Skill Based System.

[Vllad]

I would do something like the following for a skill based system.
I would still have some form of leveling (in order to attain points) but the following is based upon a max level player.

I would have PC's be able to use any kind of weopon, armor, spell or unique ability that is available to them. The difference would be in proficiency of the said skill. In other words anyone can swing a sword or put on a piece of plate with out any training. Hell we aren't monkies for christ sakes. However I would have skills that increase the use of said equipment.

Access to the skills would be in two teirs. For example I would break them down into types and tiers. I would have basic trainers around the world where you go to pick up Tier 1 proficiency skills. However for Tier 2 skills I would have evolve more around quest, factions etc. You would have to fullfill a prereq requirement to gain tier 2 skills. In this way as long as you followed the prereq you just layer and stack the skills.

Let me go through a list of examples of Basic, Weopon, Armor and Magic skills layers to show my point.



Basic Skills

So lets say Vllad1 at max level had 150 points.

Vllad1 has access to the following "Basic Skills" set:

Dodge
Regeneration
Constitution
Stamina

Each tiered skill would have 5 levels of skill. It cost an equal amount of points for each level in skill. For example if you took "Dodge" level 1 it would cost 1 point. level 2=2 points, level 3= 3 points etc. To buy all 5 levels in a skill would cost 15 points.

If I were to spend my first 15 points into Dodge it would do the following:

level 1= +1% chance to dodge, level 2= +2% chance to dodge, level 3= +4% chance to dodge, level 4= +8% chance to dodge, level 5= +16% chance to dodge.

If I completed some quest and/or had the right faction with certain groups I might get access to Tier 2 Basic Skills. Lets say for example that I had access to other special Basic Skills sets that had a prereq of level 5 Dodge requirements. This would then open up the following skills.

Acrobatics
Nimble
Ninja Education

Since I intend to wear heavy armors I decide to put 15 points into "Nimble"

level 1= -5% to hit penalty wearing cloth, level 2= -5% to hit penalty wearing skins, level 3= -5% to hit penalty wearing studded, level 4= -5% to hit penalty wearing chain, level 5= -5% to hit penalty wearing plate.


So for 30 points I have 16% dodge and a -5% penalty to hit with all armors. Vllad1 now needs some weopons.



Weopon Skills:

Tier one weopons skills are like the following:

Tier 1= 1h sword, Polearm, 2h sword, 1h axe, 2h axe, pistol, rifle etc.

Now learning the base skill doesn't cost any points. So I go to TrainerX pay him 10 silver and he trains me in 1h sword and Polearm skill. I can now equip and use any 1h sword or Polearm. When I did so I can now go to additional specialized trainers and pick up tiered skills. Once I go to 1h Sword TrainerX I get access to the following.


1h sword piercing damage
1h sword slashing damage
1h sword parry
1h sword accuracy
1h sword penetration


If I spent 15 points in"1h sword piercing damage" it would do the following:
level 1= +1% piercing damage, level 2= +2% piercing damage, level 3= +4% piercing damage, level 4= +8% piercing damage, level 5= +16% piercing damage.

I will cover the type of damage later.

If you put points into the "1h Piercing Damage" skill you get access to the following tier 2 skills.

Tier 2 1h Sword = Katana, Rapier, Cutlass, Falx, Sabre etc.

The prereq to take Rapier skills is 5 levels in "1h sword piercing damage". If I meet that prereq I would qualify for the following.

Rapier damage
Rapier speed
Rapier riposte
Rapier critical

"Rapier damage" would do the following:
level 1= +1% piercing damage, level 2= +2% piercing damage and 1% slashing damage, level 3= +4% piercing damage and 2% slashing damage, level 4= +8% piercing damage and +4% slashing damage, level 5= +16% piercing damage and +8% slashing damage.

All skills stack so for 60 points Vllad1 could have +16% piercing damage with any 1h sword or if I equip a rapier I now have +32% piercing damage and +8% slashing damage plus 16% dodge and -5% to hit penalties for all armors. Now Vllad1 needs some armor.


Armor Skills

All armor does in my set up is create motion penalties, add resist and prevent crits. The resist types could be from magic or melee. The four types of melee damage are Blunt, Piercing, Slashing and Puncture. Also the type of armor you wear prevents you from doing things which is the motion penalty. (Do not take this as running penalties as that effects pvp to drastically.)

