Why the current Veteran skill tree is bad

[Crayvun]

So, as many of you have I’m sure, I now have a bit of experience with our classes. However for the purposes of this discussion, I’ll focus entirely on the Veteran, since its my bread & butter.

The issue I have, as I’ve alluded to before, is the cost of adjusting lanes in the tree. For the life of me, I just don’t know why it was done like this.

Just look at the middle path. You get Confirmed Kill, Tinkerer and demolition stockpile. Whats that? You wanted to try Agile Engagement? Pay an extra point.

But, I hear you say, clearly staying middle would be more efficient and more valuable, as Agile Engagement isn’t that good, right? Correct, pretty much nothing in that line even including the actual Infiltrate ability is worth spending the extra point if you’re in the middle lane.

Its almost always too costly to change lanes. It gets even worse if you’re trying to be adventurous. Want to try Survivalist, with Infiltrate, and maybe grab some Weapons Specialist? DENIED. Two points to cross back from Survivalist. Extra points wasted getting Infiltrate, when it’d have been more efficient to just go down Voice of Command.

And guess what? Voice of Command is clearly a better talent, and gives more for less.

In summary, the tree is badly designed, because it does not respect the value of talents, and is laid out in such a way as to punish those who’d prefer ‘interesting’ builds, by moving lanes. Instead catering to the braindead ‘straight down the middle’, which discourages anyone from even thinking about trying to build differently.

[TheStoryMaker]

I’m generally in agreement with a lot of the points raised here. Personally, I’m in favor of two distinct points of design philosophy:

1. There should be limited cost to change lanes, as OP has said. Some cost may be inevitable, but ‘T’ junctions, where you have to take multiple nodes you might not want just to get to the lane you want to take, are significantly more costly than inverted ‘Y’ junctions, where a single pick can branch into multiple lanes.

2. There should be no potentially gameplay-defining nodes which you cannot get by going down a specific lane. This is my beef with Psyker, actually. The node that lets you quell while moving around at full speed cannot be acquired if you choose Brain Burst. For reasons I cannot comprehend.

So, combining these two elements: more inverted ‘Y’ junctions at points where you can change lanes - and the nodes leading into them should be grey nodes. Because losing something like “5% melee damage” is significantly less disruptive than being siloed out of an entire blue node.

[Antilus]

The current vet tree is the solution to this mess they made in patch 15 when they added keystones

i personally fought for today’s solution in my ‘‘vet nerfed to the ground with new keystones’’ thread but they still stubbornly kept all the bloat talents regardless, even though now you have more chanches to bypass them

[ForumWarrior]

I agree completely. I main vet and the tree definitely still needs some work. The keystones are way too taxing to take, for instance. That isnt even mentioning the fact that they’re not worth it most of the time. But the main issue is like you said, the layout itself is just way too taxing if you want to use different columns together.

[Antilus]

i guess i’m a bad player then, i’m still bitter about the grenade regen nerf to 60s they made all the way back from closed beta, when you would regen a nade every 45 seconds

and the talent was way up (left) in the tree, you would unlock it at level 10

the abominable Veteran Class has been reduced to 50% weapons and 49% voice of command and grenade related talents

[XeroShinobi]

@Ol_Jakal

voice of command isn’t even good

It’s objectively good.

@Ol_Jakal

it’s only useful for covering for being trash at positioning which most players seem to be.

It quite literally allows for aggressive push plays that are not possible without it, and unlike cloak, it theoretically allows the entire team to make that push.

@Ol_Jakal

if you’re a vet player and you need a “help i’m in melee and it scares me” button you screwed up like five times to reach that point.

This is the other thing is achieves, and yes, a lot of players may use it primarily for this reason, but this does not negate its offensive capability.

[Antilus]

i play tank vet cause i know for fact left 4 dead games are specifically developed to get you out of position and cut you off from the rest of the team

my playstyle allows me to be able to swim in those mixed hordes and bomber flames as if i was a discount zealot

i understand most of you play with base HP and you became useless at the first pox burster but all i can do is to build according to my personal experiences

[Molonious]

The Veteran tree definitely…has issues.

A lot of the tree feels both rushed and conceptually rooted more in turn based tabletop mechanics than a real time horde shooter. The first 2.0 tree came out…without Keystones, after the previous concept was scrapped at the last minute. The 3.0 tree came out…requiring 3-4 extra talent points to hit each Keystone relative to every other class. Then finally we got the current 4.0 talent tree after Fatshark figured that out. We get Keystones that do things like reward stationary shooting (in a game built entirely around not doing that) and inorganically swapping weapons rapidly just for a mechanical bonus, stuff that works in tabletop game but that feels awkward in a shooter.

One issue for me is Ults. Voice of Command is amazing and has a huge level of clutch potential. Meanwhile, Executioners Stance requires too many additional nodes to be useful, pretty much all of the existing nodes except Enhanced Target Priority should just be folded into the existing basic skill.

