I made a vehicle skill tree feedback thread here. Go check it out.

The vehicle tree is in much less of a pickle. The only tree less in need than the vehicle tree is the corp management tree - for now. The turret operation tree is worse than vehicles in its current state TBH.

But I did read your post and... Yeah, it'll probably end up needing a revamp once CCP adds more vehicles -- assuming they don't get the structure right -- but until then I think it's more important to focus on the most critically "terrible" trees.

It's going to take a [u[lot[/u] of effort to even get any of this on CCPs "officially recognized issues, will fix soonGäó" radar, so making sure we all push for the right things is ~kind of important~.

But thank you for posting, I sincerely appreciate it.

Note: Please excuse the lapse in my own posting, I'll have some larger updates to this thread by this weekend barring any unforeseen black swans.

One thing I would consider adding would be a "related skills" bonus that would allow you to receive slight SP requirement drop for certain skills related to other skills.

For example, take armor plates and a Gallente dropsuit since they specialize in armor over shields. If I put my SP into the a Gallente dropsuit then I could get a SP discount on my armor plates. Using imaginary numbers for the sake of math and time, say the first level of the dropsuit and armor plate are 200,000 and 100,000, respectively. I spend my 200,000 SP to get the first level of the dropsuit and then I see that the armor plates have dropped to 95,000 SP to unlock. I still have a choice between armor plates and shield extenders, but I see that armor plates costs less, so I'm more likely to skill into that. This could be used for all kinds of things like Heavy Suits and Forge Gun/Heavy Machine Gun or Logistics and Uplinks or anything that is reasonably related to another. I think that this could not only eliminate some repetitive grinding but also give new players an unique twist in their Dust experience that I haven't seen in any other FPS while also being a subtle guide for the new mercs through the very complicated and overwhelming skill tree. It would also reward specialization and help people try out different combinations without being so punishing on overall SP. There would be limitations on how much it discounts, maybe depending on the level of the skill (5% of a skill at level 5 with an 8x multiplier, like the Sentinel or Commando, is a ton of SP, so we can reduce the %). I apologize for the random SP numbers, I just didn't have access to the right numbers and wanted to get this post out quickly. Others can debate percentages and specifics, but I just thought it would be an interesting idea in a revised skill tree.

MODIFIED EVE ONLINE MODEL - by J-Lewis
Pros: No new skills need to be added with new weapons - very future proof. Clear structure. Paths of least resistance. Encouraged diversification. Breeds more adaptive players. Compatible with current "no multiple prerequisites" policy. No SP sinks.
Cons: Slightly more complex than TECH LINES, as weapons are grouped into sub-technology. Bonuses need to be moved to the individual weapons for specializations.
Note: Categorizes weapons by technology, groups all the upgrade skills into Weapon Upgrades branch, specialization skills are grouped into sub-technologies (e.g. Blasters & Railguns for Hybrid).

I understand what you're saying about these skills being more useful to some than others but at the end of the day they are useful to everyone, so everyone will have to have them.

Your example with the heavies is flawed because that skill is only useful to heavies, not anyone else. A range increasing skill would affect all weapons - granted it would give the most increase to snipers but getting an extra couple of meters on your SMG is an amazing bonus.

I also get what you're saying about the dropsuit skills and should say that I think the core skills that give you HP/CPU/PG buffs to base stats should go because they're just as universal and useful as the old weaponary skill. Everything should be tied to some specific category, not just applied to everything in the game because when that happens everyone gets it and it makes the skill pointless existing at all - just give everyone the buff inately and get rid of the skill entirely.

Now what we need are more weapon type specific skills, like the current sharpshooter reducing spread/dispersion or whatever they call it. That's only useful for ARs, and SMGs (and HMGs? I dunno) but would be much better served as a standalone core weapon skill that affects all weapons with spread. There should be more skills like this; maybe a heatsink skill or a feedback damage reduction skill.

Good to know you're still at it, just one comment on the new proposed weapon tree, it seems like it would take the heavy's a bit too long and too much unnecessary sp to get their weapons

Can't believe I've been missing this thread. Nice work, J-Lewis.
CCP needs to redesign the skill tree but unfortunately I don't foresee that happening anytime soon.

