Skills or classes? Balance?

[Archaven]

Just to voice my opinion if i may. Please no 'learn by doing' system.. Really hates it. Let's say you have 7 skills that you need to concentrate on for the build you are playing be it your playstyle or roleplaying purposes, you need to rinse and repeat or spam infinitey the 7 skills the same x amount of times to get the same y level.

 

I would definitely prefer the skill points system. If you are Paladin class, then it makes sense to have skills that augments your melee prowess and skills that provides healing/aura/debuff/etc.

[bladeward]

Just my 2GP, but I LOVED the improve-by-doing flavor of DS1 and would support a variant of that in DS3. I think it really fit into a nice, fast-paced action that did not require you to micro-manage your skills or have your play broken by a leveling-page.

 

The only real complaint came from my wife, and that was that nature magic just didn't level as fast as other options, which, in co-op play meant she was always playing catch up. I think this may have been primarily because nature magic improve as a result of healing? (and she loves being the healer).

 

Just another perspective chiming in...

[Volourn]

learn by doing systems ar ejust asking for trouble sicne they cna be abused much, much easier than level based systems.

 

In could live with a learn by doing system if there were limits to it. ie.. if you arejumping up and down in one sport for minutes the game shouldn't count it. Same with swimming in shallow areas coutning as learning.

 

I'm a pretty good swimmer in real life, and I know for a fact that my swimming doesn't improve if I'm folling around in shallow water. It just doesn't.

 

Ideally, I like a class based system that allows you to select a limited amount of abilities from other classes.

 

An example would be selecting a fighter class who can be potentially taught how to cass some basic mage spells by a amge who sees potential in him. Or a warrior who is religious given some 'clerical' powers (depending how the DS world deals with gods, wizard vs cleric magic).

 

Or a rogue who comes from a barbian tribe should be stronger and better in battle than your typical city rogue....

[Sannom]

I doubt we will see a skill-based system in DS3. I think I remember a preview saying that the character classes were designed for uniqueness over flexibility. Meaning that having other characters beside yours will probably be "mandatory" to even finish the game.

[Irrelevant]

That's not really a learn by doing system though. That's exactly the same as saying "gain xp to level up, levels give you ability points, spend them on whatever you like".

 

[WorstUsernameEver]

I doubt we will see a skill-based system in DS3. I think I remember a preview saying that the character classes were designed for uniqueness over flexibility. Meaning that having other characters beside yours will probably be "mandatory" to even finish the game.

 

I hope it doesn't translate into every character of the same class playing exactly the same though.

A little bit of variety in builds would be nice.

[Irrelevant]

That's not really a learn by doing system though. That's exactly the same as saying "gain xp to level up, levels give you ability points, spend them on whatever you like".

 

I disagree with this completely, it sounds the same but if mixed with the DS2 "only XP per active attack" rule then you have something that basically equals Hours played=EXP(I guess you'd still need levels to tell where you are though, but it would be awesome if the exp gained automatically went into whatever it is your trying to improve. So lets say you bow attacks do 1 damage and need to do 100 of them for them to become 2 damage, under this rule each time you attack you attack your damage increases by .01. So if you've attacked 50 times then you would be doing 1.50 damage instead of 1 damage) plus it allows you to get around the needing to grind to get skills you want problem; Also, it looks like this system helps make Dungeon Siege, Dungeon Siege.

[Gfted1]

Isnt learn-by-doing open to blatant abuse? Ive never played it but I thought I remembered people not liking the Oblivion system, with someone posting a picture of how they fell off a cliff and died but leveled up their Acrobat skill in the process, or something like that.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Isnt learn-by-doing open to blatant abuse? Ive never played it but I thought I remembered people not liking the Oblivion system, with someone posting a picture of how they fell off a cliff and died but leveled up their Acrobat skill in the process, or something like that.

 

Generally it is, though I have generally more pleasant memories of that type of system in... *suspense* Ultima Online.

It worked quite well there IMHO.

[Oner]

Learn by doing in Quest for Glory was awesome.

[Vuguroth]

Darklands had my personal favorite learn-by-doing system, because you had discrete gameplay chunks that you earned points at the end of, and the rewards weren't directly related to the amount of times you did them if I recall.

 

wow someone actually bringing up Darklands! I was real impressed, and then I saw it was one of the revered developers :D

From how I experienced Darklands characters could sometimes get chunks of stats, as you say, not from repetition; but from well targeted play. You didn't really need to grind, but you probably needed to start the game with a couple of youngsters and a couple of carries, old of age. To become a doctor you needed a starching amount of studies, but that high healing skill was necessary until you got good equipment and skill, mentioning one 'oldie carry' :]

 

 

DS2's character system was 100x better than Diablo 2. Diablo 2 is simply too imba, too item dependant etc. Not that I play Diablo 2 like the popular culture of rushing hell, doing millions of reruns etc. I actually enjoy myself, find out the great elements(like Duriel's sneer) and build less expected character builds than hammerdin Stats are one of the most useless things in that game. Of course I love D2 and have played it quite a bit...

 

The only downside to DS2 was late game. In late game the best thing you could do was get level 1 melee(you already had it though from accidential fistfights if nothing else) + level 5 range and put skills into Fortitude(+%hp) and Survival(+%res) Your powers recharged every second and it wasn't really interesting except for massively blowing things up, slamming out Corrosive Eruption(corpse explosion) and getting neat equipment. The diminishing returns were *really* harsh. That's one way to try to keep more balance, but if you compare the opposition's scaling up of hp compared to skills' scaling things were just a bit awkward. Melee could be frustrating at some points but in the long run it was total ownage

 

When it comes to balance, my experience is that it's best to make it slow paced. Use steady base damage/hp scaling and low percentages. Not like the DS2 Necrolithid super mega crazy curse Blizzard have been in the front when it comes to balanced game play, but even WOW and SC2 have gotten soggy in late game, according to me. When almost everyone are getting crazy fat crits, nukes, bubbles and hand mounted rockets or like the warlock fear and seduce disables...

Disabling always has to be kept to a minimum when it comes to RPG's

 

Ultimately though, in a good game it's more about progress than balance

[kirottu]

Josh Sawyer also likes Darklands.

[Lord Elvewyn]

Okay old post but still ...

 

Did you seriously ever play DS2? I played a combat mage leading a mixed party and at times it was tough! Enemies often had spell resistance to one of the 3 combat magics and in some instances were totally immune. There were never any monsters melee or even range immune. NWN2 had the same thing. Magic resistance, and one boss totally resistant. Don't get me wrong I loved being resistant to enemy spells but it sucked when my own couldn't do any damage.

 

DS1 did allow you to max all skills. As I recall it granted the Siege Master class title. I never actually achieved that but maybe if I get back to playing it ... Trying to master everything at once did nerf you but if you concentrated it was different. I think strength first then magic was the best path as it maximised your health\armour and granted you spell power but without a near bottomless pool of mana as was the case if you overfocused on Nature\Combat magic.

 

My problem playing DS1 and 2 was the completely broken skill system that punished players for playing with their desired skills of choice that weren't as powerful or using things as they were convenient (jack-of-all trades is a master of nerf).

 

Will DS3 have a skill system similar to DS1, or something similar to DS2 (I admit I forget the differences between the two), or something new?

 

My personal peeve is that it always seems like players who want to be a bad-ass dervish swordsman or walking tank juggernaught will always get shafted because ranged (playing keep-away) and magic (way more useful/creative) dominate most action-RPGs.