"we don't want to get this game turned into a new HPWU, so we have to make this as an extra."
I definitely didn't want this to just imitate ideas from the other Niantic games, so I studiously avoided mentioning them. I didn't come up with the title "Skill Trees" and forgot they exist in HPWU even though I play it. After my first post I have been calling them "specializations" instead.
Ingress is a totally different game than Pogo and HPWU, and an idea like this needs to be implemented in a different way. If the developers do create a specialization system and do it right, it will have a positive impact on the Ingress community, giving jaded old players something to do and making the game more intriguing for new players.
If they implement something like this but get it wrong, it will just convince those jaded old players that Niantic doesn't understand why Ingress is special, and new players will wonder why they need this when they already have it in other games.
Now that Prime is starting to function well, I would love to see more new avenues of play, but the new things must definitely be "Ingressy".
For those who don't like recursion playing -too- much of a role, what if we did it like this?
At level 8 or 9, you pick your first archetype. Unlocking new archetypes isn't locked behind recursion. Instead, when you get enough skill points assigned to one, you can choose another to unlock.
Given enough time, you can max out all 13 trees (assuming we're using the plot ones), but only one can be active at a time to level. All powers of your active archetype work (though some may be more powerful active skills with a duration and a cooldown, maybe including an ultimate skill you can use once per day that burns a hypercube to activate), but you get a skill bar to assign powers from others, and you can use only as many as fit on the bar.
The bar can be changed, but on confirming the changes, there's either a long cooldown (a full day?), or a waiting period before the changes actually fire, perhaps an hour.
Doing actions appropriate to your archetype gives you exp in that archetype, granting a skill point every so many points.
Daily quests give additional exp
Special quests, with plot, give major exp for the archetype, and of course, you get the lines for your current one. Certain skills may also be hard-locked until you've gotten far enough in your story for that tree.
Recursion causes your archetypes to level faster. You get 25% more archetype exp for each completed recursion, up to a max of +100%.
This would allow super active players to eventually get all of the skills, and there would be a significant bonus for doing a few recursions... but recursion doesn't unlock anything a first-life player can't get, and since the skill bar's only so large, what you're mainly gaining beyond a certain point is versatility rather than power, ensuring that someone who -does- have everything won't have a massive advantage over someone just barely L16.
I personally like the idea of skill trees... But I don't like tying them to recursion. Recursion should be tied to other levels of play not making players more powerful.
I love when people talk about skill trees and mixing them up with the archetype lore I just think it makes too much sense and I think the idea has been talked about and accepted and supported for so long that it only makes sense. Honestly it felt like that's where they were going when they brought out the archetype lore.
Now for recursion... I think recursed agents should be able to throw recursed fields that are not affected by the normal fields. You can't even see the fields unless you have recursed... So agents who have recursed one time can play on a different plane on top of normal play. Further than this, recursed play can perhaps trigger volatile portals or other such things, maybe even call forth exogenous entities.
Comments
Perhaps a mix would work better?
-Get skill points for every Onys/Fenix badge
-Develop your own skill tree
-Get all skill points back when you recurse so you can get a different skill tree
This would allow one of the goals that was intented for this suggestion 3 years ago: structured Anomaly Teams based on skillsets (not just inventory).
Con: we don't want to get this game turned into a new HPWU, so we have to make this as an extra.
"we don't want to get this game turned into a new HPWU, so we have to make this as an extra."
I definitely didn't want this to just imitate ideas from the other Niantic games, so I studiously avoided mentioning them. I didn't come up with the title "Skill Trees" and forgot they exist in HPWU even though I play it. After my first post I have been calling them "specializations" instead.
Ingress is a totally different game than Pogo and HPWU, and an idea like this needs to be implemented in a different way. If the developers do create a specialization system and do it right, it will have a positive impact on the Ingress community, giving jaded old players something to do and making the game more intriguing for new players.
If they implement something like this but get it wrong, it will just convince those jaded old players that Niantic doesn't understand why Ingress is special, and new players will wonder why they need this when they already have it in other games.
Now that Prime is starting to function well, I would love to see more new avenues of play, but the new things must definitely be "Ingressy".
I love the idea, I'm yet to recurse at all but that sounds like a wonderful idea for making the game more attractive for players that have
The new feature has been mentioned here - https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/15560/ingress-2-74-1-release-notes
and it made me think of this thread as to whether it may be skill trees?
For those who don't like recursion playing -too- much of a role, what if we did it like this?
This would allow super active players to eventually get all of the skills, and there would be a significant bonus for doing a few recursions... but recursion doesn't unlock anything a first-life player can't get, and since the skill bar's only so large, what you're mainly gaining beyond a certain point is versatility rather than power, ensuring that someone who -does- have everything won't have a massive advantage over someone just barely L16.
I personally like the idea of skill trees... But I don't like tying them to recursion. Recursion should be tied to other levels of play not making players more powerful.
I love when people talk about skill trees and mixing them up with the archetype lore I just think it makes too much sense and I think the idea has been talked about and accepted and supported for so long that it only makes sense. Honestly it felt like that's where they were going when they brought out the archetype lore.
Now for recursion... I think recursed agents should be able to throw recursed fields that are not affected by the normal fields. You can't even see the fields unless you have recursed... So agents who have recursed one time can play on a different plane on top of normal play. Further than this, recursed play can perhaps trigger volatile portals or other such things, maybe even call forth exogenous entities.