For all skills which I have not mentioned, assume that I consider them functional/relevant, appropriate/acceptable, and/or of good design, and/or good skill “tree” positioning.
[a] Replace MAKE ‘EM COUNT as it’s a total deadweight skill that at best requires an autoclicker script to promote-from-worthless, and which people simply must pass through to unlock MARKSMAN.
[b] Nerf FLANKING, it should have a maximum trigger rate, currently you can stunlock a reaper.
[c] Rework COMMANDER as it’s worthless to richer players, and is glitch-prone when if you switch specializations mid-game (doing this can break all radios on map for you).
[d] Replace CARRY CAPACITY which is a basically mandatory skill for anyone that wants to have a sufferable experience. Only exceptionally rare players with multiple high level character will choose to not use it. Instead, carry weight should simply increase by 1 point each level. Additionally the skill should be completely replaced.
Although, in the current structure I actually greatly appreciate the design of this skill tree and placing CARRY CAPACITY after the also-generally-desirable skills affecting movement speed.
[e] Replace VETERAN GUERILLA which is not only crazy tedious (to maintain marking on every enemy you kill), but it’s reliant on abilities from a different skilltree making it potentially worthless. Completely replace it.
[f] COMMANDO is misleading because of complexities in differences between enemy aggression modes and player-character “In Combat” status. Is it the first damage per you entering combat? First damage per enemy entering combat? Can this be utilised by sniping a distracted Reaper from 400 meters?
It seems that the specialization is continually effective if you shoot an enemy from beyond its visual range, however the situations where this can be exploited are very rare. “first damage dealt” is unclear. Its illustration image should depict a trap, sniper-rifle or rocket-launcher as these are the most practically valuable opening attacks to raise by 15%
[g] The SPOTTING INTEL skill description should mention that it shows enemy HP %
[h] The INQUISITIVE MIND skill is a great boon for first-character and power-levelers but screws-over players when they’ve reached high level and discover there is no skills-resetting. I would suggest replacing all increase-experience skills until skills-resetting functionality is in the game. However they would then become absurd as is would be logical for all players to choose faster-level skills first then reset for combat and utility skills.
[i] Update description of REMOTE HACKING as it is unclear what “confusing” entails.
[j] Improve HACKING to also have 100% chance to disable 1 weapon on an enemy, only one hack may be active on any machine at a time. This would make it not-worthless vs larger machines.
[k] Update description of ENGINEER to mention that it actually allows all players in your-hosted session to loot Ticks from enemies. This should be stated. It should also be specified whether the specialisation needs to be active when the enemy dies or when their corpse is looted.
[l] A general point on specializations: The descriptions that “Only one specialization may be active at a time” while technically true, seems half-baked. You can in-fact switch specialization at any time in and out of combat, and each specialisation has extremely different times-of-relevance. You might: Use COMMANDER pre combat to set up radios, COMMANDO or HACKER to initiate combat, MARKSMAN at range, SURVIVOR for 1 free revive when the enemy is close then switch to VANGUARD or MEDIC, then switch to ENGINEER for post-combat looting.
Basically, the single specialization paradigm needs to be reassessed. I believe that all specializations need to be mid-combat benefits or abilities, while those out-of-combat bonuses should be moved to other positions in the skills trees.
Relocated skills could be: (Commando: +5% combat-initiation damage per level × 3)(Commander +1 Field radio use per level × 3)(Engineer +x% chance of Tick Pod per level × Z)
I want to hear from you: what new specializations could be (if you’d like to help me make a case for balanced specializations). Passive healing? Slightly increased damage if no-damage taken for x time? Knockdown immunity? Reduced chance to draw enemy agro? Impair nearby enemy aim? Even more gas resistance?
[m] I don’t believe that the max level is stated anywhere in-game(?)
[n] Lastly, max-level increases and other means of skills points addition have been requested extensively. As I’ve seen them, many have been short-sighted appeals to give extreme-amounts-more points so they can be more powerful, or to gain freedom in an inflexible and punishing skills system. However after a great deal of testing and assessing skills, here is what I support: A mechanism to reset skills points.
(In the case that skills are not reworked: ) An increased to 36 skills points (20% more), via a slightly increased maximum level or otherwise. (Note, there are currently 86 buyable skillpoints.)
Summarised reasoning: After designing and testing multiple builds I’ve found that 30 points is sufficient to build powerful a single-focus character (I have 5 good builds designed), and therefore is currently acceptable - however with 36 points I’m able to build at least 6 setups with much greater utility and versatility, which can cooperate in a perfect team, operate solo comfortably, or contribute to any other random group of teammates. Regarding skills resetting: irreversible points dedication is unacceptable given unclear mechanics and the extreme time-cost of leveling and testing.
I felt it would be unnatural and heavy to dump all of this into another skills discussion thread, of which there are a couple full of strong discussions and suggestions. However those threads are significantly old and slightly outdated including broken hyperlinks at this point.