[CF-Devel] New Skill System

[Andreas Vogl]

In recent mails about skill system, a new idea came up:
Having "general experience pots" where skill points can
be distributed from.

There's something I dislike about it:
Having experience distribution pots encourages players to
use only easy-to-advance skills and nothing else.
Why should someone train an exotic skill like alchemy,
thievery or literacy when the earned points end up (mainly)
in the same experience pots as melee, wizardy or praying?


What I'd personally love to have is a system where players
have to train exactly those skills that they want to
improve.

I'd still propose to implement a very basic skill model
to start with:

o Every skill has it own level

o Exp cathegories are removed, but overall level is kept.
  Overall experience is used for calculating stuff like health
  points. It cannot be distributed to other skills.
  
o Every skill has a percentage value which defines how
  much it adds to the overall experience.

(Other issues like class system, ways to gain new skills,
those can be treated seperately.)


In the above scheme, all skills are completely independent
from each other. Only some of them will share the ability to
add to the overall level of the character, but there is no way
to share or distribute points between skills.

As I recall, the main counter argument for this model is that
some skills are hard to advance.
But isn't that in fact an advantage? When skills are independent,
their balance is independent too. A system where all skills have
to be balanced against each other (like with distributed points),
would be tremendously hard to get right. It is almost certain
that some skills are going to be "undervalued" or "overpowered".

When skills are independent, that means killer skills like
melee/wisdom/praying can peacefully coexist with hard-to-advance
exotic skills. Some maps can reward players for having high levels
in those exotic skills, but players are free to choose wether that
is worth their time or not. Some skills like mountaineer might even
have no way to advance at all - That's fine too.

As long as players don't loose anything by training exotic skills,
they will most likely enjoy doing so. That means the game can be
richer and more diversive. Of course, players can end up as
"masters of the universe" then, but with seperated skill levels
it might take a lifetime to get there.
If there were restrictions or dependencies for skills, players would
feel pushed into the "optimal development path" and the game would be
much more streamlined. Sure, the replay-value could be higher then,
but it takes less time to reach a "dead end", which can be frustrating.
But even then, I'm not sure if players would ever train an axotic skill if
it meant trading away power.

Well, this is just my opinion about it. It's also nothing more than
a proposal.

Andreas

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