You've hit quite a number of problems square on the head (skill overlap, SP sinks, equidistant specialization) and offered an appealing alternative to the mess of a skill tree we're currently using. You're suggestion promotes healthy growth within a discipline without penalizing players for wanting to try new things or moving away from a certain weapon or suit.

Back in Chromosome the common complaint against the skill tree was the necessity of certain skills and therefore their redundancy. CCP went completely overboard in their segregation of all skills for racial variants and weapons. To make matters worse, skill multipliers had been increased further compounding this problem.

To be perfectly honest, this is one of the very few choices CCP has made that has genuinely disappointed me as a gamer and as a customer. We asked for content and we were given higher SP costs. I feel as though this is simply an underhanded ruse to sell us boosters. Welp. I continue to buy them, at 20m SP, not because there is anything I even want to skill into but because I want this game to succeed.

CCP, pro tip; no one likes being coerced. If players could more easily skill into a specialization and not feel buyer's remorse when leaving that weapon or suit behind they would be more willing to buy future boosters.

Sadly, while all this is important, there are more pressing matters to be rioting over. If we ever get the aiming core mechanics ironed out I suppose I'll be spamming the forums Planetside2 bomber style for the skill tree to get more attention.

Good work with all this! Hope to see more of your posts on here.

I tend to agree that yes: nailing core FPS mechanics is really more important right now than the skill tree. But I'm also trying to be forward thinking. The hot topic of the day changes on a dime, and because of that we rarely see threads grow and become longer term topics of discussion, if they're not simple bursts of outrage. This is not one of those threads.
When CCP realizes that the skill tree is the next thing on the workbench to fix, and communicates as such, I hope people flock to this thread to add to the discussion.

Until that point in time I'll be slowly (but steadily) adding content to the thread, hopefully with a lot of help from the rest of the community - it'd be really boring and obnoxious if I were the only one posting.

If EVE has taught me anything, it's that the best way to convince CCP is with a large common consensus and a lot of respectful posting.

So far... Let's just say I'm impressed.

I made my own tree, refer to my previous post (the long-ass one) to see what goes where. It's not as fancy as J-Lewis' but it works, I think...

http://i.imgur.com/BpSv7FL.jpg

Laser: Orange
Missile: Red
Plasma: Green
Projectile: Grey
Railgun: Blue

The X's show where the Combat and Rail rifles would be. The S's look a little suspect, but they're supposed to know the (currently available) sidearms.

A bit of constructive criticism if I may...

It's fine to have Rails and Blasters together - just like rockets (flaylock) and guided missiles (swarm launcher) are the same group. Each group has two technologies within it.

Additionally, each race uses two types of weaponry... As you may guess, the missing group is drones.

So to sum it up by groups:

Amarr: Lasers and Drones.

Caldari: Hybrids and Missiles.

Gallente: Hybrids and Drones.

Minmatar: Projectiles and Missiles.

And breaking it into individual technologies:

Amarr: Beam/Scrambler Lasers, many sets of lighter drones.

Caldari: Railguns and Blasters, Guided Missiles and Rockets.

Gallente: Blasters and Railguns, fewer sets of heavier drones.

Minmatar: Autocanons and Artillery, Rockets and Guided Missiles.

The only reason the Hybrid group seems overpopulated is because it's the most completed of them all. Much in the same way as Gallente and Caldari vehicles, the first and most often added weapons in DUST development were Caldari/Gallente, so it's pretty obvious why Hybrids is the most populated group.

How do you progress from row 3 to row 4? Does the Scrambler Rifle unlock the Laser Rifle? Seems confusing.
In particular, this is what stops me from being able to make a fully fleshed out tree to put into the OP.

I'm also interested in why you think the tree was one layer too deep.

I think that's about all though.

More additions on Sunday (a modified EVE style tree for weaponry and another Dropsuit Command tree).

Just a thought, you've included the weaponry skill tree but I don't think you included the mentioned Dropsuit tree, unless I missed it?

Dropsuit Command can be given a 1% bonus to turn it into a useful skill.
I think unlocking the sizes at 1, 2 and 3 instead of unlocking tiers would be better in this case.

But overall terrible valid idea. I think it might work out.

I'll throw it into the pot when I get a moment and see what comes out, if it looks good I'll add it to the OP.

just wanted to post to say I absolutely love this thread.

