Tarot Card Skill Tree Discussion

[Varik Keldun]

Honestly - I don't think you even have to remove the card from the original character - if a character is detected to be on hiatus just generate the card for somebody else. If eventually the player comes back and there are two of those cards instead of one - I don't see what the big deal is.

unique - one of a kind. if there are 2 copies of the same card then it is no longer unique.

[Elveone]

We are in a game - there have been non-unique uniques for quite a while now. Even in non-game speech unique sometimes just means very rare or even unusual. In any case - it is a skill that a player has - it would be extremely strange programming if two players are no able to have the same skill, albeit a special grade one.

[Varik Keldun]

We are in a game - there have been non-unique uniques for quite a while now. Even in non-game speech unique sometimes just means very rare or even unusual. In any case - it is a skill that a player has - it would be extremely strange programming if two players are no able to have the same skill, albeit a special grade one.

yes plenty of games have unique items and its mostly due to it being of a cosmetic design and stats for the item, compared to any other type of that same item.

 

u·nique

/yo͞oˈnēk/

adjective

1. being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else.
   

 

 

I do understand and get both views though.

 

the majority of people would like to have the ability to be able to acquire everything so if only 1 person was able to get said item it takes away from the game - especially casual / weekend warrior style players who can't or won't be able to put a lot of time investment in the game.

 

on the flip side of things Denis has stated time and time again - he wants to do something that hasn't been done before. This would be one of those ideas on the table. The intention behind it is to give people who do manage to get their hands on one, a sense of excitement and something truly unique - could be the player who starts 2 years in and 5 minutes into game because the stars were aligned right and a special door opened.

 

instead of - hey guys to make the best build for X character grab yourself this item (insert unique items). dump stats here. ect which you typically see in most MMOS and ARPGs (Diablo, Path of Exile, World of Warcraft, Guild wars 2 ect)

[Elveone]

Um... we will still have people who copy their builds from the internet - that is inevitable no matter what the system is.

 

The problem is that most of the time getting something that is unique is exactly "because the stars were aligned" - not based on skill or persistence but exclusively on luck. You can make something exciting without making it exclusive to one person. In fact if you make something very rare but not exclusive then you are effectively giving many more people the sense of excitement you would bestow only 1 person otherwise.

[Rx_Bishop_MD]

Honestly - I don't think you even have to remove the card from the original character - if a character is detected to be on hiatus just generate the card for somebody else. If eventually the player comes back and there are two of those cards instead of one - I don't see what the big deal is.

If the one of card mechanic has a specific funtion (obviously that we just dont know about yet) the big deal is that it would be undermining the entire concept.

 

Im not pro deleting a card from anyones account, but im defintely not for just creating copies just cause maybe.

 

In thinking about it though...i hope the one of cards are limited in the sense that maybe you can only hold one or two..or three depending on the intended plan, and that if you happen to find a new one, then you either leave it for someone...or must drop one of yours..either in that place...or it gets pushed back into the realm to appear however they may choose for it to happen.

[Varik Keldun]

If the one of card mechanic has a specific funtion (obviously that we just dont know about yet) the big deal is that it would be undermining the entire concept.

 

Im not pro deleting a card from anyones account, but im defintely not for just creating copies just cause maybe.

 

In thinking about it though...i hope the one of cards are limited in the sense that maybe you can only hold one or two..or three depending on the intended plan, and that if you happen to find a new one, then you either leave it for someone...or must drop one of yours..either in that place...or it gets pushed back into the realm to appear however they may choose for it to happen.

that could keep it interesting too.

[Elveone]

As much as having unique cards leaves a bad taste in my mouth, someone being forced to give them up or having a reward taken from them without that being part of the gameplay leaves a much worse one. The only reason a character should lose that kind of item should be if they choose to sacrifice it for something else or if another player outplays them in a direct competition that the player chose to participate in(a duel, a race, etc). Having two copies of a unique card is better than taking one from somebody and compromises the game a lot less IMO.

[Varik Keldun]

As much as having unique cards leaves a bad taste in my mouth, someone being forced to give them up or having a reward taken from them without that being part of the gameplay leaves a much worse one. The only reason a character should lose that kind of item should be if they choose to sacrifice it for something else or if another player outplays them in a direct competition that the player chose to participate in(a duel, a race, etc). Having two copies of a unique card is better than taking one from somebody and compromises the game a lot less IMO.

this is is why we are trying to brainstorm ideas to toss to the devs on other possibilities to have a balance that could possibly work.

with 50+ cards per class with more down the line. There is going to be a LOT of variety - sure there will be copy pasta "best build" people out there. but none of those will truly be "the best."

