Skill Tree Hard Cap & Transport Ox Changes I’d like in Albion Online

I’m having a great time in Albion Online. Our K&G Community Guild has our own island which is built up with higher-tier crafting and refining stations. My own personal island is now level 6/6 with four full farms. We’re starting to identify the strategies we will use at launch to propel ourselves in a great direction.

The more that I play Albion Online, the more I do see the potential for issues down the road with certain mechanics and features. Other features I simply would change to make them better. I’m keeping a running list of changes and would like to share two of my most-wishes for things.

albion-online-skill-tree

Hard Cap the Skill Tree

Everyone can eventually master everything. Just a few months after the launch of closed beta there are already people wearing tier 8 gear, riding the best ox, the best horse, and doing the top-end things in the game. That part is fine, but what do these people do next? They start to master the other trees, and eventually specialization is pointless.

One of Albion Online’s greatest lures for me was the idea that it would take a LONG time to master everything, thus dissuading people from being able to ‘do it all.’ I think that “long time” hasn’t panned out quite as I would have liked.

As an alternative, I’d like a hard cap implemented. Players have to choose which direction to specialize because they would have a finite amount of points. The Learning Point system could be altered such that it’s a pool of points to unlock sections of the tree, and those points would not regenerate.

Another alternative would be to lock people out of sections of the skill tree upon advancing in other areas. For example, the more skill you gain in wearing plate the less you are able to gain in crafting plate.

Rework Transport Oxes

Albion Online Transport OxI’m a gatherer. Essentially all of my guildies have been gatherers for two weeks. All we do is gather materials. We’re weird like that. In UO we were gatherers too. We gather up lots of materials, then we use them to craft. Across our dozens of hours of gathering we have noticed a few annoyances with how transport oxes work.

In order to use a transport ox to lower your weight encumbrance you have to use it like a mount. However, when dismounting you can essentially be so overloaded you can’t even move. When dismounting you are also given a penalty to ability cooldowns so that when dismounting you can’t use any abilities for what feels like 20-30 seconds. This penalty makes sense for normal mounts because of PvP implications. It’s better that way. But for gathering, when dismounting and 500% encumbered unable to move, having a bear eat you sucks.

I propose a system similar to UO’s pack mules. Let the ox follow behind. The ox would be vulnerable to attack from NPCs and players. When it dies, it drops all materials like a player’s corpse. That way the player who is gathering doesn’t have to mount and dismount regularly in order to move about — an act which felt unnatural anyway to have your ox disappear into your pocket then pop out magically. Mounting up for 2 feet to jump node to node also feels unnatural.

These simple changes are just two ways in which the game could radically be altered for the better. I’m eager to see what changes make it in the next patch. The February state of the game looked like a great start.

  • I completely understand your point in regards to the Destiny Board and the need for some sort of cap or limit. I trust you are familiar with idea behind project management triangle? Something that shares that perspective would really benefit a game like this. You are pretty much there with your idea about the destiny board. The DB branches out from the center into three sections: crafting, gathering and combat. If we look at mage tower crafter that section branches out from the general crafting and if you add all the various crafting trees there are 250 tier unlocks you can earn in mage tower crafting. Given enough time (and lets be honest, bots will be used) a player can eventually master them all. The only way I see that not happening is if each specialized skill tree has a tier limit. If mage tower crafter has 250 tiers to unlock but the player can only ever amass 125 tiers then they can only master perhaps two or three. They could master one and raise all the others up a little higher, never mastering more than the one. You could even take the tier unlocks to a wider scale and spread them across all three branches of the DB if you like. That would mean players could completely ignore crafting and gathering and just dump all the tier unlocks into combat and be some sort of hard core soldier that can master multiple weapons and armor sets but not do more than the most basic gathering and refining. Basically the DB needs some sort of numerical equation that will mimic the reality that in life we can not learn everything and master every skill. There simply is not enough time. This goes back to the project management triangle… you can do it fast or you can do it good or you can do it cheap. Not all three though. The DB needs this kind of mechanic otherwise this will basically just be a journey to an end which sees all players eventually master of all skills and trades.

  • If there is a skill cap, it would also need to work like UO, where once you hit the max, skill points can be lost in order to expand other areas. This prevents any “mistakes” down the line which I’m sure we can all agree would not be the intended consequence of a skill cap.

    Also, the idae of a skill cap basically forces a player to just have alts for crafting, gathering, and different combat skills. It won’t prevent the mega hardcore people from being able to do everything eventually. I understand your concern but in reality its impossible to prevent.

  • Oh absolutely 100% agree. Skill points should be 100% re-allocatable. In fact, with only minimal alteration the Albion Online skilltree and hardcap could work just the the one in SWG. SWG had the best skill tree system I’ve seen, and like AO involves earning experience by doing the act, then allocating points to unlock.

    As for people making alts, yes. People will make alts. However, AO limits premium membership PER CHARACTER which means people would be spending 2X the gold (or subscription) to keep both premium. Still, it’s unpreventable. You are correct. But people doing everything on their own would become the exception rather than the rule.

  • I have a note about Mounted Units and being attacked by bears, etc.
    If you are wearing low tier cloth, this may not work, but:
    When you dismount yourself, you incur the 15 second Cooldown penalty. If something dismounts you by reducing your Mount Health to 0, you DO NOT incur the 15 second penalty and can attack / Flee immediately. Ox are tough, because with low tier cloth gear, your Ox can actually outlive you. This is the same with PvP. Sometimes, if you think using Flee can get you out of a situation and you will survive your mount, it can be better to let them kill your mount.

    Also, the talk of Alts needing to be made premium, and that being an issue for taking advantage of specialization, is a little comical. quite a few people in my guild have amassed enough personal wealth at this point to buy all 3 of their characters 360 Days worth of premium. Coming by money is too exploitable for those that know, and takes more effort for those that don’t. This is one thing I don’t like about the economy. Fine, a player driven economy. Great idea. Everyone assumes they are economic geniuses, but in reality there is much disparity between the rich and the poor, and it makes the game extremely unbalanced.

    I don’t care much what they do with the Destiny Board, as long as it doesn’t completely screw casual players, cause I can’t dump in hours and hours like I used it.

  • The economy is going to change. It’s broken right now because it was going to be a F2P game and now it’s going to be B2P. The model simply doesn’t work long-run.

    I’ve made 4.8 million silver. Definitely enough for a few year subs. I wouldn’t spend that on an alt, though. Not when gaining fame is so easy on one single character.