Opinions on skill trees and any potential changes you think could be made?

[Zethren527]

I'm certainly not the first to feel that the skill trees in MTaP were a tad... lackluster. The fact that you needed to invest in additional skills that were either useless to your playstyle or had little to no practical use to any playstyle is something that has often frustrated me in games with skill trees. Personally, I have a few notes on how skills, skill tiers, and skill usefulness should be handled and I'd love to hear what others in the community think on this type of stuff.

My Notes:
-EVERY skill should be worth taking. I know this can seem a tad subjective, but in MTaP there were a fair few skills that were fairly pointless, contradictory, or simply space fillers. A good example of skills that are not worth investing in is Farm Guru. It allows a chance for double yield from crops in planters. Sounds great in principle, however, keeping your plants fertilized does the exact same thing thus rendering the skill completely useless. (https://mytimeatportia.fandom.com/wiki/Farming)

I would also suggest that Artisan also falls into this category, but only because of how it functions. Artisan reduces the material cost of crafting at the workstation. It is a decent skill in principle, but in practice it falls short due to the fact that you are still required to have the full amount of materials you would need if you did not have the skill. You USE less materials, but you still need to HAVE the full amount. This skill just comes off as wonky. You still need the full amount and end up simply needing extra storage space for the extra materials. A good idea that was poorly implemented.

Again, we'll get subjective, but I would recommend completely removing the Aggressive Stance and Defensive Posture skills. In the endgame, many enemies hit extremely hard. This means that a boost from lowered health is simply impractical because you are very unlikely to benefit from it for long as getting hit is inevitable in the combat system. I do not know what changes will be/have been made to My Time at Sandrock's combat system. This issue may have been fixed, but I might suggest something along the lines of health regen and/or "spike damage". Instead of increased attack with lower health, make enemies take damage when they attack the player. The damage they take is a percentage of the damage they dealt and can increase with skill level. Similarly, add health regen in place of damage reduction with lower health. These promote different playstyles and have more direct benefits that incentivise more strategic combat.

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-If Skill Tiers are locked behind a certain number of points invested, make sure that all previous skills in the tier have enough levels to where you could choose to invest solely in a single skill -OR- have a skill that costs 1 point that is genuinely worth taking.

A vast majority of skills in MTaP only had 4 points you could invest in which meant you needed to invest in other skills if you wanted to get to the next tier. Problem was, often times the other skills on a tier weren't very good. This was most prevelant in the Gather skill tree.

The Social skill tree has a decent example of this. In order to advance to the second tier, you need to invest in either Smooth Talk or The Giver which have a small chance each level to boost relationship by a single additional point. After a certain point, one additional point in an activity you can only perform once a day does not matter given you are required to gain literally hundreds of relationship points. If you want to get further in this tree, you are required to take at least one point in either of these skills and it essentially becomes a wasted skill point.

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Obviously there is some overlap in these points. In essence, I believe the skill trees need a fair bit of work and I hope that they can be changed so that no spent point feels like a waste and every point feels impactful.

What do y'all think? Do you like the skills as they were in My Time at Portia or so you feel they could use some work? If you do feel they could use some work, what might you change?

[aphfid]

Originally posted by Zethren527:

I'm certainly not the first to feel that the skill trees in MTaP were a tad... lackluster. The fact that you needed to invest in additional skills that were either useless to your playstyle or had little to no practical use to any playstyle is something that has often frustrated me in games with skill trees. Personally, I have a few notes on how skills, skill tiers, and skill usefulness should be handled and I'd love to hear what others in the community think on this type of stuff.


I would also suggest that Artisan also falls into this category, but only because of how it functions. Artisan reduces the material cost of crafting at the workstation. It is a decent skill in principle, but in practice it falls short due to the fact that you are still required to have the full amount of materials you would need if you did not have the skill. You USE less materials, but you still need to HAVE the full amount. This skill just comes off as wonky. You still need the full amount and end up simply needing extra storage space for the extra materials. A good idea that was poorly implemented.


What do y'all think? Do you like the skills as they were in My Time at Portia or so you feel they could use some work? If you do feel they could use some work, what might you change?

Artisan opens up a whole new type of gameplay and I absolutely would not want to see it removed. I don't use it every game, but some I do. Using artisan in combination with the recycling machine can be extremely useful. It might be preferable if you only needed to have the amount used, but I think the extra storage is a small price for the potential benefit.

[Zethren527]

Originally posted by aphfid:

Artisan opens up a whole new type of gameplay and I absolutely would not want to see it removed. I don't use it every game, but some I do. Using artisan in combination with the recycling machine can be extremely useful. It might be preferable if you only needed to have the amount used, but I think the extra storage is a small price for the potential benefit.

I can see how one would enjoy that combo, but I feel that verges on abusing the system. If I am interpreting the idea correctly, as I have never tried it, essentially duplicating crafting materials seems like it would be unintentional synergy. I'd also state that I'm not sure how keen I am on sitting in front of a recycler making sure I get a single extra Hardened Clay from that item I crafted. However, different strokes for different folks. At the very least, I'd like it so that we did not need to invest in the skill to reach the next skill tier.