Old skill system proposal

From TheManaWorld

People who approve this proposal	People who oppose this proposal
	Crush Dr Wahl

See also

• Skill system status
• Master skill list
• Skill system GUI notes
• Technical skill information (This is information that will be relevant to programmers modifying the skill list

Information

The skill system allows dynamic player growth based on the way a character is played. It is the basis for other systems, and provides the information needed for the calculation of damage, stats, and other such constants.

There are 9 general categories of skills

• Weapon skills - How well the player wields weapons
• Magic skills - How well the player casts various types of magic
• Crafting skills - (If the craft system is implemented)
• Combat skills - determines proficiency at battle feats
• General skills - useful for all sorts of things
• Resistances - These skills keep a player from being afflicted with negative status
• Elemental Resistance - A character's resistance to certain forms of magic and elemental attacks.
• Hunt - Which creature types the player has an advantage against.
• Stat - See also the AlternativeSkillBasedStatSystem.

Magick: I think its a good system but i agree that the people will want to customize there character as much as they can. Cearting skill points should add a cearting point to each stat..wich im sure you mentioned but i was to lazy to read it all lol. By the player being able to choose his own skill points diffrent classes could become available like if u raise strenght up enough you become a warrior type if u raise magick up you become more of a magician type and if you raised them both up you become a cross between a magician and a warrior..dont know what to call that. So you could have a big variety of classes but it depends on what skills the player levels up.

Shallow Logarithmic growth (50 practical cap) Skill Level up: Base * level^1.2

By this system, basic levels come easy, while harder levels require an increaing amount of work. This allows new players to get up to speed fast in general skills, while making the higher skill levels a dedicated task veterans can be proud of.

Levelling up skills:

• Weapon skills improve by 1 exp each time you attack a monster with the weapon.
• Magic skills improve by 1 exp for each mp you spend on a spell of that type.
• Craft skills improve by 1 exp for each item you use and by 3 for each item you create
• General skills improve as follows
  • Running - 1 exp as you run
  • Jumping - 1 exp as you jump
  • Searching - 1 exp each time you spring a trap or are surprise attacked
  • Sneak - 1 exp each time you get the first strike against an enemy
  • Trading - 1 exp every $50 you spend
• Battle skills are improved each time the relevant skill is activated in battle
  • Intimidate - 1 exp each time you kill a monster
  • Magic Aura - 1 exp each time a positive spell is cast on you
• Resistances improve by 1 exp each time you are afflicted with a status effect
• Elemental resistances improve by 1 exp each time you are attacked by a source of that element
• Hunting skills inprove by 1 exp each time you kill a monster of that family

Skill specializations: Players can specialize in any of the 9 skill groups, all skills in that group get a 2x modifier to growth. Also, he can specialize further in a single skill from each of the groups, which gets a 2x modifier to growth rate. (so one skill will get 4x). This works in conjunction with the job system. Each of the guilds represents one skill group, and each has 8 specific quests for skill advancement. Going to the guild and completing a quest for that skill gives you specialization in that one specific skill. Joining the guild gives you specialization in that guild's entire group. You can only join one guild per player. You can only get one specialization per skill group per player.

(no guild gives you specialization in the skill groups: general, craft, elemental resistance, resistance, and stat as a whole. However, you can get individual specialization in specific skills from each of these groups from certain places)

to learn more about skill specialization and major skill spheres, scroll down to the bottom of the MasterSkillList

Comments

This is the skills discussion thread in the forum: [themanaworld.org forum]

---

Bjørn: I'll mark my notes down here.

We are discussing a system where it gets exponentially harder to gain levels for any specific skill. This is fine with me, but I see two problems. The first is that the skill with the lowest level will almost be the relative most rewarding one to increase, while at the same time this requires the least effort. And the skill with the highest level is the hardest to advance, but you get relatively the least in return. The other problem is that while this system places a practical limit on the level you can reach, but not on the amount of different skills you can specialize in. In effect you can specialize in everything, becoming master of all skills, and actually be not specialized at all.

To solve this problem I propose to not only make it exponentially harder to increase a specific skills, but also to make it exponentially harder to increase any skill at all. Suppose our system has 50 skills, and getting any of them to level 100 is the practically impossible limit. The extra limit placed on this system is then that getting over about 50 * 50 = 2500 skill points in total is a practically impossible limit as well, which comes from having all your skills at 50, the theoretical "perfect all-rounder" type that hasn't specialized in anything.

So how does this solve our two problems? Firstly about becoming a master of all skills. If you now try to become a master of all skills, you won't be able to reach as high levels for individual skills as characters that do more specialization. The other problem, about low level skills being the most interesting to advance, steering the character towards the all-rounder type, is also eliminated. This is because the player will be more reluctant to start increasing the skill that is easiest to advance in, because it will make it harder for him to advance further in what would like to specialize in.

I think this system is more realistic, easier to implement and easier to understand by players than other proposed systems where the player has to either explicitly choose the skills and groups of skills he wants to specialize in or join specific guilds to specialize in certain skills.

---

Kyokai: The main problem I see with that is that we have skills in the general groups, as well as stats and resistances become harder to level up. If we had specialization chosen by group (i.e. one group can be specialized), it could make more sense, because you specialize at a necessary range of skills rather than just a few skills in the group.

The second problem is that if a player forgets to level up a vital skill, like the Mana stat skill, he can't go back and correct his mistakes because it becomes too hard.

I think, we can encourage players to specialize by providing a reasonable reward for specialization (ie: cooler spell graphics for level 100 casters, ultimate equipment for level 100 crafters, final weapon techniques for level 100 weapons users).

Also, think about the way we level up. The skills grow based on the way players use them. Players might subconsciously specialize in a way they don't want to. Making specialization a reward for quests is probably the best way. Besides, you have to remember that players want to specialize. They'll be willing to do a quest to get that status.

---

Crush: The reason why i disapprove this proposal is that i think the "1 exp per action" concept is just too simple to work. It supports the repetition of simple tasks over and over again what is an invitation for macroing. It also doesn't reward fighting strong monsters. That is why i created my counter proposal.