Progression Systems - How Good Games Avoid Skinner Boxes - Extra Credits 

2:12 You also need a backtracking system to prevent spec anxiety, when people like me are afraid to spend any stat point before fully understanding what works best.

Actually a party consisting of a war hardened cynical and aggressive healer, and a young , idealistic, naive and well trained knight who never saw real combat though, and hence is reluctant to fight, THAT would make for a very interesting game I think.

energy systems are the worst gaming mechanic to have ever been invented.

A quick thing about WoW-styled talent-trees versus the linear progression of other RPGs: The downside of using talent-based systems is that, while it creates more player choices, the community will inevitably find the most mathematically powerful combination of talents and proceed to call that package the one-true-combination. In the worst scenarios, this can lead to elitism and harassment of players who differ from this formula. A linear progression of talents, while carrying its own baggage, does avoid this issue. It could be interested to hear a discussion about the merits of each!

I feel Dark Souls has an incredibly rewarding progression system. When you start out you're pretty much pounded into the dirt by trashmobs but after bashing your head against that world for hours you reach a sort-of god level among the regular enemies, were you smack them around like they were toys. The best feeling I had in that game was with my second character, I avoided the Capra Demon fight until very late in the game and came back all super-saiyan mode and breezed through it.

I love how the artists can even make a Warhammer 40k space marine look cute.

If you really want to be good in a MMO, you don't brainstorm, sadly. You just copy a optimal, universally agreed list from the web and roll with it. No decisions at all.

One of the best examples of good progression I feel is Monster Hunter. Getting access to new fights means new parts to craft new armors and weapons, which is exciting. The game revolves around progression--hell for what modest story there is, they even draw attention to that aspect. New armor pieces mean you can formulate new armor sets that compliment your weapons and is, IMO, one of the funnest aspects to the game, right up there with actually using your sets to kick monster ass.

Level grind can be good game design, but not if you make it a chore. #ExtraCredits

'' If the most efficient way to progress turns out to be the least interesting thing to do - ehh you don't want that '' runescape players: Delet dis

>daniel says off >does a OFF reference by putting the logo on-screen for a second *damn you daniel you clever son of a mom*

I'd say the Fire Emblem series is a great example of using progression systems strategically over the course of the whole game. It's vital to make sure everyone chips in during a battle to make sure they all level up a bit, since you'll need everyone to be at the top of their game with every new chapter. This is especially true in the Conquest branch of the newest game, Fates, where the player can't simply grind "random encounters" over and over and instead has to make do with what little experience and gold they can get from each chronological chapter. You can't just pump all the experience and loot into the main character and try to solo everything (believe me, I tried) since the maps are designed in such a way that a balanced team is almost required to beat them without deaths. On top of this, you have skills, supports and class changes to consider. You have to look at your different units and decide which ones would work well together as a pair in combat - Will they grant each other useful stats when paired up? Will they benefit from learning each other's classes? Will their eventual child inherit good stats, classes and skills, too? All these factors greatly affect the way you setup your army and place your units - the progression systems themselves influence your strategy in a major way in every level.

It really does keep coming back to that age-old problem in games: giving your player meaningful choices to make. If the player lacks agency (or at least the illusion of agency), they're not going to enjoy the experience in the same way. If you give the player too much agency right away, however, you'll scare many players off. The power of meaningful choices in a game is what allows games like Terraria to thrive (go anywhere, do anything!), and simultaneously is what becomes those very same games' biggest problems (where do I go, what do I do?).

An interesting video, as always EC. But I feel you somewhat undersell the common JRPG system of awarding skills and level ups per level in an unchangeable fashion. I would argue those types of progression systems can be very engaging from an exploration perspective. I for one have a lot of fun trying out different pokemon because I'm excited to see what interesting moves each creature learns. Not knowing how our characters will develop as we level up makes getting the big rewards more awesome because we totally didn't see them coming. That being said, most of this episode seemed focused on MMOs, not single player games, and I'd readily agree that a long-term skill tree system is better for those types of games, but you didn't really make the distinction in this episode so I felt like pointing it out.

