I don't like skill trees on the simple basis that they're a form of progression that requires too much investment for arguably little payoff. Prerequisites that require prerequisites to make the game easier or more "fun". They also seem to be things that are shoehorned into games that don't need them, like the game was designed and then they lock stuff out so that you unlock them in order to engage with the rest of the content instead of being something more organic.

However, I'm not totally against the idea of something in a similar vein. I think it's something that can encourage more horizontal progression if designed correctly, I just don't like things locked off that I'm required to unlock a bunch of other things to get to. So, for lack of a better term, I'll just call the idea a skill table. You level up, you get a point to spend on a skill/ability/perk/talent/whathaveyou. None of these things are locked behind other abilities, you unlock them individually. Maybe one ability doubles your health, another unlocks certain dialogue options, some noticeably improve certain aspects, maybe some abilities are entirely new spells to play with. Hell, I think Fallout 4's perk system is fine in theory in the way that increasing attributes allows more traits to be unlocked if they didn't level gate the ranks and stuff less useful perks in there. And also how mismatched it is with the general gameplay, but that's a different discussion.

But the entire point of what I'm getting at is I don't think abilities should be locked behind requiring other abilities, and honestly, if the game's balance is "ruined" by some super useful ability, then maybe that's a problem with the gameplay loop not accounting for that, or otherwise maybe don't have cheat-y abilities that ruin the balance. In any case, if the game gets harder as you play, then unlocking more abilities should balance it out.

Your thoughts? I know there are games with what I'm describing, maybe you can share them.

In the topic of arbritrary skill locks, yes, I agree with you completely.

I think the best ideas and ways to give the player this kind of progression is what God of War (Original trilogy and PSP games) and Devil May Cry 1/3/5 did with their skills development systems.

For people that doesn't know, in Devil May Cry 1 specifically for example, you can buy any skill in the game from the start, all you need is red orbs, which you acquire by playing well. This means that the game will reward better players with more experimentation sooner, because they will get more orbs, thus, will be able to buy upgrades and experiment with them more. This does not mean that a 'Im finishing the game and still can't unlock all skills' is possible though, because the game gives you so much action and combat that it's impossible to any player get at the end without getting all skills. Better players will only get more orbs sooner.

Another system I like is God of War (Original Trylogy and PSP games) system of focus on skill per weapon. Like in Devil May Cry, you buy upgrades and new skills for weapons with orbs. The difference here is that each level up you buy for your weapons or skills give you one or more movements for more experimentation in combat.

In all games I've played, those two action 'hack'n'slash' games skill system felt more organic.
I understand the appeal of skill trees, but many developers use them because 'rpg mechanics' are everywhere nowdays.

A game without unlockable skills, just a direct "you have all from the beginning! have fun pressing all buttons and experimenting. :)" nowdays would be really cool I think. We can always play old ones though, so, not a big deal. :P

There are two problems with what you are suggesting. First - if you have like 100 abilities and you can have them all from the start, it's just overwhelming. Most players just won't bother to get and test them all. They'll just pick a random one and stick with it.

Another problem is that the skill tree is sometimes tied to lore and real life. Like tech trees in many strategies. In Civilization that wouldn't make much sense to get nukes before you have an alphabet or physics. Just like it doesn't make sense for your mage to become a master of fire magic with powerful armageddon-level spells before your character learns the basics of that fire magic.

I can only agree with your take if there are skills that aren't related to each lorewise but are still for some reason connected in the skill tree. Yeah, that doesn't make sense and is annoying.

As far as I know, it was mostly Diablo II that started skill trees trend. Before that most RPGs didn't have skills locked in "tree-like" fashion.

I've played a few games, notably Dungeon Master and Rudra no Hihou, which did something like that with their magic system. You do not need to learn a spell in-game to be able to cast it; you just need to enter that spell somewhere. However:
* In Dungeon Master, only some symbol combinations yield spells. Furthermore, if the character's priest or wizard level isn't high enough, the spell may fail (telling the player they "need more practice with this Priest/Wizard spell" (yes, the game tells you which type of spell you need more practice with, so if you stumble upon a spell by experimenting, you'll know that you found a spell, and which class level you need ton increase). Failed spells do give XP for that class, but not as much as successful spells.
* In Rudra no Hihou, spells are entered as sequences of up to 6 katakana, and every single combination will yield some spell, though not always a useful spell; you might get a weak spell with a high MP cost, for example. MP serves as the only limiting factor to limit the use of powerful spells early, and it seems that it's not so much that, but more a way to limit the spells used by characters who aren't magically inclined, like one of the main characters (the one who, IIRC, is the default choice when starting a new game).
* Wizard's Crown, I believe, gives you all the spells at the start, but like in Dungeon Master, casting the more powerful spells will likely fail if your skill level is too low. Raising the skill is different; instead of getting XP by using the skill, you get XP by winning battles and spend it to raise the skill. The way many SaGa games handle this is rather interesting. By using different weapon (or martial arts) techniques, you have a chance of sparking a new one, one that you haven't previously learned (and that you just learned and now get to immediately use for free). Most techniques can be learned by using the basic attack of that type, but it's easier to learn more powerful techniques if you're using a weaker technique that leads to it. Occasionally, a technique will require using another technique to learn (like how, in SaGa Frontier, learning 2GaleSlash requires the use of GaleSlash with two swords equipped to have a chance of learning).

