The skill spec system is just dreadful...

[devout shoal]

1. SUMMARY
   Every MMO nowadays understood that allowing as much build diversity, alt friendliness and skill spec variety as possible is one the most efficient ways to keep your players happy. With this in mind, the current spec system doesn't make sense and is extremely counter productive in that regard.

2. MAIN ISSUE
   It feels terrible having to slowly grind skill books on a spec that you don't enjoy playing. Many classes become the most enjoyable for people once they have access to blue skills, which currently is out of reach. Another problem is that you cannot respec easily to switch between pve and pvp specs, something every other decent game has solved by now.

The biggest issue there is that skill books are forcefully bound to gear, which eats resources and makes it virtually impossible to play the enjoyable specs before getting good items. Meaning you have to grind a dreadful gameplay loop for days to have the chance to get some fun? That cannot be the developers intention.

3. POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
   Introduce a system that lets you read books once when obtaining and then changing spec freely to the books you've read, without further restrictions. A one-time unlock basically. It would allow for way more freedom and instantly improve everyone's gameplay. In fact, i dare you to find a single person that would not prefer a more free system.

edit: for simpler and quicker implementation of an equally viable fix, make extraction and reapplication of skill books free and retain a 100% success rate on both extraction and application

[fresh sphinx]

Why does this have live tag too

And what you’re suggesting is literally what OG BNS was (essentially how Live was in 2016)

[devout shoal]

answered your own question i suppose :p

[midnight kindle]

The new system confused me at first I didn't understand it but I learned it, I feel it's going to be a problem later on to get the purple or blue books

[naive light]

I agree, this game has good build variety but you can never experience because of the absurd cost of skill extraction

[lavish vessel]

https://discord.com/channels/1164688788086345830/1345816076763529236

Might as well cross link these since they're about the same issue.

[devout shoal]

Ah, i was searching "skill" and "spec" as keywords, didnt see that one

[lavish vessel]

I think yours is older lol

[devout shoal]

yea that explains it but i might not need to bother much more... most of my friends already quit over this skill system
just dont feel like logging in to be forced to play this suboptimal stuff just to spend tons of resources to extract and reapply every time they get a better item

[lavish vessel]

That's the point of complaining about it and suggesting that it be changed. Now we pray that they actually listen

[devout shoal]

bumping it cause hope never dies

[humble pulsar]

It wouldn't be bad if extracting was free... so you can keep a collection of books for later use. but still sucks tho

[slow pecan]

Tbh i dont think the system ks necessarily bad.

They just need to triple the dungeon loots. Use the hongmoon blessing as dungeon loot buff instead of a restriction. You dont nearly get enough accesories to use multiple specs.

They need to get it out of their mind that dungeon grinding is late game content. Its merely stuff to do nicer stuff such as pvp, cm etc. (Which doesnt exist in the game)

[devout shoal]

if extracting was free it'd be the same as going back to the far superior old system but with extra steps... probably a lot easier to implement though

[devout shoal]

it is the worst skill system i have encountered in 2 decades of MMO experience.

during dungeon clearing u run aoe.
for the boss you wanna respec to single target.
(just one of countless examples)

cant even do such a trivial thing in bns, without a 2nd set of accessories or an unsustainable amount of resources

[candid quail]

I agree, if this is the way to make the game appreciated there is still a lot to do, the skills were supposed to be a nice novelty, instead I have not found a single person who has found themselves comfortable with this new system for now, everyone sees it as a limitation at the moment.

[cosmic veldt]

I somewhat agree. However, I don't think that they will make any big change like that. However, there is an easy step that can make this so much better. I mean okay, grind the books, grind the accessories (you need separate stats for PvP anyway), but at least make the extraction of the skill books free. There is no way to experiment with different skills or specs, because eventually, the player runs out of resources.

[naive light]

I made a similar post with this solution, if they make skill extraction free then the skill system and everything surrounding it will fit perfectly imo

[devout shoal]

^

[cosmic veldt]

Exactly, sorry, missed that message.

