I agree, Mastery skills are difficult to call balanced across the different branches. The point values are completely different, and most importantly, the ultimate goal of developing these branches is unclear. The rule of discarding useful and necessary things is not followed.
The Active and Professional Points branch.
1. Why are they intertwined if PvP and PvE are two different concepts? The maximum bonus for leveling Active Points for 20% of all Mastery Points is a paltry 50, not 200, which would allow for two full-fledged skills to be added to a build, but rather mere scraps. If such a mega-boost is so scary, they could have allowed more effective leveling of Active Points available in the Active Points race's hoards. Anatomy for a human or Aggressive Stance for a Toursair, so that 5-10 Mastery Points can fully level them.
2. The Strength tree, weight gain – 10 kg for 5 Mastery skill points. Not only are three of them forced, but they have no effect whatsoever. Seriously, giving 20 kg to ogmirs with a single treasure is fine, but giving the same amount for five Mastery skill points is unbalanced – even though it's simply a convenience for a comfortable game. It's unclear what the purpose of this 10 kg is and who it's for.
3. The Strength and Endurance trees, damage and defense against AI mobs – an absurdly strange and unclear division makes investing points unappealing. The description doesn't make it clear and difficult to assess the usefulness of this development tree, mainly due to the variety of enemies.
A reasonable category would be: monsters/animals, player pets (any), humanoid enemies (non-player). The player simply chooses the category in which they want to gain an advantage and level up.
4. Strength tree, armor – the cost per mastery point is acceptable, but the tree could have been extended to 10 (2 kg), otherwise 20 development points would be 4 kg. 1 kg of weight doesn't solve the problems players might face.
Magic tree
5. Mana pool expansion – 10 mana for 10 points is simply ridiculous. People create builds so that the base already meets all the necessary requirements, and +10 mana doesn't affect their gameplay at all. Hybrid classes or races with magical abilities might need a mana boost, and they can spend mastery points to cover their basic needs, for example, in Toursar, gain the ability to resurrect fallen characters.
For mana, a good price is 2 mana per mastery point and 20 slots (up to 40 mana).
6. Intellect tree, mana regeneration – I might be misunderstanding something, but even for a super mage, 6 mana is worth it. Mana regeneration is the ceiling, so what's with the 5% regeneration for 10 Mastery points? The benefit of such an investment is completely unclear, and why is it tied to a percentage? If 10 Mastery points don't give you 2 mana per second, it's a waste of resources.
7. Spell Power – I believe that magic is already powerful and doesn't need to be enhanced with Mastery points or jewelry. Heavy mages pay a significant price with risks and penalties, and fast mages and hybrids shouldn't be able to approach such power.
Instead of Magic Power, I propose upgrading the Fast Spell effect, which halves spell casting speed. Upgrading this skill to 15% increases the chance that a spell of the chosen school will be cast twice as fast.
8. Spell Cost – another branch that doesn't work well, mainly due to the difference and low cost of the main spells. Instead of 0.0001 spell cost reduction curves, it's better to move this all to a more understandable plane of expanding the mana pool. I propose replacing these branches with a 25% chance to not use resources when casting a spell from the selected school of magic. The Alvarin racial bonus should also be reduced to 25% (but for all schools of magic).
9. Minimum Regeneration – another questionable branch with only 2% minimum regeneration. It's actually suitable and only enhances Human skill, but for everyone else, this branch is useless. If leveling this branch won't allow a basic mage with regeneration boosts from Vitality to have 1 regeneration, then why does this branch even exist? If you think 5 points for this is too much, then value it at the amount it should be worth.
10. Spell Interruption – I think the spell interruption effect itself is too soft for hardcore play, and this stat should be a bigger pain point for any mage than a lack of magicka.
Many aspects of a mage's gameplay would be enhanced if, when a spell is interrupted, the mage not only loses mana per spell but also suffers a temporary silence (up to 2 seconds). Situations and items that increase the chance of spell interruption: a blow to the head (strong), running (moderate), standing still while mounted (no), riding (moderate), and galloping while mounted (strong). Situations and items that decrease the chance of spell interruption: racial treasures, wearing medium and heavy armor, and jewelry.
Under these circumstances, even 30% might be insufficient, but as long as there are no penalizing effects, leveling up in Mastery simply removes a whole layer of complexity from the mage's gameplay.
The Dexterity tree.
11. Endurance – 20 endurance for 10 mastery points is too little to sway a player to choose this tree over other useful options. This tree needs to be doubled and expanded to 20 points to allow a player to build around endurance.
12. Endurance Regeneration – another strange build choice, favoring insignificant numbers at a huge cost. The situation is similar to mana regeneration: a negligible increase, which is also reduced by wearing armor. My suggestion is that this tree should compensate for the stamina regeneration penalties of wearing heavy armor for 10 points. Players are already accustomed to these penalties, but some may want to improve their chances in protracted battles. For each mastery point, 2 kg of free armor weight is added, after which the endurance penalty begins to be calculated.
13. Weak spots (including for archers) – I don't like this concept. This advantage is mostly realized not through accurate shooting at long ranges, but by shooting at point-blank range or attacking with a dagger at machine gun speed – that is, in situations where the attacker already has plenty of advantages. I'm sure if you open the statistics for weak spots, they'll appear in compact groups, one after another.
Personally, I'd prefer such attacks to inflict statuses on the target depending on the area they hit, rather than wiping out 80% of their health. The statuses are: slowing the legs, bleeding the body, losing some stamina to the arms, and blinding the head for 1-2 seconds.
Weak spots shouldn't work when using adrenaline skills.
14. Fall damage – 10% damage reduction. How do we calculate the benefit of this branch? From what height will it be useful now? The benefit of Alvarin's passive is that it greatly increases its usefulness, but essentially nothing changes here. Jump height is similar; learning it will prevent you from pursuing Alvarin (without it) and won't give you access to unique routes, making it pointless.
Both stats are tightly tied to Alvarin, and significantly increasing them is impossible without either strengthening Alvarin or, conversely, completely depriving him of his benefits by introducing modifiers that don't give him an advantage. It's easier to abandon these branches.
This branch is best replaced with an additional reduction to stamina consumption while running; it's a more versatile and useful action.
