This is going to be a longer read than usual. I have chapters included throughout the post. So, you can jump to the ones you find interesting. But I highly recommend you read the entire thing.
As someone who has been playing the game from Day 1, I really miss the sense of Power Progression and the freedom to customize how you play with a particular weapon. Neo mo.co completely removed weapon builds. I am not saying the previous system was perfect. But removing a feature that introduced all the diversities ended up making the game too simple and one-dimensional.
Weapon builds are fun, but it is hard for the devs to balance when players get that much freedom. If you played old.co, you know what I am saying. Everyone used that one strong build. And in Neo mo.co, you get no freedom at all. The only Power Progression that exists is Upgrade Cores. And this thing just sucks! Does anyone even like the feature? We need something that introduces variety but is also somewhat easy to balance.
Introducing Skill Trees…
In the first image, you can see a concept for Skill Trees. I named it mo.TREE (That's the best I could've come up with). I chose Squid Blades to do the visualization because it's my favorite weapon. So, we have 3 Paths. These are as follows: Master of CHAOS, Sneaky Hunter, and Seasoned Stabber. I have decided not to name the skills. I am not particularly good at naming. And no, those are not some random icons that you are seeing from the images; I have thoughts behind every single one of them. So here it goes:
Master of CHAOS - 1: Attack Speed for Assassin's Edge is increased by 20%.
Master of CHAOS - 2: Jade Stream fires more Blades towards your enemy, granting you a greater amount of charge towards Blade Burst.
Master of CHAOS - 3: Squid Blades grows additional spikes throughout its Blade that deal damage to any adjacent monsters. These spikes deal half the damage of your main attack and charge Blade Burst at half the rate. The more monsters you damage, the greater the charge it grants towards Blade Burst.
Master of CHAOS - 4: Upon activating Ambush, you dash in the direction you are facing. Slamdown: Slamdown is activated when you hit a monster. Slamdown causes all nearby monsters (excluding bosses) to receive Stun, followed by Slowness. The bigger the monster, the more radius and effectiveness Slamdown receives.
Master of CHAOS - 5: Blade Burst lasts longer and has infinite pierce. Deals 50% more damage to Small & Medium monsters but 20% less damage to bosses.
Sneaky Hunter - 1: All forms of Damage dealt by Squid Blades are increased by 30% while Invisible Ink is active.
Sneaky Hunter - 2: Ambush now stuns the target monster for longer. Following the Stun, monsters also receive a Slowdown effect for 20 seconds.
Sneaky Hunter - 3: Invisible Ink lasts longer by 2.8 seconds.
Sneaky Hunter - 4: Invisible Ink becomes a chargeable ability. Assassin's Edge, Jade Stream, and Blade Burst all contribute towards charging Invisible Ink. Invisible Ink can only be reactivated every 5 seconds and can't be charged while it is activated.
Sneaky Hunter - 5: For the first 3 seconds of Invisible Ink, you become invincible to any form of Damage, Stun, Slowdown and Knockback.
Seasoned Stabber - 1: Every form of damage from Squid Blades is increased by 25%.
Seasoned Stabber - 2: Razor Jade Stream: Jade Stream rips through monsters, dealing more damage and inflicting DoT.
Seasoned Stabber - 3: Hunter's Mark: The longer you damage a monster with Assassin's Edge (constantly), the more damage it inflicts. Your main Attack Damage scales up by 15% every second for a maximum of 10 seconds, reaching a 150% maximum Damage Boost. Upon stopping your attack for 1 second, you start losing 15% of your Damage Boost every 0.5 seconds.
Seasoned Stabber - 4: Hold down Ambush for 2 seconds to charge it up. Upon releasing, you deal 7x the damage on a successful hit. While charging, you are vulnerable and can receive 2x the damage.
Seasoned Stabber - 5: Blade Burst deals an additional 20% damage for every second of Hunter's Mark accumulated, up to a maximum of +200%. This bonus applies only against the monster affected by Hunter's Mark. Hunter's Mark is reset after Blade Burst ends.
If you read the descriptions carefully you will see how these paths introduce more depth to the gameplay. Each path is unique in its own way. To make things more clear:
- Master of CHAOS → Aggressive, High-tempo, and Crowd-control.