I belive Dark Souls has an amazing Progression System, because I often find myself lost in strategy when leveling up. On top of that Dark Souls 3 allows complete respec

have they covered binary morality systems yet? i would really like to hear there thoughts on the matter

No mention of Terraria, a game all about progression without a skill tree

So... since it was added in the video... Bacon and omelette, or Belgian Waffles?

I like the way that some Minecraft mods will redo survival minecraft to have better pacing through a progression system. Just seeing all the different ways that they achieve this is exciting because some mods will change crafting recipies, others will change or add mechanics, some even use maps to control what resources the player gets and when. Some of my favorite progression systems in modded Minecraft are the Regrowth modpack from the FTB Launcher and the Better Than Wolves mod.

This makes me think of how the most recent Fire Emblem titles tie their progression system to the characters very well. Classes and weapons are all something personalized by each individual person playing the game, and we often feel *closer* to our units because of how we progress them, to the extent of sometimes choosing the progression that feels more in character as opposed to the one that makes the most battle strategy sense.

Everything you listed can also have a nasty dark side to it. You describe the dictionary definition of min/maxing like an unambiguously good thing, it "allows players to plan ahead." No, it FORCES players to plan ahead, and some of us don't enjoy that. Indeed, this very aspect is why I stopped playing MMOs when City of Heroes closed down - I'm sick of not playing the actual game in order to mess with the meta-game. Similarly, rewarding the most "efficient" way to play your game is a trap for those of us who aren't goal-oriented and don't want the most efficient path. Typically in games with a progression system, "the most efficient path" is playing on a higher difficulty, under the mistaken impression that all players want to be challenged. No, some of us don't. Some of us are all too happy to play on a middling difficulty for the power fantasy, and it's more than a little disheartening to be told that we're enjoying the game wrong. There's a lot of good to be had with progression systems, yes, but this video seems to believe the MMO approach is it. I disagree.

I'm always waiting for this to come out each Wednesday. :D

I want to have a carrer change in my life and go after a life long dream of becoming a game developer, I've just turned 29 a couple months ago and I've been able to go back to the univerisity to attend computer engeneering, the work you are doing here is priceless for me, I wouldnt be able to easily and readily get this info anywhere, even from most books as my time is very very limited, thank you very much! Please don't ever stop this channel, and if I can help in any way let me know!

Great episode. Just please, stop using Wow as an example of good progression...there are of course much worse methods used by other games, but (out of the bigger titles) there is no game made to date that succeeds to waste your time with mindless grind better then Wow.

Idk if linear progression systems in jRPGs are a bad thing, I wouldn't want a skill tree for every character in Persona 3, I get just as much diversity by picking which party members come with me.

I always wish I had the ability to talk about a subject with the thoughtfulness of this channel.

This is some of the best content I’ve ever seen about video games. Thank you so much for sharing! This is incredible. I can’t thank you enough.

I would be really excited about a Civilization game where the all the aesthetics, culture, technology and mechanical traits of your civilization are completely determined by the resources available to it with respect to its natural environment. For example, you wouldn't have a tech tree, so your discoveries would feel a lot more like discoveries. Instead, your technology would progress based on the actions you take, like the progression system in Skyrim. You gain knowledge (aka experience points) each time you build a certain building or unit, fight a battle or discover a new area. And the more you do anything, the better you get at doing it. When you build multiple units of the same kind in the same city, that city (and only that city and others doing the same thing) gradually starts to build the next same units faster until it reaches a speed cap (because realism). Once these units fight and gain experience in battles, they will gain traits according to the terrain they fought in and the kinds of enemies they faced (some warriors can be better at hunting down spearmen while others can be better at killing other warriors, in forests or uphill). Likewise, technologies such as steel would eventually become available in a city only after that city has used its forge for a period to produce a lot of iron-based units. There would be no preset number of actions--just a progression bar. If the national education level in that civilization is high enough, the leader can commission dedicated research facilities for certain techs its respective cities are experts at. Institutions and roads can help spread the tech to different cities. Finally, units of the same category will also differ aesthetically and mechanically based on the environment of their cities of origin or after they stated in a certain environment for a couple of turns. Warriors from a city surrounded by forests will look and behave differently from warriors from a desert city. This can be fixed later with an institution to standardize weapons quality, bringing your army from a seemingly more tribal rabble to a real standing military. To balance, a unit's traits in one terrain decreases the longer they fight outside of that terrain. These traits are then replaced with ones suited for their current environment. This means that an elite jungle unit may not have the necessary traits to fight in an urban setting. I stress traits instead of attack or defense points to allow more customization. Institutions can be created and enforced to make sure they at least go in with the most suitable equipment available to your race. I don't know. I just think it would be very exciting to play this kind of game.

