A flaw in the Skills system.

[Archiplex]

I made a thread about this before, but now I have a more concrete suggestion.

Current skill mechanics:

- Skills are a mandatory gate to unlocking everything in the game.
- Skills are only a nuisiance to villages who can create hundreds of thousands of LP every day, intelligence is easy to gain in a villahe
Thus
- Skills only impact new characters, early characters and people new to the game.
With the exception of
- High cost skills (The industry/nature, black skills) are optional and moderately difficult to get to mid-tier villages
- The high cost skills do not feel bad to take, and you usually do so for a reason
- The high cost skills are for purposes other than unlocking the "next" stage of the game, and are for niche roles
Thus
- High cost skills with different impacts than just unlocking new craft requirements feel healthy to buy, and are a topic of focus, rather than an inevitability
And in further claim
- The standard skills are taxing and do not feel healthy or interesting to take, merely as a "toll" gate to continue in the world, but one that only impacts newbies and solo characters who are fresh in the world.

My suggestions:
- Skills should unlock niche abilities, interactions and should cost a lot of LP to buy up front, or should have "chains" of skills (such as industry/nature)
- Skills should focus on enhancing specific abilities of a character (For example, a "ranger" related ability that reduces how much accuracy you lose when shooting an arrow)
- Skills can also branch out into a real skill tree, and possibly "lock" other skill trees (Though this goes against the current vibe of haven wwhere anyone can do anything), for example if you buy a certain ability that enhances smithing, you cannot buy the ability that enhances farming anymore (i feel like this would only promote alts, probably bad)
- The basic slew of "skills" should be removed (All craft-related ones), and granted by default. The discovery system is already good enough to prevent players from being overloaded by mechanics.
- The murder skill should be readded and a Salem-esque execution system with the Coup De Grace should be readded. It should be useable at range as well, if the player has a bow and arrow equipped.
- The murder skill should be very expensive, and most skills intended to enhance player specific COMBAT abilities should be as well.
- Possibly link discovery of new moves and attacks to buying skills again- learning from combat is cool but having all basic abilities that way is not. Perhaps keep certain "special" combat discoveries only be able to learned from combat, whereas all simple moves integral to combat are learned from skills.
- With the introduction of skillcap, you could add skills that raise your statcap by a certain number for one attribute or stat, but doing so locks you out of buying a higher skillcap for other skills (For example, the archery skill would raise the cap by 25 above your current maximum cap, but that would prevent you from buying a UA cap raiser). This could be variable, for example only locking you out of skills if you reach a certain bonus skillcap in one skill already- and the skill should only become available once you hit the cap for an attribute anyways.

[Kalacia]

I agree... to a point. I dont think we should do away with all the low level skills. mainly as when i first started i liked that "carrot on a stick" progression early on. I just think they should be bundled. Say, bush-person-ship is hunting and foraging.

Id also like to see some specialisation, as you mentioned with the cap on your last point. Like people with high level farming skills, cannot take murder... or it makes murder cost much much more.

having a little "boost" to your cap, at the cost of another skill, is a great idea. Again, forcing specialistaion if you want to play at the high level games.

Thanks

[LadyV]

Ill agree to a bit of what you say. I still say skills need clear and defined options. Every choice opens new areas but can also close others. Say I am an archer and I discover a skill I dont know lets call it markmanship. The skill should unlock two or three options form there. Maybe greater range, faster aim, or some other perk. You should be able to learn one from that list and then the others close off. Specialization would make haven a whole new game.

[Granger]

Ill agree to a bit of what you say. I still say skills need clear and defined options. Every choice opens new areas but can also close others. Say I am an archer and I discover a skill I dont know lets call it markmanship. The skill should unlock two or three options form there. Maybe greater range, faster aim, or some other perk. You should be able to learn one from that list and then the others close off. Specialization would make haven a whole new game.

This would open up endless cans of tears, because people would wine about the option they took is worse than others they now can't take anymore - or imagine what would happen on the forum in case of rebalancing...

[LadyV]

Ill agree to a bit of what you say. I still say skills need clear and defined options. Every choice opens new areas but can also close others. Say I am an archer and I discover a skill I dont know lets call it markmanship. The skill should unlock two or three options form there. Maybe greater range, faster aim, or some other perk. You should be able to learn one from that list and then the others close off. Specialization would make haven a whole new game.

This would open up endless cans of tears, because people would wine about the option they took is worse than others they now can't take anymore - or imagine what would happen on the forum in case of rebalancing...

And it would be any worse than the incessent complaining to one misstep with any update? Tough! The game need variety and it need balance. If they are going to limit abilities then they had better open up skills to be more in depth and unique because if you this forum will be on fire with endless complaints of being boxed in.

[Kalacia]

Ill agree to a bit of what you say. I still say skills need clear and defined options. Every choice opens new areas but can also close others. Say I am an archer and I discover a skill I dont know lets call it markmanship. The skill should unlock two or three options form there. Maybe greater range, faster aim, or some other perk. You should be able to learn one from that list and then the others close off. Specialization would make haven a whole new game.

This would open up endless cans of tears, because people would wine about the option they took is worse than others they now can't take anymore - or imagine what would happen on the forum in case of rebalancing...

Offer a rarther costly, and exponentially increasing skill reset, that costs LP... Or a skill reset token for $5.

I would love to see some specialisation in hafen.

[Granger]

Ill agree to a bit of what you say. I still say skills need clear and defined options. Every choice opens new areas but can also close others. Say I am an archer and I discover a skill I dont know lets call it markmanship. The skill should unlock two or three options form there. Maybe greater range, faster aim, or some other perk. You should be able to learn one from that list and then the others close off. Specialization would make haven a whole new game.

This would open up endless cans of tears, because people would wine about the option they took is worse than others they now can't take anymore - or imagine what would happen on the forum in case of rebalancing...

Offer a rarther costly, and exponentially increasing skill reset, that costs LP... Or a skill reset token for $5.

I would love to see some specialisation in hafen.

So pay2!lose instead of pay2win ?

(I miss a vomit smily)