[Xanth]

So I've been working a lot on the skill restructing lately and trying to come up with a way to give you guys the skill tree you've been asking for. (It helps that I work better visually like this anyway. ) I had hoped to make it interactive (ie, clicking on "Combat" would take you to the Combat page) but the only option I've come across so far that would work with what we currently have is a FreeMind recipe for the wiki, and my work is currently in XMind (which should export to .mm but then wouldn't open -_-).

Anyway, what I've come up with is this (click image for full size):

It's huge. Possibly too huge to do what it's meant to do (that is, make understanding how the skills work simpler and easier to track the flow of pre-reqs and unlockables). It may also prove frustrating to load on older/smaller computers, so my first question is regarding the size. On the one hand, having it all together means you can look at the big picture while creating characters. On the other, it'll make more of a chore of upgrading later (though to be honest, it seems like it'll be easy enough to hone in on the species you need, and I've put borders around sections to separate them out from each other).

But this topic isn't just about the visual aspects. You'll notice there's a key at the top, and that some of the nodes are colour-coordinated or crossed out, and that some are really long letter-wrecks because I've got the old name and the proposed name right next to each other. They won't be like that in the final version of the skill tree, but I'm showing you guys the WIP because I want to check in on some things. (I should mention, actually, that this is part of the reason I've left the skill contest running so long after the plot was over. I don't want to approve skills and write them up only to have to rewrite or rename or whatever during the restructure, so I figured I'd do it all together.)

You'll notice that some things have been moved around a bit. I plan to make the "unlocking" aspect of skills more obvious and easier to achieve. That applies to weaknesses, too, though I'm not quite sure at present which direction I'm going with those so they're largely unchanged on the map. You'll also notice that some of the proposed skills are actually already part of existing skills; what I plan to do is cut some of those into two/more separate skills so the levelling is less complex and characters are more customisable, or they'll be merged into other skills that seem unnecessary/samey now (eg. Hypersenses is already part of Mimic for Therians, really; while Mystriders should only have the visual aspect of that skill and not the hearing/smell. Meanwhile, Glide will be separated from Flight, and there'll be a new Dragon Flight/Riding skill).

So can I get your thoughts on this? Do you like the direction the restructure is taking? (I realise you can't see my notes on the map so I can elaborate if something's not self-explanatory.) Do you like the proposed name changes? (I'm trying to shorten, simplify and basically hit you over the head with what it does before you even get to the description. Some are trickier to name with those things in mind, though, and I'm struggling to make them grammatically consistent. Like, should it be Flight or Fly. Glide or Gliding. Swim or Swimming, etc.)

Okay, I think I'm rambling, so I'll leave off here. :3

[Argyris]

Hm... On first glance the tree looks confusing, but then I realised it's because all the races are on it. When I look at each individual race's block, it's surprsingly readable =o
I think you might wanna standardise the use of the smaller dotted boxes though (E.g. the box around Charmer & Hunter for Vampires, or Apali, Skotadi & Peacekeeper, Warrior). In most cases it's a choose one and only one of the boxes! But then I'm not really sure why combat, morph & form are boxed up >.< (or am I misunderstanding the use of the smaller dotted boxes)

For Malaki:
I noticed there's a guardian & cannibalism? maybe change cannibalism to predator? or something. Brain not at 100% capcity at the moment, sorry >.< Liking alot of the name-changes (e.g. swimming to swim) and grouping of skills into pigment manip for Ohani.

I personally like what I'm seeing of the restructure right now ^^ Splitting of hypersense is good, IMO, since have awesome eyesight doesn't alwways mean great sense of taste. (Don't really get why Albatross is smell, but that's under rewriting though )
Really really like the fact that you split flight and glide. I didn't actually realise at first that Zanaryans couldn't get max level flight x_x Less fine print is always good.

Overall: really love what's been done here ^^ Maybe for the final product you could split it into multiple images instead of all the races on one jpg so the skill tree looks less daunting/confusing to newcomers? =D

PS. I have freemind as well, so maybe I could try opening it? =d Or something. Just lemme know if there's anything I can help with ^^

[Xanth]

Argyris, on 12 October 2012 - 06:54 PM, said:

Hm... On first glance the tree looks confusing, but then I realised it's because all the races are on it. When I look at each individual race's block, it's surprsingly readable =o
I think you might wanna standardise the use of the smaller dotted boxes though (E.g. the box around Charmer & Hunter for Vampires, or Apali, Skotadi & Peacekeeper, Warrior). In most cases it's a choose one and only one of the boxes! But then I'm not really sure why combat, morph & form are boxed up >.< (or am I misunderstanding the use of the smaller dotted boxes)

Ah, the borders are sort of a work-around to the fact that mindmapping software (the multitude freebies I've tried, at least) don't let a child node have two parents, and because the relationship links just made it get really squiggly and overcomplex visually. I put related skills like Form and Morph together in a separate box because they each have to be upgraded at the same time (Morph requires 1 Form, Form requires 1 Morph because they're interrelated), and because the skills that descend from Morph also require at least one level in Form. I'll try to make that a bit clearer; there has to be a way to do that cleanly. (Even if it means doing this thing by hand, or certainly adding to it by hand, once it's been finalised...)