For example certain spells or non melee ability may not be performed if wearing plate. Duel wielding, 2h axes and Scythes can't be wielded while wearing plate. (As long as you can't switch gear while engaged in combat any character can switch rolls by using this method.) This means a plate wearing shield and sword guy can still play other rolls if he has the points to do so.

Armor does not effect weopon speed, just the weopons you can use. This way you cater speed to weopons skills not inclined to be worn by plate users. This balances the game and prevents abuses.


So a basic piece of plate armor might look like the following:
Breast plate1= 45% slashing resist, 45% piercing resist, 40% Blunt resist, 35% Puncture resist.
-15% to hit penalty.

A basic piece of skin armor my look like the following:
Leather jerkin= 20% slashing resist, 15% piercing resist, 10% Blunt resist, 5% puncture resist.
-5% to hit penalty


Tier 1 Armor skills: Cloth, Skins, Studded, Chained, Plate.

Vllad1 already went and spent 10 silver so he could wear plate.
Now Vllad1 still has 90 points to spend so he goes to see the Plate TrainerX. Since he can wear plate he gets access to the following.

Plate Slashing Defense
Plate Piercing Defense
Plate Blunt Defense
Plate Puncture Defense
Plate Limber
Plate Critical
Plate Runes

Vllad1 decides to spend 15 points in Plate Puncture Defense and it gives the following:

Level 1= +.5% puncture resist, Level 2= +1% puncture resist, Level 3= +2% puncture resist, Level 4= +4% puncture resist, Level 5= 8% puncture resist.

By taking 5 levels of Plate Puncture Defense skill I now have access to the following Tier 2 Plate Skills.

Mithril Plate
Vampire1 Plate
Jolien Plate

I decide on Vampire1 Plate. It gives the following.

Level 1= +.5% to all resist, Level 2= +1% to all resist, Level 3= +2% to all resist, Level 4= +4% to all resist, Level 5= 8% to all resist.


All skills stack so for 90 points Vllad1 could have
*16% dodge and -5% to hit penalties for all armors.
*+16% piercing damage with any 1h sword or if I equip a rapier I now have +32% piercing damage and +8% slashing damage.
*+ 16% puncture damage resist and +8% for all other resist while wearing Vampire1 Plate or just 8% puncture resist while wearing any other kind of plate.


Now I need a little magic.


Magic Skills

Tier 1 spells skills would be Light Magic, Dark Magic, Fire Magic, Earth Magic, Water Magic, Air Magic


After reviewing the magic skills I find out that I can't really cast much by wearing any plate. In-fact in order to successfully cast any spells most require cloth and skins type armors. I do see a few I can do while wearing plate however.

Lets say I have access to the following Tier 1 Spells Skills.

Light Magic Accuracy
Light Magic Holy Burn
Light Magic Holy Defense
Light Magic Blessing
Light Magic Charm
Light Magic Duration

I decide to spend 15 points in "Light Magic Blessing"

Level 1= 1% increase in hit points, Level 2= 2% increase in hit points, Level 3= 4% increase in hit points, Level 4= 8% increase in hit points, Level 5= 16% increase in hit points,

While having 5 levels in Light Magic Blessing does open up a Tier 2 set of the following:

Blessing Reist
Blessing Offense
Blessing Group

I can't cast any of them while wearing Plate armor so I decide not to take them however their are some groups of Light Spells I could cast while wearing lesser armors. If I was enclined I could take some more points and put them into chain type armors and still have some left over to put into additional light magic. I could put on the plate and tank or I could put on chain armors and do some casting while retaining my 1h sword abilities.

Total now for 105 points I have:
*16% dodge and -5% to hit penalties for all armors.
*+16% piercing damage with any 1h sword or if I equip a rapier I now have +32% piercing damage and +8% slashing damage.
*+ 16% puncture damage resist and +8% for all other resist while wearing Vampire1 Plate or just 8% puncture resist while wearing any other kind of plate.
*Can cast a blessing that adds 16% increase in hit points.


If you made it to this point I think you get the idea. You could multi layer the skills (Tier1, 2, 3 or 4) and get access to even more skills based on the factions you gain. I would have it so once learned the type of skill you could always revert to them as long as you met the prereq's. I may decide later that I no longer want to cast blessings so I can respec out it and put those points into more weopon skills. If change my mind a year down the road I have already learned the Light skills so all I have to do is respec and put my points back into them to start casting them again.