Also, worth noting that way too many games *don't* get harder as the player progresses; this is especially an issue with games with RPG mechanics. Personally, I'd dispense with the level up part.

You kill enemies (or complete challenges, if the game isn't all about killing), get points, and spend those points to learn skills. To prevent the player from getting late game skills too early, those skills are more expensive to learn, but points are more easily acquired late game to compensate. Unlike with your "get a point at level up" system, getting and spending points on some skills does not make it any harder to get points to spend on other skills. This "skill per weapon" approach only works well if the weapon types are significantly different mechanically, and if the player isn't punished for focusing on the wrong weapon type.

I can mention the Baldur's Gate series as being offenders here; you have to choose a weapon to get proficiency in, but aside from the melee/ranged distinction, all the weapon types basically work the same way, requiring the player to make a permanent blind choice. BG2 and BG1:EE actually made the problem worse, by increasing the number of different weapon types (that, again, all work the same mechanically).

And I have a feeling that Dragon Quest 8 is what brought it to JRPGs. (Although I note that Final Fantasy 10 does have that Sphere Grid, but I think that system may feel different enough from skill point systems to not really be the same thing, mainly because the Sphere Grid completely *replaces* XP-based leveling, rather than supplementing it.)

Depends on the RPG for me. If it's a game where character growth happens mostly through the story or through exploration, I don't mind skill trees. If it's an ARPG where progression happens mostly through grinding combat and finding gear upgrades, then I'm not as much of a fan.

To this date, my favorite RPG progression system of ALL TIME was in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Outside of the janky and frustrating level scaling, the progression system encourages you to play how you want to play, rather than forcing you to grind combat, do all the quests or unlock every location. When you used a skill, it increases your aptitude with it. Sure, you could grind it out or exploit quirks (such as having your character swim into a corner for an hour or two while you're AFK) but it never felt like you had to. The result is that the leveling system in Oblivion is just FUN. It has more structure than Skyrim and is more tied to your build, but it's free-form enough that you never feel pressured into playing a specific way.

In general, I think RPGs need to take that approach rather than grinding, rigid skill trees and arbitrary numbers-based progression. For example, despite the grief people gave Fallout 4 for its progression system, I think Bethesda was on the right track. The main issue was that it was too freeform, thus everyone became jack-of-all-trades sorts of characters. Fallout 76 does a decent job of improving this through the perk card system, but likewise, it's still too freeform.

Another great example of this sort of progression was in The Witcher 3. It was almost entirely tied to doing quests, so not quite as freeform as I prefer, but the skills/perks system feels more practical than "requires 83 Lockpicking" and crap like that. You level up, you pick a perk to unlock/level up and then you drag-n-drop it on your active abilities (which you can switch out when you want to). Add to that the mutagens to boost those abilities based on their category and it creates a streamlined leveling system that makes a noticeable difference in-game without feeling like a DnD campaign run by some math geek.

Another curiosity is Obsidian's The Outer Worlds. Where Obsidian's other franchise, Pillars of Eternity, has one of the most complex RPG progression systems I've seen, TOW is a lot closer to what I like. When you level up, you level up a category of skills, rather than individual skills, thus you're leveling several skills with a single skill point. Furthermore, the perks system has a tier-based approach so that every few levels, you unlock an entirely new set of perks, but they're all useful no matter what level you're at. This ensures you don't become OP but also gives the player plenty of freedom to progress their character however they like. Despite the looter shooter-style leveled gear system, I thought TOW did a lot of stuff right and that future RPGs should take a good look at how it did things.

Now, talking about locking stuff behind other abilities... I agree, to an extent. Logically, it only makes sense that you'd be able to do certain stuff after learning how to do the basic form of that thing, but sometimes, completely unrelated abilities are locked behind each other and that does get pretty old pretty quickly, especially on replays.

What about regular (non-action) RPGs where progression happens mainly through combat and gear upgrads, or an "ARPG" where character growth happens mostly through story or exploration?

(There are plenty of action games where growth happens through exploration; see Zelda and Metroid for example.) Unfortunately, the way stat growth at level up is handled in Oblivion is horrendous, and is bad enough to ruin the entire system for me; if you want to get optimal level up stats, you need to play in ways that just aren't fun (not to mention making counter-intuitive choices at character creation).

Also, it's 2006 and you're *still* using non-retroactive HP growth, where a character who gains Endurance later will have lower HP than one who gains the same amount of Endurance early? This mechanic really should have been dead long before Oblivion's release.

