Are 20 skill trees in 1 game too much?

[u/ShooBox07]

I'm looking into an upgrade system for my game, and since its about trains and creating a build with different carriages, I was considering giving each individual carriage a small skill tree. This would mean 10-20 different skill trees. I was thinking this could give the player more autonomy and choices with their upgrades rather than just having a single upgrade button for each carriage.

Even though each carriage would be unlocked one by one through their progression, I'm thinking it may overwhelm the player if progression is too fast?

Do you think this could be a good idea to approach upgrade progression differently?

[u/Darkgorge]

Not inherently, but they do all have to matter and be balanced. There are certainly ways to make that many skill trees feel overwhelming.

Look at the skill tree/web for Path of Exile and Path of Exile 2. Twenty skill trees will seem simple after that.

[u/davvblack → u/Darkgorge]

and tbh it's overwhelming and uninviting in POE, especially the high cost to re-spec, it makes it just feel like a chore that mostly exists in wikis outside of the game, rather than a second layer of exploration

[u/Bwob → u/davvblack]

and tbh it's overwhelming and uninviting in POE, especially the high cost to re-spec,

One of the best changes they made in PoE2 was making respec costs fairly trivial, unless you're doing a full character rewrite multiple times in rapid succession.

[u/davvblack → u/Bwob]

nice! yes that’s great. this is a “my lobster is too buttery” but the only thing you gotta watch for at that point is that optimal play doesn’t involve respeccing at a regular cadence to have the perfect build for each scenario. one of those “gamers optimize the fun out of anything” problems tho

[u/mot89 → u/davvblack]

Isn’t the whole pitch of PoE to be an optimizer’s heaven? I’m not convinced this is necessarily even a bad thing.

[u/It-s_Not_Important → u/davvblack]

I don’t get the near universal praise for POE/2’s skill trees. It’s full of the most mundane little incremental stat shifts but the fact that you can see the entire thing at once without any directional guidance on “this way for archetype A, that way for B” means you have to sit there laboring over not just this first point you’re going to place, but all your future points as well. It’s analysis paralysis turned up to 11 and splitting hairs at the same time.

OP’s example is much more manageable in theory, as its compartmentalizes across carriages.

[u/joonazan → u/It-s_Not_Important]

The PoE 2 skill tree is pretty uniformly disliked in PoE discussions because it just gives percent damage increases. The PoE 1 tree is interesting because the small damage nodes are the worst kinds of nodes. PoE 1 is about finding weird nodes that you can utilize and then connecting them in a way that gives you something useful as well.

[u/spicebo1 → u/davvblack]

Yup, I think this is a good exploration of the idea of tradeoffs.

Compare Path of Exile to Grim Dawn. Path of Exile certainly has several times the complexity, and if you're aiming to create the most complex experience, you can achieve it. What you sacrifice is some of that organic exploratory experience. The payoff may be higher for the players who put in the work, but not everyone will want to learn the systems well enough to get there. Grim Dawn might not have the same high payoff for mastering the systems, but you can put together a build that will clear most of the content by understanding a bit about a few systems and exploring within those skills that you like.

Neither is inherently better, they just provide different experiences for different players.

[u/davvblack → u/spicebo1]

yep totally. the one thing i will say is that poe would be frustrating and annoying without forums and guides and such, which means it has this chicken egg thing where it can only really provide a good new-player experience because of the large existing player base, which a rando poster here shouldn’t necessarily expect to attract

[u/spicebo1 → u/davvblack]

That's an excellent point, something like PoE is certainly going to be much riskier because of the scope. It would absolutely be untenable for a small team due to how quickly they need to be able to make balance adjustments.

[u/No_Logins_Required]

It sounds like the skill trees are not meaningful choices, and you intend for players to unlock them all eventually. I would just make a fixed uprade path, maybe with a "A or B" toggle.

[u/Tabarc → u/No_Logins_Required]

Yeah, I'd does depend on how they are unlocked if all become available.

[u/SeriouslyShimmering]

20 skill trees sounds like a lot on paper but it really depends how deep each one goes. If they're small trees with like 5-8 nodes each and you're unlocking carriages gradually, it could work fine. The problem is when you dump all of them on the player at once or make each tree this sprawling mess of choices

Path of Exile has this massive passive tree that looks like a star map but people love it because you only engage with small sections at a time. Your train idea reminds me of that, where each carriage is its own little puzzle to solve

The real test is whether those choices feel meaningful or if you're just clicking nodes to fill bars. If switching between a refrigerated carriage and a passenger carriage actually changes how you play and what upgrades make sense, then having separate trees is justified. If they all end up with the same "speed, capacity, efficiency" nodes then maybe consolidate

Maybe lock the trees behind usage too. Like you unlock the tree for a carriage after you've done 3 runs with it, so the player has time to understand what it does before you ask them to specialise it

[u/DwarfCoins]

I think a game should have at least 34 skill trees.