[devout shoal]

just checking in, skill system still bad?

[stray elm]

No change, unfortunately.

[devout shoal]

Unlucky

[dense crystal]

lol you want change 2 weeks after game release happen over night?

[devout shoal]

No, acknowledgment... what kinda assumption is that?

[slow pecan]

you can make some quick fixes to make the system better like removing cost to remove books

[lusty dune]

The system should get better with every new region we get as the book chest that drop increase too

[sour wigeon]

It should get better...but that doesn't change the flaws behind it.

[strong hornet]

If a system needs several large updates for it to "get better" then it shouldn't exist in the first place

[devout shoal]

It's the good old "game gets good after 100 hours", but instead of hours they made it days

[lusty dune]

The blue books are currently not really reachable. This analogues to the start of BnS back in the day, where lets say Fire BM needed 38 skill points to be viable and that would be at level 38. While Fire BM is playable in Neo right now, in the old system it wouldn't.

The current baseline are green books. You can clear any content comfortably with green books and even without skill books at all.
If we roughly follow the progression of the old BnS that the current characters are not even midgame but in lvl phase.

I can upstand your frustration about not being able to play the speck you like. I would love if the game provided green books for every spec.
When starting to farm dungeons I made the mistake to not slot skill books that make a spec and then transfer then to different accessories with the dropped books. This was an error due to limited information. It is very important to see the bigger picture in regards to systems. In the update tomorrow the new dungeons should start to drop green and blues and blues and purple respectively.

The system is by far not optimal, but the game designers designed it that way. It can have many reasons why they did it this way. They can see the full picture and have all the information, while we have limited information. Still the content of the next patch is widely known if you just look over to Korea.

[lusty dune]

Would you mind sharing the content of the several large updates that are needed to make the system better for you?

[strong hornet]

blue skill books are almost unobtainable until moonwater plains patch, and higher tier books will probably be the same until future books as well. Are you genuinely ignorant or just a shill? I can't tell really

[devout shoal]

the point is that there is no point to play if it's not enjoyable. the frustration comes from artificial gatekeeping of the enjoyable content right in front of our eyes.
it's in the game, it exists... but they will keep it from us for whatever reason. nothing can excuse this and i know that at least a community worth of 2 guilds stopped playing already because of it...

the fact remains that if the system would be changed to not cost anything to extract and for blue books to be obtainable now, many more people would play the game rn

[slim merlin]

They need to untie skills from jewelry and just make them add to a collection so they can be changed and taken from. That would be ideal if they want to keep the book system

[strong hornet]

They will never do that, because the whole point of the skill system is $$$

[devout shoal]

true i guess this doesnt rly come from great decisions in that regard tho... anyway, i tried with this thread, so now we wait and see

[strong hornet]

my guess is that neo will just end up the same if not worse than live and people are gonna be like "well then what's the point". most will quit and some will go/back to live

[lusty dune]

Then they will make it so that you farm as long for one skill as you do for all of your skills now

[strong hornet]

Because god forbid we have a normal skill system like 99% of the games out there 👍

[lusty dune]

That is the whole point of there system. I can clear anything that is currently in the game with green and gray books. It took me about 5 days to get all my accessories. I see parallels to live and a 38 char at the start of BnS couldn't do that much. Content cycles seem to be monthly, just cause the blue book is in the overview does not mean that you should be able to obtain it now.
Why should I be ignorant or a shill when I ask about the changes you want to see? It does not imply that I like the current system nor that I would defend it at any cost.
The system flawed yes. Radical changes to the system will not happen. Smaller ones can. Next patch blue books will drop.

[lusty dune]

I would like the very old system form BnS Launch you can respec etc 👍

[slim merlin]

it will be the same as now, only without the connection to jewelry

And you need to understand that now the game's trading system will be very dependent precisely because of skill books, this is both a plus and a minus for players

[strong hornet]

It's a premium currency marketplace, it's exactly why they did it, It's a cashgrab.

