This is why I don't like skill point systems where skill point gains are tied to level.

I much prefer games like Dragon Quest 6/7 and some Final Fantasy games (5 being the first one) where skill point gains (or the closest equivalent) are decoupled from level advancement, so that if you invest in the wrong skills, the problem is fixable.

Sometimes a skill that looks useful isn't, and vice versa.
I actually don't like this, unless the game is short (20 hours, I think, is too long for this, and it's the common length of a "short" RPG), the game has easy respecs available, or the party consists of player-created characters that can be easily swapped out for new characters (like in Wizardry 1-3 and 5, for example. though those games don't have skill points).

What's with the chicken stuff?

Also, at least in a system where skill point gains and level ups are decoupled (or where there are no level ups in the first place), a more optimal strategy may be to get some early skills to significantly speed up skill point gains (for example, by killing enemies faster), making it easier to get that powerful skill.

This is how I read the OP too. "So you don't want any skills to be upgrades or variants of existing ones?"

Side sub-thread, re:Oblivion. No. That system is basically as far from what things should be as possible. It was horrible in every way. (Including the grind you mention not liking.) It represents a distinct lack of player control over the game and its systems. And it also severely penalizes a player should they not want to approach the game in certain ways (since there's no "general XP" to reward the player no matter their approach.)

I like skill/tech trees. I like a skill/tech to be a extension of another. It feels more like development. Having sometimes to master a less interesting thing as a prerequisite to achieve a real cool one.

Skill trees are fine when they are done right and make sense.

In 4x games, like Civilization, the skill tree ensures that while you're in the ancient era that nobody is going to be building tanks while everyone else is still figuring out things like pottery, sailing, mining, and animal husbandry. It would completely ruin the game to see a tank pull up to a city before an era appropriate to them.

Another example skill trees down right is the feats system in Neverwinter Nights. You can pick any feat you want when you level up so long as you meet the requirements for that feat, which will include other feats in some cases. You can't learn Improved Knockdown (for example) without having a base attack bonus of +7 in Knockdown, which means that you also cannot skip learning Knockdown to learn the improved version of the feat.

I have always really enjoyed the feats system in NWN. I think it's exactly the type of progression I like.

I mean, why not? Obviously, I wouldn't implement it that way, but I see no harm in a skill that basically halves the time of hand-to-hand combat. As for "showing that progress", I think adding more abilities to your arsenal is a fine way of showing progress. The more abilities/perks you have, the more situations you can handle with less difficulty. Ideally, and this is me having a more specific idea for a game but hoping it'd be genre agnostic enough, this hypothetical system would be in a game that is balanced around being able to play just fine without the perks albeit with more and more difficulty.

But this hypothetical system is obviously not suited towards everything, I just think it'd be a good idea to reduce or streamline the granularity of various systems, like a game that doesn't want to dedicate to being a proper roleplaying game but wants some sort of character build system to allow for variety. I think a skill tree wouldn't be very satisfying because it means certain abilities will only be available in the late game that would be nice to have earlier. I think a compromise on this would probably have progression be fast enough so that, say, you can fill out 60-70% of the multiple skill trees before the game ends.

Initially, my reaction was to write a lengthy post, with replies to several of your points in particular...but I decided against it.

What I really want to see now, though, is a mock up of the "skill table", as you envision it.
Just a little presentation file, showing some of the skills you would want to have offered in a game, and maybe a little more detail as to how one would achieve them (at what costs), and in which order (if they aren't completely freed of any order).

Because, so far, I can't help but think: "the OP doesn't want to play the game. All he wants is to get to the end screen as fast as possible, with as least effort as possible".

But that can't be it, right?
There must be something more behind it, that I'm missing.

I too had a lengthy rebuttal to your condescending tone, but then I had to use the restroom and rethink it. So I'll just leave this here since you asked for an example. The idea is for an action game, bare as it is but enough to expand on.

Sounds a bit like feats in D&D. Want to take sniper shot? You need precise shot. You need precise shot? You gotta get Weapon Finesse. To get Weapon Finesse you need a Dex of 15+ (and each higher perk goes up 1-2 dex each). I think all abilities should have the same strength and impact. However the 'superness' of it can be upgraded over time, either with more points put into it or stuff that synergies with it.

Let's say in Skyrim with some tree mods, In combat if you crouch you go invisible for 10 seconds (SPERG). Why can't i use it right away? If you scale it down so say if you don't meet all the prerequisites then you instead get 1 second (per 10 points in stealth) and +30% of your current stealth level after it wears off up to 10 seconds.