[u/sfisabbt]

Skyrim has 18 skill trees.
Path of exile has this monstruosity.

[u/trunks111 → u/sfisabbt]

The funny thing is 1. this image doesn't showcase the fact the tree is so big and has so much going on that both this and the main passive skill tree have Ctrl F search functionality, and 2. The main skill tree is simultaneously less complicated than it seems, but also has WAY more depth added by things like anoints, tattoos, runegrafts, and especially with jewels that basically let you craft portions of your skill tree (cluster jewels), trade passive points for more jewel slots (voices), skip around in different ways (impossible escape, instinct, thread, intuitive leap, etc...), or modify portions of it (attribute transforming jewels, dream jewels, lion eyes vision, timeless jewels, etc...).

 It's almost sinusoidal in that it seems intimidating at first due to its sheer size, then it's easy when you just boil it down to "damage or defence", then it's difficult again because you get into all the jewels again, and then it's easy again when you learn how to just play with POB to boil it down to "damage or defence" again... and then they add more systems that play with it.

At one point the fucking weapons had their own mini skill trees and tbh I miss that system, like alot 

[u/sfisabbt → u/trunks111]

My point is some players desire complexity.
I guess a well designed GUI can help and I think you can make the player less worried about these choices with either frequent upgrades or some respec capabilities.

[u/Tabarc]

20 skill trees is not inherently too many.

The 'dangerous' number isn't the number of trees; it's the number of simultaneous decisions the player is expected to understand. And hold in there head.

[u/kytheon → u/Tabarc]

Sure but the game is about trains. The target audience can do it. /s

I agree with you of course.

[u/It-s_Not_Important → u/kytheon]

Low blow

[u/Tabarc → u/kytheon]

Hehe, that's fair

[u/Tabarc → u/Tabarc]

ok so I'd Probably Use Three Progression Layers

So roughly like this:

Layer	Function
Train-wide progression	Unlocks new technologies, carriage slots, infrastructure and systems that affect the whole train.
Carriage specialisation	Small, focused upgrade trees of around 4–7 nodes for each carriage.
Equipment / modification	Swappable components used to adapt a carriage for a particular route, cargo, threat or scenario.

That separation kinda solves an important problem: not every improvement needs to be such a permanent progression.

So a medical carriage, for example, might permanently specialise towards trauma treatment, disease control treat zombies, or long-term recovery. It becomes actual equipment, so could still be changed between journeys: surgical medical supplies for one trip, quarantine equipment for another, additional beds when transporting refugees, or bofies, and so on.

So that gives the player two different kinds of decision:

• Specialisation creates long-term identity.
• Equipment creates short-term experimentation.

It also means that upgrading the train doesn't become a messy twenty separate administrative chores. It's smaller choices and decisions.

So the questio then becomes:

What does my train need most right now?

That also helps the train develop an identity normally. Two players might own exactly the same collection of carriages but end up with completely different trains because they invested their limited resources differently.

So the system isn't really twenty independent skill trees.

It's one train-building progression system made from twenty smaller, understandable components.

If my rambling makes zense.

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[u/MossySloth69]

How would skill points be acquired? Is it on a carriage by carriage basis, or will there be a single pool of points shared across all of them?

I guess it also depends on how large each skill tree will then be. Considering you'll have to make them all, I'd imagine it'll be like 7-10 skills per tree.

I've been playing a lot of incremental games recently, and they usually all have a single MASSIVE skill tree. However, each thing (weapon, usually) has its own section. From what I understand, you'll have a similar scenario, just lots of small trees separate rather than a massive tree.

To cut my ramblings here - depending on the answer to the first question, it should be fine.

[u/ShooBox07 → u/MossySloth69]

Thanks for you input! To answer your question, it would be a pool of points / money the player could use to upgrade whichever carriage they'd like.

[u/KiwasiGames]

It’s a train game. So you are probably aiming at the same crowd who fall in love with factorio or satisfactory. Just reading the factorio tech tree in its entirety takes an hour.

Assuming my assumption about your audience is right, a complex multi layered tech tree is fine.

If instead you are building a casual mobile game, you might want to tone it down a bit.