I would just make sure that in a faction game I wouldn't have prereq's that aren't just skilled based but some may be faction based as well. For example if you turned yourself from a Human to Vampire maybe you don't get to cast Light spells.

As long as the points a very limiting people can enjoy a limitless amount of combinations.


Vllad

[Diggles]

if you are allowing immediate skill backs, wouldnt there still be a grind to make sure you had everything unlocked, which only feeds/encourages flavor of the months


Ie i skilled up polearms one week, but got bored and dropped it and took dark magic instead. however some overpowered polearm is discovered or it has a great drop rate, so now I get it and put my points back into polearm.

[Snowreap]

Asheron's Call did a very good job with a skill-based system.

first, you had access to only a limited number of 'skill points'. you could spend these skill points to 'train' in a skill, or to 'specialize' in it (originally, specialization could only be done at character creation). specializing in a skill cost more points, but made it easier to level that skill up. some skills cost more than others. in some cases, a *lot* more.

second, nearly every skill had a counter. attack skills had a corresponding defense skill. crafting skills were countered by 'difficulty' of recipes; spells cast on yourself were countered by spell difficulty. defense skills were typically more expensive to level up than attack skills. every attack resulted in a 'skill check', where your attack skill was compared to your target's defense skill. if both were equal, your attack had a 50% chance of succeeding. if your attack skill was significantly higher than your target's defense skill, your attack would have a much better chance of succeeding. if your attack skill was significantly lower, your would miss most of the time.

third, you leveled up a skill primarily by spending XP points. the amount of XP needed for your next point increased rapidly. you could only level up a skill that you had trained or specialized. untrained skills couldn't be leveled up. certain skills (the spellcasting skills) couldn't be used at all if they were untrained. this is what made the system work -- it was not practical to 'practice' a skill to raise it; it took far too long (with some exceptions). the fastest way to raise a skill was to kill things to earn XP, then spend the XP to raise the skill. your ability to raise your skills was limited by your ability to earn XP.

the other thing that made it work was the scarcity of skill points. there simply weren't enough of them available for you to reasonably specialize in more than 1 or 2 skills.

scarcity of points was also used to effectively limit other behaviors. for example, it was possible for a mage to wear plate armor. but you never saw it in practice, because plate was too heavy and mages rarely had much strength, electing to put their character points into willpower and intelligence instead (which gave a bonus to spell casting skill). but warriors frequently wore plate because they always had plenty of strength (because strength gave a bonus to melee skills). like skill points, raising character points also cost XP, and became more and more expensive the higher you got.

the game had flaws of course, but the skill system worked remarkably well.

-ken

[Vllad]

if you are allowing immediate skill backs, wouldnt there still be a grind to make sure you had everything unlocked, which only feeds/encourages flavor of the months


Ie i skilled up polearms one week, but got bored and dropped it and took dark magic instead. however some overpowered polearm is discovered or it has a great drop rate, so now I get it and put my points back into polearm.

As long as weopons and armor have different melee types of damage/resist you can avoid the flavors of the month. If everyone runs around with a polearm everyone can just spec in the armor that is most effective against polearms. If everyone is defensed for polearms the guy that wins will be the guy wielding a pick. Flavors of the month quickly turn into flavors of the week.

That is why RPG's never get the combined arms portion correct. You can't ever pull off the Planetside combined arms effects because Melee damage is always lumped into one sum in RPG's. If you seperate the types of melee damage/resist as well as magic damage/resist you can always bring a defense that will beat any offense.

Therefore it encourages combined arms with multi player fights.

This also accomplishes two things other things that are a must.

1. It encourages people to find unique builds and are always out there looking for an edge. It may not actually exist but players like Hoof would dig the shit out of this. The optimizing is endless with out equipment mudflation.

2. It creates the Rambo scenario's that people like Slamz like. If you don't run around with a combined arms group and with this many layers it would be possible for a group of 3 people all specced the same and wearing the same armor to run into the wrong guy who they just don't match up against and get wasted.
If those three guys go respec they may beat that one guy easily but end up running into another bad match who they would have beaten easily before. Therefore respecing won't always be the answer. Just bring along the guy who does match up. In other words diversity should rule the day in general.


