Skills, skills skills, more skills

[cromcrom]

Hello there,

I love the video I saw about Balrum, reminds me of old schools rpgs, like divine divinity, beyond divinity, and the like of them, and its really good.

I see a lot of stuff to do, but will the results be tied to skills ? Like you say that if I learn how to skin, I will be able to get stuff from animals. But I wish there was ranks in skinning, from novice to legendary, and that the better I become (either through training, practising, learning from others and so on...), the more/better stuff I can get, like poor skin, great skin, little distasteful meat, plenty of good meat and so on... Same for crafting, being a master smith would help me make some excellent weapons and so on, herbalism would help identify plants, mining gather more minerals, and so on.

I tried (and hopefully succeded) to implement these features in all the mods I created for various games (NWN2 (frontieres), mount and Blade warband (the rigale mod) and Legend Of Grimrock (The lost continent mod))

Never enough various skills

If anybody is interested, I can expend on the subject, describe various skills I am thinking of, and the quintessence of the systems I set up in my different mods.

However, your game looks really interesting, I will follow closely this project
I wish the whole team the best of luck.

[Obsyd]

Hi cromcrom!

Exactly!
We love how in Gothic games you needed to learn from a teacher before you can skin animals or craft weapons! But of course these teachers don't teach you for free you might have to do a few quest for them to earn their respect.
There will be multiple levels for each skill too!

We would be more than happy to see your ideas!

[cromcrom]

Ok fine, thanks for your attention, I will try to keep it concise.
First, "learn from failure". Each time you fail something, you have a chance to gain some experience, either general or in the skill. Chance is "intellect" dependant, the better the intellect, the better the chance to understand why you failed.

Then, the learning principles:
Skill ranks: novice, adept, journeyman,experienced, master, legendary or whatever.
Skill points: once you reach a certain amount of points, you benefit from the rank. like novice is 0-10, adept is 10-30, and so on.
Gaining points:
Basic system: gain only one point each time you succeed in using the skill, and you fail a test based on the current level in the skill, to reflect the fact that the better you are in a skill, the less there is to learn (and such a novice has many things to learn, and a master will hardly learn anything.

If the player visits a master, that teaches him the next rank, he will gain a bonus to experience he gains, untill he reaches that rank. For example, a master teaches the player how to be a journeyman in some skill, the player won't instantly become a journeyman, he will still have to practice, but he will gain much more skill points(like a random 3-5 exp, for example, instead of only one)
Finally, the player can receive lessons from a master, that will directly give him skills points, and maybe directly reach the next skill rank.

---

As for the skills, they are highly dependant on world interactions, which seem pretty deep from what I saw in your presentation.

There should be high level of interactions in the world, but all tied to skills.
Some examples:
Mining: gain more ore from mineral veins you dig.
Prospection: identify veins, so that you can then use them.
Farming: more chance that seeds fully mature.
Herbalism: Identify wild plants.
Camping: better rest from camping in the wild.
Skinning: more/better external parts from animals.
Butchering: more/better internal parts from animals.
Tracking: make an animal appear if you succeed (there should me more tracks than animals in the more for this skill to be usefull).
Trapping: set up traps.
Logging: get more proper wood from falling trees.
Medic: treat poison and disease.
Surgeon: treat flesh wounds...

and so on.

All this means that a lot of system are already in place:
wound system, exhaustion, hunger/thirst...

A legendary skill should really feel legendary, and be the only way to gain some legendary benefit, like a legendary fisherman could be the only one to be able to catch that elusive "Nessie Fish", which would in return have a very high value in gold or reputation or whatever.

Of course, success in using skills would depend on the skill itself, the tools (bad or good...), the environment, the attributes, the state of the character (wounded...)

All this are just shared thoughts, make absolutely what you want of it, and keep up the great work :-)

[Obsyd]

A little update. (not final)

[Galaad]

I like what I see. Though an idea in my opinion would be to put a soft cap on certain things...Learning skills through use is something I like, but its risky in a way.