 

As far as unique cards from what I can see.

 

YES to

unique skin.

unique animation.

characters history added to card.

tradeable (personally i'm against this but I tend to like to find what I use)

ability to lose it in some way. be it true death - limited capacity - time in game - time not played ect.

 

NO to

more powerful cards

 

With something along this setup - those with a unique get to show it off. its not breaking the game for them or anyone else and others may have a chance to gain it in the future.

[Elveone]

Everyone has their own preferences of what they are okay or not okay with. I am against having unique cards altogether but if they do exist then I'm okay with more powerful cards and against the ability to lose in some way unless it is specifically tied to gameplay and I'm strongly against them being tradeable. Also unique animation makes no sense to me as the animation is tied to the gameplay. If you mean unique effects animation then I would put that into the "skin" category. If the card does have unique gameplay elements then I'm against it existing.

 

I think a lot of us are trying to make the best out of a bad situation with having the unique abilities just being a reskin of other abilities.

[Rx_Bishop_MD]

YES to

unique skin.

unique animation.

characters history added to card.

tradeable (personally i'm against this but I tend to like to find what I use)

ability to lose it in some way. be it true death - limited capacity - time in game - time not played ect

Tradeable could be interesting. I love keeping rare things and am likely to not get rid of it. But to have the option to drop what i have for something id rather have...is just a personal benefit. I believe Denis said no to trading...but i would love the option to trade a card that someone wants for something id want (in regards to the one off) but i know thats a dangerous path.

[antonismar2]

this is an interesting setup - but on the other hand it confuses HOW you play say if "dance macabre" was LMB and "blood drinker" was key R... it does one thing but if you put "dance macabre" on spacebar it does something slightly or completely different... but that in turn takes away from a natural feel of - main attack on LMB - so i honestly dont know how i feel on this idea (could be interesting though!)

i....don't think thats gonna happen lol

[Roband]

this seems like the best idea for a solo unique skill - can call them true death skills.

 

 

the problem here is some people have real life issues or go on hiatus for long stretches. So before implementing them there should be a stipulation so noone gets mad that after (X period of time of not logging in - be it a couple ages or a year or what have you the power is lost)

 

I agree that the matter is delicate and it has to be treated carefully, i was imagining the worse case scenario: person x has a unique ability (obscenely powerful and saw after since is a unique card) and suddently stop permanently playing either because it has no time anymore to play or has limited time and other hobbies/commitments or just lost interest in the game. The card is now locked for everyone else forever, basically you can consider it delated content even.

 

I don't want anyone to lose anything that has earned just because he has to stop playing for a while but i think is fair to try to find a compromise about it.

 

One thing is an unique item that you might lose upon death if you are too careless, onother is having said item removed entirely from the game (and not necesserly for lack of skill on your part). We dont't know if this is the case of course, i made a few speculations about how this may work beside a character experiencing true death (by the way as i mentioned, to me anyway, it wouldn't be so bothersome if just said cards were to be cosmetic only).

 

Your idea about having a sort of "condition of use" upon acquring could be a possible solution. I'm curious to see what will be revealed next about this (Denis seems intentioned to return on the topic with more details in the future). By the time we have more informations i'm sure as Danis said "prospectives will change" and we can have more discussions, i think it could be even worth having a forum topic of his own.

[Elveone]

It honestly makes little difference whether 1 player has access to a particular skill or 0 players do in a game that is striving for a massive playerbase. Chances are you are never meeting a player with a unique skill card anyway.

[Varik Keldun]

It honestly makes little difference whether 1 player has access to a particular skill or 0 players do in a game that is striving for a massive playerbase. Chances are you are never meeting a player with a unique skill card anyway.

what if the cards themselves were all unique in a way though then EVERYONE will have unique cards

 

but jokes aside - here is a "What if" situation...

 

what if say person A picked up dance macabre and it had skill tree type 42

then person B picked up dance macabre and it had skill tree type 104

then person C picked up dance macabre and it had skill tree type 82

 

Basically each of the different cards having an RNG base to where / what skills are allocated to them

Pretend these are all the same named card. but upon pickup they had different paths and some common skills and other uncommon / rare skills....

they all have 11 skills here and all start at the Green one.

