Lack of player understanding in the Talent System has me confused.

[Neoz]

Like, the talent system isn't difficult, nor is understanding the talents. I don't get what has people so frustrated? Is it actually difficult for you, or do you just not want to spend a few minutes reading abilities?

[Astral Projection]

Ehh, maybe its just my familiarity, but compared to the Pathfinder system, the talents in this game seem a bit ... ad-hoc ... hodge podge? Hard to say exactly.

Example: you got a level. Grats. Now here's stack of 100 talents to choose from, they all may or may not be thematically related to your class, most aren't self-explanatory by their name in the slightest, and some are vastly better than others. Times that by 6+ characters.

Game is exhibit A on why people like Talent Trees.

I think there was a thread a while back from someone who said they hate leveling up because they have to read a stack of 100 talents, for 6+ different characters, every time.

[BlissDefiler]

As I've found, games like this, CRPGs, have a steep learning curve, and the more you play them in general, the better you tend to get at understanding how other ones function. Say you get a casual gamer playing a real CRPG like this one, it's going to spit in their face, relative to the typical trash they've played before.

Lots of people aren't used to these types of systems. Look at *cringe* starfieeeld... to level up you click on a box that gives you a slight boost or some ability you should've started with, and boom, you're done.

And, OF COURSE, they don't want to read.

[Myth Alric]

I think it could be organized a little better. For example, it isn't really clear where different talents are coming from, and which require others to have first. Also I am pretty sure it is possible to take talents that effect an ability you don't even have. There should be some indication that you don't have the ability, so the talent wont do anything.

[GhostXIII☃]

youtube guides exist

[BlissDefiler]

Originally posted by Myth Alric:

I think it could be organized a little better. For example, it isn't really clear where different talents are coming from, and which require others to have first. Also I am pretty sure it is possible to take talents that effect an ability you don't even have. There should be some indication that you don't have the ability, so the talent wont do anything.

I haven't really had any trouble with this. All the talents are broken down into categories already. I just wish it had a "favorite-favorite" talent indicator so I can have the talents I'm interested in starred and then the ones I'm REALLY interested in double starred so every time I level up I don't have to look through all the starred ones again.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Astral Projection:

Ehh, maybe its just my familiarity, but compared to the Pathfinder system, the talents in this game seem a bit ... ad-hoc ... hodge podge? Hard to say exactly.

Pathfinder is worst example here - because of trait chains you NEED to know about best traits in advance.

[Neoz]

Originally posted by Astral Projection:

Ehh, maybe its just my familiarity, but compared to the Pathfinder system, the talents in this game seem a bit ... ad-hoc ... hodge podge? Hard to say exactly.

Example: you got a level. Grats. Now here's stack of 100 talents to choose from, they all may or may not be thematically related to your class, most aren't self-explanatory by their name in the slightest, and some are vastly better than others. Times that by 6+ characters.

Game is exhibit A on why people like Talent Trees.

I think there was a thread a while back from someone who said they hate leveling up because they have to read a stack of 100 talents, for 6+ different characters, every time.

but... those talents are the same. Like, you only get 3 classes total, and each class has around... 15? Talents at most, save exemplar, which has about twice that , but that's because it caters to every character.

The rest are the same, and, many are +characteristic or basic/advance skill. IDK, I spent 10 minutes reading the talents on my first level up, and then spent at most 1 minute every level up after until I get a new class.

While I can agree somewhat, the talents could be laid out a little better, its already laid out fairly well-
Class talents at the top
common talents in the middle
origin/homeworld talents at the bottom.

[REhorror]

It's not difficult for me.

Buffity buff.

[Cutlass Jack]

I can't be spending my life reading.
Why can't the tooltips have voiceovers???

[corisai]

Originally posted by Cutlass Jack:

I can't be spending my life reading.
Why can't the tooltips have voiceovers???

O_O
You can't be serious. Reading is much faster then listening...

[Novia]

The biggest hurdle I think is people understanding the difference between what's available at certain levels depending on their archetype. Since each levels differently, one may get the whole talent list one level, but at the same level the other only gets "common talents" to choose from.

This leads to confusion for first timers, as they'll search in vain before realising the difference, or worse realise they wasted a common talent on the more critical class talent slot without knowing the difference. The game itself does it no favours with the ring system making the levelling a touch cumbersome to work with if you're just following the next button prompts like you would in games like Pathfinder; it even gets snappy with you if you try to do it out of order making you repeat selections.

So overall I'd say the fault lies primarily in UI functionality rather than people being unwilling to take a moment to read. It gets easier with practice, but it doesn't make it less irksome to deal with on the regular. The one thing I will say in its defence is that right from character creation, you can plan your choices a little more effectively as it doesn't hide what is available at each level, and why. It's just a bit unorthodox in approach is all.

[Moffin Bovin]

the frustrating thing is that half of the talents don't even work.

[DreamPod9]

I'm not against reading in a video game, but my god I am not going to waste my time going back and forth reading everything to find some synergy.

I already know I'm probably playing the game wrong. But I've got Abelard built like a tanky melee power house and Argenta is duel weilding bolt pistols with a charm that lets her never miss on single shots. And the way she's built, she gets 7-9 sometimes 12 shots a round with "run and gun".

She melts bosses with 90-120 damage almost every other round. And my character just ♥♥♥♥♥ around covering heretics in white hot plasma. Everyone else is just support or a spell casty boi.

[Aranador]

This is a game that has options to tailor it for everyone. Want to earn your masters in character creation and crush challenging tactical game play? You're covered. Can't be bothered with all the guff and just want the story? Lower the difficulty and click a trait with a green thumbs up and be done with it.

People who are complaining, enjoy complaining, so thats what they do - don't let them bring down your own personalized experience.

[Cutlass Jack]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by Cutlass Jack:

I can't be spending my life reading.
Why can't the tooltips have voiceovers???

O_O
You can't be serious. Reading is much faster then listening...

I probably should have put an emoji there....