Unique skill

Thoughts on the further development of Haven & Hearth? Feel free to opine!

Re: Unique skill

Postby Kaios » Thu Jul 16, 2015 9:38 pm

loftar wrote:I agree very strongly with this sentiment, but just making it so that some things are completely unavailable to a character doesn't seem like a terribly elegant (or fun) solution, I think.


An alternative might be to allow for specialization in a certain proficiency? For example you would gain access to all of those "unique skills" (which should be reasonably difficult to obtain) but could choose one area in which you have faster gains or something.

We already have players designating themselves or their village mates as professions like tailor, cook, smith, etc. so I do think it would give more value to player characters. I could see a complete disallowance of more than one "unique skill" as something that might incentivize alt use.
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Re: Unique skill

Postby venatorvenator » Thu Jul 16, 2015 10:28 pm

I don't see it as making things unavailable for a character but rather as giving them one additional option, like picking a life focus as you get older, choosing a career specialization after working with the same thing for a long time, or learning how to craft something new after a decade of experience. It's not supposed to be easily accessible.

Age isn't a factor in haven but something like this could give the illusion of character growth over time, and with tweaks it may also add content for the end-game (eg the new craftable item could be random and vary from player to player).
For example, let's say you can pick as many unique skills as you want, but their cost stack. A focus on survival would cost, say, 20 million LP, meaning your char acquired enough experience to make a decision of this weight. If you want to buy another one, it would cost 40 million, and so on. That could work with numen too.

Whatever the case, the central idea here is that the game is mostly quantity based, and giving your characters a focus flavor adds a quality factor that reflects their playstyle. It changes the gameplay, but wouldn't affect the number race much.
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Re: Unique skill

Postby epicless » Fri Jul 17, 2015 12:38 am

loftar wrote:
venatorvenator wrote:FFS, characters would have meaning.

I agree very strongly with this sentiment, but just making it so that some things are completely unavailable to a character doesn't seem like a terribly elegant (or fun) solution, I think.

Agreed. Doesn't feel like a sandbox if I'm limited in my growth choices by design.

venatorvenator wrote: For example, let's say you can pick as many unique skills as you want, but their cost stack. A focus on survival would cost, say, 20 million LP, meaning your char acquired enough experience to make a decision of this weight. If you want to buy another one, it would cost 40 million, and so on.

Could potentially work, but it would be difficult to tweak the formula of how it stacks. I'd rather have unique experiences be a prerequisite to make progression feel more natural (ex. chance to "specialize" in carpentry if you have X amount of LP in the skill + gained the unique experience of collecting X strange roots over Y period of time + crafted an item of X quality Y times over Z period of time).

This would (hopefully) encourage "specialized" behavior to gain a "specialization" in a skill, rather than just distribute points in a planned manner.
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Re: Unique skill

Postby bmjclark » Fri Jul 17, 2015 7:55 am

I think the last thing we need is more reasons to make alts.
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Re: Unique skill

Postby TeckXKnight » Fri Jul 17, 2015 10:04 am

bmjclark wrote:I think the last thing we need is more reasons to make alts.

Agreed. I can't think of an elegant way to implement skills unique to specific characters that won't detrimentally effect virtually everything. Even the current system which offers bonuses between farming or mining ends up encouraging alts more than it does diversification in skills, since you need a miner maybe once a week to chip iron and the rest of the time you just need farmers for the day to day. Unique skills will ultimately become that: have a spare character that can do the task once in awhile because active players need to have regularly used skills. Making it give bonuses to skill growth instead just becomes another Change personal belief and ultimately speeds the game up when accelerating the pace may hurt the game more than it helps it.
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Re: Unique skill

Postby venatorvenator » Fri Jul 17, 2015 4:39 pm

If someone is willing to walk a new char across the map, then grind him to 20+ million LP and wait a month or so for the unique skill time requirement, why not let him? I'd certainly prefer that world to the one we have now, where every end-game character looks the same, has the same gear, and fights the same way, or where the only difference between a top smith and a top farmer are a couple days online waiting for the belief bar since both have the practically the same skills.

I figured this would fit all playstyles but would benefit more the players who have only one character and who play more focused on char growth and development. I also imagined grind-driven players would rather spend those 20 million LP in stats instead of just getting a flavor skill. That makes much more sense according to their way of playing.
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Re: Unique skill

Postby TeckXKnight » Fri Jul 17, 2015 7:58 pm

venatorvenator wrote:I also imagined grind-driven players would rather spend those 20 million LP in stats instead of just getting a flavor skill. That makes much more sense according to their way of playing.

Exactly. Players aren't going to be able to afford to buy it on their mains because such a huge lp sink into a flavor skill means that you're weeks behind on farming. And so that you can do what? A special combat move? Combat comes up once in a blue moon for most players unless you're actively seeking it, then maybe once in a while. Save that for the combat alt. The players who are going to be able to buy it are players who focus on grinding lp without focusing on quality grind. I'm sure such a subset exists and that's who you're appealing to, but I don't feel that demographic is representative of the greater population and that their benefit outweighs the detrimental appeals this brings. Unique skills at the end of a character's growth are just not a good way to create intrinsic value in a character. Instead you'd want to do things such as create 'cool factor' or practical use/application or something else along those lines.
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Re: Unique skill

Postby venatorvenator » Fri Jul 17, 2015 9:45 pm

Haha seems like we're trapped in deadlock where this can't be too practical because it would encourage alts, but it can't be too useless either because no one would bother with it.

Btw combat-moves are just a small part of it. It could include other suggestions in this board like herbalism, poison making, unlock a random new plant for foraging, allow dying of clothes and banners, crafting of a new random item like a wolf cape or a symbel, extra inventory space etc. But yeah I understand what you mean. This is difficult to balance.
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Re: Unique skill

Postby GenghisKhan44 » Tue Jul 21, 2015 9:32 pm

loftar wrote:
venatorvenator wrote:FFS, characters would have meaning.

I agree very strongly with this sentiment, but just making it so that some things are completely unavailable to a character doesn't seem like a terribly elegant (or fun) solution, I think.


The nature vs industry slider, sir?
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Re: Unique skill

Postby loftar » Wed Jul 22, 2015 6:35 am

GenghisKhan44 wrote:The nature vs industry slider, sir?

Well, to begin with, those are removed in Hafen. ;)

In their defense, though, they don't actually exclude you from anything. Just keep them in the middle and you can do either, just with reduced efficiency.
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