Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well!
First of all I'd like to clarify that this isn't a take on skills themselves, which has already been discussed extensively and I don't have any insight that hasn't been shared, but an attempt at discussing the structure of the skill tree itself.
What this refers to, is the way these nodes are arranged, how they interact with one another, how the progress through them functions, and what the player can expect from skills when they start a new game.
I'll be talking about the subjective and emotional reactions of the player towards the design, so naturally everything here will be merely opinions, and hopefully useful ones at that.
Let's start this by talking about classic skill tree design, and that is linked to the very name we give to these things.
A tree possesses roots, a trunk and branches. A tree has been used to depict both heritage and hierarchy through the ages, a tree grows organically and intertwines its segments often. All of these are reasons why the progression of skills throughout a character's (and the player) journey, ingrained iconography, "sense" of progression and notion of growth (in power mostly), and lastly a very important matter for the designer, the freedom that an asymmetric structure brings for modification and development.
If we contrast this to the current (and previous) skill tree designs we see that several of these advantages are not present, being the most subconscious reason why every implementation of the skill system faces so much discord.
We don't "feel" the power on many of the higher tier skills clearly, meaning that their position, their hierarchy comes off as meaningless, we don't "feel" freedom in the path that is taken to the upper branches because there are too little points and as such, little choices to be made, and skills that are desirable within a same playstyle often exclude each other.
The constraining and unnatural feeling that the skill tree causes in the player, is a consequence of the constraint a symmetrical structure causes on the one who creates it, the self applied demand to make every tree "equal" is very limiting on design, and those limitations are then felt by whoever interacts with such a system. This "unsettling" feeling only becomes greater when immersion within the world is significant, causing yet a further obstacle to the flow of the experience.
The same resources at hand, could be used to produce far greater results should they be arranged differently. Each point right now involves several stacked bonuses, while this is probably intended to make each choice more significant, the "why" each of those bonuses is stacked to each other, and then contrasted to other such node is never clear, never truly reasonable within the world, always making the fact that they are design choices be felt too strongly, something that within a classical tree would be mellowed by separating branches thematically, and allowing every early node to be chosen, knowing full well that the latter, "more powerful" or interesting choices are being sacrificed every time a small convenient node is chosen. Specialist vs Generalist, in every ramification of the tree the choice becomes clearer, heavier. As long as the player is drawn to and enjoys what each choice provides, then no wrong choice is ever made, sub-optimal only hurts when it equals to unviable.
If branches are separated on each of the 4 main ones we have, the choice of what affects player ships, what affects fleets in combat, and what affects the campaign level would be so much clearer for new players, if nodes are separated in a greater number of less significant choices, further explanation can be applied to each and every one of them, helping a newbie understand without having to wiki search what every one of those small stacking bonuses mean on every node, just hover a mouse over them and there would be the explanation with examples and all.
Asymmetrical trees allow for padding to be removed, we don't have an initial skill point investment to even access each section anymore, having more or less nodes carries no harm. Being able to add and remove nodes without a hitch allows for modifications to be easier, freeing creativity within development. Nodes can intertwine at chosen spots to allow different paths to reach the same destinations, versatility and variety within a limited system make for great fun experimenting.
Driving ourselves into a corner is what our mind is best at, seek success in freedom, freedom from our own self placed constraints.
Now to the most important aspect of all. You might be thinking "there are no trees in space dumbass", that's accurate. So while an organic looking design might be out of place, an intertwined mess of cables and munition belts, strategic points in a war table, shapes in an electric board, or trade routs in a merchant's map would all conform to these abstract shapes that are so precious for facilitating design, while fitting the themes of the skill tree perfectly (It could be anything really, I'm just throwing stuff on the table to make it easier to imagine).
To end I'd like to say that by no means is this an attempt of telling how things should be done, or a disregard of the systems we've seen so far (with their own special charm), but rather an attempt at creating discussion and the following inflow of ideas and clarity it causes.
If after reading this, sorting out how to solve the rejection towards a skill system when its established feels even a tiny bit easier, I'd be truly glad and consider this attempt a success.
Thank you for reading this wall of text and please share any opinions you have!
tl;dr: rows=pretty and original but tree=easier.
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