[Eviltreerat]

Well that is what happens when you use the “community heroes” (aka “meta-heads” slash YouTubbers) as you’re only source of testing and feedback. They will whine, scream, brownose, etc until they get their “one true way and everything else is meme/ lulzs build” and to the Warp with anyone else.

Now take that particular sauce and pour it over top of a cake made from layers “well it sorta-kinda-if-you-squint-right worked in this other game so we will copy & paste the whole system” ideas. Voila, pretty much most of the design process here. Bad ideas getting poor implementation with little to no quality testing before the whole thing is rushed out the door to meet the marketing deadline.

[Gideon404]

@TheStoryMaker

There should be no potentially gameplay-defining nodes which you cannot get by going down a specific lane. This is my beef with Psyker, actually. The node that lets you quell while moving around at full speed cannot be acquired if you choose Brain Burst. For reasons I cannot comprehend.

The node that lets you move at closer to full speed is not a good talent. You can quell while sliding at full speed and you can dodge while quelling at full speed. The talent adds little value.

[Ralendil]

Only problem of veteran, these keystones that the community asked so much. Other problem, the changes they again requested.
Fact is, this is really a strong class. I surprise myself that it can give you better damages with melee than with a zealot (but I do not think in term of DPS).

I just would want that they stop touching this talent tree. Each time they change something cause someone opened a thread, the number of talents I can pick is lowered.

And no, you can try whatever you want. But you can’t get butter, butter’s money and the creammistress’s smile as we say in my country!
Vet is already too strong. If they should change something it is to balance too strong talents and combinations.
If they could also change the triggers for 2 of the keystones, I would like… however, I have tested and seen how bad they are (in my opinion cause I don’t want playing that) and never use them. So, if they don’t change that, not a big problem.
However, if they mess AGAIN the veteran tree… well, let’s say that I hate the psyker, I rarely play ogryn cause too slow, so remain veteran and zealot.
If I loose interest in veteran, I stop this game.

For your info, I tried infiltrate + survivalist. However, I feel survivalist totally useless, except in maelstrom melee only.
I rarely play with exec, especially cause I tend to play a lot the melee veteran / commando (so close range combattant)

My main concern is more in term of smoke grenades. Cause I tend to pick close and kill or fire team. So krak or smoke are the best choices, and sometimes I need this extra point, so I pick smoke grenade.
I would love that they make the smoke grenades good. However, I would hate that they give me more points. Cause I would have always the same build. I am close to that on veteran. Less than 10 talents are in my choices to pick when I start a new build.

[Antilus]

@Ralendil

Only problem of veteran, these keystones that the community asked so much.

what infuriated me back then was that they stripped stats from other perks, and pasted them into the new keystones for extra perk points price

[NewNoise10]

I tend to agree. I ultimately went for a jack-of-all-trades build but had to skip the last branch at the bottom to get the talents I wanted. It’s very costly to achieve an optimized build that suits your tastes.

The problem with the Veteran’s skill tree is that each branch is essentially its own “lane,” and you have to spend points to exit the lane you’re in, get what you want, and then spend more points to re-enter the desired lane. Ideally, everything should be connected, like merging lanes on a highway. I don’t understand why you need to exit the road you’re on to get what you want, then figure out how to re-enter it. This approach only makes sense for the green, red, and purple abilities.

[MarxistDictator]

Like I’ve commented and complained about many times as someone whose 700 or more with every class Ogryn and Psyker have the worst compression. You have huge bottlenecks from the gate even if you wanted to spend the points to grab just what you want. Amazing nodes are placed in very far off spots you have to sacrifice tons of points and even forgo certain blitz/ult combos just to be able to run them. Like nothing allows you to grab BFR + soften em up, or anticipation + anything attractive on the left topside as Psyker (unless you smite). Anticipation is still not being run with Shriek.

Veteran’s Voice of Command is too practical vs its alternatives, and the support nodes around it also thrash the competition (I mean really what is an extra grenade or +10% crit chance for 10% ammo after a reload vs grenades coming back on their own). Keystones are boring but they also aren’t gating a ton of your damage potentially. Its not like heavy hitter on ogryn where your melee is almost 40% weaker for not using it. Veteran gets a very boring tree, but it at least provides you with options. Its more that the options around executioner stance (and that ult in general seriously why can’t it have accuracy modifiers like dance of death it costs you your ult) and infiltrate are weak, and the nodes around them not great. At least smoke grenades have 10% melee node and agile engagement.

[Eviltreerat]

Its not even about “optimized” builds. Unless you exclusively play at lower difficulties or with a static group that has a very specific need certain talents are effectively mandatory for veterans. Even more so since ObeseGupi swallowed the whole “melee good - ranged bad” koolaid.

Personally I think a good part of the problem for all class trees would be solved by removing the whole “normalization” and giving back each class their assorted passive abilities. Then a lot of the junk nodes could be stripped out and the rest relocated to allow all classes the freedom to pick whichever combination of blizs, auras, ultimates, and keystones they want or stick with a single “lane” and grab a bunch of extra stuff that sounds neat and/or useful (ex. field improvisation) without sacrificing too much effectivness.

