Skill Trees — the arc's choices, tree-shaped
Canon
Every skill still climbs 1–100 on the same XP curve, with the same tier unlocks, the same double-cost Hard Skills, the Skill Cape at 100, and cosmetic-only Prestige beyond it — none of that moves. What changes is where the choices live: the fixed milestone perks and the one-time Specialization fork are replaced by a node tree per skill, twenty trees in all, one per skill.
Points. Every level in a skill grants that skill's tree points — bound, per-skill, minted by nothing else. Round-level milestones grant larger bundles (cadence in data). Play the skill, grow its tree; no cross-skill point shopping, no universal pool.
Tree shape. A tree opens with root passives, then forks into mutually exclusive branches — the identity choice. In the combat-style trees the branches are the weapon types (a Melee Forger walks Swords or Axes or Blunt…); in gathering and crafting trees the branches carry the old specialization identities (a miner still becomes a Prospector or an Excavator — now by walking that branch). Deeper nodes grow stronger and scarcer, and some node slots are hidden — secret unlocks discovered through exploration, lore, and collections (content lands in those sessions; the node type is reserved here).
The Eternal Node. At the bottom of every tree sits one Eternal Node: infinitely repurchasable, each purchase costlier than the last (compounding, owner-tuned), each grant real but plateauing power. It is purchasable the moment you reach it and can afford it. Eternal purchases are fueled by Life Essence — the tradeable carried item already ruled as the game's sole death-drop — plus tree points (split owner-tuned).
Respec. Any node, including a branch choice, can be refunded — partial point refund, escalating Coin fee (both owner-tuned data). Choices are identities, not prisons; the Coin fee is a real economy sink. The one permanent choice in the game remains Ascension, which belongs to the class system, not to skill trees.
What this page kills, defers, or leaves alone — the reconciliation of the V1 mastery/skill-tree corpus (18 docs) is D-SKILL-TREES-07's fate table. Ascension, Class Mastery, and Profession Mastery are untouched: trees are a skills system.
Decisions
D-SKILL-TREES-01 — trees replace the milestone arc (ratified 2026-07-16)
Owner ruling, superseding the founding vision's skill-arc section (see the 2026-07-16 amendment in vision): the fixed perks at 25/50/75 and the level-60 Specialization moment are replaced by per-skill node trees fed by level-granted points. Build identity comes from walked branches, not fixed grants.
Rejected: trees as a post-cap endgame layer only (keeps the vision arc frozen but hides all build choice until cape level); hybrid choice-milestones (perk slots become small picks, full trees post-cap — two systems where one will do); no tree layer at all (leaves the V1 corpus dead and post-cap retention resting on breadth alone).
D-SKILL-TREES-02 — one tree per skill; weapon types are branches (ratified 2026-07-16)
Twenty trees, 1:1 with the canon skill vocabulary. V1's weapon-type combat masteries (Swords, Daggers, Axes, Blunt, Unarmed, Archery…) become the exclusive branches of the combat-style trees rather than freestanding tracks.
Rejected: V1's mixed ~11-tree list (leaves canon skills treeless and fights the ratified 20-skill vocabulary); a few big category trees (Gathering/Crafting/Combat — breaks the level→point coupling: which skill's levels feed the tree?).
D-SKILL-TREES-03 — identity lives in mutually exclusive branches (ratified 2026-07-16)
The Specialization fork dissolves into the tree: every tree carries branch choices that exclude their siblings (V1's own device — Sharpened OR Combo Master). "Your 100 looks different from someone else's" now falls out of which branches you walked.
Rejected: a single celebrated keystone fork node per tree (the old spec moment tree-shaped — a bolt-on ceremony once branches already carry identity); no exclusivity at all (all nodes reachable — identity erodes to a checklist).
D-SKILL-TREES-04 — full respec, at a price (ratified 2026-07-16)
Owner ruling: every node including branch choices is refundable — partial point refund, escalating Coin fees, rates owner-tuned. Experimentation wins over permanence; the fee is a Coin sink the economy wants (D-CURRENCY-05 sinks). This deliberately supersedes the founding vision's "permanent fork in the road" language — the amendment says so plainly. Ascension stays permanent; it is a class-system promise, not a tree.
