Fixing skills

[Shdy314]

doubt you can become a true Sith. You'll just be a Jedi that goes DS. And even Sith can heal themselves(though in KOTOR it costs a few more force points). It's force healing others that's considered a good action(in SW universe not KOTOR.)

You may be right. Nerfing Heal may be the only option. Maybe make it impossible to use in combat? If skills are made more important an all-Jedi party will no longer cruise through the game like they do in KOTOR.

I hope you can become a true Sith because that was a let-down in the first game.

 

I'm not exactly sure what to do with heal, but at present having 3 Jedi in a party makes combat ridiculously easy. You're never in any danger most of the time, and even if the party is near death just a few quick heals and you're as good as new again. Either make it far more expensive to cast or just remove it from combat entirely.

I edited my post because I hope the same thing too. I mean really all you need is to put one holocron in the game with Sith teachings and you could consider yourself a Sith instead of just a fallen Jedi. And they really should with Sith prestige classes. I think making it more expensive is the answer. Not having it when you are alone in a fight would be a big hindrance. Also combat needs to be harder. It was practically impossible to die in KOTOR.

[Gromnir]

"As long as Jedis and Force Users are the focus, its not going to happen."

 

the problem is economics.

 

sounds strange? it shouldn't. developers does a major quest... do maps, and critters and scripts and all kinds of stuff. takes lots of time, and resources and money to build that quest or section o' game. now, from developer's perspective, does it make sense that only a certain player build should be able to access or complete the quest? you has just done stuff that 'mounts to an hour or two of gameplay, and you is gonna make unavailable to 90% of players?

 

game is gonna play same for every character, and is gonna throw you some occasional treats for taking extra points in a specific skill. you got computer skills? great, you can access a computer that tells you 'bout some secret room that gots a bunch o' stolen credits and a weapon or two in it... or maybe a computer file leads you to find some kidnapped child that you save... get exp points and light or dark points depending on if you rescue child or sell her to slavers. maybe a half dozen times in game you gets such computer skill treats. wow. hope you ain't expecting anything more substantial from your computer skills... 'cause it not economical to do more.

 

is probably too much to hope for that the developers would actually make game play noticeably different for different folks

[Shdy314]

I agree with what you're saying. I don't want whole specific areas accessible only to certain characters with certain skills. I want more of a Deus Ex kind of gameplay where it all led to the same room but you could sneak in, lockpick the door and then hack the computer OR Kill every guard find the passcode to the computer somewhere and then bust down the door. Same area, same equipment same end result BUT ways for more skillful characters to do it. A few secret ROOMS not levels is still a nice bonus to computer savvy characters and let's not forget you don't need to have a computer savvy PC as long as the devs let you have a computer savvy NPC 90% of people still would be able to access them. Suddenly T3 is your favoritest character! Don't forget about those NPCs. Suddenly you'll have a reason to have other party members with you besides Jedi. Which seems smart after all the time and effort they put into them.

[kumquatq3]

..........................

They've established that they'll be trying to make every skill more used.

Haven't seen anything to suggest this. If you could link to a preview or developer post with a statement to that degree it would greatly set my mind at ease. I certainly hope they are and offer these humble suggestions on how they might do that.

Will there be force powers that added to your skills

 

Example:

Force slice

Security

Force repair

 

have any new skills been added?

 

dev reply

This is sort of a half-answer, so bear with me. In KotOR some skills may have felt neglected by the end of the game. In our game we try to make each skill get more "air time", if you will. Ideally speaking if you have bought any particular skill by the end of the game you should feel like you got some good mileage off of it. There will probably be some skills that are more desirable than others (which is almost always inevitable), but all skills should have their moments to shine and be relevant.

[Shdy314]

..........................

They've established that they'll be trying to make every skill more used.

Haven't seen anything to suggest this. If you could link to a preview or developer post with a statement to that degree it would greatly set my mind at ease. I certainly hope they are and offer these humble suggestions on how they might do that.

Will there be force powers that added to your skills

 

Example:

Force slice

Security

Force repair

 

have any new skills been added?

