Skill point limit

[Fekin]

So many skills available but so few skill points to go round.

I seem to have hit the limit on how many skill points the game allows me to earn. Just reached level 32 and didn't get a skill point to use.

I've finished the main campaign, only just bought a few dlc's but now I cannot work towards improving my skill tree anymore I now feel the game is dead and buried for me, even though I haven't done all of the Alpine Unrest or whatever dlc gives the extra island yet, I don't see much point now.

For me, the dev's have shot themselves in the foot on this decision and I won't bother with anything else from them unless this really poor aspects is removed.

I'm glad I bought everything when on sale, but it was good while it lasted.

ps.

How do You tubers unlock all the skill trees for their videos? is there a mod somewhere that can do this?

[⭐SEA Sniper⭐]

30 points is max at whatever level your character has reached, Yes mods and trainers can go over 30 points or open all the skills up.

In reality the maxing of 87 skill points will not really help much in beating the game. A 30 point is enough to get you 40 additional damage capability and about the dame defensive capability, etc.

[Fekin]

I wouldn't find it limiting even if the 30 points are capped for the campaign if once completed, you could continue earning them afterwards for the rest of the game like base assaults etc.

[Emerald Child]

I looked through the skill trees and I only find some of them useful to me so I think 30 skill points is fine. The devs still continue to add stuff to the game so maybe they will increase skill points some time down the line. Just keep asking them about that.

[Fekin]

There's always experimental weapon collecting to do I guess :)

[DedZedNub]

It does somewhat reduce your impetus/motivation to improve. Granted.

And there is a mod on Nexus, as others mentioned, to allow more skill points.

But, again, some basic stuff that needs to be mentioned:

-- You can have up to 4 characters for each World, Campaign, or Save.

-- Now you have a good reason, beyond muling, to try out more than one character.

-- Besides that, remember that Uranium you start getting after Player Level 5? Well you can use some of that to Reset Your Skills. You get all your Skill Points back, and now you can change them as you wish, still following the same rules, and still limited to the same cap though.

-- So you can attempt, and here is where the Skill Tree is actually rather weak, but attempt to create different purpose/class characters. AKA CHARACTER CLASSES.

-- So one could be your scavenger. Another your combat freak. Another your Marksman, and so on.

The BIGGER ISSUE with SKILLS in my view, is not so much the skill cap, but is that some of the skills needed to get to the skills you desire seem to have little to do with the goal of that skill line. In other words, lots of skill points are wasted (arguable), or a deep dive down a skill tree seems to still create a hybrid character.

One easy temporary skill tree fix would be to allow the Player to choose any skill and not dive down the line. Or make each line more thematic to the Active Skill at the bottom of the tree.

Even then, a case can be made that many of the skills are not that exciting, and seem more like minor spreadsheet boni. But that's true of many games where the balance is pretty strict, and so you don't want huge boni (bonuses). Also most players in many games love Critical Attacks, but hate RNG (which is hilariously what are the implementations often of Critical Attacks, large RNG based infrequent boni).

Also, with having a co-op gameplay available, the devs probably think they have to give individuals a chance to have a co-op purpose. Thus many of the skills are mostly useless in Solo Play. They don't HAVE TO BE, but the devs make it so. There is no reason that some skill like FLANKING couldn't also work in Solo. Especially with the new Companion taking fire, any Flanking bonus ought to work. Same with a Hacked Enemy taking fire, flanking ought to be possible, and Marking ought to be effective as well, and Healing Others might have a bonus to everyone. And this is an ASSUMPTION, as the devs RARELY CLEARLY STATE what each of these skills actually do in solo use, lack of communication.

But, I don't know if the Devs will revisit that ever. I think they ought to, and should, especially after the Companions are implemented, and even the regular game gets companions.

So, there are justifications, like earlier with Hacking, to revamp at least how some skills work. But many are currently seemingly filler, and not even thematic to that skill line's deep dive down to the Active Namesake of the Line.

[Antiga]

With games like these while being on the fence.. A single visit to the forums is usually more than enough to deter you from purchasing. And indeed. Without having played the game I know I will hate this limitation. And the rest of the thread explains quite well how uninspired skills will most likely be in the first place, with only few that seem to be worth really going for, while wasting points on unrelated skills on the way there. Good stuff... Really good deterrent. Thank you.

[ZX Horace]

When the game started and it had more limited scope, the point limit is fine because you could always create other characters to try the other skills and you would probably breeze past the missions before hitting the limit. But as they have lost all sense of direction and turned the game into some sort of long term base building/loot game, your playtime increases and so the limit feels more forced. I think they need to rethink much of the game mechanics if they want the game to be some sort of 200hr plus monster.

[DedZedNub]

Agreed on that. The Skill Trees really need a complete rebalance and overhaul. They have to consider how all the various systems and ways of advancement mesh with gameplay and then redesign the Skill Trees.

The other oddity, just thought of this again, is that the balance depends on so many things. For example, currently in this campaign, I have purposefully not done the Building Blocks Mission and its follow-ups. So, I don't have to worry about the Bases at all. Which impacts how densely packed the Regions are with enemies, makes Threat Level easier to manage with just normal enemies and Rivals, and changes where I go to get loot. (Similar to the way it must have been before Bases were introduced) Well, the Skill system and the looting system have to consider all these ideas.

