Talents
Talents are the abilities that let you adapt your creature to your playstyle, and increase its chances of survival.
There are three main trees, each with skills associated with that type. Combat, Survival, and Mobility. Each tree contains 10 talents, that can be invested in up to 3 points manually, and can go up to 5 points through the use of inherited talents and breeding. You must have points in the previous Talent on a tier before you can take a next one, and you must upgrade the previous Talent before you can upgrade the next one. For example, if you want 3/3 Health Upgrade, you have to have 3/3 out of the Talents that lead up to it.
The background of your talent tree and of your player avatar will reflect the tree you are most heavily invested in.
Colors will mix on the avatar background, so someone who has purple is a mix of Combat and Survival, while someone that is more brown is a mix of Combat and Mobility. You can see in the picture above a wide variety of skill choices by different players.
The Player List no longer shows what every player plays, as of the December 2018. Only players in your group will show as the creature they are playing, everyone else is anonymous and shows their Steam avatar. But my picture of the player list is still relevant to how the avatar colors work.
Combat
Combat tree is centered around fighting and defense. Combat Talents include Talents for health, healing, various damage types such as Injury, Knockback, and Damage, and increasing Ability Power amount. Some animals have special Combat Talents related to their species’ special ability, such as Mosasaurus Grab or Utah Pouncing, or Apatosaurus Stomp and Tailwhip
Survival
Survival Talents are related to the over all ability of your creature to, well…survive. Talents like Weather Resistance, Comfort and Stress Resistance, Scent, and Food / Water. Some species have specialized talents in this category, like Aquatics and their Elusiveness ability. This is a good support Tree, with Talents that increase the Comfort you provide allies, and in the case of Apatosaurus, how much weather protection you give allies.
Mobility
Mobility Talents are centered around movement. Talents include Speed, Jumping distance, Fall height resistance, Stamina, how well you turn, how fast you can run up hills and other movement related skills. Some species have specialized skills in this tree, such as Apatosaurus and Parasurolophus having a Turn While Stomping Talent. Pteranodons have a very specialized Mobility tree with several flight related Talents unique to them within it.
Inherited Talents
Inherited Talents works in two ways, and they vary based on how you enter the game. They have a chance to appear at specific growth stages, though you might not receive one at that growth stage if you did not inherit a Talent in that Tier.
- .45 (tier 1 talents),
- 0.6 (tier 2 talents)
- 0.8 (tier 3 talents)
- 1.0 (tier 4 talents)
- 1.2 (tier 5 talents)
Spawning fresh vs being bred:
Spawning in: You gain a random 2 to 4 Positive Talents, and 0 to 2 Negative Talents. You can inherit an amount of +1 or -1 in any Talent, and very rarely, +2
Bred in with two Parents: You get a variable amount of traits based on how your parents’ talents are arranged, and potentially a few wild card talents. Inbreeding and stress while an egg causes Negative Talents to become more likely to be inherited. You can receive an amount of +1 or +2 through breeding, and are more likely to get more Talents than a spawned juvenile