Update #7: Non-combat Skills with Tim Cain

[dma]

This update really made my day.

 

Looks very good from my viewpoint, as someone that both likes to fight it out or explore noncombat ways of doing stuff, depending on the circumstance.

 

Especially that either way should be equally beneficial, so as not to make players feel they are forced into playing certain ways.

[Cantousent]

this is probaably my favorite update so far. The big thing is, you'll get the same xp no matter how you overcome the obstacle.

[Monte Carlo]

... and this is my least favourite update and it creates more questions than it does answers.

[Cantousent]

What question is there? You can fight like Sugar Ray Leonard and Sweet Talk to Cicero? What's to understand. You realize some folks can sweet talk but also fight. Some folks are both smart and athletic. There's nothing to understand but that we're not reduced to fighting or anything else. I think that is perfectly sensible. I doubt if it boils down to being to do every blessed thing imaginable. Hell, if you wanted to sweet talk and shoot straight, you could do that in any of the Fallout games. I don't understand why folks rail against this idea on its faces.

[Kaldurenik]

While i like the things in the update its abit hard to talk about it as we dont know how magic / skill / stat / traits / etc etc etc points will work.

[qloher]

My favourite update so far.

[Dermi]

Well, to be honest, Tim didn't say anything else besides there apparently will be two pools of skill points. He also didn't say that would indicate those pools would have equal amount of points It can be simply made that warrior's like characters have bigger pool of combat skill point, while diplomats can have bigger pool of "non combat" points. Or, those pools could be tied to stats, so character with high strength and condition will get more combat points than non-combat, while character with higher intelligence/charisma will get more non-combat points than combat skill points. We just need to see how it'll work before arbitrarily bashing the idea.

[Superdeluxe]

Every Update keeps on getting better and better!

[trisenk]

I could not disagree with you more. You should NEVER have to choose between being a strong idiot or a competent wimp. That was the single worst design aspect of Torment, and I'm so glad to see that they're going in a different direction here. I'm sure there are still going to be some tradeoffs, such as points put into stealth limit points put into conversation abilities, choosing between martial prowess and magic, etc. but there should absolutely be two different pools for combat and non-combat skills.

 

Having to choose between combat and non-combat abilities necessarily pigeonholes your character into a certain type, and limits your role-playing options. I don't want to be forced to handle every situation I come across the same way. If I want to kill my way through a group of bandits, I want to be able to do so. If I want to charm my way past a nice guard, I want to be able to do so. If I want to intimidate my way past a rude guard, I want to be able to do that as well. In short I want to be able to pick a situationally appropriate option, without being forced to do the same thing every time by my character sheet. One dimensional heroes that always act the same are boring, predictable, and I don't want to play one.

 

I came here to write pretty much this. It's nice that I don't have to. It's nice that I'm not alone in this opinion.

[Kai]

Love the update, have lots of options for a non-combat character is really something I want.

 

As for the Fallout (excluding FO3 where you could max everything way too fast), I usually put points in Small guns/guns to make my charcter capable of defending him/herself in case of a violent situation, while spending the rest on non violent skills., kind of a diplomatic assasin. The flexibility of that system is something I really liked. Hopefully that kind of flexibility can be achieved while having classes with unique pros/cons.

[Labadal]

Probably the most interesting update for me, even if it doesn't really tell much other than the basics. Dragon Age also had separate points for combat skills and non combat skills, and it was one of the things it did right. It will be interesting to see how this will be implented into the game. I mean, there is a possibility to have five companions with you, and maybe they aren't needed if you decide to play a no voilence playthrough. On the other hand, some companions may think you're a coward if you avoid fights and they are active in your party.

[Gyges]

Great update, but hopefully there will be costs to skill-allocations so we wont be able to make demigod-builds that can do anything.

Edited September 23, 2012 by Gyges

[drain]

A problem I have with previous games is where you only really need one companion to use each skill. If one of the first companions you run into will have a really high diplomacy score, there really is no reason for the PC to put any skillpoints on that skill. I'm not sure how to fix this. Maybe make it so that other modifiers might sometimes reduce that companions score, (meeting someone who is racist against his race, other alignment or similar) making the PCs score useful.

[l3loodangel]

The best update so far!

[Playgu]

• Avoiding combat does not lead to less experience gain. You shouldn't go up levels any slower by using your non-combat skills rather than your combat skills. We plan to reward you for your accomplishments, not for your body count.
  

This is great to hear. Awesome!

[Rabain]

 

I could not disagree with you more. You should NEVER have to choose between being a strong idiot or a competent wimp. That was the single worst design aspect of Torment, and I'm so glad to see that they're going in a different direction here. I'm sure there are still going to be some tradeoffs, such as points put into stealth limit points put into conversation abilities, choosing between martial prowess and magic, etc. but there should absolutely be two different pools for combat and non-combat skills.

 

Having to choose between combat and non-combat abilities necessarily pigeonholes your character into a certain type, and limits your role-playing options. I don't want to be forced to handle every situation I come across the same way. If I want to kill my way through a group of bandits, I want to be able to do so. If I want to charm my way past a nice guard, I want to be able to do so. If I want to intimidate my way past a rude guard, I want to be able to do that as well. In short I want to be able to pick a situationally appropriate option, without being forced to do the same thing every time by my character sheet. One dimensional heroes that always act the same are boring, predictable, and I don't want to play one.

