Current non-combat skillsystem needs to go

[Labadal]

The way they are set up now, I don't even care about them.

 

I wanted to get a high lore skill for my PC but I didn't care for the talents connected with lore. In the end, I just went with the talents that would benefit the playstyle I wanted for het in combat.

 

What was wrong with how NCS worked before? It was at least better than this current system. I actually dislike it a lot.

 

What say you, backers?

[Sensuki]

I was thinking of creating this thread today. Beat me to it.

 

Yes this needs to be reverted back to how it was in v301. The system they had was fine, but the UI for it and the way points were assigned were not great.

 

I have saved all of the dlls for every beta version, so if they do not change it back, we will mod it back in.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[Labadal]

That's a mod I'd use. I usually play most games in their "vanilla" state on my first run, but if this system stays, I'd use a mod like that without hesitating.

[Sheikh]

I dont know I dont play BB but devs get in here!

[Shevek]

The old system had flaws too. There are not enough skills to make it meaningful.

 

I am not a fan of the current system but it may be ok if they dramatically increase the talent list (like double or more) and balance them all.

 

I am curious what their internal conversation is on this.

[serenityangel]

I agree and prefer the ability to choose our skill allocations when traits were not tied to skills.  So +1 to OP & Sensuki.

[Hormalakh]

The problem was that players were not thinking about skill use in the old system when upgrading their skills. The current solution (which is not really a solution) tries to rectify this.

 

As I mentioned before, player choice,I believe, had to do with lack of clear input to them about what each point in the skill meant, i.e. What does one more point in x skill give the player - in terms of factual, tangible benefit? The remedy shouldn't have been a clunky new talent-skill system. It should have been more information for players to make informed decisions.

 

However, you can buy skills as a talent in the new system. I think it's just that these skill points are not balanced against a much more interesting talent pool.

[Sheikh]

So it is currently totally broken.

[Sensuki]

WE ARE TEH WIN

 

The choices related to allocating skill resources were uninteresting and not difficult. In the current system (Skills derived from Talents), I believe the choices have become more difficult, but not fun. It was genuinely an experiment. Overall, people did not have strongly negative reactions to it, but most people did seem to have at least a mildly negative reaction. I.e., it doesn't seem to make the game terrible, but most people think it makes the game worse. I think that's a better indictment of the system than if just a handful of people hated it. We'll be returning to something similar to the original system in the near future, with separate resource pools for Skills and Talents. I still don't think the choice of what to raise at each level is interesting or hard to make, but that's preferable to being frustrating.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Sensuki

[Sheikh]

Ah is good. High five!

[rjshae]

The reverse--skills-based talents--would be more interesting, I think.

[Lephys]

Maybe there should be "more skills" in the form of sub-skills. Basically, you don't really have to code in and represent all new skills throughout the game, but it could be a little more interesting.

 

You'd have Mechanics, but under that, you'd have Traps, Locks, and I dunno... Industrial or something? (machines that are neither traps nor locks). Basically, if you put a point into ANY of those, you're still putting points into Mechanics. So, every X number of points, you go up a rank in Mechanics. But, this way, it'd be a lot easier to check for specific, specialized knowledge/skill within the Mechanics skillset (You could have a check that requires 5 Traps, OR 3 Mechanics... basically, the Traps check only requires 5 total spent points, while 3 Mechanics would require 3-times-X points in either Traps, Locks, or Industrial, to achieve the rank of 3 in general Mechanics skill/knowledge. So, you either need a decent bit of specific Traps knowledge, OR a heck-of-a-lot-more general Mechanics knowledge.

 

I dunno. Maybe that's not a feasible change at this point, but I think it would work, and other than restructuring, it seems to pretty much fit the current system and representations. You'd just have to change the point structure, skill entity list, and you'd have to go through all the skill checks in the game and sort of mulligan them with the new structure. Which... now that I list all that "aloud," it sounds like it could be pretty troublesome.

[rjshae]

Maybe there should be "more skills" in the form of sub-skills. Basically, you don't really have to code in and represent all new skills throughout the game, but it could be a little more interesting.

 

You'd have Mechanics, but under that, you'd have Traps, Locks, and I dunno... Industrial or something? (machines that are neither traps nor locks). Basically, if you put a point into ANY of those, you're still putting points into Mechanics. So, every X number of points, you go up a rank in Mechanics. But, this way, it'd be a lot easier to check for specific, specialized knowledge/skill within the Mechanics skillset (You could have a check that requires 5 Traps, OR 3 Mechanics... basically, the Traps check only requires 5 total spent points, while 3 Mechanics would require 3-times-X points in either Traps, Locks, or Industrial, to achieve the rank of 3 in general Mechanics skill/knowledge. So, you either need a decent bit of specific Traps knowledge, OR a heck-of-a-lot-more general Mechanics knowledge.

 

I dunno. Maybe that's not a feasible change at this point, but I think it would work, and other than restructuring, it seems to pretty much fit the current system and representations. You'd just have to change the point structure, skill entity list, and you'd have to go through all the skill checks in the game and sort of mulligan them with the new structure. Which... now that I list all that "aloud," it sounds like it could be pretty troublesome.

 

Yes, that was my thinking too--use a tree structure for the skills (with the current set serving as the base) and allow specializing in the various branches. That way your rogue can specialize in burglarizing, investigating, or scouting. This skills tree approach would probably be the easiest to implement, given the current code development, and I think it possesses a certain elegance too.

[Magnificate]

Yes! To me, the original skill system was basically fine. It's most important aspect was that it decoupled combat and non-combat level-up choices.