And, personally since I play solo all the time, I think all Skills should work for both solo and co-op play. They don't have to work as well, but they should work.

They also have to consider, are we going to have gear supplant a skill completely, or gear is too available to do the same thing, or do we want Skills to always be able to enhance how effective a gear using the same feature works.

So with Hacking, if I use a Hacking Dart, would that last longer with the Hacking Skill ? Or is it one or the other?

Finally, why should all Skills be Character Only Based. Why can't some Skills belong to your Team (that is the set of characters that are in that Campaign Save). So we could have Team or Campaign Skills. Let's say I decide to Install a Character as a Base. So I can't use him in the field for a week. During this week he might improve Base Defenses Damage by 10% or he might increase crafting of scavenging amounts by 10%. Or he might reduce or increase the amount of enemies that spawn in his installed Base Region. And so on.

I don't think they have been very creative about the Skill System. It needs a major overhaul.

[Mr. Fibble]

It would be good if ones like flanking get tweaked to work in conjunction with the companion once it arrives so if either you or it lands a flanking shot the talent is applied.

Should the teambased medic stuff maybe also apply to field repairs on our puppy?

From what I've seen they probably won't given that we won't be able to give it orders but I think it's something that would make a certain amount of sense.

DLC items like the hacking dart shouldn't be a direct alternative to the skill given the time investment required to get hacking. I'm honestly not a fan of having paid items replacing skill tree abilities, its not pay to win since the game hasn't been bogged down by pvp or tacked on competitive modes but it just feels wrong. By adding the dart they did improve the player hacks a wee bit but not owning the dlc I don't know if the fail chance on the dart is better, similar or worse.

[PocketYoda]

My issue isn't so much the points its that so many skills are frankly kind niche or even useless.. Some skills are pointless to take solo. Others are so small in their percentage that they are effectively not worth taking..

And i've read some don't even seem to work at least visually its hard to tell.

Originally posted by Mr. Fibble:

It would be good if ones like flanking get tweaked to work in conjunction with the companion once it arrives so if either you or it lands a flanking shot the talent is applied.

Should the teambased medic stuff maybe also apply to field repairs on our puppy?

From what I've seen they probably won't given that we won't be able to give it orders but I think it's something that would make a certain amount of sense.

DLC items like the hacking dart shouldn't be a direct alternative to the skill given the time investment required to get hacking. I'm honestly not a fan of having paid items replacing skill tree abilities, its not pay to win since the game hasn't been bogged down by pvp or tacked on competitive modes but it just feels wrong. By adding the dart they did improve the player hacks a wee bit but not owning the dlc I don't know if the fail chance on the dart is better, similar or worse.

The devs said if you take hacking and the dart you can effectively hack two robots at once.

[Nex]

Skill limits are this annoying trend devs seem to think is cool now. Does this game even need a limit? Maybe if it had one difficulty. You can crank the game down to easy and get the same drops. Suddenly you are power af. The higher difficulties don't make much sense either. I played the game with friends on the highest and we were struggling with ammo having to go loot for resources forever. I made a world and just set it to easy and it made more sense that some little robot doesn't take multiple mags. Although this game is good, I am not surprised it has bad design decisions. It is kind of that too good to be true scenario when you are really loving a game. Suddenly you are met with some limit you had no idea exist, because you see people over level 50. Assume they have access to all skills. Nope.

You can reset skills, though with uranium, which isn't easy to get early on.

[DedZedNub]

Originally posted by Nex:

Skill limits are this annoying trend devs seem to think is cool now. Does this game even need a limit? Maybe if it had one difficulty. You can crank the game down to easy and get the same drops. Suddenly you are power af. The higher difficulties don't make much sense either. I played the game with friends on the highest and we were struggling with ammo having to go loot for resources forever. I made a world and just set it to easy and it made more sense that some little robot doesn't take multiple mags. Although this game is good, I am not surprised it has bad design decisions. It is kind of that too good to be true scenario when you are really loving a game. Suddenly you are met with some limit you had no idea exist, because you see people over level 50. Assume they have access to all skills. Nope.

You can reset skills, though with uranium, which isn't easy to get early on.

That's a key point , Nex.

This is why difficulty options should be more customizable or "granular" than just difficulty levels. As you say, and suddenly you are powered as bleedoop.

I'd prefer that the Skills were not Line Based or requiring necessary different skills as prerequisites. Instead I believe we should be able to select any of them at any time. But this might require a revamp of the whole skill tree to work best or for balance.

I'm not sure an unlimited number of skills should be possible. But I could see where we could have some other Level Bonuses open up a LEVEL PERKS TAB. From this we might be able to pick certain new things we could have.

I'd like the LEVEL PERKS TAB, perhaps to produce some new limited use craftables or loot drops. Like an AUTO-SPOTTER deployable. Or a Quick Wheel Extra Tab (one gives you 10 uses of the 9 key as another choice via Quick Wheel). Another the 0 key as one, etc.