Rejected: respec-minor-but-exclusive-branches-permanent (preserves fork weight; owner chose freedom); no respec (punishes choices made before a player understands the systems — hostile to "deep but kind").
D-SKILL-TREES-05 — points come from levels, per skill, bound (ratified 2026-07-16)
Levelling a skill is the only mint for its tree points; round-level milestones grant bigger bundles. Simple, honest coupling with zero new bookkeeping — no separate mastery XP bar, no universal pool.
Rejected: milestone-only grants (V1's 5/10/15 cadence — levelling between milestones does nothing for the tree) ; universal point pool (breadth out-points focus inside any single tree); a parallel mastery-XP track (double bars per skill, muddies the vision's "no hidden math").
D-SKILL-TREES-06 — one Eternal Node per tree, open on reach (ratified 2026-07-16)
Owner ruling: the Eternal sits at the tree's bottom and is purchasable whenever reached and affordable — no cape-level gate. Infinite, compounding-cost, plateauing power; fueled by Life Essence plus points. The multi-year retention slot V1 designed, kept self-balancing by cost growth rather than by a hard gate.
Rejected: gating Eternals behind skill 100 (cleaner balance split — owner chose the open tail; the compounding cost is the brake)
; no Eternal Nodes (drops V1's flagship retention idea).
D-SKILL-TREES-07 — the V1 corpus fate table (ratified 2026-07-16)
Reconciliation verdicts for everything this page does not adopt:
| V1 idea | Fate |
|---|---|
| Ability Masteries (Fireball, Whirlwind…) | Deferred — no ability engine exists; wait for the hfclasses ability-execution probe |
| Dungeon Affinity Masteries | Deferred → dungeons & enchanting session |
| Hardcore Masteries | Parked — overlaps Ironman's badge space; needs its own intent check |
| Mastery Quests / Mastery Achievements | Deferred → quests session / Almanac (achievements are deeds) |
| Milestone rewards every 5/10/15 levels | Superseded by level-granted points (D-SKILL-TREES-05) |
| Mastery bonuses "for PvE and PvP" | Dead — events-world PvP runs at fixed baseline; no progression applies there (2026-07-16 ruling) |
| Reputation-locked nodes | Dead unless a reputation system is ever designed |
| Hidden Mastery Nodes | Adopted as a reserved node type; content via lore/collections sessions |
| Specialty essences (Lightning, Fire, Crystal…) | Deferred — variants only if Eternal tuning ever needs them; Life Essence ships alone |
Rejected: designing any of the deferred items now, against empty or undesigned systems (the V1 intake rule: graduate or die in the owning session).
Tuning
data/skill-trees.json— point cadence per level and milestone bundle sizes, respec refund fraction and Coin fee escalation, Eternal cost base and compounding rate, Life Essence/point cost split, and the per-tree branch catalogs (combat-style branch sets are V1-derived; all illustrative until the owner's content pass).- The XP curve itself is unchanged — still code, pinned by the existing goldens.
Implementation
Owning mod: mods/hfskills (rebuild — owner ruled existing code
replaceable). Tree allocations are choices: persist spent nodes and
Eternal purchase counts on ForgerSkills; available points stay derived
(earned-from-level minus spent). Life Essence is a plain carried item,
never component state (vision amendment 2026-07-16).
docs/design/PROGRESSION.md §5 (milestone perks, spec fork) is
superseded by this page; its engineering content (XP engine, persistence
idiom, event seam) stands.
Open questions
- Per-tree node content (the actual node lists per skill) — owner content pass; combat-style branch sets have V1 seeds, the other trees start empty.
- Hidden-node content and discovery triggers — lore & NPC / collections sessions.
- Eternal plateau shape (soft-cap curve per bonus type) — owner tuning once numbers exist; V1 notes some abilities must plateau harder than others.
- Whether respec of a combat-style branch mid-fight needs a cooldown or safe-zone restriction — combat session detail.
- Hardcore Masteries intent — parked; ask staff.