More skills?

[Brom]

While rebuilding the skill tree we need to be careful not to set up classes. People still need to be able to do everything. Unless we are leaning away from that and I did not know.

[Atreyu]

Cleric shouldn't be a whole new skill.. Perhaps some of the things you mentioned would be good magic spells though.

[WoodeH]

Hmmm..

 

I wouldn't class this as a skill, more of something.. Such as PP.

 

If each Skill has "Sub-Levels" take attack for example. Why not have it so you can go to Wraith, and he could make your "Weapon Mastery" (For a certain Weapon) better, which would then do something.. (I aint figured out what yet..)

 

Explained:

 

Say there was 'General Attack' and 2 'Sub Leveling Classes' (eg: Swords & Axes) By leveling one of these, you should be able to go to Wraith, or possibly a new God. And he could make your 'Weapon Mastery' in a chosen 'Sub Level' of Attack go up.

 

But this would cost you some PP and GC.

 

[WoodeH]

This may be irelivent..

 

But have you considerd having different classes of people..

 

Such as: Summoners, Wizards, Fighters..?

 

I know most people would dis-agree and say it's a bad idea.. But it would be kool, because people would have to have different characters, for diferent things.

[Brom]

Right now I understand that we are holding to "No set classes" And lets try to keep that in mind. (Its in the orginal EL gameplan)

[Maddad]

In return for helping out the younger player, the older one would get a very small amount of experience in "Teaching." Ohh! I like the idea. Major downside with this idea is that the Gods would be less popular.

199660[/snapback]

 

My impression was that EL was about community. The economy seems to be set up to encourage players to deal with one another and to turn to the NPCs as a last resort. Why not the same with learning skills? Learn from a player master if you can, and turn to a god if nobody is available (or if you're a hermit like me).

 

I think it would be reasonable for the player master to receive something in addition to teaching experience for his/her services: gold, harvested resources, manufactured items. Other than high level guild members making items for junior members, I'm not aware of any bartering going on for services. Teaching is a service that should be quite valuable since it increases xp, and that seems to be how we keep score in the game: xp and levels.

 

I'm pretty sure the in-game gods are just NPCs. I doubt they'd care much if potential followers started going to a teacher instead. But if I wake up as a smoking pile of ashes in the morning, I suggest the rest of you start making sacrifices right away!

 

Dave

[Atreyu]

Maddad, they said there will never be fishing in EL.

And I honestly don't understand teaching. Are you teaching to other players? And how would the game know, to give you exp?

[Brom]

I have been thinking about this Sub-skill idea. I have a few sub-skills to recommend.

I got kind of carried away and put others ideas in here too. Most of these are not mine.

 

---- SNIP ------

 

-Teaching - I like the idea, but a little different way. It would require a group system. So that a young new player while grouped with a more advanced player could gain a precentage more than normal. Nothing TOO great, that precentage would change depending on the skill defrence. A brand new player killing rabbits while Soldus is in the group (and nearby) would receive say 10-20% increase in experience.  It would need balancing, and precentage would also depend on the skill.

In return for helping out the younger player, the older one would get a very small amount of experience in "Teaching." Ohh! I like the idea. Major downside with this idea is that the Gods would be less popular.

199660[/snapback]

 

Teaching. Im curious what others have to say about that one in particular. but this thread is just for ideas, not so much discussion.

[Maddad]

Maddad, they said there will never be fishing in EL.

Fair enough. I must have missed that. Besides, there's not much demand for seafood.

And I honestly don't understand teaching. Are you teaching to other players? And how would the game know, to give you exp?

199792[/snapback]

Yes, one high-level player would teach lower-level players. Orginally I was thinking of a session between a master and pupil. It would be initiated the way a trade is now, but take longer. The pupil would gain so many xp per minute in the skill being studied for as long as the session lasted, and the teacher would gain so many teaching xp per minute. Either party could end the session if necessary, or it would end automatically when the pupil reached some milestone. (I don't think a session should result in the pupil leveling up - he should actually practice the skill at least somewhat.)

 

However...

 

Brom had a good suggestion, too. In fact, I think I like it better. Pupils would actually engage in the skill being taught with the master nearby, and both would gain xp (the pupil in the skill, the master would get teaching xp) faster than if they just practiced the skill alone. There would need to be some way to link the master and pupils so they get their bonuses - perhaps something like a training guild or class. That way it would be possible for a teacher to have more than one pupil at a time.

 

Defining "nearby" might be tricky. If you're making iron bars the master can stand next to the pupil, but if you're hunting you need a little more range. I suppose if you're close enough to use local chat that would work, but a pupil chasing a bunny across IP needs to be aware that he won't get his bonus if he strays too far from the master.