Do I think something like that would ever happen? No. Too many egos have dug in on their own little hills all designated “MY idea is perfect and I will die before letting you touch it.” Sadly once the sacred cow mentality takes hold there is no way that is both practical and legal to fix it.

[Ralendil]

@MarxistDictator

infiltrate are weak

Infiltrate is not weak. It can be used really effectively. Exec stance can permits you to up your ranged weapons damages by a lot (this is how you can get a build where you can one shot everything with the zorona).

I am not the best vet (I prefer generally zealot), but here what I use as bottom tree.
I have put a box around the “choices” I can make at the bottom. All others are on ALL my builds. This is the result of keystones and the demands to “make a better veteran tree”.
So, this time, sorry for the OP, but I will express my displeasure about such ideas…

Here the disaster, cause I have lost lot of choices compared to what we had…

[Crayvun]

how dare you??? I can’t have a class fixed because Ralendil might get upset if they change something. Come on dude, use your brain, offer feedback, help us get our class up to a good standard.

This dude is too scared to get the class fixed. Fatshark, do you see what you have done???

You know what Ralendil, if they don’t fix the class, if they don’t change the tree at all, I hope you have fun playing Veteran for the next two years with the exact same build. Because I’ll be outta here, thats for sure. As will a lot of other people I can guarantee. Many of us been hoping that gradually, Fatshark might put this game together right.

But sure, tell them to not change anything because “you might break something I use”.

flips table I’m out for the day

[Ralendil]

@Crayvun

how dare you??? I can’t have a class fixed because Ralendil might get upset if they change something. Come on dude, use your brain, offer feedback, help us get our class up to a good standard.

You can ask to continue to mess the veteran class. I can also state why I think this is a bad idea.

@Crayvun

I hope you have fun playing Veteran for the next two years with the exact same build.

This is mainly cause of the community demands. Before keystones and the changes on tree I had lot of varied builds.

@Crayvun

Just look at the middle path. You get Confirmed Kill, Tinkerer and demolition stockpile. Whats that? You wanted to try Agile Engagement? Pay an extra point.

What you want is butter, butter’s money and the creammistress’s smile… you can have both, but there are tradeoff (the extra point).
Veteran is already a VERY strong class, I would even say that there are builds too strong (by example the build that permits you to one shot anything in damnation).

@Crayvun

But sure, tell them to not change anything because “you might break something I use”.

Not that… you might loose players this time… at least me.
Darktide situation (released november 2022):

Game I play actually (early access since march 2019):

And I play it on EPIC cause it released first here. And TON of players have it installed on EPIC…

[MarxistDictator]

Adding crusher, reaper and mutie one shots is not really a great argument for running executioner stance, but alright. Especially considering how easily reaper is killed in 2 shots and a melee loadout the revolver would logically build for on Veteran/anyone would be more practical. Especially with krak grenades. Infiltrate is a lot weaker than Zealot’s stealth even with the longer duration, and its best use (hitting enemies in the back from inside coherency while they do not attack you with the -90% threat modifier) does not apply when your teammates are dead. There’s also a ton of congested points in the game still where turning invisible and gaining toughness back or equipping your gun with +25% damage/weak spot damage and low recoil isn’t going to make much difference.

Like when the rager flash mob starts pushing your team from the minute the elevator doors open, there’s a reason people stick to voice of command. It is the most splashable and practical, and effective in any scenario. As an added bonus it makes you and allies cheese most hits without suffering damage, which is easily as strong as the ability itself considering how broken the interaction it has with toughness damage reduction is.

[MOG]

One of Vet’s main problems is still the absolutely chonky number of ‘Stat X goes up by 5%’ nodes.

Honestly, Vet has a good deal of ‘You really got to have this’ Talents which are spaced among the ‘you buy this to get to the good stuff tax talents’.

Psyker has it better with the talent tree’s more weblike structure, and I think Vet could really do with another contraction of its talent tree upwards. More choices should lead to 3 options instead of 2 choices and then a single generic ‘5%’ to something tax.

If I were to take a personal shot at it, it would be more of a ‘Grapevine’ talent tree. Cluster things that are similar together so they can either be skipped if you don’t want them, or taken together if you want to double down. Put the grenade talents together instead of spreading the out across the different paths of the tree, put the ‘enemies must be outside of X range for these bonuses’ talent points side by side- or really, just get rid of those or combine them because at higher difficulty they go from sometimes useful to ‘this is 1-2 wasted points’- but anyway.

With zealot and psyker, I generally feel I can make a complete build. With vet, I either go straight down the tree and deviate a little here and there, or I am always missing something crucial.

Confirmed Kill, Grenade Regen, Special CDR on Kill and Reduced Toughness Damage while above 75% Toughness are all on one ‘Tree’ and nothing else comes close. This is not saying any of these should be nerfed, but other trees are very weak in comparison.