[lusty dune]

That I would like too, its just I cant see them make that change without any drawbacks to obtainability

[slim merlin]

yes that is true, but skill books are now and in the future a huge part of the economy

[slim merlin]

I hope they change it so that you don't have to constantly take books out of jewelry to choose another passive. They just need to make it so that skill books are inserted into the skill tree and they can be changed there for the desired passive or just taken out for sale at auction

[strong hornet]

That was already a thing in live many years ago. You could buy something or grind it and exchange it for hongmoon pellet and eat it to add a permanent upgrade to a specific skill in your tree. It was already a thing. And since they willfully chose to do it different, I doubt they'd change it at this point. The only thing ncsoft sees is short term profit 🤷‍♂️

[slim merlin]

if they do it the way I described above, then they will not lose anything in profit and will make it more convenient for players, everyone will be happy)

[opaque vector]

fact of the matter is they won't change anything so it's a waste of time

[strong hornet]

They make feedback channels to pretend listening 🤣

[naive light]

I will say it again, if they make skill extraction free, this skill system is fine

[sour wigeon]

Free or reduced costs anyways.

[naive light]

Not reduced, free period. I can deal with everything else except this. Making it free allows for build crafting without breaking the bank or running out of materials since we only have a finite amount. The combat is phenomenal and the build making is also very fun so putting a barrier on it is genuienly terrible

[devout shoal]

the only counter arguments are

• "they wont change it (trust me bro)"
• "it's not that bad"
  both are terrible lol... the point is we could have a genuinely decent system with 1 very easy quick change -> making it free

[strong hornet]

"they won't change it" isn't an argument, it's someone who's played ncsoft games long enough to abandon hope. And to be honest they're right, I don't think ncsoft will move the right way instead of the money way

[slim merlin]

if they don't change this then players will leave the game. And for this version it is fatal, because the whole economy is based on whales. If they want the game to die, ok, let them do nothing. Only the developers forget one simple thing, players play what brings them good emotions)

[strong hornet]

it all falls on deaf ears with ncsoft unfortunately. Q4 2024 their top earning PC game was guild wars 2, the one game they have no hand in. Goes to show.

[craggy hearth]

I haven't given up. here to make some noise on this thread. I think there are core issues and this is one of them. making the books free to take off equipment would be huge. it's such a pain in the butt to farm matts with the fatigue system, I think it would really help player retention to have more easy access to their skills.

[naive light]

yesyesyesyes if they just get rid of the skill extraction fee it will be good, we already have to pray to RNG for blue books next patch so this will alleviate a lot of the stress that comes with the new skill system.

[sour wigeon]

Reminder that if KR doesn't get it, we don't get it. Unless costs are changed in KR there is no hope of changes here.

[slim merlin]

They can change this if they notice that people are leaving the game, although with such a number of bots it seems difficult for them to notice)

[dense crystal]

they don't see that tbh

[sour wigeon]

If a change happens, it'll be because KR got it first.

[wind jewel]

👍

[naive light]

Thats actually a really nice system, taking skills in and out is quite clunky so this is so much better and seamless

[wind jewel]

Currently, I want to do PvE. I have to put my PvE skills into my jewelry. If I want to go PvP right after? Do I have to remove everything and change my skills, or re-drop duplicate jewelry and enchant them as well? It's not viable at all. I'm a FM player. I'd like to play Fire sometimes, Ice other times, but I can't. I have to PvP with PvE skills and get holes everywhere OR play with PvP skills in PvE... it's not possible.
Right-click, learn the book, apply what you want to the jewelry, and it's DONE.

[naive light]

Exactly, i believe NCSOFT knows that PvP would be dead if released with this skill system because it's so bad. The old skill tree was beautiful and simple, could change on the fly and be done with no extra cost.

[wind jewel]

NEO wants to be different than the live system OK just needs to be improved to make it viable. I like the idea of ​​having jewels linked to certain skills and attaching books to them but it needs to make the switch more fluid.

