Right now the way skill specializations works does not make much sense. For example, if you want to respec a skill you have to un-level it, which supposedly lets you keep your respec points but what is the purpose of that if you have to level it up again anyway. Why not just let people respec for some kind of in game currency cost, especially since your game offers so many different ways to build. It restricts players to whatever they had picked initially unless they are willing to grind just to respec, which is redundant since most people would like to be able to try out a couple different builds for themselves before settling into their endgame build. Then on top of that you restrict peopleās skill specializations by forcing them to spend x amount of points in a specific tree in order to progress further in that tree. You have a good concept for your game and it seems you want to allow your players to create unique builds, but by forcing someone to invest 4 points into a skill they donāt want or need, youāre actually limiting them more than anything. It would make more sense to simply have players invest at least one point in a skill node in the tree, to progress to the next node attached to it, rather than spending half your points on stuff you donāt actually want. If your concern is that players will make use of this to get at least one point in almost every node in a specialization tree, that is also redundant as late game a build like that could potentially fall off since they are not investing their points into the proper skills.
Here we go again.
There are at least half a dozen discussions about this topic already, so i will not give my full opinion here again.
Short Answer: I do not want such an easy respec system, i want all my decisions to have some weight.
Repsecc already was pretty easy in LE and became even easier with the minimum respec level.
It is still easy enough to make experimenting easily possible without spending hours in releveling skills.
But what i do not understand fully is the last part of your feedback:
What exaclty do you mean? You mean that there are some nodes within a skill spec tree, that are not desired for you?
I personally thinkg most of the skill trees have very reasonable āthemesā withint certain areas and while not every single note is 100% desired, i never have the feel i need to āwasteā points to reach certains nodes.
On top of that, this system is really clever and relatively easy to balance, because devs can gate Keys Nodes behind certain Point Investements or certains negative affects, that you need to take, before being able to spec int othose Key Nodes.
If you look at the skill specialization treeās, there are nodes that are locked until you spend x amount of points in the tree itself. This means you have to invest in skills that, depending on the build you are doing, you might not want but are forced to invest in just so you can reach the skill you actually need. Also itās not about making respecāing easy, itās about not making it a chore. People donāt play games to respec, people respec to change the way they are playing the game.
Also itās not about themeās being bad or anything for the treeās, but itās the fact that it limits player creativity with building itself. You limit people to specific paths in the tree through that. Rather than going for what they want and creating something new and not something others have already done.
Just to be sure, you mean the connections between 2 given nodes?
Like this?
https://imgur.com/duWgruA
You do not need to spend points āanywhere in the treeā, but need to take certain routes, which are most of the time very thematic.
You have so many points and often you can take multiple paths.
This barely reduces creativity.
With your suggestion each specific node needed to be balanced accordingly and might be less āexcitingā or strong, because it does not have specific prerequisite
Yes thatās what I am referring to and itās kind of redundant for a game that wants to be creative and give people the freedom to augment skills in their own way. It keeps people on specific paths and theme isnāt something that should be considered in this regard. Yes you have good skills that when combined make up a good āthemeā but youāre forcing players to stick to this āthemeā which then doesnāt make it very creative or unique.
Let people play around with skills themselves, itās part of the reason people play these games is to try and make builds that are really good, but when you keep people on this kind of path it makes building easy and kind of boring. Let people experiment in their own way.
You can easily take multiple skill changing nodes, even with those prerequisite.
This skill system is easily one of the most exciting and gameplay defining in any aRPG.
Having āonly random nodesā that are not connected and being able to put points anywhere would be broken to the point, that nodes need to be waaaaaaaay weaker by themselves.
Iām not saying have them not connected. And no itās not exciting in all honesty. I can easily look at each skill and be like ok this is the build cause it honestly does have no room for creativity. The creativity is ok I want this path and this path and boom, build decided, no more trying to figure out what I want. Iām also not saying be able to put points anywhere. You want a tree with clear progression in the skills, thatās fine, but donāt force me to put 4 points into a skill that gives defense so I can get something that gives dmg. Especially if I were going for a build that focuses on dmg and forsakes defense.
I donāt think heās arguing that you should be able to just put any point in any random spot. I think heās arguing that its restrictive to make you spend x points to unlock a certain bonus. If I wanna path to a certain node having to spend 5 points to get to it when its just 2 nodes away is not fun and highly restricts me from playing the way I want to. It just makes it more of a chore to level and doesnāt incite fun at all. For example, I was playing rogue and I wanted to specialize in the shuriken skill. At first I was excited until I realized after I specced into additional projectiles, that added projectiles barely do anything for you. Shurikens donāt pierce unless you get that keystone and they donāt hit a target more than once unless you get that keystone. And once you get both of those you lose 50% of your projectiles so you have to path over to the +2 projectile keystone and take nodes you might not necessarily want and sometimes take multiples just to get +2 projectiles (which then becomes +1) Itās not a fun way to build, especially when the skill is underwhelming to start with and it takes so long to get to the keystones you need to make it feel good at all. I understand a character feeling weak then getting strong but using a weak skill and having to grind that skill out particularly with a restrictive leveling system isnāt fun. Especially when there are so many skills to try out and you might realize you donāt like one then have to just restart at square one with a shitty, underwhelming, low level skill.
