Skills

[Yolan]

Today I was thinking about the current skill system. Being alpha, this may well be simply a placeholder, or initial set-up for something more complicated. But anyway, my suggestion....

Currently, we get learning points by doing pretty much anything, and with that we buy skills. I quite like this system as a replacement for levels and experience points. It is much more seamless to me.

However, it does appear rather too easy to suddenly 'buy' a skill and be proficient at it. What I would suggest is that everything remains the same, with LP's used to 'buy' skills, but while you get the ability to do the said skill, and make related items, you can't yet do it very well. In order to get better at that skill, you have to use it.

In other words, give each skill its own individual percentage. So, when you buy it you start out as 'novice' or some such, and in order to get better you need to practice. The effects could be translated into gradually reduced fail % on various tasks, as well as gradually increased yields on produced goods.

So, for example, after grinding those quick few baskets to get the 200 for wood working, you can chop down trees as per normal. However, instead of getting eight blocks of wood out of a log, you only extract four. When you become a journeyman, you get five, a master, six. Or some such. Or, this could vary depending on fail percentage, being only more likely to get more at a higher level. I guess it would have to be tailored to specific tasks and such.

It makes sense to me that someone who spends heaps of time forging/smelting/hammering would be better at these things than someone who just bought the skill.

Being a nature/industry slanted char could effect how easy it is to get better at a certain skill.

What do people think?

[Manbearpig]

No. don't add more grind, and I love that there is no fail rate rate on most things, I don't want it to be a pain to play.

[niltrias]

Yeah I posted a lengthy one on this, and I got nothing. go find my post if ya want.

[loftar]

Yeah I posted a lengthy one on this, and I got nothing. go find my post if ya want.

I should mention that we both read and appreciated that post. At the same time, we also have quite a few completely different ideas about the skill system, so it was hard for us to pen a good response to your post. I'm sorry about the lack of feedback on that.

[Errol]

I agree that you shouldn't become 'instant master' at a skill. But, fail percentages are really annoying and should be left out (almost) entirely. If anything, add quality modifies to the items in question - the better the crafter, the better the average quality. Crafting speed could also be affected to some extent, but not to the ridiculous legendary level speed Dwarf Fortress has. (as you see... well, inspiration, but I submit this because I feel the DF system is good)

You could also buy your level-ups in your skills with LP. In this case, make specialization encouraged by means of absurd LP costs for skilling multiple skills to the max. This would be easy to implement (mostly) and would also be a fair representation.