4:45... The real life personality of healers in MMO's is so incredibly volatile towards their teammates though xD

A video on how to not make grinding suck? One of my new favorite episodes :D

Standart game progression system nowadays: _"SLAP THAT BATTLEPASS ON THIS GAME"_

I really like how you connect each episode's topic or theme to a previous video, it really helps explain things and expand on what your original idea is all about.

Splatoon music! :D

1:28 "thinking about your build" Nooo, you just copy what a wiki says is the best.

I found them through extra history and I fell instantly in love with the channel and seeing how I love games mythology and I want to get a PhD in history this is an amazing channel for me

I love the way you say comfortable @2:56. Too many people say "comf-ter-ble"

What if a game had no player progression? For instance, you're given control of a character that one-shots everything up until about 1/8 of the way through the game, assuming you can actually hit them, and then things start to get tougher? Enemies take more hits, they use better tactics, etc. So your character has no (permanent) stat changes, just trods along through the enemies that they can, until you reach a point where it takes more skill to defeat an enemy, rather than simply beefing up your DPS by investing stat points correctly? Eventually you'd reach a point where the game demands fast reflexes in order to just _survive_ a battle, instead of thriving in it. Or would that not work?

Pillars of Eternity has a great progression system that feels a lot like the long-term, planned out, very rewarding style of character development you see in tabletop RPGs. I wish more games were like it.

2:12 Dan Gilbert did a TED talk on happiness with decisions. While different from the always available to edit system, their test concluded that people were generally happier with their choices if they were not given the chance to change their choice later on.

Thanks for putting that as the outro music, I haven't been playing Splatoon since they shut down Splatfests and I forgot how good the music in that game sounds.

h-he mentioned dawn of war... i am so happy.... FOR THE EMPEROR!!! FOR THE IMPERIUM!!!!

Medic: I shall slay all who dare oppose me and spill their blood upon the altar to the dark one who puts the quaver in your heart. Knight: *blinks* Medic: Where did you think those hit points came from? I don't heal anybody, I just move damage from you to those orphans tied up in my trunk Knight: *picks up honorable profession, like thievery*

The art has gotten better and better. I like the Sonic reference at 0:46.

XCom Enemy unknown (and Enemy Within) is a great example of how to do it right. Every level up your soldiers get, you make an important decision which forms to what role they actually play. Furthermore, the technology and the advanced equipment reward players who take risks with an opportunity for additional progress. Thus, progress isn't boring grinding but about taking risks and making decisions. That's especially true if you look at the iron man mode: since you may lose your soldiers when you make a mistake, the decision to take a risk is meaningful - and every battle is important.

Somebody plays magic.

Where does monster hunter fall in this? Isn't it kinda both things?..

I liked how in Final Fantasy XIII-2 you could choose what "class" you wanted to be after unlocking the first artefact. The game fixed all the mistakes the original XIII had, and made very well use of the progression system with the crystarium system. I'm thinking about making a game where everyone starts out with a certain class but can dual-class once they unlock it and spend points into unlocking the second class. It gives the player time to learn the initial class before going off the beaten path and customizing their experience... without creating an initial Mary Sue. XIII-2 had better potential than XIII, but it made that exact mistake where you could level up way too fast, resulting in a perpetual Level 99 character mid-game. Bosses fell like regular enemies at that point.

One JRPG that does this really well is Bravely Second. It features a job system that allows characters to be customized and put into specific roles rather than being stuck in one. There are a ton of stupid combos and skills, plus planning your build is very fun. I've restarted the game thrice just to progress through it again.

that outro tho...