If you throw in the faction prereq's then you could be really looking at guild vs guild match up's as well. Some guilds with FactionX just get a good match up with another guild that is with FactionY.

While I have no doubt that their will be certain builds that are favorites at least with a tiered skill system any build can have a counter build to beat it. It is the only way to make a balanced game. Class games end up with these imbalances and can't correct them. Every Warrior in WoW has the same build because it is quit frankly the best and they still can't beat a Warlock no matter how they spec.

Ideally you have shit loads of skills to chose from but just enough points to spend on them to give you just a taste of the depth at any one time.


Vllad

[Jakensama]

The only problem is in most skill games I have seen the losers have already calculated the most efficient paths and there are lots of paths that just end up making you absolutely worthless. IMO the tendancy is that the viably competetive combinations widdle down to a small number, so that really the diversity isn't more than a class based game if you want to be competitive against the min/maxers.. (Any of us who have played pen and paper with a munchkin know this tendancy).

Can it be done? Sure, I suppose so - but its going to be hard to make a skill system that allows lots and lots of viable builds.

Skill systems can also scare off noobs, which may be a good thing for quality of end game competition but not for selling your product.

[Hoofhurr]

I tend to agree that the player base eventually defines its own classes in a skill based system and a month won't be out before 95% of the people playing are playing carbon copies of half a dozen builds. Is this better because you can pretend that you designed your own build? I guess if putting talent points in my warrior mastery tree is the same as designing my own build.

[Vanraw]

I havent read the whole thread so sorry if this is mentioned. Over all I like Vllads SKill based game. Here is an idea to fight the grind. Allow for a very short period to "grind up a skill" so people dont have to play for weeks just to get to a competitive level. So here are a couple idea's to throw around.

- Quick skill leveling (say a day for a single skill) -

- Over time, have the skill degrade if it isn't used. This would allow for a somewhat faster method to getting to the end at a preferred skill. However for those who would want multiple skills, still an effort.

- All that would be needed to keep skill levels, would be to use them in play time. (Note this also helps resolve the "power level and char sale concept. If a char is idle for a month, he is back to ground zero or some sort of base line).

- Have a final skill level that is difficult to obtain. So on a scale from 1 to 10, you could get to 9 pretty easy, but getting to 10 might be as long as it took to get to 9. Call it graduated mastery.

[Jakensama]

Skill degreadation was, IMO, one of the more obnoxious UO features.

[Slamz]

I like the skill based idea. Even if there ends up being a small number of templates that everyone uses, there's always room in the end for some customization. You can also look at the underused skills and determine if there's a need to boost them, to get them back in use.

But Vllad's idea sounds more like one of specialization. If you're going against an enemy that relies heavily on chain, you might train more in blunt. If you're going against an enemy that relies heavily on plate, you might train more in piercing. If they're heavy on archery, you might go heavy on shields. If they're heavy on polearms you might go heavy on archery.

The question would be what rate we should allow people to skill up. You definitely shouldn't be able to look at your enemy, say "brb" and come back with a new skill set but I also wouldn't want people to say, "We don't have enough piercing to beat that all-plate team. I guess we can't win."


Maybe similar to EVE, getting the basic ranks of a new skill can happen quickly and it's the higher ranks that take a long time. You can get rank 1 just by talking to a dude, rank 2 by beating on a dummy for 60 seconds, rank 3 by going out and fighting for 10 minutes but rank 5 will require you to stab a lot of people.

[Jakensama]

How does that work though unless you make a sandbox game with some preperatory period before the battle where you can see their team and adjust your skillsets accordingly, otherwise its just going to be trying to cover your major bases and hope your guild has someone in each of the major skill roles along to balance yourself out to take on all potential comers. Essentially the same as a class system.

[Slamz]

The main difference I see between skill based and class based is that you have the ability to change one thing without changing your entire class.

For example, the enemy team likes polearms, which means hardly any of them carry shields, so you start training in archery. You still wear the same armor, have the same magic abilities, etc, but maybe you dropped some points in your sword skill and picked up some points in your archery skill.


It's more like a Talent Tree, except the talent tree describes your character rather than describing a minor adjustment to a fixed class.