Equipment based stuff could follow more the Sacred 2 vein. (If you put on something you don't qualify for, you get penalties, generally in movement speed and firing speed). Fallout did something similar where if you didn't have sufficient skill/stats then the gun would move more during aiming making it annoying (but not impossible to use)

I won't comment on a skill that says "attacks will do half damage if missing" (oh boy), or why one would want a skill that "allows to poison enemies AND reanimate their corpses" (like: wtf?), but I can't help to notice a certain superman attitude to all your skills (bar the last one, ofc)

So, yeah. I was right: you don't want to actually play the game - you want to live out a power fantasy.
I'll simply leave it at that. Everything beyond would be a waste of time.

What an extremely strange response, as if video games don't generally already do that in the first place.

I generally agree with this, and I do prefer a penalty system for stuff you're not properly trained in but it's not impossible to use. I do remember playing one of those Gold Box games, I think it was Unlimited Adventures and I was trying to get a Thief character to use a crossbow but NOPE, can use a bow but not a weapon designed to make it easier to shoot projectiles. Early dnd was super weird. Heck, I was told I couldn't wield a claymore as a witch-like character in my last dnd session because that required multiclassing.

"In general", video games demand of the player to progress in a more or less "orderly" fashion, through that power fantasy..

Something like attachment 1 is like the "general" way.
Something like attachment 2 would be how I would progress in that general way.

Something like attachment 3 seems to be more your way (according to the attachment in your previous post).
And I can only assume, something like attachment 4 is how you would choose your way across attachment 3.

That's skipping a lot of in-between-steps, that other people view as the actual "playing the game" - part.

But hey: not my problem. You do you. I would find that pretty boring, but whatever floats your boat...

Have a nice one.

In 3e and later, you can use any weapon without proficiency, but you will suffer a penalty for doing so.

The Pathfinder CRPGs, as well as Solasta, on the other hand, won't allow you to even equip a weapon you're not proficient in in the first place, which honestly feels odd to those familiar with the tabletop rules.

Incidentally, "use with penalty" would be one way to solve issues that come up in games like Final Fantasy 5, where job changes that can change what a character is allowed to equip can come up pretty frequently (and "optimize" re-equip doesn't always do what you want, especially once you find the Bone Mail). On the other hand, there's a good chance a player might forget to check equipment to remove items with non-proficiency penalties before the next combat. (A common mistake to make is to get into a fight unprepared because you missed something while setting up your characters.)

In SaGa games, sometimes this doesn't happen so orderly.

For example:

In SaGa 1, abilities learned by espers are solely based on the state of the post-battle RNG at the time of victory. Hence, if you're lucky, you could learn some powerful ability like P-BLAST early in the game (but could easily lose it, so be careful).

In SaGa 2, you need to defeat a strong enemy for an esper to learn a powerful skill, but relatively early (arguably the start of the mid-game) you end up fighting a high rank robot miniboss, and it's possible for an esper to learn a powerful ability if you get lucky (and some players will keep resetting to get lucky). Hence, you could get Flare not that long into the game.

In later SaGas, skill sparking is often based on enemy difficulty. So, if you're fighting a hard enemy, like a boss you ended up finding early, or in SaGa Frontier 2 a certain blue skeleton in the ruins you explore early on (SF2's enemy difficulty is not uniform within a location), you may learn an ability well before you'd normally expect to. (Also, SF2 has a glitch that makes it possible to easily learn some powerful abilities early, including KAMIKAZE, the most damaging martial art; combining it with morale boosts can allow you to do incredible amounts of damage.)

Also, in Final Fantasy 4 and 5, there are ways to cast powerful soells before the late game. FF4's methods involves a certain ability that needs two casters, as well as a certain character who gets powerful spells after an event but doesn't have that much MP; FF5's methods involve consumables. (Case in point: In FF4, elemental rods can be used to cast weak spells for free. In FF5, using the rod that way will cast a powerful spell (often capable of killing a boss in one or two uses, especially if you use the correct element), but will break the rod, something that will definitely come as a shock to someone playing the games in order.)

I think you misunderstood their point.

It is not about the ability to pick Swimming 4 without taking Swimming 1, 2 and 3 before (if each one is an improvement on the previous one), but about the ability to pick Swimming 1 without requiring any point spent in the Running and Survival branches. So no skill would have to require points spent in another skill to unlock.