Also, as for the OP,

MODIFIED EVE
- definitely my favorite alternative to the current dropsuit tree, the prereqs aren't too bad, and I'm assuming it would require you to reach level 5 in a frame suit to be able to train the specialty skills. I would say that this would mean we should have higher multipliers for the frame suits to balance the SP and make it so you can't just burn through dropsuit skills and pick all of them up, but I like it way more than the current tree. There's no useless frame skils (IE any frame above 3 right now is wasted SP), it allows for crosstraining your role much easier, as in EVE, which gives people dedicated to a role more flexibility (like a scout that can go for minmatar CQC or gallente recon without blowing months of SP that just feel like a sink).

TECH LINES
- this makes way more sense than the current weapon tree, and would alleviate the boredom of specialization currently in DUST (why specialize if it means I have to grind through hours with the same guns and mods? that's boring. nobody wants to do that in a FPS, and it means that in pub matches, some games you will just underperform with no alternative. This is a huge difference between EVE and DUST right now. For starters, in EVE you can specialize into a career but still do different things with your ships and skills, and secondly, in EVE it's a lot less time intensive to get in a bunch of different hulls and fits. Not like DUST right now, specialization combined with power creep makes you feel pressured to go into a single role, single weapon, single fit build until you have like 10m SP. My one comment would be we should maybe keep sidearms and light/heavy (primary) weapons separate still

one comment would be, some of your proposed weapon upgrade skills are useless and/or OP. Like optimal range or falloff bonus, that's an imbalanced skill and could disrupt the way the game flows. After all this time CCP has spent modifying those values I think it's clear that they work very differently in a FPS than in EVE. Also they would make the current power creep problem in the STD to PROTO progression we currently have even worse. I mean, we could have alternatives, or more specialized skills that do similar things without altering optimal/falloff ranges, but only to certain classes of weapons. Tracking upgrades also seems silly for guns as CCP Wolfman is toying with removing suit based turn speed. Also turning speed is suit based, not weapon based at the moment. For vehicles, sure, but infantry doesn't work the same

VL'S MODIFIED TECH LINES - by Vulcanus Lightbringer
Pros: Only adds one skill per weapon. Paths of least resistance. Encouraged diversification. Breeds more adaptive players. Compatible with current "no multiple prerequisites" policy. No SP sinks. Good sense of progression.
Cons: The tree becomes more complicated the more weapons are added. Only really an option once we have more weapons to flesh out the branches (feels very incomplete currently).
Notes: See posts 46 through 50 on page 3.

SPADEMAN'S TREE - by Spademan
Pros: Paths of least resistance. Light and Mediums are cheap(er). Encouraged diversification. Breeds more adaptive players. Simple and easy to understand. Compatible with current "no multiple prerequisites" policy. We'll see more Heavies fielded.
Cons: Might unlock content too fast(!). We'll see more Heavies fielded.
Notes: See post #18.

This weekend's updates:
VL'S MODIFIED TECH LINES - by Vulcanus Lightbringer
Pros: Only adds one skill per weapon. Paths of least resistance. Encouraged diversification. Breeds more adaptive players. Compatible with current "no multiple prerequisites" policy. No SP sinks. Good sense of progression.
Cons: The tree becomes more complicated the more weapons are added. Only really an option once we have more weapons to flesh out the branches (feels very incomplete currently).
Notes: See posts 46 through 50 on page 3.

The point stands though:
Players should be encouraged by game design to diversify, but encouraged by players to specialize. Which really just means that the game should offer all these tempting options for players, all of which seem great and distracting from what you're trying to accomplish. Like a kid in a candy store, going in for toffee and coming out with sugar canes.
Let players handle the meta and what constitutes specialization. Specialization was always and still is but player advice in EVE; the skill tree does quite the opposite. You get diminishing returns when your specialize, so diversifying just seems more and more tempting the further you specialize.

I cannot state enough how critically DUST currently fails at that particular point. I'd rather see many players able to field everything than every player only fielding one thing. Being able to field anything is a valid goal.
I want to kill a shotgun scout and see him come back with a fit that counters what he thinks I'm using, not the same shotgun scout again and again. I want him to kill me so I can come back with a different fit to counter what I think he is using. It progresses the meta, and really ups the competitive nature of DUST.

I think that's what's killing the game more than anything else. More than aiming mechanics or gun-play. Without diversity, things get stale and people leave.