 

dev reply

This is sort of a half-answer, so bear with me. In KotOR some skills may have felt neglected by the end of the game. In our game we try to make each skill get more "air time", if you will. Ideally speaking if you have bought any particular skill by the end of the game you should feel like you got some good mileage off of it. There will probably be some skills that are more desirable than others (which is almost always inevitable), but all skills should have their moments to shine and be relevant.

Thanks. Though links are still really nice. I wonder how the force helps you repair a droid though. Anyways this means Jedi NPCs will probably still be all you want. How sad. I guess T3-M4 will never get his chance to shine.

[ichpokhudezh]

Inspired by Gromnir's topic titled: skills

Ok, so there were a lot of problems with skills. The biggest problem, as I think we all know is of course the lightsaber.

Hmm. I don't see your point - how are skills related to the weapons balance?

 

Back to skills: First, to move away from hack-and-slash, XP from killing should be much lower, XP from quests should matter much more. This should be an option, i believe. Example: killing a tough monster 100xp/10 cr, FedEx quest: 500xp/3k cred, plot-related quest 10k xp/100 cred.

 

Second, points for skills usage:

Awareness: should be a constantly 'working' skill - checks for mines, 'refuse piles', hidden entrances, hidden enemies (beasts/hi-tech 'camo'ed enemies later). Amount of pillage, imo, should depend on this check as well. Running should put penalty on the check, stealthing - add a bonus.

 

Demo: mines should be much more deadly. Say we've got l1 through 10 of mines, and l1 through 20 for PC. A L10 mine should kill an unprotected L20 PC for sure. Same with enemies, though - a powerful mine placed just right should take out a bunch of infidels. Retrieving a mine should be much more harder than disabling it.

Important caskets should be all trapped against an unsuccessful security check.

 

Security. Doors should be secured much more often. Make an option that secutity takes spikes as well (Mission should not have been able to pick an electronic lock on her cell without a spike). Locks should jam after some unsuccessful tries.

 

Stealth: an offensive move in an enemy compound should trigger an alarm with swarms of enemies afterwards. Also, stealing/robbing should cause hostilities from inhabitants (ala Sand People village). While stealing should bring in some DS points, killing the place dwellers should give gobs of those. Stealth should be an option for 'gray' PCs. There should be 'rare'/'famous'/LS creatures, inherently hostile to PC (ala sea beast/albino cath hound). Killing those should bring DS points, while stealthing around them will be the choice of LS PCs.

 

Persuade/Affect Mind: more hints/quests/non-violent solutions, pretty please.

[Jeremiah]

That is all well and good. But I hope they don't go overboard with skills either. To me, the game has always been about combat first and foremost. If the scripts and enemy AI are improved, then I am a happy camper.

[Shdy314]

Inspired by Gromnir's topic titled: skills

Ok, so there were a lot of problems with skills. The biggest problem, as I think we all know is of course the lightsaber.

Hmm. I don't see your point - how are skills related to the weapons balance?

 

Back to skills: First, to move away from hack-and-slash, XP from killing should be much lower, XP from quests should matter much more. This should be an option, i believe. Example: killing a tough monster 100xp/10 cr, FedEx quest: 500xp/3k cred, plot-related quest 10k xp/100 cred.

 

Second, points for skills usage:

Awareness: should be a constantly 'working' skill - checks for mines, 'refuse piles', hidden entrances, hidden enemies (beasts/hi-tech 'camo'ed enemies later). Amount of pillage, imo, should depend on this check as well. Running should put penalty on the check, stealthing - add a bonus.

 

Demo: mines should be much more deadly. Say we've got l1 through 10 of mines, and l1 through 20 for PC. A L10 mine should kill an unprotected L20 PC for sure. Same with enemies, though - a powerful mine placed just right should take out a bunch of infidels. Retrieving a mine should be much more harder than disabling it.

Important caskets should be all trapped against an unsuccessful security check.

 

Security. Doors should be secured much more often. Make an option that secutity takes spikes as well (Mission should not have been able to pick an electronic lock on her cell without a spike). Locks should jam after some unsuccessful tries.