In WOW if a warrior wanted to switch to archery, he would have to bail on his entire class. Even if there was a function to let him do so without losing any levels, he's still been forced to change everything about his character just because he wanted to switch to archery. Skill based lets him adjust one aspect at a time.

[Jakensama]

Right but unless you are going to have on the fly skill point adjustments it wont matter because you wont know your enemy team has no shields until the fight starts.

There will inevitably be 1) optimum archer build, 2) optimum sword build, 3) optimum polearm build that everyone uses - the question is how hard is it to switch? Is it stupid easy like Planetside? Even easier? If its any harder then you are pretty much pigeon holed into a class and at least have to go make significant effort to change to something else.

[Dustie]

I think there was a lot to be said for the Planetside skill system. Anyone could be anything, but not all at once. To forget skills, you had to wait a certain short amount of time. The higher level you were, the more options you had available without forgetting previous skills, but you could still only be so many things at once.

I also think that Planetside and POBS got it right by combining (in a major way) your skills with your vehicle/boat/gear. You could be a veteran level 50 player and yet jump in a small fast boat or a large lumbering 50 cannon giant. The point was that you were not a large 50 cannon lumbering giant after 3 months of play and that's what you would be for the next 3 years.

[Hoofhurr]

Do you think POTBS would have worked if they had opened up all those skills and boats to everyone and gotten rid of the classes restrictions?

[Slamz]

Right but unless you are going to have on the fly skill point adjustments it wont matter because you wont know your enemy team has no shields until the fight starts.

In our "living world" concept, at least, you'll tend to know who you're fighting well ahead of time. Your nation borders another nation. The neighboring nation is rich in metal but poor in forests, so they tend to all have chain/plate and swords/shields. Your nation is rich in forests. Since the enemy tends to have a lot of shields, you won't get a lot of use out of your bows, but you can get a lot of use out of large wooden mauls, cudgels and wooden polearms good for keeping sword users at bay, especially when you're going to be more nimble due to your lighter armor.


If it were WOW battlegrounds, I would agree that the system makes little sense, since you're always going against a random mishmash of people, but in the "living world" you're going to know your enemies.

[Jakensama]

I would imagine that a living world concept would involve lots of trading so that equipment somewhat equalized throughout the world too though.

Anyways, I think the planetside system worked well for an fps, but if you are going to make a game with some sort of significant character development it is hard to juggle both that and ultimate flexibility as players are going to end up specializing to become effective.

[Kakarat]

I think there was a lot to be said for the Planetside skill system. Anyone could be anything, but not all at once. To forget skills, you had to wait a certain short amount of time. The higher level you were, the more options you had available without forgetting previous skills, but you could still only be so many things at once.

I also think that Planetside and POBS got it right by combining (in a major way) your skills with your vehicle/boat/gear. You could be a veteran level 50 player and yet jump in a small fast boat or a large lumbering 50 cannon giant. The point was that you were not a large 50 cannon lumbering giant after 3 months of play and that's what you would be for the next 3 years.

Exactly. In a game like WAR, you have to roll another character in order to do something different.
I totally love the idea of EVERYONE starting the same, then going out and customizing to do what you want to do.
There will always be those cookie cutter builds, and the flavor of the months/weeks, There will always be that one guy/group to counter the flavor of the week and totally kick ass. That is part of the game, not knowing what your enemy is capable of.

I am a guy that likes to try different things with my character. Back on EQ, I eventually maxed out all my weapon skill and then maxed out all my trade skills. I was a warrior inept in every skill.

With Vllad's skill based system, I could see getting mastery in one skill, say Blunt. Then having sword as a secondary type weapon. Or perhaps I could get mastery in two types of weapons, but only using light armor. I have all my points into duel wield, parry, dodge. I could see that type of point system being very fun.

[Diggles]

I did like the D&D/RPG'ish thing with Mount&Blade where you picked your background and that influenced your starting skills/attributes (to some degree)

[Dustie]

Do you think POTBS would have worked if they had opened up all those skills and boats to everyone and gotten rid of the classes restrictions?