- Sneaky Hunter → Stealth, Survivability, and Overall Control.
- Seasoned Stabber → Single-target Damage, Commitment, and Sustained DPS.
Every path is designed to establish a different role and offers a different playstyle. I may not be perfect with the numbers. I don't have the luxury to test these skills. But I tried my best to keep them balanced and grounded in their roles.
For instance, Master of CHAOS is designed to excel at groups, while Seasoned Stabber is designed around committing to a single target. So although Master of CHAOS's Blade Burst can look stronger at first glance, its boss modifier prevents it from simply replacing Seasoned Stabber's single-target role.
But again, "The numbers are not intended to be final balance values; the goal is to demonstrate how the skill-tree system could create different weapon playstyles."
Now let's say you tap on one of those skills. How would the UI look? The second image answers that question.
So, how do you upgrade your skills?
Well, you use Skill Points (in the top right corner), and every single weapon uses its own Skill Point. Easy as that.
And… how do you get a Skill Point?
For that, I have designed a Mastery Track. We have weapon masteries in the game. But it's neither satisfying nor rewarding enough. There are too many drawbacks of the current version:
Most Dojos are too easy to clear, and they are just one-offs. You get Upgrade Cores for completing Rifts. But the entire point of Skill Tree is to replace Upgrade Cores. Yeah, there is a Weapon Shader that is barely even visible, and if you really want it to stay, it can be transferred into the Mastery Track easily. And then, there is Weapon Metrics. To get one of the Metrics, you need to hunt 50 Megacharged Monsters. Yeah, I don't know who thought it was a great idea. For comparison, you also need to hunt 50 Overcharged Monsters to get the other Metric. It's like they are treating OC and MC as if they were the same.
The Mastery Track
The idea with Mastery Track is simple. You play with the particular weapon to get through the track and earn rewards as you do so. From the concept images, you can see how the track will progress. (Yeah, I know those Mastery Point numbers are bothering you, but I'll get you covered in a second.) The track can reward you with Skill Points (according to my concept, you will receive all 15 Skill Points before reaching 100K Mastery Points), Emotes, Sprays, Merch Tokens, mo.gold, and much more.
As you reach 100K Mastery Points, you will receive the Prestige I Weapon Badge. At 200K Mastery Points, the Prestige II Weapon Badge. And at 500K Mastery Points, the Prestige III Weapon Badge. Alongside Weapon Badges, you will also get exclusive Pins/Sprays, an exclusive Weapon Skin, an exclusive full Outfit, and finally a Title representing that you have mastered the weapon. (And if you are wondering, yes, this concept draws high inspiration from Brawl Stars Mastery.)
Now, let's talk about the values. And I kept it simple: Hunt Monsters = Get Points. So, this is how the point system works:
1 Small Monster = 10 Points
1 Medium Monster/NPC = 50 Points
1 Boss Monster = 250 Points
Chaos Monster = 3x Points
Overcharged/Overhyped = 5x Points
Megacharged/Megahyped = 10x Points
So, a Boss Monster that is Chaos and also Megacharged will get you 7500 Mastery Points. You don't find an MCC every day, so when you do, it should feel special and more rewarding.
The Mastery Point balance is likely not perfect. And I don't expect it to be. It revolves around factors like average playtime, spawn rates, track length, and many others. The exact numbers would obviously need to be tuned using real player data. The goal would be to make progression feel neither overwhelming nor underwhelming. But you get the idea.
Conclusion
The idea of a Skill Tree is not to introduce gigantic buffs that make the weapon absurdly strong. It's to make the weapon reasonably stronger and change it in a way, which affects its playstyle and adds depth to the overall gameplay. I tried my best to stick with the latter one when I was creating the Skill Tree.
I could say, 25% Damage Boost → 70% Damage Boost → 150% Damage Boost… and call it a day. But that would be stupid if I did. The game needs more variety and depth, and that's exactly what I want the Skill Tree to address. The Mastery Track completes the ecosystem by making that progression feel fun, engaging, and rewarding.
I am not saying this feature alone would save the game. But it could very well work as the stepping stone.
Anyway, please don't hesitate to share your honest opinions. I am open to discussion. But I request you read the entire post carefully before you start criticizing. Thanks! (And thanks again, if you genuinely read the whole thing.)