Warframe is a pretty good example of a game with a lot of grind but where the grind is fun and the progression rewarding.

I actually have a comment about something specific you brought up: the idea that a progression system can be used to teach the players over time specific elements of the game. This can work, but it NEEDS to have each item clearly laid out and the advantages of using it clearly spelled out. I have played game after game where a mechanic either isn't properly explained, or the advantages of using it are never clearly laid out to me (usually because I find what I was already doing more efficient or easier to do), only to hit a brick wall later in progression when those skills become %100 necessary to progress. I honestly cannot state this aspect strongly enough, as I find it happens most frequently in the MMO space you noted, but also it a lot of more action-oriented games . This is especially true when you unlock a new ability and they seem to feel you'll be so enamored with it that you'll just start using it all the time and learn it, where-as I tend to ignore any new abilities after learning how it functions because I have already become comfortable with the methods I already have and find this new wrinkle needlessly complicates things beyond my ability to keep track of. It really should be said that in addition to there being time to learn it, there need to be ways the game teaches you said ability is not just necessary, but important to spend the time to put into your kit.

I really like how Kerbal Space Program works. You start out with a very limited amount of engines and fuel tanks or anything, so you find out how to become very good at using those select things. Once you reach a goal or gain more science points, you are able to unlock new engines and experiment with them. It may sound like normal, but the game is so hard that making rockets with these bare bones parts takes a lot of ingenuity, and when you finally pass a goal with your crazy design it feels good. There is also an option to skip that whole part and have everything unlocked, which is good for players who know how the game works, but can be very intimidating to new players because of how hard the game actually is.

Wish Bethesda watched this when making Fallout 4...

Destiny loot cave? Would someone mind explaining that one to me?

I like how your ending music was a remix from Splatoon, which just overhauled (and greatly improved) its progression system.

Well, I like free moving PC games, where your expertise of timing the WASD buttons and clicking is right, and figuring out how hitboxes work in the game. Sure a stat boost helps, but being able to customize your playstyle indefinitely and being immersed in a whole pvp fast paced game is what really catches me, and when it's put into an RPG then grandly executed? Man do I love it

"Skill A Gained." Why did I read that as if Mario had said it? Skill a-gained!

Talent Trees in WoW. Those were the days when it was still fun.

I like the Paper Mario series' take on level ups. When you level up, you get a choice of levelling up HP (lets you withstand attacks longer) FP (lets you do more attacks per battle) and BP (increases the amount of passive and direct effects you can choose to have in a battle). You can't upgrade your attack stat, but instead find items that increase your base damage and let you progress through the story, which helps control the flow of the game and prevents you from one shotting enemies. You also get new moves and effects to do in battle by equipping badges (BP stat lets you wear more), which you find throughout the world/ can be acquired by trading in other collectibles. This means you improve through exploration and puzzle solving, and instead of getting "stronger", you gain more tools to use at your disposal. No attack stat also means that you won't be doing 543 damage, which is hard to measure, but will instead be doing 1-10 damage, which is easy to compare to other moves damages.

I really liked how Skyrim managed its progression system. You start out terrible at everything, without having to be pegged to a pre-selected class. You gain experience points, both for your character's overall level and for the particular skill that you're using at the time. It means that you aren't tied to a specific skill set (as you would be if you had had to choose your character class at the beginning), and you are actually rewarded in a tangible way for trying to develop skills. Plus, you can end up being a thief who dabbles in alchemy, or a magic user who is also great with a bow and a trained bard. So flexible! It would have been even better if the story had supported that flexibility a bit more, but I'll take what I can get. As an aside, guys, I hope you get a chance to record more Side Quest. It's very enjoyable to watch you wander around Dark Souls and talk about its design.

I like how POE has a skill tree that is massive, and has a few real game changers

I think random generations are the best way to spice up progression pyramids

The Souls series is one of the best examples for great progression system design. "Grinding" doesn't feel gimmicky, because there's always a risk in looping through a grinding cycle. Progression only actually happens after you've defeated a really difficult boss or survived through a difficult dungeon by the teeth of your skin while carrying souls enough for a few levelups. Even levelling up attributes feel so good, because they unlock certain advantages that otherwise the game would not allow (i.e. a high strength weapon or a good spell). At least in my opinion, games should be taking notes from this game, more than any other RPG in the market.