Stuff like that. Or like an OVERCHARGE WEAPON consumable. You now can overcharge the weapon. After so many uses it is expended and the weapon is damaged and requires repair.

it just would add certain wanted flexibility to gameplay, but all of them are temporary, making you want to earn more LEVELS to gain PERKS.

But whatever, I don't get these devs usually.

[Starry Cube]

... i'm agreed just 30 points to spend on skills is not enough. Because some skills not just would you like to have, but without them it will be more Problematic, and just rising of level doesn't buff some specific passive abilities.
You need lock picking skill beacuse there will be a lot of lockd things.
You need higher gas resistance, becuse some robost will shoot gas projectiles all the time.
You need more load capacity, because guns are Heavy and when you collecting something useful - weight became Mammoth...

[didier.dbs]

30/31 ... the bad surprise ...
Hey Devs, why have you done this to me ? OMG ...
As written before in this topic, this limit comes far too early.
There are still some skills I would be very interested in. At least 5.
(I do not use the "Doctor" branch at all).
I have dozens of hours left on the map:
I have 3 bases left to build in the south coast region.
I have 6 bases left to discover, and build, in the mountains region.
I have 2 secondary missions remaining in the farmlands region.
I have 2 bases left to build in the forest region.
I explored half of the marshlands and the north coast region, so I guess it remains couple of missions there.
I did not begin Himfjäl, yet.
Yes, true, I'm spending a lot of time on this great map of this great game. GZ is a must I would say, in 20 years of FPS gaming, and as an open world.
But honest, the prospect to keep discovering and fighting and building without any hope of enhancement of my character is a drama. Hell, no reward left. Damn.
OK, I can reset the tree, and then sacrify skills I'm interested in for others I'm finally more interested in. (118 uranium left, never used any).
I'm currently playing level 33. No skill points since 2 levels. I thought it was a bug.
Such a game just can't do this. Levels do not mean anything now. Useless. And so for XP points.
Dozens of hours to enjoy and part of the game is over ?
Impossible, really, not for GZ, APEX and Avalanche.
I will try to solve this dreadfull disapointment with my psy today LOL
On your side Devs, please, do something. I deal my companion with a brand new skill tree, and I will purchase the motorbikes DLC (the only left, got all others), I swear :))
Thanks for your great job regarding updates and all.
Regards

[SniperGirl]

Originally posted by didier.dbs:

30/31 ... the bad surprise ...
Hey Devs, why have you done this to me ? OMG ...
As written before in this topic, this limit comes far too early.
There are still some skills I would be very interested in. At least 5.
(I do not use the "Doctor" branch at all).
I have dozens of hours left on the map:
I have 3 bases left to build in the south coast region.
I have 6 bases left to discover, and build, in the mountains region.
I have 2 secondary missions remaining in the farmlands region.
I have 2 bases left to build in the forest region.
I explored half of the marshlands and the north coast region, so I guess it remains couple of missions there.
I did not begin Himfjäl, yet.
Yes, true, I'm spending a lot of time on this great map of this great game. GZ is a must I would say, in 20 years of FPS gaming, and as an open world.
But honest, the prospect to keep discovering and fighting and building without any hope of enhancement of my character is a drama. Hell, no reward left. Damn.
OK, I can reset the tree, and then sacrify skills I'm interested in for others I'm finally more interested in. (118 uranium left, never used any).
I'm currently playing level 33. No skill points since 2 levels. I thought it was a bug.
Such a game just can't do this. Levels do not mean anything now. Useless. And so for XP points.
Dozens of hours to enjoy and part of the game is over ?
Impossible, really, not for GZ, APEX and Avalanche.
I will try to solve this dreadfull disapointment with my psy today LOL
On your side Devs, please, do something. I deal my companion with a brand new skill tree, and I will purchase the motorbikes DLC (the only left, got all others), I swear :))
Thanks for your great job regarding updates and all.
Regards

I since I have long been an end game player, meaning long along I maxed out all my characters, played with the skill tree as much as I can think of building a better warrior and even played with a new character from level 1 to level 31 without using but the very min of skill points so I could play with building my main character up by saving and reloading a game save file. And this was long after anything the map had to offer.

Before the skill level cap was removed I was even deleting my characters as soon as they maxed out and started a new one to see how fast I could get her to skill level 31. FYI: little over 40 hours game time to max at the time. Sure it is a lot easier now days with a lot more machines to battle. Maybe the reason I have over 12.5 mil XP points since those points would stop with the skill points back in the day.

My point being is that I feel we don't need more skill points, since we can build other characters to be different specialists. I agree that we are forced to waste points on useless skills to get to the skills we want. Also would like to see the specialists be more specialized so there is a greater difference in say a marksman and a van guard. I feel this would make players want to build different characters to help do different missions and have a greater difference in playing styles. That may even limit what weapons a character can carry and use.

The latest newsletter/road map, stated that the devs are looking at revamping the skills but they did not mention changing them but enhancing them. I forget the wording they used.

EDIT: the game is too easy for most end game players and so a revamp of skill would need to include a better AI of the machines to counter better/more skills.