[Role Playing Game] Hero skills to create builds

[WarCortez]

I have a campaign/RPG going on and the idea came to me that instead of typical skill leveling, each skill could have like 8-10 levels. The max hero level is 15, so there's no chance maxing everything, allowing the player to improve the ones more suited to their desires. However, since I have very little experience with that, are there any advices on what to consider? I don't want skills to be ridiculously OP but neither I want underwhelming ones.

 

[Pyrogasm]

I think considering user experience here is important. Collected thoughts:

• There has to be an approachable way to respec in case you hate the build you make or become extremely suboptimal. Maybe it costs some currency or maybe involves doing something specific, but if I can't respec from a bad choice I'm out 100% of the time. A corollary to this is allowing the player to enter a 'buildcrafting' phase where they can keep reallocating skill points for free however they want until they're satisfied; then they lock in the build and can go use it in the world.
  
  
• A couple basic skills should probably be baked in for all characters at level 1 default so even if you never level them up you at least have access to them.
  
  
• I will want to know exactly what skills will do at the higher levels before I spec into them, so that I may judge if they are worth it to invest in. Without such knowledge I would be wary of the higher levels, probably. Either give me tooltips or compare damage numbers or show each level's values (like League of Legends now does).
  
  
• There should be an incentive for hitting certain benchmarks in a skill; say the skill gains some significant improvements at levels 6 and 9. For example: by default the skill is just an attack speed steroid, but at level 6 it gains movement speed and at level 9 it grants lifesteal for a short duration on activation.
  
  The idea is to encourage a player to pick a few abilites rather than trying all of them. If you plan properly with the number of skill points available to players and the levels at which the skills gain specific bonuses you can probably end up with a system that encourages a couple different splits (like WoW talent trees that could be 0/21/0 vs 9/9/3 vs 16/5/0) to let players feel in control but with guidelines.
  
  Another way to approach this is to apply some generic benefit to each skill at particular breakpoints, but to change the breakpoints per-skill to balance them. Something like "above their breakpoint, all effects of skills are 50% stronger/longer/larger". This requires you to think of less stuff to improve the abilities at higher levels and instead lets you focus on balancing them relative to each other.
  
  
• Options/alternatives/sidegrades must exist. For example: if I don't want to use the Dash skill there should be some other way for me to avoid deadly projectiles. Maybe that means a defensive bubble ability, maybe that means one of my attack skills can bounce back a projectile, maybe I can choose the channeled teleport skill instead, etc.. You don't have to overload players with options but I think something as simple as "the attack skill, the movement skill, the defense skill, the heal skill, the debuff skill, the buff skill" etc. is just not enough to interest players.

 

[WarCortez]

I think considering user experience here is important. Collected thoughts:

• There has to be an approachable way to respec in case you hate the build you make or become extremely suboptimal. Maybe it costs some currency or maybe involves doing something specific, but if I can't respec from a bad choice I'm out 100% of the time. A corollary to this is allowing the player to enter a 'buildcrafting' phase where they can keep reallocating skill points for free however they want until they're satisfied; then they lock in the build and can go use it in the world.
  
  
• A couple basic skills should probably be baked in for all characters at level 1 default so even if you never level them up you at least have access to them.
  
  
• I will want to know exactly what skills will do at the higher levels before I spec into them, so that I may judge if they are worth it to invest in. Without such knowledge I would be wary of the higher levels, probably. Either give me tooltips or compare damage numbers or show each level's values (like League of Legends now does).
  
  
• There should be an incentive for hitting certain benchmarks in a skill; say the skill gains some significant improvements at levels 6 and 9. For example: by default the skill is just an attack speed steroid, but at level 6 it gains movement speed and at level 9 it grants lifesteal for a short duration on activation.
  
  The idea is to encourage a player to pick a few abilites rather than trying all of them. If you plan properly with the number of skill points available to players and the levels at which the skills gain specific bonuses you can probably end up with a system that encourages a couple different splits (like WoW talent trees that could be 0/21/0 vs 9/9/3 vs 16/5/0) to let players feel in control but with guidelines.
  
  Another way to approach this is to apply some generic benefit to each skill at particular breakpoints, but to change the breakpoints per-skill to balance them. Something like "above their breakpoint, all effects of skills are 50% stronger/longer/larger". This requires you to think of less stuff to improve the abilities at higher levels and instead lets you focus on balancing them relative to each other.
  
  
• Options/alternatives/sidegrades must exist. For example: if I don't want to use the Dash skill there should be some other way for me to avoid deadly projectiles. Maybe that means a defensive bubble ability, maybe that means one of my attack skills can bounce back a projectile, maybe I can choose the channeled teleport skill instead, etc.. You don't have to overload players with options but I think something as simple as "the attack skill, the movement skill, the defense skill, the heal skill, the debuff skill, the buff skill" etc. is just not enough to interest players.

These are good pointers although the more I thought about the execution, the more dishearted I became due to some issues.

1. Balancing: some skills tend to be more useful than others. Having the shield bash with damage+stun is something that can scale out of control on higher levels than, say an area attack speed debuff. I remember playing starcraft 2 campaign and the many of the choices there were a no-brainer. There may be a combo that outright breaks the game and it's hard to foresee without experience.

2. Tooltip+data input: autofill sucks, much of the tooltip and skill scaling needs manual input. Pretty rowdy, given there are 3 heroes with 5 ability each and the uncertainty if I'm going toward the right direction.

3. Hero skill are limited compared to WoW for example. League champs can only be customized via items (at least that was the case while I played it. I stopped since Vanguard was forced on us, I don't trust that invasive thing). Heroes can only have their 4 skills + 1 extra I gave although the bonus options can help. Still, the only way to improve on choices would be to have some sort of alternate option for each of the Q,W,E skills which you can choose before you pick for that slot. I'm not sure whether it worth doing it or I'm just overcomplicating.