), not the minute differences like +spd/+crt.

 

[Raghar]

You need quote properly.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

I'm not sure whether I'm in favor or completely against skill trees, though I must admit I haven't encountered a game yet where I think doing it as a skill trees vs a list of skills really does add anything to character building. To me it always seems to provide the illusion of high granularity but instead actually gates your progression much more strongly than lists, while the overwhelming mass of choices seems more like fluff progress that actually makes it harder to make meaningful choices in terms of how you want to build your character.

I can imagine if you have a very good understanding of the system at hand, a skill tree could allow you to build extremely strong characters (if the tree is as expansive and deep as the one from PoE looks like), but I'm not too versed in games with skill trees to say whether its actually true or not.

I played PoE for a grant total of 15 minutes, but looking at this tree, it looks like it allows you to multi-class by traversing regions / archetypes? Interesting if so.

To me these systems usually boil down to 'this mob takes three whacks, this mob takes two whacks'.

 

[Grauken]

Are there any games with skill trees/maps where you can have more than one starting position?

 

[PulsatingBrain]

Are there any games with skill trees/maps where you can have more than one starting position?

The one I posted above from the Witcher 2 allows you to pick from the 4 central orbs to begin. But as I said before, it really only has a few branches on each arm and isn't nearly as interesting os the PoE tree

 

[Helton]

To be honest, I just don't see a use for this sort of granularity outside or ARPG realm, where the whole point is to make a build and test it against tons of trash mobs. Traditional CRPGs are at their best when they allow for a variety of broadly different approaches (e.g. combat vs. stealth vs. magic etc.), not the minute differences like +spd/+crt.

You could have broadly different approaches and still want to optimize play within those categories. There's nothing preventing the nodes from affecting different aspects of stealth, diplomacy, crafting, ect. PoE just doesn't entertain those approaches and so doesn't have nodes for them.

Are there any games with skill trees/maps where you can have more than one starting position?

Like at the same time? PoE has this just slightly. If you play as the central class, Scion, your elite class allows you to pick another classes starting point in addition to your own.

I was theory-crafting an MMO where you would have an initial starting point from your "background" and then would, like in SWG, take on different professions, which would give you additional starting points. The skill tree kind of becomes a minigame in itself. Already in PoE you have to weigh opportunity cost. Usually there are multiple ways to a node cluster you want. Some are fast but don't yield much along the way, and others are slow but have juicier nodes to get there. I think more of these mobility vs. utility decisions would be great.

The boring thing about PoE is that it really is 95% about slicing through trash mobs as fast as possible. I think this model of skill tree would really shine in a game like SWG where players have different motivations and so are trying to optimize very different aspects of the tree.

 

[Azarkon]

The benefit of skill trees over skill lists is in the former's use and display of skill prerequisites. Any skill choice system that involves "basic skills" being required for "advanced skills" can and actually should be drawn as a tree, because that what skill trees were made for, in the first place.

If your game doesn't have skill prerequisites, but just a flat list of skills, then it doesn't need a tree, as the tree would have no connections and therefore be useless.

The argument should be about whether a system benefits from having skill prerequisites, over just having independent skills. As said above, skill prerequisites limit the amount of choices you actually have, but at the same time, they reward specialization and allow for the placement of the most powerful skills at the end of paths, and in doing so encourage different builds as opposed to one build that works for all.

 

[Grauken]

Is there a way to play PoE in Hongkong, steam doesn't let me for whatever reason?

 

[Snorkack]

Lots of games in HK and SE Asia in general are exclusively distributed by Garena (LoL for example), IIRC this is true for PoE as well.

Are there any games with skill trees/maps where you can have more than one starting position?

Only thing similar I know of is Final Fantasy X, which had expert mode for its spherogrid. Every character had a specific starting position, but you were free in the choice of direction pretty early in the game.

 

[Lord Azlan]

Path of Exile is an action RPG in the vain of Diablo 2. It has a number of interesting systems but the one I wish to discuss in particular is its Passive Skill Tree. Here is a picture of its current incarnation:

The system is amazing and I'm having trouble going back to other RPGs, despite being bored of the action-oriented gameplay. I really hope to see this system used in other games, with different gameplay focuses, and paired up with other systems.

Is it a RPG?

In any case there is a very very long thread on the Codex about it and for some reason my Steam account seems to load new updates to the game every few days.

I tried it in the end for a very short while and thought both Torchlight 2 and Titan Quest are better - why am I wrong?

 

[Helton]

The argument should be about whether a system benefits from having skill prerequisites, over just having independent skills. As said above, skill prerequisites limit the amount of choices you actually have, but at the same time, they reward specialization and allow for the placement of the most powerful skills at the end of paths, and in doing so encourage different builds as opposed to one build that works for all.

But these aren't merely skill pre-requisites. There are many paths to get to any given node on the tree from any starting point. I think a linear pre-requisite system is rather boring. Just, is the ultimate skill in this branch vital or not? Its pretty much a binary decision. However, once you've decided you want a particular skill, then having to decide the most cost effective way to navigate to it can be very interesting.

 

[Helton]

Is it a RPG?

In any case there is a very very long thread on the Codex about it and for some reason my Steam account seems to load new updates to the game every few days.

I tried it in the end for a very short while and thought both Torchlight 2 and Titan Quest are better - why am I wrong?

You might not be wrong, I haven't played those games. PoE is being expanded regularly, hence the updates. It may have changed drastically since you played it. In any case, this thread is specifically about the skill tree PoE implements. I would like to discuss its merits, and hope to see the model in more (and more varied) games in the future.

 

[Ninjerk]

A picture for ants. Very meta.

 

[Beastro]

As much as I see the novelty of the system, it's fucked because it relies on countless, shitty little percentage modifiers to make such a tree work.

It's too gradual a progression for me that it bleeds out the sense of your character gaining new abilities. I very much prefer systems where a few, or even one level, can at times turn a weak character into a powerful, must have one due to new spells or abilities that come with them.