What I mean by that is that if your character can become a master of every craft/combat/magic etc that are out there. You kill a great part of the replay value, players may chose to play again to do other "choices" in game, but the gameplay will be the same pretty much. If the player cannot "master" everything, then in the next game he may want to try playing a completly different style of character.

There are many ways to go about this depending on how players learn skills (Is it through leveling, through a trainer or through use? or a mix?)

One way to try and lessen that problem would be to make the player chose a few skills on which he'll focus and the training for those skills will follow a regular curve and won't have a specific cap. While other skills that aren't the focus will still be useable/trainable, but with a much steeper learning curve and maybe be capped to a certain amount. Although in such a case you could instead put in a "soft cap" by making secondary skills simply be even slower to learn past a certain point rather than cap them completly.

If it is through leveling where you get some points to spend (Like seems to be the case in this screenshot)...There are many options you can use but it also depends on the game world. Is there a level cap? Is there respawning? Could a player just farm some mobs to grind their level and get enough learning points to train just about everything?

You could impose limits on this by putting level caps or making the amount of point given to the player per level pretty low. But that seems to me like it makes leveling your character up far less exciting and kills the fun a bit for many players.

Therefore I think, if you decide to use learning points, that a good idea would be to first put in skill trainers. Making the cost of training higher as skills get higher is an option, but what I prefer is if you simply make it that above certain tresholds increasing a skill costs more points... (Like 2 above 50, 3 above 75 and 4 above 90 etc)...

Now though, a risk if use learning points is that the players wont care about training x skills above a certain level....and some skills may get neglected in favor of others since they don't have as big an impact on the game. Because, lets face it, in most games who would max camping? Why max lockpicking if there's a spell to open locks that anyone at a low level can train?

So I think a good way to counter this is to create incentives for the players to train all the skills...Obviously since the playercan't train them all, he'll have to replay if he wants to try it all.

What I mean by that (and my idea is partly taken from cromcom's post) is to have certain really special quests or event accessible to those who have skill x above 90 for example. A quest to catch a special monster of legend that of course only a legendary hunter could catch .... It doesn't all have to be quest since that may not apply well to all skills. For others it could be creating or repairing an item of legend etc.

The idea is to create at least one or two strong incentives for the player to want to eventually try out all the skills. Its better if they don't break the balance of the game, but its also better if they have a visible impact in the game. Be it through the way people now speak to your character, through nice visuals/graphics, something that allows the player to see what he did was pretty damn big. Otherwise, it kinda makes it pretty bleh....ok caught the legendary monster and then we go on to kill 10 orcs quest as if nothing had happened at all...

If possible having such an incentive/quest at each "threshold" level of a skill (50/75/90 etc) that lead to one another. Like for the hunter can now catch a bear at 50 and when you sell the pelt or return to your training you hear about a nest of blablah.... Repairing a wandering Knight's armor, if he likes your work (50+) he puts in a good word for you to someone who opens up the next event.


Well, I'll stop for now because this is already lengthy enough and not very concise... I still have a ton of ideas running through my head though.

I wouldn't make a good dev. because I never get these ideas myself and need the help of someone else to get my imagination running...But once someone puts out
an idea, it usually inspires me and then the flow of words and idea doesn't stop .

[cromcrom]

That's what a good RPG should be about, have your imagination running...

I agree with you, galaad, especially on the replay value, and limitation of some skills. If the character can learn everything, no replay value. As for ways to limit the number of skills to learn, could be based on intelligence, the more intelligent, the more skill levels you can obtain.

As for camping, its the proper exemple of the usefulness of a skill depending on the gameplay features implemented. If the player doesn't need to rest or heal, then a camping feature would be useless. If not, and depending on the place where the PC rests, he could have bonus to health regen, mana, and so on. So a PC resting in a hospital could gain a full recovery in every attributes, at a price, a PC resting in a noble's room in an inn could gain a good bonus, or a poor bonus in the comonner's room (with some chance to be stolen if he failed some "hearing/perception" check...). So, a legendary camper could feel in the wild like in an hospital, and gain full benefit of whatever.
This all really depends on the devs'imagination, time to implement the features, and so on...

Anyways, I LOVE the screenshot and the list of skills.
It looks really really really good guys.

