Hi Guys,

I've been having a play with some new code and have been trying to find a nice way to represent a skill tree (similar to http://www.wowhead.com/talent#o) in text.

The idea of a 'skill tree' is that except for core skills, each skill requires a skill above it before you can learn it, ie:

baking cake > baking chocolate cake > baking awesome cake > baking wedding cake

How would you represent this (assuming more skills), in text?

I had wondered this same thing for one variation of Elysium's skill/talent system, but it ultimately led to a revision of the idea for the system because of how difficult it was going to be to do the vertical tree like WoW uses. But revisiting the idea, it seems that a solution involving a horizontal tree, similar in nature to Sins of a Solar Empire's Research trees might be easier to implement in text.


(sorry for the size, smallest one I could find.)

[Edit:] Forgot about the shrinkage stuff.

Yes, displaying horizontally is likely to be much easier than displaying vertically, as there is less layout to figure out. Things get complicated if there's a lot of criss-crossing in the branches, but if it's a tree (rather than a graph) it's probably quite simple, actually. (There is of course the problem of running out of horizontal space…)

You're going to have issues of running out of space with either one. Having to scroll up/down to see the whole thing in a vertical tree is a turn off for some players.

I'm thinking something like this

> skill explore magic
You open the Magic Skill Tree. Available subcategories
   - Potions
     Learn to mix and create potions and poisons.
   - Spells
     Traditional Spellcasting
   - Enchantments
      lorem ipsum bla bla bla
> explore potions
  Available skills under potions:
   - Lesser Strength	(cost: 1 magic point, max level: 5)
   - Lesser Heal	(cost: 2 magic points, max level: 2)

  Available subcategories:
   - Poisons

> explore poisons
  Available skills:
   - something nasty	(cost 1 magic point, 1 poison point, max level: 3)

> learn 'something nasty'
You don't have enough points in poison to learn that.

> points
You have 3 points in magic and 1 point in enchantments.

> home
You open the Magic Skill Tree. Available subcategories
…

> overview
Magic
  Potions
    Poisons
  Spells
    Beneficial
    Attack
    …
  Enchantments (3 points spent)
    …

Your points determine you to be an 'Enchantment' wizard.

That's certainly a lot simpler then trying to represent the actual tree in a manner similar to WoW. I never thought of trying it like that. I guess that makes a lot more sense for a text perspective. I don't know why I was so hell bent on making it an actual tree.

Having a tree-like view, even a simplified one, is a nice way of getting an overview. There's no reason why you need to display the whole tree every time; it would be fine to toggle particular nodes of the tree as you view it. Also, having some form of tree art will make things a lot easier to read, even if it's as simple as:

Magic
\-Potions
  \-Poisons
  |-Spells
  | \-Beneficial
  | |-Useless
  | \-Attack
  \-Enchantments

I just display mine as a straight list (although the powers are coloured white if they're available and red if they're blocked) - the problem is I use a skillweb rather than a skill tree, which makes it quite a bit more difficult to depict in text. I always fancied having a Diablo2-style tree (like this) but I think I'd really need icons to do that nicely.

However one thing I've found really helpful for the players is to inform them each time they unlock a new option, like this:

> power raise 5 path of shadows
You raise Path of Shadows to 5 for 0 primal, using a primary power slot.
You have unlocked Mist Form and Shadow Crafting.

> power raise 10 shadow crafting
You raise Shadow Crafting to 10 for 0 primal, using a primary power slot.
You have blocked Blood Forging.

> power raise 20 mist form
You raise Mist Form to 20 for 0 primal, using a primary power slot.
You have unlocked Shapechanging, and blocked Shadow Infusion.

I for one am partial to this form of displaying a tree. It could be improved a little here and there by use of color or other aesthetic changes but this would be the format I would prefer if I were a player and had a choice of all the options suggested so far.

Good stuff. I like threads like this. New ideas in MUDs are a good thing.

Along the lines of DH's post, I think Discworld MUD implements something very similar.

Ah, yep, found it.

* fighting.defence.dodging
    * fighting.melee.dagger
    * fighting.range.thrown
    * fighting.range.fired
    * adventuring.movement.climbing.rock
    * adventuring.movement.climbing.rope
    * covert.stealth.inside
    * covert.stealth.outside
    * covert.hiding.person
    * covert.lockpick.doors
    * covert.lockpick.traps
    * covert.items.poisons
    * covert.items.traps
    * covert.items.weapons
    * covert.points

They represent the trees and nodes just with periods. Spend some points in fighting, and then you can put points in fighting.defense or fighting.melee, etc.

P.S. Yeah, I'm American.

Thought I'd have a go at drawing up a tree, but it's not easy…

<Claws of the Wolf>  <Ears of the Bat>                   <Path of Shadows>                 <Blood Legacy>
         |                   |                            |          |  |                        |
         |                   |            —————–          |  —-                     |
         |                   |           |                |          |      |                    |
    <Wolf Form>          <Bat Form>  <Mist Form>NOT<Shadow Infusion> | <Shadow Crafting>NOT<Blood Forging>
       |   |                 |           |                           |   |
       |    —————-OR———–                            |AND|
       |                     |                                       |   |
<Lupine Fortitude>    <Shapechanging>                         <Blade of Darkness>

Err, what?


Yeah, because it's not actually a tree but a (directed) graph. You start needing complex layout engines if your graph has lines crossing tree paths, as yours does. Trying to render this in text is (IMHO) not really worthwhile.

This is not at all intuitive. I've read your other posts about your skill system, and those made a lot more sense than this. Proof indeed that it's not easy. :biggrin:

it's not easy to do but that's fine, there are better ways of displaying information in a text environment than with a tree. I'm sure there are even more ways to do this same thing that are just as interesting as the ones we've seen already. I'm interested in seeing the other ideas.

If you use anything like MXP you can tooltip the items for players who support it; or link to more detailed descriptions.