[naive light]

Yeah I'm fine with it being different, i actually really like the new skills and how they synergies with each other, it's just the skill extraction fee that's the biggest wall for it to be good.

[slim merlin]

The same thing was in the old bns, only without books. Where you could freely choose the skills you needed...

[naive light]

And there was literally nothing wrong with it, it was a great system that worked well in PvE and PvP
A lot of the old systems in release BnS were good, the P2W and insane grind were the real problem

[slim merlin]

Now the problem is not even in the books, but in the fact that they are tied to jewelry

[wind jewel]

the fact that they cannot be easily removed from the jewelry to change specs*

[naive light]

Its 50/50 for me honestly. On one hand it's another layer of RNG which incentivize you to farm. On the other hand, if you get really good stats but not enough skill slots then you're screwed because skills are way more important than raw stats. But this is circumvented by the fact that you can sell the Equipment on the AH for gems and were getting belts next patch so we have another 2-3 skill slots. On my KFM I personally have all the skills I need and I have a mixture of 2-3 skills slot accessories and my gloves is actually just 1 skill slot so it's not THAT bad in practice

[wind jewel]

On the other hand, I preferred the initial NEO system where 3 skills were linked to a single jewel and I could be put elsewhere. The fact of being able to put any skillbook on any jewel and being able to accumulate the books to obtain % of damage... it's disturbing.

[naive light]

Personal preference i guess, the current system with the accessories is fine besides the skill extraction cost

[slim merlin]

This is not great because this system is completely useless and only irritates players. They could have simply made the books added and taken from a collection in which you could freely switch the desired skill.

[naive light]

That is the BEST case scenario but considering it's NCSOFT, we'll take baby steps for now. But i would love for it to be like that, books becoming consumables and you get the "skill point" and you can switch on the fly whenever you want, this combines NEOs system and the skill tree from release BnS

[sour wigeon]

The thing is...it's already too late. If they changed it now, the whales that overpaid for books would just charge back.

[fresh sphinx]

That’s like saying people who swiped $350+ every fortune favor for the older stat pets doing charge back when they came out with the hmc pet pouches I can tell you we don’t. It was a big F U, yes, but we don’t chargeback.

[river bough]

wait wat u can buy skills?

ok from marketplace nvm but yeah plz change the system or make it so u can remove them for like 2 valor

[naive light]

MAKE SKILL EXTRACTION FREE AND GIVE US A MORE RELIABLE WAY TO GET BLUE SKILL BOOKS PLEASE I DON'T WANT MORE RNG ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO COMBAT

[crude saffron]

It's NC soft they will never change this
They need to get money not only for gear and cosmetic but also if you want to play your class now 😂

[twin turret]

assassin is litterally unplayable for me in neo as i am unable to play stealth at all. when i played live years ago, i would play a perma stealth and now i can barely get in stealth, the default build is more targeted toward the other build of assassin... overly complicated and specific and not my type haha. i just straight up don't even wanna play. and like you said, having to grind on a build you hate, it's not enjoyable.

[stray elm]

I literally haven't changed any of my purple accessories since ToE yet simply because I'll need to spend about 40 or so green pages and 100 valor stones just to extract them.

I do not just have that lying around.

[devout shoal]

ayy 70 likes, almost all of the playerbase in a few weeks if they keep this system

[devout shoal]

the post is going under again! my last bump, if there is no reckognition, hope runs out fast

[naive light]

^^^^
If there's one thing I want changed is the skill system, get rid of skill extraction fee and give us a more reliable way to get blue skills. Gatekeeping a great combat system like BnS behind these terrible design choices is very dumb and NCSOFT should change it ASAP before even the combat system is not enough to retain the playerbase.