[cromcrom]

Did I say I love skills, and world interactions ? Some more :-)
Beekeeping: get more honey from hive. Chance to recover a queen, and set up your own hive.
Taming: some random baby animals in the world (either from lairs, or killing mothers, or whatever...) Taming would allow to keep the animals as followers, and maybe gain some of their "special powers"...The better the skill, the more chance to "recover" the animal. Bigger animal in case of critical success, animal is dead or dying in case of failure or critical failure.
Trading: get a better price when selling/buying. Maybe not a typical crtical success/ failure stuff, but a percentage of more of less gold, depending on the level (and maybe compare it with the merchant trading level...)
Scribing: ability to create powerfull magic scrolls. CS: better scroll, F or CF: scroll/ingredients destroyed
Music playing: set up a spectacle in an inn, or for a Lord, or whatever. Gain money or fame in case of success... Could also raise some followers moral...
Meditation: Increase mana regeneration.
Athletics: either go faster, or lose less stamina from moving around.
Shamanism/High dreaming: I will talk about this in an other post.
Jewelry: obvioulsy, turn raw stones into something more valuable, either for magic crafting or selling...

As you see, the point is not in making a complex world, but in making a richer world, as your knowledge grows. Taming could be as simple as a random animal, that you either attack, or "talk to". The talking could lead to a taming possibility ("you can try to tame this animal"). Either you take the chance, succeed and get a new follower, fail and the animals runs away, not to be seen again (and you loose the opportunity to kill it to gather some components...). All about choice and richness of the world interactions.

[Bearhug67]

Skill fumbles as nothing creates more fond memories in rpg's then fumbles which let you ruffle your hair and entertain your friends when they see you watching biting into your keyboard

Mining: collapsing the mine shaft.
Prospection: Finding some precious fools gold.
Farming: Growing a nice patch of weeds and/or attracting bunch of crows picking your fields.
Herbalism: Smoking Thyme and using tobacco for spicing your dinner.
Camping: sleeping right on top of some ants.
Skinning: some leather straps for tying your shoes if you're lucky.
Butchering: Having stew for dinner instead of steak.
Tracking: being tracked by an animal which shows some unpleasant curiosity in you?
Trapping: Testing the trap yourself or fetching something unexpected like a skunk or moody badger.
Logging: Watching the falling tree hitting something or someone close to you.
Medic: spreading the 'fun' instead of containing it.
Surgeon: Ooops... Oh well, it's only a flesh wound.
Camping: Setting your tent or some trees on fire and/or letting the world know what a non-stealthy camper you are with your campfire and creating a lot of noise.
Beekeeping: Entertaining your neighbors by running from a bee swarm.
Music playing: attracting a moose or other big animal as you succeeded with producing a good mating call imitation
Taming: Animals bites you or goes after another person.
Meditation: Developing a headache and loosing maybe some mana points .
Athletics: Pulling some muscle(s) and moving stiff and slow for a while until rest or treatment.
Shamanism/High dreaming: Getting lost in the dreams by getting high but in the wrong way
Jewelry: Filling the world with an impressive scream as the jewel crumbles under your fingers. Might lead to developing another impressive skill called 'headbanging vs tree' skill.

As later the night as crazier my postings...

See it the practical way, as bigger the fumble, as bigger the learning experience, presuming you survive the fumble of course 0

[Mark Rushow]

I personally like the idea that you get good at what you do and weaker at what you don't (to a degree) I should never assign talent points. It should be automatic dependent upon what ever I am doing. In order to keep from maxing out everything say I use my sword a lot and sometimes my shield but neglect casting a fireball. I gain experience from using my sword to the greater degree and some from using my shield but in the case of caster fireball I begin to forget the talent regresses to a degree. This could work for all skills and attributes and or stats. If I focus on intellectual things that increases especially if it was difficult but maybe the lack of wearing heavy gear and swinging a big hammer around decreases my stamina and strength over time. In this way I do not need to choose a class I build my own dependent upon the time I have to work at something and how many things I can learn and train at once. If I notice I'm slipping in one area then I know I need to be more selective in what I choose to focus on. This way the system balances itself out.