 

The real question here will be what non-combat abilities you have to trade off against each other. It's all fine to say you want to kill, charm or intimidate when you want to but if everyone can do everything simply by choosing x,y and z then what re-playability will you get except through choosing a melee, ranged or magic character?

 

There needs to be some restriction on what you can be all at once. For example I liked in Dragon Age how high Str gave you better Intimidate but a warrior wouldn't typically put points in the stat Cunning but could still take skillpoints in Coercion which was increased by your Cunning stat. So you could Coerce a shopkeeper or villager but trying to Coerce a noble or warrior didn't work unless you happened to have a really high Cunning stat to boost your Coercion.

 

There really does need to be something that restricts non-combat skills even if it is just the Stat/Skill inter-dependency.

[godsend1989]

I will just cross the bridge with my non-combat skills then go back and kill all the bandits for maxim xp, i hope i can do this without penalties.

 

Also at the end of the game i don`t want to be master of all non-combat skills, i mean if you can have them all maxed out there is not much of a choice but in what order you get them and i think this is a bad system that will kill replayability.

 

Also will be very hard to balance Lock Pick with others non-combat skills, i think is the most used skill in most games of this type due the great rewards that come with it.

Edited September 23, 2012 by godsend1989

[Auxilius]

I did a Pacifist Run thread not long ago about that. I'm glad the man behind Arcanum is telling us this.

The best info is concerning the World Map though. Oh, how I dreamt of that. The possibility to explore and find random things in a 2D world.

[norolim]

There needs to be some restriction on what you can be all at once.

And I'm sure there will be. I think separating combat and non-combat skills into two trees is a great idea. And I'm certain there is no need to worry that it won't be possible to make a one-sided character. Anyone who trained to do some physical sports e.g. martial arts will know that you just can't have more than two two hour training sessions a day (and that is during a relatively short training cycle that is designed to prepare you to an event). You need to let your body recover. Otherwise you will just overtrain. In case of our RPG character, that leaves a lot of time for other activities, e.g. lockpicking trainig. So it seems natural that RPG characters should be more or less equally skilled at combat and non-combat techniques. The trade-offs should between the skills in one of the two paths. You shouldn't be able to achieve excellence at both wielding a sword and casting spells and similarly you shouldn't be alowed to become a master thief and a fantastic swimmer at the same time.

 

If, however, you want to create a dumb fighter, that will never talk his way out of a conflict, just give him door bashing and e.g power lifting as his main non-combat skills. If you want a silver tongue pacifist, make him a bard or a cleric specialising in defensive and healing spells.

 

Well, at least I hope Obsidian has a system like this in mind.

Edited September 23, 2012 by norolim

[Black_Hand]

i love how these ideas are inspired by deus ex so much, yet try to fix all the stuff that was wrong with it. thumbs up!

[Inertia]

I guess the people who cant wrap their head around being able to separate non combat abilities from combat ones never played nwn2 or iwd? spell progression combat feats etc were separated from diplomacy, open lock, lore blah blah and your decisions in specialization of those abilities were tied to how many points you could allocate determined by class and int mods which worked fine imo.

Edited September 23, 2012 by Inertia

[The Dark One Avoozl]

I love this update. There is only one thing I'm concerned with at that is if each class gains access to the same non-combat skills? I don't want that. Like at all. A warrior or mage shouldn't be able to pickpocket or lockpick as well as a thief. A wizard should be better at disenchanting or enchanting stuff than a warrior or thief etc etc

 

 

Perhaps you can re-sanctify a desecrated cemetery to prevent any further undead from rising' date='[/quote']

 

^Or this. I don't want to see anyone but a priest or maybe paladin being able to do that. It's majorly cool. I love out of combat use of class abilities. But it should be restricted to appropriate classes.

[czinczar]

What is the challenge of using non-combat skills ? We all know what the challenge of a fight is, but I don't want those non-combat skills to be easy to use, one click capabilities. Maybe we can imagine some kind of mini-game for stealing, a mini-puzzle game, like the lockpicking interface in some other games ?

[Dermi]

What is the challenge of using non-combat skills ? We all know what the challenge of a fight is, but I don't want those non-combat skills to be easy to use, one click capabilities. Maybe we can imagine some kind of mini-game for stealing, a mini-puzzle game, like the lockpicking interface in some other games ?

Please, not mini-games. If the skill of my character is high enough to deal with specific problem, then it's all that is needed. I assume my character is skillful enough to overcome any obstacles and can just open that damn lock or pickpocket that fat trader. Minigames are annoying, because in the end it's the skill of a player that matters and not the skill of character he created. It's perfectly fine to have skills working as "one-click", because it'll mean the PC is experienced enough to solve imposed problem and it should be entertaining and rewarding without the need of minigames.

[The Dark One Avoozl]

What is the challenge of using non-combat skills ? We all know what the challenge of a fight is, but I don't want those non-combat skills to be easy to use, one click capabilities. Maybe we can imagine some kind of mini-game for stealing, a mini-puzzle game, like the lockpicking interface in some other games ?

 

If you fail to convince someone to not attack you. You get attacked. If you fail to pick a lock you might make a sound that attracts residents. If you fail to make a healing potion it might be poisonous and you wasted the materials. If you fail to disenchant a magic trap, it explodes.

 

I.e. you better succeed or you'll get ****ed over.