 

Stealth: an offensive move in an enemy compound should trigger an alarm with swarms of enemies afterwards. Also, stealing/robbing should cause hostilities from inhabitants (ala Sand People village). While stealing should bring in some DS points, killing the place dwellers should give gobs of those. Stealth should be an option for 'gray' PCs. There should be 'rare'/'famous'/LS creatures, inherently hostile to PC (ala sea beast/albino cath hound). Killing those should bring DS points, while stealthing around them will be the choice of LS PCs.

 

Persuade/Affect Mind: more hints/quests/non-violent solutions, pretty please.

Because being able to bash open just about every single lock you came across comepletely negated the effects of lockpicking. Which I elaborated on in my post in the security portion.

 

Like the Quest XP idea mattering more. And can we finally get full points from stealthing by an enemy? Gosh that would be nice. Uh, but Awareness IS constantly working. And running does put a penalty on it.

 

Agree about the mines.

 

This suggestion won't fix the problem with security though. The majority of doors will still be bashable. And there will always be ways to get through plot critical doors. If locks jammed then we'd just bash like we normally do in the first place.

 

Agree about stealthing.

 

Persuade was already used quite a bit. More is always good though. Dominate:Mind is always going to be better though unless they put in instances I outlined in my post.

[Shdy314]

That is all well and good. But I hope they don't go overboard with skills either. To me, the game has always been about combat first and foremost. If the scripts and enemy AI are improved, then I am a happy camper.

Hard to go overboard on skills with how underboard they are. I'm not asking them to make skills the focus of the game. Just to make them useful. Which I am sure they are.

[tripleRRR]

I vote Obsidian split persuade into the D&D diplomacy, bluff, and intimidate.

 

Lets face it, if you are a dark jedi you are not going to spend time trying to talk the guy into letting you do whatever, you are going to force choke him and tell him to do what you want or else. I think it would open more RPing options anyway.

 

 

TripleRRR

[ichpokhudezh]

I vote Obsidian split persuade into the D&D diplomacy, bluff, and intimidate.

 

Lets face it, if you are a dark jedi you are not going to spend time trying to talk the guy into letting you do whatever, you are going to force choke him and tell him to do what you want or else. I think it would open more RPing options anyway.

 

 

TripleRRR

It's there already (almost )

Persuade = diplomacy

Persuade/Lie = bluff.

[ichpokhudezh]

Hmm. I don't see your point - how are skills related to the weapons balance?

Because being able to bash open just about every single lock you came across comepletely negated the effects of lockpicking.

It's a problem with any weapon, though. I think, that regular melee weapons should not be able to bash doors, and blasters/lightsabers could (as an option) destroy footlockers (to make lockpicking more useful).

 

Uh, but Awareness IS constantly working. And running does put a penalty on it.

It checks for mines only in KotOR. Doesn't work refuse piles/entrances/enemies. And there's no difference in stealth/normal pace checks now.

 

This suggestion won't fix the problem with security though. The majority of doors will still be bashable. And there will always be ways to get through plot critical doors. If locks jammed then we'd just bash like we normally do in the first place.

I would prefer to see a few ways 'in' - through stealth/lockpick, then computer use, and there always should be hack and slash way. If this gets implemented, then not all the doors need to be bashable. The difficulty will be to provide similar amount of xp in all methods.

[Jeremiah]

I hope they don't mandate that the PC develops all skills so much as having your NPCs develop a few key skills. With the fact that you even need 14 intelligence to gain one extra skill point for Guardians and Consulars (while Sentinel class skills are not that good), it seems rather more demanding on stats (unless they are fixing that in this release?).

 

Does the PC NEED to be the one with high repair skills to get the best bench upgrades? Or can an NPC do it for the PC? If that is the case then Guardians and Sentinels (who more likely need the enhanced items) will get shortchanged while consulars who get repair as class skill but usually don't need much enhancing items will need to pour a lot more stat points into intelligence.

[Nartwak]

Does the PC NEED to be the one with high repair skills to get the best bench upgrades?

I am under the impression that the available upgrades are determined by different skills. (ie. Steath Skill for Stealth upgrades)

[Shdy314]

Hmm. I don't see your point - how are skills related to the weapons balance?

Because being able to bash open just about every single lock you came across comepletely negated the effects of lockpicking.

