Hello everyone I’ve made a game that has very large skill trees, so I’ve implemented a mechanic where nodes that are two nodes away from any unlocked node are hidden to prevent overloading new players with information, but it also isn’t great for build planning, so what do you think of this approach? Is there any other alternative/should this be a togglable setting?
Feedback on the system itself is also welcomed.
Below are two videos showing how it works and some pictures showing two of the large skill trees when fully visible.
This skill tree design looks INSANELY GOOD AND REALISTIC FOR A ROBLOX GAME! Excellent job on it! How long did it take to create this skill tree design? You should make the lights a bit darker for some of it, it seems a bit too bright at times. What game will you use this in?
Which parts of the tree would you all say are too bright? Lines, node effects, the bloom effect on purchase, all of them in general?
It takes me ~3 days to design a skill tree this size (I’ve automated to the fullest extent), the system took a month or two. Game I will be using it in is my MMORPG. The video has a watermark of the name.
The overall skill tree looks great, however there are a few things to improve.
There is an overuse of VFX, and while the overall aesthetic is great, it is also too bright and large, which creates an overwhelming feeling.
Vertical upgrades are not a good idea, this might be too complex, difficult or confusing to navigate and understand the tree for average player.
The tree upgrades doesn’t seem intuitive. There are no clearly defined colors, VFX or icon images for the different type of upgrades, which requires the player to navigate over each of them to read their description. Ideally, players should have a general understanding of the upgrades without even navigating to check their descriptions.
Definitely agree with this, true 3D node positioning are only used for one skill tree. Just to provide a unique aspect.
Node colors are assigned with rules, and at our scale with thousands of different nodes it is just not worth it to provide icons for nodes (even with reusing), and frankly it’s not absolutely necessary. I try to name nodes as intuitively as possible (Like stamina, vitality, etc), however there are some mechanics that require themselves to be explained. I’ll see what I can do to better let the player know what the node colors mean.
Thank you all for the feedback, I’ve made some changes to the visibility of the ui background and amount of vfx of the nodes.