Course this would lead to grinding / farming for the "perfect card type for meta gamers"

but what if each card was unique in the fact that no two trees will ever match

 

but it is an interesting "what if"

Edited March 27, 2021 by Varik Keldun

[Elveone]

Well, that way frustration lies. The deal with randomly generated loot is that generally most of it is complete and utter trash, a portion of it is somewhat useful but might as well not have half of the randomly rolled affixes on it and in some extremely rare occasions you get the perfect drop or create it through multiple affix rerolls. With loot it is kind of okay to have that kind of system because you do need trash to sell to vendors and you have just a few random affixes and in most modern games you can reroll those in some manner.

 

To have such a system for a skill tree that would contain 20 to 30 nodes is insanity for me. You would need quite a lot of skill card drops and you would need a bunch of time to inspect each and every skill tree to see it if benefits you in some way more than the one you currently have equipped. IMO it would create quite a lot of frustration to players and it would take a lot of development time to create that kind of system for little benefit. Besides, yes, it would make the skills unique but you do really want that kind of uniqueness that is based on random chance?

 

Still, I think I would love to see that kind of system implemented in a roguelike game where you start over again and again as it might be good for making things less repetitive and the kind of randomness that forces suboptimal play is a staple for the genre.

[Roband]

It honestly makes little difference whether 1 player has access to a particular skill or 0 players do in a game that is striving for a massive playerbase. Chances are you are never meeting a player with a unique skill card anyway.

 

This is also true. If we are talking about OP unique cards it will likely be in an extremely limited number (10? 20? i don't know). It's impossible right now to form a proper opinion without knowning more details like the aquisition modes, if they are cosmetics only or not and (since PVP will be a thing eventually) how do they intend to balance them.

 

Whatever it will be, i'm still convinced that having players constantly (or at least periodically) fighting for them would be far more interesting, expecially for when other houses will be introduced.

[Varik Keldun]

Well, that way frustration lies. The deal with randomly generated loot is that generally most of it is complete and utter trash, a portion of it is somewhat useful but might as well not have half of the randomly rolled affixes on it and in some extremely rare occasions you get the perfect drop or create it through multiple affix rerolls. With loot it is kind of okay to have that kind of system because you do need trash to sell to vendors and you have just a few random affixes and in most modern games you can reroll those in some manner.

 

To have such a system for a skill tree that would contain 20 to 30 nodes is insanity for me. You would need quite a lot of skill card drops and you would need a bunch of time to inspect each and every skill tree to see it if benefits you in some way more than the one you currently have equipped. IMO it would create quite a lot of frustration to players and it would take a lot of development time to create that kind of system for little benefit. Besides, yes, it would make the skills unique but you do really want that kind of uniqueness that is based on random chance?

 

Still, I think I would love to see that kind of system implemented in a roguelike game where you start over again and again as it might be good for making things less repetitive and the kind of randomness that forces suboptimal play is a staple for the genre.

to actually expand on the thought - Denis said the longer the you have the card the more powerful it gets... so maybe in later ages you obtain more nodes to use... in my totally epic MS paint drawing there i used 11 nodes...

 

lets pretend Dance Macabre has a total of 50 skills total.

1st Age you start with 11 nodes

2nd age if you used it all the time and maxed it out you unlock say 5 more nodes. if you don't use it. it will not grow.

and it will continue to grow each age until it reaches max.

[antonismar2]

This is also true. If we are talking about OP unique cards it will likely be in an extremely limited number (10? 20? i don't know). It's impossible right now to form a proper opinion without knowning more details like the aquisition modes, if they are cosmetics only or not and (since PVP will be a thing eventually) how do they intend to balance them.

 

Whatever it will be, i'm still convinced that having players constantly (or at least periodically) fighting for them would be far more interesting, expecially for when other houses will be introduced.

Can't help but agree tbh. Personally I see nothing wrong with not being able to get All the cards l. That's how real life works too. And thus is a free to play so you are not missing anything you payed money for

[Elveone]

to actually expand on the thought - Denis said the longer the you have the card the more powerful it gets... so maybe in later ages you obtain more nodes to use... in my totally epic MS paint drawing there i used 11 nodes...

 

lets pretend Dance Macabre has a total of 50 skills total.

1st Age you start with 11 nodes

2nd age if you used it all the time and maxed it out you unlock say 5 more nodes. if you don't use it. it will not grow.

and it will continue to grow each age until it reaches max.

Well, more powerful does not necessarily mean more nodes and even if it does I don't see that as a problem. My main gripe with the proposition is the randomness.