It's a problem with any weapon, though. I think, that regular melee weapons should not be able to bash doors, and blasters/lightsabers could (as an option) destroy footlockers (to make lockpicking more useful).

 

Uh, but Awareness IS constantly working. And running does put a penalty on it.

It checks for mines only in KotOR. Doesn't work refuse piles/entrances/enemies. And there's no difference in stealth/normal pace checks now.

 

This suggestion won't fix the problem with security though. The majority of doors will still be bashable. And there will always be ways to get through plot critical doors. If locks jammed then we'd just bash like we normally do in the first place.

I would prefer to see a few ways 'in' - through stealth/lockpick, then computer use, and there always should be hack and slash way. If this gets implemented, then not all the doors need to be bashable. The difficulty will be to provide similar amount of xp in all methods.

That was my point. That they needed to deal with "bashing" before you can make the lockpicking useful but your new suggestions are good ones.

 

It only checks for mines because that's all there is. But stealthed enemies and secret entrances should be around and discoverable. I absolutely agree there.

I don't think a Jedi should be penalized for moving. The benefits of sensing with the force.

 

Yeah. I agree with this too. No one is ever going to stealth their way through a base and lockpick doors if they get no XP for doing it. Personally I wouldn't mind seeing no XP from combat except with bosses or if the combat is very specific to a quest. Having all XP come from quests and skill usage would be really revolutionary. I'd settle for an extremely low amount of XP from combat. I doubt if any game company has the guts to get off the leveling treadmill though.

[ichpokhudezh]

PS:T.

Although it never became a commercial success, I believe.

 

Hack-and-slash games sell much better.

[Sarkile]

PS:T gave you experience for killing monsters. I even levelled TNO a few times that way. The only rpg I know of that only gives exp for finishing quests is Bloodlines.

[Shdy314]

I own PS:T. And as Sarkile pointed out you get XP for combat.

[ichpokhudezh]

I own PS:T. And as Sarkile pointed out you get XP for combat.

And I do own it too

 

My point was that in PS:T you were able to get 25k xp in a single dialog, while you needed to kill a horde of enemies to get so much xp.

[Shdy314]

Sure. And PS:T is definitely a great example of a game focused on dialogue and story instead of combat and loot. But it didn't really have skills either. Sure you could be a thief but the skills were never terribly useful because of the focus on the story and dialogue and the few times they were useful Anna was better. A better example is Deus Ex I think(Though I realize it isn't technically an RPG). Multiple ways to do the same thing and no experience or levels per se just the biomods. I think this is what KOTOR should strive for.

[Obireel Y Doncha]

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but think some of the things you discount as useless are simply things you didn't use much. After playing KOTOR umpteen times, most fighting skills are pretty useless to my PC, and I make a lot of use of skills like [REPAIR] and non-offensive feats like [GEARHEAD].

 

Awareness: Right, mostly only handy for avoiding stepping on mines. I'd like to see some opponents [sTEALTH] up on you, especially some of the bosses. It would make for some cool animations, some added suspense and make high Awareness much more attractive than it is now. I'd always use Mission to gather mines, too, but then I'd use her to plant them before a battle. No, they don't dismember victims like a good mine oughta, but they softened up most, killed quite a few. They should be more deadly.

 

Demolitions: Wholly agree.

 

Computer Use: I don't have anything against spikes. I could see where there might be other systems for hacking systems, but I don't see any great need to change either. I usually give my PC high computer skills and I still go through a lot of spikes for poisoning and electrocuting enemies and other alternatives to slashing my way through a room.

 

Stealth: I almost never play the PC as a Scoundrel any more, in part because of the belt thing (there are so many really helpful belts around) and in part becuz it's kinda redundant with Mission on board. It was sometimes fun to go in with an all-stealth team of Juhani, Mission and a scoundrel PC, but I kinda don't like playing the whole game as a scoundrel any more. I agree the stealth belt should go and that ability should be triggered some other way.

 

Repair: Like Computer Use, repair can get you out of a lot of fights. I like it but, yer right, the expanded workbench options will make it even better.