Please please please make the skill system good and not feel terrible to interact with

[slim merlin]

Core problem now is cuz skill books give additional points for boost damage, that's why the price is so high. And drop chance is to low for blue+ in dungeons.
This system is so trash and dont give choice what i want to play.
They need add green books for all specs where they not add, like summoner sunflower\ fm ice rain\ sin electro pierce and etc. And ofc delete boost damage for duplicates skills

[devout shoal]

goodbye homies, i give up

[digital sun]

I thought the game was doomed from the start, but after trying it put again I remembered why i loved this game so much. The combat… well two weeks later and I hate what the made out of it. QQ

[strong hornet]

Hate to say it but, I knew they wouldn't care

[midnight kindle]

I started playing live again the other day, I'm currently level 40 and it feels good, better than neo right now. Not had to repair my weapon once so far and it's free to teleport around lol, while some stuff in neo was better like the infinite run and all that, some of live feels better than neo for sure.

[slim merlin]

only 3 thing is better then live

1. infinity run
2. they got rid of the morph system, leaving only a small upgrade of things
3. teleport directly to dungeons

[strong hornet]

If you play in EU I can invite you to a clan, if you want that is

[midnight kindle]

I dont know how long ill be playing for TBH, I just want to wait for the warlock on neo

[obtuse bobcat]

This system is definitely the worst PAY TO WIN system I've every seen in any MMO. Paying to press you buttons was never the right call skills and talents were fine as is on live. Additional tuning and numbers bloat force players to spend for these skills that go from 20-200 dollars. I've seen players buy and relist skills for even more.

Skill Books:

• A: Acquired behind unknown drops rates from overly tuned dungeons.
• B: Get listed for extortionate prices due to player greed.
• C: Leave out entire playstyles and performance that players are use to from there classes.

Suggestion: Remove, remove, REMOVE!!

[wind jewel]

https://tenor.com/view/knuckles-approved-gif-27640148

[hot willow]

"That cannot be the developers intention"
It is intentional. Champion of milking players dry of their time and wallets to keep up. simple.
Once they're tired of grinding endlessly, they feel two ways : quit, or swipe.
Look how much money Lineage has made for them for decades . . . not even sub to play games or AAA single player games compete with it ( most )
The moment they removed the channel and its videos when it first was anounced as NEO classic to revamp all as NEO. that's the sign, we knew it aint gonna be a classic. ( skill tree with lvling points to spend and spec skill however you like, and grind for the ultimate QoL skill under the hongmoon legacy secret )

[strong hornet]

anyone who thinks it's not their intention is delusional

[floral surge]

They "regress" their system intentionally because they know what's left of their initial player base are whales. New players come and go and they still won't care. This system may also be place to arouse jealousy and also make them whale.

[slim merlin]

Only if there are no regular players, then whales won't play either)

[wind jewel]

🆙 REWORK
restore the old system, no skill book accumulation and facilitate extraction 🙏

[queen stone]

I am once again suggesting: spec skills with skill points, keep accessory skill books for grandmaster effect (adjust numbers and possibly effects to accomodate repurposed skill points and freed up accessory slots)

[shy kestrel]

I hate the skill book system so much

[neat harbor]

Worst system ever, aboslutely hate it, so much so I've decided to quit the game. GJ NC.

[wind jewel]

https://tenor.com/view/ocean-park-roy-rooster-chicken-chiken-gif-4671945143576319612

[umbral jewel]

what is this gif name? LOL

[wind jewel]

tenor.com/view/ocean-park-roy-rooster-chicken-chiken-gif-4671945143576319612

[wind jewel]

🆙
rework skill system pliz
this game will die, AGAIN, wake up

[distant jacinth]

I don't think they actually read these chats. Its more of a put your thoughts so you can feel heard and then complain less. Clearly they changed it from live to neo as such and is a downgrade in many ways, they wouldnt go back for no reason anyway

[wind jewel]

🆙
Rework SKILL BOOK !

[floral surge]

I think it's too late to remove it. At least please remove extraction cost.

[slow pecan]

The population at this point is so low that you cant even get skills by swipeing. They need to increase droprate, with the pages its free to remove skills.