Usually most of those ābig investmentsā like 3, 4 or 5+ points to continue a certain paths are very thematic and fitting.
Can you give me an specific example? 4 ādefense pointsā to reach a offensive node is very rarely a case. I donāt know any skill that has this in their skill tree from memory.
On top of that i really like having big investments for powerfull effects, because this often times leads to NOT being able to take ALL nodes i would like to take, which leads to actual meaningful decisions and build diversity.
I get what you are saying about limiting what skills you take so you have to actually pick what you want but if your method of limiting people from getting too many skills is to have them invest in things they donāt, then maybe there are too many skill points. On top of that, if you let someone invest a couple points into everything, yeah it might work out for a period and seem a bit silly, but when you hit endgame, which is a huge aspect of any arpg, it would fall off due to a lack of proper investment. You said yourself you want your decisions to have weight in in this instance it would because you decided to try and get every skill thinking it would work out for the long haul and surprise surprise, it didnāt. Regardless of how much you like the system, it honestly does prevent players from fucking up their builds, and it limits player creativity. And if youāre getting a ton of posts from people complaining about this, then maybe itās cause people donāt like it. You donāt have to get rid of the way things work rn but the way itās currently setup, itās just not good. Itās not. Itās boring and requires very little thinking to make youāre build strong.
The system with skilltrees is about making choices and tradeoffs.
Iād argue that it would be plain boring to just put increases of damage, projectiles or whatever in a row and just spec into one after another.
The current skilltrees are well thought out with different build options in mind and different build ideas yet to find by the theorycrafting community.
Thereās a misunderstanding here. There were many posts about the respec system. But this is the first post I recognise on the forums that says āthe skilltree system is boring and not goodā. This is one of the unique selling points of this game that attracts many people.
If you think itās not good, thatās ok for me. And I have te impression that this is an opinion that not many people share. But donāt state it as a fact.
Where would the creativity be if you were allowed to pick whatever nodes you wanted in a skill? Youād take all the nice big ones wherever they were. Creativity requires restriction & limits so that you can find a way of getting what you want while minimising the downsides.
It is this game design. Take it leave it. Most other aRPG is built like that. For example in PoE you have sometimes take weak / useless nodes on the tree to get what you want. And you are not powerful in the beginning but slowly build your character. A skill might be weak with a 3 links gem setup but getting stronger as you find a 5-linked body armor.
That is a philosophy of every aRPG to be patient and find a workaround till you are leveled enought and can afford to be badass mobkiller 
The system with skilltrees is about making choices and tradeoffs.
Thatās the point. Having to spend my next 3-4 levels just to get to +2 projectiles and being forced to take poison chance, which I donāt want, is not a choice. Maybe I could deal with the 1 point 10% chance but when I have to invest 3 points into the poison chance I already didnāt want isnāt much of a choice.
Iād argue that it would be plain boring to just put increases of damage, projectiles or whatever in a row and just spec into one after another.
But thatās literally what they doā¦ Going off my previous example, having to put 3 points into poison chance is essentially the same as having 3 nodes in a row that are poison chance. Itās just consolidated into one node, quite literally making me have to pick increases to whatever the node is in a row, which as you said, is boring.
Where would the creativity be if you were allowed to pick whatever nodes you wanted in a skill? Youād take all the nice big ones wherever they were. Creativity requires restriction & limits so that you can find a way of getting what you want while minimising the downsides.
First of all, still using the shuriken skill as an example. I definitely would not want all of the big nodes, most of them contradict eachother and actively make the others useless.
Also, saying creativity requires restriction and limits sounds insanely contradictory to me. If there is restriction it is not creativeā¦ but I can understand what you say that it will be too easy to just take any big nodesā¦ But, thatās an issue with there being too many points to spend and the tree being too small.
The trees as they are currently are essentially just a handful of different modifiers that change the way your skill operates. You can choose a couple of them and thatās it. They could very well have literally made you choose from a handful of modifiers and only be able to use 2 and have the same exact effect. Iām not saying this is what they should do, Iām saying that it really doesnāt feel very creative. If you want to make one style of the skill work you have to invest in that side of the tree, and thatās it. Itās not much of a creative decision as there are only a handful of options to get to that point and you are highly incentivized to just put all your points into that side to get the strongest outcome.
Ok I guess Iāll have to repeat myself one more time but Iām not saying let people pick whatever nodes they want. And ācreativity requires restrictionā. Did you just type that and not realize what you said or do you not understand the definition of creativity. As for PoE, yes you have to pick nodes you donāt want at times but those nodeās donāt ask for 4 skill points to get to the next one. To quote what I said above, āIt would make more sense to simply have players invest at least one point in a skill node in the tree, to progress to the next node attached to itā. You want progression in your tree you can still have that. But as it stands right now, the game is pick which treeās you want to go down, and call it a day. The skill treeās if anything to not work like most arpgās. Itās restrictive as you said yourself. You want choices that have weight, but the choices have no weight. Itās just ok I went down this path in the tree. The only weight at that point is hoping that path didnāt suck.
Iām not saying get rid of what you have and come up with a whole new system, but the current one is restrictive, plain, boring, and honestly doesnāt allow for players to make unique builds, just the ones the game allows.
So what is the difference between investing in four nodes in the PoE tree which you donāt really need and investing 4 points into a single node in the LE tree (which you supposedly donāt need either)? Same 4 points