Stars Reach has revealed how its advancement and skill trees will work.
As developer Dave Georgeson explains in the blog post, the way that experience works in the game is that players have to learn by doing something useful, not by repeatedly grinding for experience. Players will have to do something that helps other players or comes with inherent risk. An example given was if a player acts as a ranger and builds a camp, that player doesn’t get XP just for building the camp, but instead for players actually using the camp. Heal others and get Medical XP, and so on. Working together is key, and more info on that is to come.
There are also skill trees in the game for players to unlock by using tools associated with those trees. While it’s not possible to activate every skill at once, it is possible to unlock everything. Players can specialize in everything if they play for long enough, or just focus on one thing above everything else.
Playtesting is happening, with last month seeing the developer finding out exactly what happens when they let a ton of players loose on their game. Playable Worlds is building out some of the required infrastructure and “Our next set of external tests will let players explore the first couple of simple skill trees,” Georgeson notes.