Excellent example of an engaging progression system: Dungeon Hearts uses a match-3 system for gaining extra XP post-combat. Coolest level-up I've ever played.

This is one of the reasons Skyrim is one of my favorite games.

no mention of Monster Hunter?

A couple great examples of progression systems I found came from two flash games: The Epic Battle Fantasy series (namely 2) and Crystal Story. . The two have a very different way of approaching the progression system, but I find them both pretty impressive. Epic Battle Fantasy 2 eliminates grinding, putting you on a linear path where you can choose specific perks go your character as you progress. its your job as the player, not only to determine what skills and equipment best applies for your current battle, but also what perks and stat boosts will benefit you the most in the long run. it'd a very precise, focused form of progression, carefully built around the sequence of encounters you face. . Crystal Story, on the other, hand, is an entirely different animal. while you have 4 characters that all have their own (mostly) unique equipment and skill trees, their role in battle can vary wildly based on what you equip them with and what skill tree(s) you choose to follow, since you can build on any three available trees for each character no matter how far you are into any one tree. This offers you an immense amount of freedom in choosing how you cover all your bases in battle. Do you build four distinct classes to have a consistent variety and flexibility in your battle method? Do you build your team to have one power class and back him up with three healers? Do you follow a specific skill tree to work your way to its most powerful techniques, or do you spread yourself thin across all three, trading that strength for more variety in utility. . Final Fantasy did a lot of great things for JRPGs, but it also introduced a lot of bad tropes into the genre, most notorious of all the "spam attack and grind mobs and spam high damage spells on the bosses, but never use any special attacks because the mobs aren't worth it and the bosses are always immune" trope. And a lot of great JRPGs - even Ni no Kuni - have fallen into this trap. So its nice to see people who are putting this much thought into exploring the mechanical potential of a genre that doesn't have to go stale.

I recently found an example where the progression system tied into the story, or rather the lack of it. In the obscure Square RPG Live A Live, during the Kung-Fu chapter you play as an old master who starts off at a high level but as he is reaching the end of his life, cannot gain more experience and must seek out younger pupils to train who start out low leveled but can eventually surpass him.

Love the content

KOTOR II has a good level up system. The whole game is great.

I would love an episode involving progression systems in multiplayer games, such as Team Fortress 2, Battlerite, Overwatch, Paladins (and its Cards Unbound system), League of Legends, etc. Basically, games that have account progression, but all gameplay is in a PVP environment

Guild Wars 2 has done an excellent job with progressions as well, especially after the HOT release. Once the initial balancing occurred, the skill point system actually brought people together to play the content with its group events and encouraged finding hidden locations. The long term rewards added flavor to the class as a whole with the specialized skins and provided a storyline of its own about perfecting your elite specialization. While the mastery system is a bit grindy, xp is much easier these days and it still adds story elements.

Was that Micheal J. Fox installing a toilet?

Terraria.... Need I say more?

Noice end music, it's so fresh

Since this video is on the subject of progression systems, it got me thinking about progression systems in a PvP environment. So I'd like to suggest talking about progression systems in PvP games in a future episode at some point. What are the upsides, the downsides, what makes a good system for progression in a PvP setting and what makes a bad system, etc. I'm suggesting this because many games do it wrong, offering imbalanced rewards to the people who played the game longer, but a progression system isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I am reminded of SMT 4, where grinding a demons level means that you can get its skills, but means it will take longer until you can fuse it.

i love the roguelites progression system where you unlock new possible unlocks at the end of each run..making later runs more varied or even have the possibility of haivng that one broken great run, Ziggurat being my favorite.

Nobody terrified how encouragingly he's talking about energy systems and that they're ADDING to the games?

2:20 good players will often use this to their advantage by planning out paths where they will go for a build more centered toward the early game, then respec once they have the right resources to make their late game build work.

I used to have fun in Disney Infinity when I would figure out ways to blow up a bunch of enemies at once to level up characters quickly. They made their leveling system in a way that grinding could be made fun by the player if they so choose.