 

Can't help but agree tbh. Personally I see nothing wrong with not being able to get All the cards l. That's how real life works too. And thus is a free to play so you are not missing anything you payed money for

Well... that's how real life works is not necessarily a great argument for something working a particular way. I am not sure that this system is not going to frustrate far too many people and bring enjoyment only to a few. Inequality is part of life - that is true but then again it is also not very fun to think about. I would personally prefer a system that feels good for the players over one that is realistic or brings uniqueness but does not feel good.

[Varik Keldun]

Well, more powerful does not necessarily mean more nodes and even if it does I don't see that as a problem. My main gripe with the proposition is the randomness.

It's just theory crafting and throwing other possibilities out there. The randomness would almost ensure there would be little to no meta-game possibilities, but yes it would suck to be the one who finally picks up the card they have been looking 5 months for. only to have none of the skills they were hoping to gain from it, then those skills not be unlocked for another year or whatever.

[Rx_Bishop_MD]

...I am against having unique cards altogether but if they do exist then I'm okay with more powerful cards and against the ability to lose in some way unless it is specifically tied to gameplay and I'm strongly against them being tradeable. Also unique animation makes no sense to me as the animation is tied to the gameplay. If you mean unique effects animation then I would put that into the "skin" category. If the card does have unique gameplay elements then I'm against it existing.

 

It honestly makes little difference whether 1 player has access to a particular skill or 0 players do in a game that is striving for a massive player base. Chances are you are never meeting a player with a unique skill card anyway.

These comments seems at odds. the second makes the first seem irrelevant doesn't it? if it doesn't matter then it doesn't matter. but my real question is why prefer a unique card that is more powerful that someone cant get vs. just a unique type of animation? A skin is a skin and not being able to get every skin is something we see in games all the time. but to be excluded from a gameplay element seems way worse. (This is assuming unique cards would be allowed in pvp)

what if the cards themselves were all unique in a way though then EVERYONE will have unique cards

 

but jokes aside - here is a "What if" situation...

 

what if say person A picked up dance macabre and it had skill tree type 42

then person B picked up dance macabre and it had skill tree type 104

then person C picked up dance macabre and it had skill tree type 82

 

Basically each of the different cards having an RNG base to where / what skills are allocated to them

Pretend these are all the same named card. but upon pickup they had different paths and some common skills and other uncommon / rare skills....

they all have 11 skills here and all start at the Green one.

[ATTACH type=full" alt="card varients.png]856[/ATTACH]

Course this would lead to grinding / farming for the "perfect card type for meta gamers"

but what if each card was unique in the fact that no two trees will ever match

 

but it is an interesting "what if"

This is a really cool idea, however, I think it goes against a fundamental that Denis presented. "If you are going to make cards, make them look good, front and back" (paraphrased of course) So to have random tree arrangements could mean that "ugly" cards could be produced this is only following what you mentioned of EVERYONE having a unique version of a card.

 

I am for the idea though presented here also, of a set number of Talent tree variations, that have a kind of randomness to them. So long as they followed rules it could be cool . Maybe every Dance Macabre has +1 Attack, but they are found in different places on the Talent Tree. While other things stay the same because maybe the necessarily follow a progression (i.e. to get skill B2 you must have skill B1 first)

 

the last part I think goes against something else Denis said, and that was if done correctly you should never get a copy of a card. This leads to a question of if grinding for a certain version of a card is even a thing. I would assume no.

 

Well, that way frustration lies. The deal with randomly generated loot is that generally most of it is complete and utter trash, a portion of it is somewhat useful but might as well not have half of the randomly rolled affixes on it and in some extremely rare occasions you get the perfect drop or create it through multiple affix rerolls. With loot it is kind of okay to have that kind of system because you do need trash to sell to vendors and you have just a few random affixes and in most modern games you can reroll those in some manner.

 

To have such a system for a skill tree that would contain 20 to 30 nodes is insanity for me. You would need quite a lot of skill card drops and you would need a bunch of time to inspect each and every skill tree to see it if benefits you in some way more than the one you currently have equipped. IMO it would create quite a lot of frustration to players and it would take a lot of development time to create that kind of system for little benefit. Besides, yes, it would make the skills unique but you do really want that kind of uniqueness that is based on random chance?

This touches on what I just said about Copies of Cards. Denis said we shouldn't get copies, so the idea of affixes or prefixes in my mind shouldn't be a thing when finding a card. they may however apply to some sort of crafting or growing a cards potential in the future. that could ultimately lead to uniqueness.