 

Persuade: I like to finish all the Lightside quests which is tough for me to do on Taris without a decent persuade skill. I think LS and DS people should use [PERSUADE] in different ways. LS players should be able to use [PERSUADE] to honestly talk someone into something the advances their interests or the greater good. DSers should use [PERSUADE] to B.S. people into doing something that advances the player's interests over the interests of the victim. As it is, a lot of the persuasion dialog options just sound like B.S. ("I hot young Cathar like you!?! Sure they'll want you back!")

 

Security: I agree. In some situations (down in the tombs) you can probably get away with slashing doors open with a 'saber or blade. When you're standing in an apartment complex, bashing doors open should bring the security guards running. Or some guard watching the security cameras should have a chance to overload a nearby power conduit and toast you.

 

Treat Injury: Opposite. I actually consider Force Cure/Heal to be useless. You can use [Treat Injury] from the inventory menu, saving you the combat round you'd waste pausing to Force Heal. I usually make sure one of my Jedi NPCs has cure/heal cuz it saves time amd medpacs AFTER the fight to have them heal everyone up, but my PC never bothers with it.

 

I do feel like using medpacs from the inventory menu is kinda like cheating, as it seems Bioware's intention was that you should have to pause to heal up. This could be remedied by making some sort of medpac utility belt or something that you load with medpacs and stimulants. Then you could set it to dispense a medpac each time your health falls so many points, an advance medpac if it falls even farther, etc. Iy'd also be nice to be able to set it to feed you adrenal stimulants based on settings you give it. To do this you would have to switch from the group inventory list to individual inventory lists for each party member, but I'd be cool with that.

 

Finally, I'd agree that it would be beter to have the existing skills fine-tuned and opportunities to use them increased over adding more skills.

[Shdy314]

Computer Use: I don't have anything against spikes. I could see where there might be other systems for hacking systems, but I don't see any great need to change either. I usually give my PC high computer skills and I still go through a lot of spikes for poisoning and electrocuting enemies and other alternatives to slashing my way through a room.

 

Repair: Like Computer Use, repair can get you out of a lot of fights. I like it but, yer right, the expanded workbench options will make it even better.

Loved everything you had to say. Only comments are that, yes, computer use and repair COULD be helpful but with combat as easy as it is it didn't really matter a whhole lot if you went ahead and blew up the power conduit and friend them instead of just killing them yourself. Or yeah it's kewl to repair a droid and have it fight by you for a short time but most droids went down real quick mid to late game and also were not that helpful. Especially for how many parts it required. HMMMM. Actually now that I think of it parts should be gotten rid of too. At least with a really good repair skill the amount of parts needed should be extremely low. Being a really good mechanic means improvising and repairing without all the neccessary pieces at your disposal.

[Darkfire]

How is this for an idea on the 'Treat Injury' and 'Cure/Heal' thing...

 

Say that a Jedi's healing ability was determined by their 'Treat Injury' skill. I see this as saying just cause you know the Force you would still need to know how to fix an injury and thusly would need a good 'Treat Injury' skill. It would make it useful skill for a Jedi to learn (and the other non-Jedi may still need it to fix themselves up).

 

You could match the powers with the Med packs, so Cure would do something like 10hp + Treat Injury (TI) skill and Heal 20hp + TI skill (plus maybe the cure poison affect as well). Of course these would have the added bonus of curing the whole party as well. If necessary you could the have a third version that matches the life support pack thingys. In effect this makes the Force Powers like re-usable med paks.

 

On top of that I wouldn't mind seeing a Focus Feat for specific powers (not all of them, but some of them) that would say add a multiplier to the effect. So a Force Heal Focus would add on top of the normal heal a 1.5x multiplier. I see this as useful since it allows your Jedi to Focus on a specific set of powers (which as far as I am aware all Jedi tend to focus on specific things in the films and books).

 

Balancing these additions/changes would hopefully be simple by changing the amount of Force Points that the power uses.

 

How does that sound?

 

P.S. If anyone has already mentioned this method then I'm sorry I didn't notice...this place it getting big and Searching is only so much help.

[Shdy314]

Interesting.

[redcell]

some of your point make sense but some are flawed. Like treat injury in conjuction with force heal give you better hp heal and faster recover rate.

And bash with i light saber i agree with that maybe there should be some enemys that spawn when you choose to do this. then make skills more useful.