Interesting music choice for the end... would be fun to hear some thoughts on the associated progression scheme and player retention mechanics.

The Souls franchise does this beautifully, where progression feels rewarding. Not because you leveled up or bought an overpowered ability, but because the game trains you to become better at handling it's mechanics. It takes you starting out as a noob, and transforms you into a badass. By forcing you to learn to progress. We all remember our virgin playthroughs of a Souls game. We died. A lot. But when we finally got through the game, and started our new game+, it wasn't nearly as hard. Infact enemies that were destroying us in the beginning were almost double in strength now, yet it still wasn't hard, some might say it was easy. And it's not because the easier, it was because we had been battle trained to be badasses. And when we get to NG+7 for DS1 or NG+13 for DS2 when everything is insanely difficult, and we are still rolling everything with our lvl 120 quality builds, its because we got gud. And that feeling, truly is irreplaceable. Especially when you watch your friends get rekt on things that at one time destroyed you. Ornstein, Smough, I'm looking at you.

this!!! this is what I have been looking for an explanation this stuff quite literally makes or breaks a game for me. 90% of all RPGs will fail at this and my favorities are always good at this. Quality upgrade/progression mechanics should be up there with main fundamental mechanics when developing a game.

I'm not a programmer at all, so there's no reason this video should've been suggested to me, but for some reason I sat here and watched it in full screen. I enjoyed the information even though I may not use it, but who knows? You may have just sparked a mind. We'll see what happens. Thanks.

Another way to break up the monotony of experience grinding is to have only certain actions level up a certain part of a skill tree. It gives a sense of working towards something in particular and naturally diversifies the game play and player experiences. I feel that this makes growth in different areas feel more rewarding/earnt and a great reminder that you are working on a bigger picture as you plan out the route to the class you want. *Bonus:* makimg certain activitied important to a certain class's growth increases the replayability and is makes it more enticing to try out more class types.

The problem with talent based skill trees is that they are most of the time the same talents with different values which leads to players find the perfect skills for a given end number such as dps or hps. Youd need to invent new tasks like buffing or debuffing that are not only beneficial but absolutely essential for a group to encourage diverse builds. Also you could create raids with smaller grouo requirements like 3 people with high difficulty high reward balance to encourage hybrid classes

Most people probably wouldn't care about it but I felt this way about the sword and gun morphs in fable three. I'm rather obcessed with how my character looks and what actions would fit my character. I'm one of those who almost immediately start thinking about how my character would be if I get to make them however I want. With Fable 3's weapon morphs you'd get a level up to melee attack power but the morph you received was directly tied to your style of play. The more you complete tasks that lead to the morph you want the more likely you are to receive that morph. So I found myself grinding friendship quests and finding a family to get presents from, using more spells to kill enemies, and grinding wolves to ensure I get the sword morphs I want. All the while building up tons of seals to spend on other upgrades. When I felt I was ready to try for my morph I'd use the save exploit to try the roll a few times and if I didn't get the one I wanted I'd go back and do more tasks that would further improve my chances. No matter what appearance my weapon had it still had the same upgrade no morph was better than the other. It was a statement of your character.

I love how almost everything mentioned in this video applies to Dark Souls. Dark souls 2 tried to improve this formula with the ability to respec ones character but also unfortunately removed some of the influence progression has with the lore. Eg, reaching max rank in the chaos covenant and curing the fair lady in dark souls 1. Compared to simply getting shiner in dark souls 2. BloodBorne, due to its lack of content missed a lot of the opportunity to make players think about their build when there was only a small handful of options per build. And lore? Well covenants had no progression so it was a real shame to see that go. And as one would expect....many of the major Souls RU-vidrs have moved back to dark souls 1 and 2 again. Great video, it really explains how the players feel about the game.

