POE2 Suggestion: Skill tree should have two modes, Full view and "simplistic"

This was touched upon in an interview with Subtractem between Mark and Chris from GGG https://youtu.be/D-zznPPwJ3M?t=3136, in regards to Skill Passive Tree and new players being overwhelmed by it. They claimed that they don't want to hide the trees massive options because people will call out their bluff and say "I know there's a big tree, where is it? now I have to google it, but why is it not available in the game immediately so I can plan ahead?". This is understandable, you don't want to make the game look too easy and then "tada" its actually complex as hell, players might feel tricked, and likewise, this limits advanced players ability to plan ahead if they can't see all their options.

They ended the discussion there, which really surprised me. So, my suggestion is instead of "change the tree to this for new players", why not create a simple "toggle" or mode, you can switch from back and forth, between a "full view mode" that displays the Passive skill tree as we know it today, and the other mode "simplistic/Limited", that narrows the focus to around your "quarter/3rd" of the tree.

This gets rid of the eyesight bloat that IS basically useless for most players since when they start the game they are hardly gonna go for a complex "across the tree setup". AND still provides the classic view for advanced players that wanna start as a chieftain but treck way up to witch, or a Ranger going for a melee build in the Duelist area. The default view would be the limited view, but a simple quick tutorial in starting town will allow the player to switch to full view for the full course meal. I think this would be a major boon for new comers into the series to focus on their class "builds" without the kneejerk reaction to look up a guide or be overwhelmed by ALL the classes passives and not know which direction to go.

This also plays well into the new classes for poe, and the "color grade" the art team mentioned, with str, str/int, str/dex, etc. the limited view could mostly show those 3 choices on a class that has "str" in it, and "fogs" out the rest of the tree. with 12 characters, a "quarter" is just that, 3 highlighted trees in view, or they could go in 3rds, with 4 in view. and again, for full view, you simply toggle full view mode with 1 click, and boom. Naturally they'd have to create defined cutoff points, but that is pretty simple to do. in the end, once a player progresses long enough, eventually they will likely want to switch to full view to see more nodes they may potentially get, but by then the player will be accustomed to it, and already have "some sort" of build baseline established to then decide if they want to branch further for a few more nodes not in their classes part of the tree.

Here is a very bad example, not good at editing/graphic design, but the view would be more zoomed in and focus on the Dex 3rd of the tree, the other 60% would be blacked out from viewing on limited mode. again, this is a toggle, so if you prefer the old tree, just hit full view mode and go full screen :)


(zoomed in)

https://i.imgur.com/W3P6XK1.mp4 (incase above gif doesn't work)

What do you guys think of this idea for poe2 as a small, but potentially comforting qol for new players to be less overwhelmed by the tree (which lets be honest even in this 3rd slice, is still fairly complex). and before people say we do have zoom in, yes, but there's always stray nodes in the peripheral of your eye, this simple mode would hide those from view.

No wtf let them learn.

not a snowball's chance in hell!

Give your fellow players some credit...if they wanted a simplified passive tree, they wouldn't even be playing PoE in the first place. There are PLENTY of other arpgs with totally linear progression for them to play. And furthermore, the limitations you are putting on the "viewpoint" of the tree hardly corresponds to anything because that isn't even how the tree works in the first place.

The only thing your idea accomplishes is bottleneck build creativity and future development of the passive tree. If you are creating a 2H axe wielder, you aren't just looking at a single slice of the tree EVER. You are looking at all 2H and all axe locations. By limiting the view, you are sort of FORCING GGG to put all these likeminded nodes in the same area of the tree, OR you are making it so players that opt into this view would never be able to create a viable build.

Also the game is called "Path" of Exile. 90% of the game is figuring out your passive pathing. You are effectively removing the game from players.

Oof.


Also...you can literally already do this. It's called zoom out vs. zoom in. Want to see the full tree? Zoom out further. Want to only see a few nodes at a time? Zoom in.