I think it could have worked. Lets say you had 10 people logged on one night. Your guild needed to move 100 tons of timber from island A to island B but 6 of you were merchants and 4 of your were Navy Officers. Perhaps you say "we have too many merchants and not enough fighters to escort the cargo -- oh well, lets try again another night when we have more fighters logged on." I'd prefer that 2 of the merchants simply jump in a fighting ship and the guild continues to carry out its mission. Even if the guild needs to wait 10 minutes for someone to switch ships or forget and learn a new skill (which they will then need to wait 24 hours to re-aquire) it's more important to let the guild continue its mission then it is to say "lets try again next weekend when more of us are logged on."

[Dustie]

Vllad,

What are your thoughts for the time it takes to get to the top tier skill and or fully load out your max skill points? Is this a process that takes hours, days, weeks or months?

[Slamz]

I did like the D&D/RPG'ish thing with Mount&Blade where you picked your background and that influenced your starting skills/attributes (to some degree)

I would want to do something like that as well.

Like if you can have a total of 1000 skill points, why not start out new characters with 500 skill points already assigned, based on a "starting class"? This doesn't lock you into anything but if you start off as a "swordman", maybe you start with 5 ranks of basic swordfighting, 4 ranks of basic armor wearing, 2 ranks of medic, 0 ranks of magic, etc.

That way everyone can hit the ground running with a degree of ability in something-or-another but they still have a lot of room to customize and specialize from there.

(Also similar to what EVE does.)

[Kakarat]

I did like the D&D/RPG'ish thing with Mount&Blade where you picked your background and that influenced your starting skills/attributes (to some degree)

I would want to do something like that as well.

Like if you can have a total of 1000 skill points, why not start out new characters with 500 skill points already assigned, based on a "starting class"? This doesn't lock you into anything but if you start off as a "swordman", maybe you start with 5 ranks of basic swordfighting, 4 ranks of basic armor wearing, 2 ranks of medic, 0 ranks of magic, etc.

That way everyone can hit the ground running with a degree of ability in something-or-another but they still have a lot of room to customize and specialize from there.

(Also similar to what EVE does.)

Perhaps instead of just handing them these 500 skill points. Make them earn it and implement them within the first 10-15 levels. Then decrease the amount of points the higher up you go. So from 1-10 you get 500 points, but from 10-50 you get 500 points.

[Dustie]

I did like the D&D/RPG'ish thing with Mount&Blade where you picked your background and that influenced your starting skills/attributes (to some degree)

I would want to do something like that as well.

Like if you can have a total of 1000 skill points, why not start out new characters with 500 skill points already assigned, based on a "starting class"? This doesn't lock you into anything but if you start off as a "swordman", maybe you start with 5 ranks of basic swordfighting, 4 ranks of basic armor wearing, 2 ranks of medic, 0 ranks of magic, etc.

That way everyone can hit the ground running with a degree of ability in something-or-another but they still have a lot of room to customize and specialize from there.

(Also similar to what EVE does.)

I don't think that's a good idea. In any system such as that, you'll always end up with a certain base class that needed to be picked in order to have a character with the best something. And if that occurs, you end up with guilds that are misconfigured with too many Xs and not enough Ys. From there, you have players that either take the time to reconfigure (if its low enough, not months) or quit.

[Slamz]

I don't think that's a good idea. In any system such as that, you'll always end up with a certain base class that needed to be picked in order to have a character with the best something. And if that occurs, you end up with guilds that are misconfigured with too many Xs and not enough Ys. From there, you have players that either take the time to reconfigure (if its low enough, not months) or quit.

I'm saying that it starts you out with a certain point distribution, but there are no limits on your ability to redistribute and no inherent bonuses or penalties associated with your initial selection (or at least, none you can't undo).

e.g.
"Swordsman"
Sword skill 100
Armor skill 100
Medic skill 50
Evocation skill 0
Conjuring skill 0
Alchemy skill 0
Starting faction of 50 with Swordsman Guild

"Magician"
Sword skill 0
Armor skill 0
Medic skill 0
Evocation skill 100
Conjuring skill 100
Alchemy skill 50
Starting faction of 50 with Magician Guild

These are simply your starting point distributions to get you started on the path you want. Nothing stops the first guy from learning magic skills and forgetting his sword skill, and nothing stops the second guy from becoming a master medic, it's just giving them points to get them started down one path or another.

The title of "Magician" would probably just be a calculated title based on your skills. If you trained up enough sword skills your title would change as well (if we even bothered with titles).

[Dustie]

That would be fine, as long as you can respect down from 500 to 0 (and it doesn't take 3 months).