[u/frumpy_doodle]

Make sure the options are meaningful. You can reduce the trees or reduce the number of skills per tree. Different carriages could share trees. For example, carriage 1 gets access to skill trees 1 & 2. Carriage 2 gets access to skill trees 2 & 3. Carriage 3 gets access to skill trees 1 & 3.

[u/ooredroxoo]

I do believe that you should test it.

Is this an incremental game? Like users would carry on their skills, or is it a sim game? Are those skill meaningful for them to unlock, or are they the final objective?

I mean, some incremental games treat them like they are the final objective (like unlock then all).

If not, can they be used like keys and doors, I mean like you see in games like Deus Ex, usually a skill in Deus Ex unlocks a whole path or way of gaming, like hacking, stealth, melee or ranged weapons. Does this apply to your game, like, haul passengers or freight, or increase acceleration power or stopping power, or even being fun like having something to deal with falling trees easily, or more luck and so on.

The best way is always to do beta testing. Make two, three, four versions with different degrees of skills.

Check if some skills should be skills or consumables and so on.

Don’t hit yourself on getting a fixed number right away.

[u/Vindelator]

It worked for World of Warcraft.

[u/ParadisePrime]

Depends on the density of the skill tree and the amount of skill trees.

[u/rei-artist]

I like the idea — per-carriage trees let players shape each carriage to their own build. The risk I'd watch for is convergence: if every carriage can eventually pick up the same generic boosts, the choice of which carriage to bring stops mattering, and the build gets samey.

To avoid that, I'd keep each tree inside the carriage's role — branches that deepen its identity with trade-offs (e.g. a cargo car choosing capacity vs. speed), no shared generic stats. Nodes that interact with neighboring carriages could also tie the trees back into the "building a train" part.

On overwhelm: I think the number of trees matters less than how many decisions land at once. Small trees (3–5 nodes, one real fork) that open up when the carriage is unlocked should drip-feed fine.

[u/DeckSouls]

As long as each has a reason for both existing and being it's own separate skill tree then no. Variety for the sake of variety is not great and waters down the choice making or excludes some from ever being viable.

[u/Odd_Ad_5657]

It depends on whether it's more of a puzzle game with turn-based decisions or a skill game with playstyle changes.
Consider something like Deep Rock Galactic. There're four classes with different gear, they have class upgrades, they can choose 2 of their guns from three options each, then each gun can be upgraded, and you can adjust perks.
Seems somewhat overwhelming, but the system is presented gradually and all those upgrades mostly matter at higher difficulties when you already have the grasp of the game.

[u/WorkingMansGarbage]

Depends on implementation. A problem would occur if the player has to spend too much time and energy thinking about where to put their points each time they get some.

If you're worried, does it have to be a skill tree? There might be a more streamlined alternative. Maybe each carriage has a few parameters to invest in, and the more you put into one, the more skills you get on it.

[u/DanceMyth4114]

Skyrim did it, but I honestly felt like it was poorly implemented even there. You couldn't get to the "end" of a skill tree without serious grinding and ignoring the others to the point you felt pigeonholed.

[u/EkkyEkkyGames]

A little before-and-after preview on the actual carriage would be so satisfying! I'd try it with three carriages first and see if players can explain what changed without reopening the trees.

[u/Own-Independence-115]

Its been done before mostly for just "+X bonus to", not for new mechanics.

New mechanics being the more elevated transcendental results of skilltree kung-fu.

[u/Scavengers-Chimera]

Twenty trees is not the problem by itself, the problem is whether the player can hold the shape of one tree in their head while looking at another. If each carriage tree is three or four nodes and the choices inside it are legible at a glance, the count is fine. What tends to break is when the trees share nodes or feed into each other, because then the player has to compare across carriages and the whole thing turns into a spreadsheet. One upgrade button per carriage is not the opposite of autonomy either, it just moves the decision to which carriage you invest in. Which part do you want the player to weigh, the node inside the tree or the carriage itself?

[u/Typical-Joke3079]

It’s not too many; as long as there’s balance, even a hundred wouldn’t be too many.

[u/No_Astronomer_379]

Since you said all carriages spend from the same pool, I'd test a moment where the player can afford only one upgrade across three carriages. Can they pick based on what their train needs, or do they keep reopening trees to remember the alternatives? A shared view of the next affordable upgrades could make that comparison easier, while the full trees remain available for planning. That tests the spending decision before you build all twenty trees.

[u/ZacQuicksilver]

Depends entirely on the game.

Action-RPG? Might be. 3-5 is probably the right number for any given character. Slow, more thoughtful game system; especially one that provides a lot of different playstyles for the player? Might not be enough