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For Malaki:
I personally like what I'm seeing of the restructure right now ^^ Splitting of hypersense is good, IMO, since have awesome eyesight doesn't alwways mean great sense of taste. (Don't really get why Albatross is smell, but that's under rewriting though )
Really really like the fact that you split flight and glide. I didn't actually realise at first that Zanaryans couldn't get max level flight x_x Less fine print is always good.

Er, I just used albatross because when I was looking for names (eagle eyes just jumped right into my head, but the hearing and smell things were giving me trouble), the animals that came up as having the best sense of smell/hearing were the albatross and the elephant. I guess they're not the best examples, though; I never knew that about albatrosses and the word has negative connotations in Earth lore, so I might be better going with something like... Ooh, bloodhound.

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Overall: really love what's been done here ^^ Maybe for the final product you could split it into multiple images instead of all the races on one jpg so the skill tree looks less daunting/confusing to newcomers? =D

PS. I have freemind as well, so maybe I could try opening it? =d Or something. Just lemme know if there's anything I can help with ^^

Ooh, if you could, that'd be great! I could email you the file? It might have something to do with updated versions not being compatible or something. Though, to be honest, I don't really like the look of FreeMind, but if we're weighing that against the usefulness of having nodes be clickable and such, then I'm pretty sure I know which comes first.

I guess another alternative would be, like I said, to add to this thing manually once everything's set and then turn it into an image map. I've never done that before, but Russ wants the world map to be clickable (and I'd love to have that, honestly) too, so I'd get tons of practise.

For splitting down, then maybe a large images for comparison, and then the smaller ones for "yeah my character's a X, I don't need the rest of that stuff"? Or does the size of it mean that comparing trees is too difficult anyway? I guess I could do both, just so there's an option for everyone.

Thanks, Pchan.

[Xanth]

A quick update before I go in to the hospital: I've reuploaded the image in the first post (you may need to hard refresh CTRL+F5 to see the updates). It's even bigger now, and I'm really not sure about some of the new additions (I have vague ideas I wanted to jot down before I forgot, so they're on there in dark red with the others). Bearing in mind I will be doing as Pchan suggested and splitting this up for the actual public version once it's done, I just want to hear any feedback regarding the potential skills.

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An area of particular note is that I've tried to rearrange the Combat skill so the tree (and the skill itself) makes a bit more sense. I'm hoping the skill tree will make this self-explanatory, but just in case it doesn't (and I need to know if that's the case):

As it is now, you get three levels for Combat: Basic, intermediate and advanced. Rather than three levels for a single skill, Combat itself will only have one level and will be the equivalent of Intermediate (2). I'll then introduce two new skills either side of it. Basic Training will be (you guessed it) the basic level, and Weapons Mastery will be advanced.

However, this is about more than just splitting a perfectly acceptable skill into three. For Basic Training, you only choose a broad category to train in (eg. Axeman or Swordsmanship). With this skill, you'll be able to pick up any weapon within that category and wield it with basic skill. (For instance, within the Swordsmanship category, you'd find short swords, katanas, etc. Any weapon used primarily to slash would be considered a sword.) Then, for the new Combat, you'd choose a single weapon to advance to the intermediate stage, such as a katana or a short sword. Weapons Mastery is exactly how it sounds: You've mastered a specific weapon to the advanced level.

The beauty of this is that you only need one upgrade in BT per category, so you could have BT in Swordsmanship but then two different weapons within that category. In other words, whereas now you'd have to buy 4 upgrades to get both katana and short sword to intermediate, the new version would require only 3. (Choosing to specialise in weapons from different categories, however, would still require a BT level for that category, so if you chose axe and boomerang, you'd still have to spend 4SP.) As you do now, each species will get a cap on the number of weapons they can train with. I'm not sure yet how exactly it'll work with the new version (whether you'll get a cap on your Basic Training and a cap on Combat, one or the other, or dependent on the species). It'll be pretty similar to how it is now, though, in terms of how much of a fighter your species can be. (You'll also note that I'm adding Combat for Nymphs, though only for "Rogues". Culturally speaking, those who follow the Creed just can't take up arms.)

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Another area to pay particular attention to is Peacekeepers and Zanaryans. I'm giving them both Diplomacy skills (or trying to) since both have political backgrounds. PK especially are already meant to split between healers and ambassadors but currently only get to level in the former, while Zanaryans, I feel, should benefit from all that back-stabbing. I'm not sure the extent to which these diplomacy skills will split or how they'll break down, but if you have any thoughts I'd love to hear them. :]