Now i see what Meet your Match is for! attracting new players and keeping their time!

love how you brought up the loot cave

I think a good example where it's done well is Tales of Vesperia. Of course you are rewarded in typical JRPG fasion where all the characters gain a set number of stats and skills in a linear order as you level up, but there is also the weapon skill system that allows players to actively pick their abilities and learn new artes and spells after they have used a weapon for x number of battles. Even if ultimately you can't learn or even equip each skill in one run, you have to strategize how you are going to handle each character in order to learn all the skills and artes possible so you can maximize the character by the end-game. You are getting the benefits of a pre-determined JRPG level up that allows the developers to keep the pace regardless of the players choices, but it gives the players the level of agency a Western RPG tends to have and can allow players to bypass the characters innate weaknesses by giving them more movement and stat allocation options.

I think one of the best examples of intuitive use of grinding is found in the Pokemon Series, specifically with IVs. If you want to build the best team, you think it out and use the best Pokemon for each job, depending on what stat you're looking to max. Plus, you get a big reward - your Pokemon can be MUCH more effective in battle. Plus, the main parts of the game don't require this, and you can slowly familiarize and understand it as you look into the post-game and possibly competitive play.

I think a good example of the Progression System is from the Persona or Pokemon Series. While characters do learn set skills at set levels, you can customize which set of skills they have access too.

Somewere in this episode I got reminded of S4 League (which I also has up in the background right now, not important). Anyways, S4 League has one of the best (IMO) progression systems I've seen. There are 80 levels split up between 6 ranks (not counting the level 0 only Newbie rank). Each group of ranks have their own play channels. At first, the player is locked out of almost every channel, exept the first one. While ranking up 2 times (to the Amateur rank), the player unlocks that play channel. After a couple levels more, the Rookie channel (the first one) is locked. In that way, the game lets you work your way to the skill cap of that channel, and then moving on to the next to face players with equal or higher skill and it goes on like that. The game's progression only accounts for player skill, not stats or cosmetics. What fascinates me so much about it is just that: you progress by skill alone. And it works... or well, as long as it had enough players for the system. Now everyone is on the "free" channels (all-level channels, exept free 2 which is level 8 and above).

+Extra Credits The biggest problem with progression systems is that 95% or better of the "progression" options offered are considered sub-par, unacceptable or gimp by the player community while one setup is generally accepted as optimal. Therefore even though the developer may think they are offering a very rich and complex progression tree, the reality to the players is that the majority of those "options" may as well not even exist.

In my opinion, the division 2 balances the progression pretty well, and on the search of trying to maximize and optimize your build, it pushes you to try new things, going to places and activities you normally wouldn't. Its quite interesting for a light-in-lore, online focus game.

Got so hyped for that brainstorm art, put those 2 cards back on top tho my friend.

I loved how you brought up DoW...my favorite game series

one thing to note about talent trees is that they should open new venues of play, rather then simply stacking extra bonuses upon existing numbers. As a long-time player of D&D, when 3rd ed came out with a ton of player customization options (as opposed to 2nd ed's "well, you get to pick your gear!") lots of people experimented with combinations of abilities and when it came down to character builds things usually focused around making your characters' one trick into an even better trick, as unoptimized characters can easily fall into an early pitfall of being far too reliant on the RNG of the d20 to be successful in tasks, so the most often picked feats where those that gave you methods of greatly enhancing your damage, to-hit, spell saves, caster levels... whatever numbers your class used the most. And even in games where combat wasn't the focus, it was rather easy to stack a bunch of numbers together to create characters who were so good at stealing that they could steal their own pants off without noticing they had done so. Or jumping if that's your thing. Part of the issue would be the scaling of numbers, in that D&D's math, well... sucks. Some numbers don't go up quick enough to stay relevant without help while others, while others can cause issues if you don't take care to keep them at a relevant number. Sometimes these feats or talents seem like taxes "well, if you want to keep being useful, gotta pay your feat tax!" as otherwise your character needs to be carried by the rest of the group. Other times these can feel like a weird backhanded bugfix. "we know this thing doesn't work, so instead of revising the system, you can use this one resource slot to not suffer our ineptitude!". I would say the ideal talent tree, rather then simply making existing abilities numerically better (though i'm not saying to entirely dump the idea, rather you should build off it) should rather broaden their use. It's fine for new characters to start off somewhat limited in their abilities, as when the game progresses the skill required to complete tasks should be going up and allow the player to make use of a progressively larger pool of versatile (and thematic!) abilities that they unlock through play.