 

To your second point..isn't that the reason people search out new power, to do exactly that, find something that is more beneficially or greater for their purpose. We know each class has 78 cards. 20 nodes on each card doesn't seem to crazy in that case. Especially if some of them are more in the sense of added stat boosts to different things while the card is applied.

For example, I would imagine any kind of offensive attack card is going to have many +s to the attack itself or in general to the player. that could mean several less nodes to actually have to worry about in terms of inspecting

[antonismar2]

 

 

Well... that's how real life works is not necessarily a great argument for something working a particular way. I am not sure that this system is not going to frustrate far too many people and bring enjoyment only to a few. Inequality is part of life - that is true but then again it is also not very fun to think about. I would personally prefer a system that feels good for the players over one that is realistic or brings uniqueness but does not feel good.

It's just one card bro. Just one or two out of the 78++. Saying that this will lead to people not enjoying the game or becoming frustrated just for a couple of cards is going a little bit too far imo. I personally preffer when I can't get access to everything in a game. Limitations lead to creativity as they say. That's why I also don't want for players to be able to max all the points in the cards, it will cause people to start to specialise but that's a different topic

[Elveone]

@Varik Keldun yes, of course it is Sorry if I seem overly negative, I love theory crafting and looking at both sides of everything

 

@Rx_Bishop_MD I don't think the comments are at odds - I am against having unique skill cards. If we have them I am not against the unique skills being just skins. I am also not against the unique skills being just skins with numerical buffs because I don't really care that much about power - I care about gameplay possibilities being inaccessible. Honestly, balance is overrated anyway - everyone has different playstyle and amount of time to play the game, they started playing at different times, they chose different skills to specialize in first and the progression is nigh-endless - of course there will always be someone more powerful than you are. The value of the system comes from having those legendary high and mighty figures that you might never meet, let alone be, but that you know of and are looking up to - why not let them be more powerful, at least marginally.

 

To your second question - the whole thing is a hypothetical if we have multiple unique randomly generated cards that have the same skill as a base and randomly generated skill tree around them. In that case it is not the search for power that is the problem but how much time it would take to evaluate if a new card that you find is more powerful or not than the one you currently have equipped. Most aRPGs stop at 7 or less random affixes on an item and have a rarity system to quickly compare items for this reason. Moreover each affix is usually a single short line of text. With skill nodes though if we have 20 to 30 nodes per skill card then just reading through all of them constitutes an effort in itself and some of those nodes might have complex effects that morph the skill in some way that might sound good on paper but are not in gameplay or vice-versa. Of course if the base skills are all unique and only the tree is randomly generated then the system constitutes a whole different kind of problem - a player can be stuck with a very crappy version of a card they enjoy because of random chance.

 

@antonismar2 it is about perception mostly. Not being able to acquire all of the nodes in a card means you choose what you want to specialize in. A choice in how to develop your character is actually an empowering fantasy and a fun process. On the other hand depending on how the unique card system is implemented it might mean that people are feeling cut-off from content or designated to being inferior because of random chance. And that's frustrating and kind of how the real world works sometimes. Not a good feeling when you are chasing escapism in a video game. Of course if the system is implemented well then such a feeling might not really be present but we don't really know because we have very limited information on the topic.

[Roband]

Just to clarify my position, i have no problem with godlike powers and overpowered players roaming around as long as the power ladder remain climbable and functional.

 

Of course this is a story driven game but it is also an RPG and character progression is one of the fundamental elements of the genre (there will be always characters stronger than you and characters weaker than you unless you are part of the very best).

 

The way Denis talked the power levels players may be able to reach could be insane, my hope is that everyone is potentially able to strive to that even if it means being one of the many that falls in the attempt and more importantly even if i wasn't one of the few who found themself by luck in the right place and in the right time before anyone else to pick up a card from the floor.

[Purple Gryphon]

I have been playing Outriders a little bit in my very little spare time right now, but it has made me appreciate the skill card idea even more. The game gives you three skill trees which generally break down for every character to be gun damage, tank, or abilities. You are allowed to respect for free at any time to try various paths. But in the end, there is only one path for all four characters - gun damage. The game lets you heal by doing damage and the gun buffs are so good the best path is to out damage the enemies. While the gameplay is fun, it totally kills the idea of a unique build even if you have a different character class. In the end, it becomes cosmetic and the real change is if you do poison, fire, slow time, or bleed buffs to your bullets.

 

The skill cards and randomness of the drops really have a chance to have unique builds but please make sure that most cards are viable and don't end up with most people hunting for the same cards because there is only one way to min/max.