There's some other issues with Oblivion's growth. Consider this:
* When a skill level is higher, it takes more skill experience to increase it further. (By itself, this is fine.)
* The skill experience you gain from using a skill does not scale with the difficulty of the task. For example, casting a powerful, expensive spell, or picking a difficult lock, is not going to give you any more skill XP than casting a weak spell or picking an easy lock.

Also, to get the master level perk for a skill, you need to max it, but then there's no further growth you get for using your now-maxed skill.

Edit: Worth noting that Skyrim actually does fix these issues.

It's particularly irritating when the prerequisite is something I explicitly *don't* want, because it does not fit my character at all, or because it involves a mechanic that I just don't like.

Examples in Skyrim:
* The perk that increases carrying capacity is on the Pickpocket tree. I generally prefer playing characters who stay within the law and don't do thiefly things, but I still want to increase carrying capacity so I can loot dungeons.
* The Allure perk, which improves prices with the opposite sex. I really don't like perks that depend on this sort of thing which, I feel, should really only be cosmetic, but the problem is that it's a prerequisite for perks I *do* want. (There's also a quest whose reward, I believe, is something like extra damage to the opposite sex.)

It depends on the game. As someone said they can make sense in strategy games in making sure you don't get nukes before trebuchets, etc. Personally my pet hate is unnecessary "Unlock for the sake of unlock, grind for the sake of grind" skills in general that's ended up 'obvious cheap padding' in modern games. 90% of the time they don't enhance you, it simply gates off trivial ordinary stuff at the start then gradually de-cripples your artificially crippled character as you 'level up' purely for the sake of having a skill tree so they write "RPG" in the game's tag to fake 'depth' of an otherwise obviously normal FPS (Far Cry games in general).

Eg, you gained a rare animal skin now you can 'craft' a wallet that lets you carry more than the absurdly small $500, "you can sprint longer" = you can run almost normally vs the severe Asthmatic with Bronchitis & Pneumonia you started out as, "hide a body after a takedown" needs to be unlocked in some games (vs what you do normally from the start in Deus Ex, NOLF, Thief, etc, because?...) A lot of "skill padding" like that just feels just silly even outside of a tree, so I think "bad skill trees" are part of a larger "skill spam" problem in general.

This is part of the reason I often like older games, as they often aren't bound by the conventions that developed later in the genre.

(It's why I find, for example, the non-AD&D SSI RPGs interesting; they have interesting mechanics that are quite different from what you usually see these days. Wizard's Crown, for example, has you spend XP to increase skills, rather than using the XP to level up to increase the skill.)

Is that any different with a skill-tree though? You'll still feel overwhelmed with the amount of abilities. Just because you haven't unlocked all of them yet doesn't mean you can safely ignore them. In fact it becomes even more important to check out all abilities from the start because otherwise you might end up investing in one skill tree and then find out you had better invested in another because you locked yourself out of a higher tier skill you would have preferred to the one you got now. I feel if you're not locked into skill trees you are actually encouraged to experiment with skills more.

The actual problem behind it all is that skills are often uneven. Some immediately appear as super useful and others you would never pick voluntarily if skill tree progression wouldn't force you to. So if you're free to pick, it becomes more important to design skills in such a way that every one of them is interesting, in order to make your choices meaningful. Otherwise everyone will just pick the obviously good skills and ignore the lame ones.

I like skill trees but the problem with some games is that they are just a linear five tiers choosings. In that cases it should be better a differnt system

For a skill tree properlly and potentially shining I'd consider they should be a very big tree and plenty of branching options and sometimes excluding others, choose matters, this is, make the game never end up with every skill available or filled. And why not, context dependant and/or luck dependant, a bit of randomness etc... The player might tweak his avatar whatever he prefers but working with the tools available depending the overal design.

Some games make it better than others. Titan Quest is not bad at all in that regard.

Honestly, I'll take a list of assorted perks over having to "climb" a secondary tree.

IF you can check the entire tree. IF you know that towards the end of the game you won't be able to unlock all the skills. IF there is no "respec" option. IF missing certain skills will make the game extremely hard. And IF benefits/drawbacks of the skills aren't conveyed properly. Than yes. But well-designed games usually go around some of those IFs and you don't have to think about long-term progression at the start of the game.

What's the difference?
I mean...I get your general idea/proposal, to pick your traits "freely"...but at some point, you sure "need" some ability/perk/whatever first to be able to get the next.

It's like walking and running.
As a child, you have to learn how to (stand up and) walk first, before you can start running.

And the way skill trees require you to need one thing first to be able to get the next thing, is simply a way of showing that progress.

And who would seriously want to play a chicken breasted character who - by any normal means - can barely stand up against an opponent in a fist fight, but - due to a "mega-punch (hitpoints x1000) - perk", that you can choose freely by spending your very first skill points on it - is able to pummel any opponent instantly to death, if you - by pure luck - manage to get a single punch through?