 

Dave

[Dunian]

Haggling -- Haggle with the NPCs over their outrageous prices, but if you haggle too much, the NPC will refuse to trade with you for a certain amount of time, from 30 minutes, too an EL day or two, depending on your charm.

 

Perception -- Be able to see the aproxamate stats of another player when you click them with the "eye" icon (for example: You see Dunian, who seems to have an attack skill between 30-40). The approximates would become more exact as you gain skill.

 

Tracking (Dunno if possible) -- When enabled, you could see the tracks of animals (maybe players too?) that have passed over that peice of ground within the last minute or so, the higher your skill, the older tracks you could see.

 

Survival -- You take less heat\cold\radiation damage

 

Are these helpful?

 

Dunian :battleaxe:

[Minardus]

Haggling -- Haggle with the NPCs over their outrageous prices, but if you haggle too much, the NPC will refuse to trade with you for a certain amount of time, from 30 minutes, too an EL day or two, depending on your charm.

 

I was thinking about something like this as well, but would call it Negociating instead of Haggling !!

[duran]

While rebuilding the skill tree we need to be careful not to set up classes. People still need to be able to do everything. Unless we are leaning away from that and I did not know.

199760[/snapback]

 

i think this will be maintained.

 

only problem is that its a balance and economy nightmare compared to classes with set skills. and the manu skills dont help either

 

still, i hope to see that the economy becomes so that its cost effective to focus on one skill only. this however means that every skill will have to have a way to gain money compareable to the money that they use.

 

how this will affect the overall influx of money i dont know, as it can be controled somewhat by putting in plenty of money sinks so that over time the personal money growth becomes somewhere between 1 and 10%, maybe.

 

i dont know how much of a final say i can get in this but i hope that the final design will be so that you will grow faster overall by focusing on one skill then many, but that in the end you can still do all skills if you feel like doing it.

 

but this isnt realy the place for a discussion like this, and the forum is overrun with older thread that have the same content to no effect.

[FRoGkiLL]

Attack

 

Sub skill- Titanium sword, steel sword, iron sword and barehanded.

 

Defense

 

Sub skill- Tit armor, steel armor, iron armor, leather armor and naked.

 

When u train/fight with say a tit chain. Your def exp will be titanium armor exp which adds to your overall defense level and also your Titanium armor sub skill, when u go up levels in titanium armor skill the negative points of a tit chain like -2 accuracy will change to -1 accuracy and so on.

 

Same with attack and the sword sub skill.

 

Barehanded and naked exp will be the base exp for the skill, when u wear your armors and equip swords it will be added to the base exp.

 

Hope you understand

[Lorck]

Maybe a skill to make spell recipients (related both with magic and the current crafting skill).

For instance you could scribe a scroll which when read cast a spell using only ethereal points (without the use of essences).

For make the recipients you should have special ingredients (such as gems) and cast the spell normally (losing both mana and essences).

What do you think about it?

[dns_server]

Though these are not nessisarily 'skills' more atributes of players they would be something good to implement.

 

karma

karma (or allignment) would be an atribute you can be good or evil and it is a slideing scale from -100 to +100. Doing something good like casting remote heal would increase your karma where pking would decrease your karma level. This could be combined with items so certan items are avalable for good, bad and nutral people, there could be a black plate armor set as well as a white plate set for example. This could also be combined with npc's so some npc's will not serve you if you are bad while others will not serve you if you are good, or some may charge you a premium above the normal prices.

To make this fair not all npc's will care and there would be an even distrobution between types ie the VOTD tavern doesn't like 'good' people, the IP is 'nutral' and the desert pines does not like 'bad' people.

 

Reputation

Closely linked to karma it is more an acumilation of your actions, it is based on your interactions with players and npc's, you would get a little experience for talking (channel, pm, #gm etc), tradeing, fighting etc, haveing your name spoken, minutes spent in game etc.

it would be based partially on your overall experience gained (overall but cannot be #reset).

it would not have much if any effect on how the game is played directly it would just be something interesting to consider.

[Atreyu]

I like the good/evil alignment idea.

But, teaching doesn't make sense still. How will the game know if you're helping someone?

[joeevergreen]

Cool

[Lorck]

If the karma idea gets implemented, "good people" could serve evil gods or viceversa? The gods you are currently serving would influence your karma?

[trollson]

Introduction

 

Since we are discussion new skills for EL, it is appropriate to take a closer look at how skills are structured in the current game.

 

A character's abilities are actually a combination of a number of facets; skill, nexus, knowledge, as well as attributes. If skills are kept general enough then new abilities can be introduced without unduly increasing their number, but through new combinations.

 

 

Skills are Multifaceted

A=(S,N,K)

 

When we speak of 'skills' in EL, we are really talking about a collection of abilities that a character can develop over time. These abilities can be characterised by three separate facets:

1. Skill level
   
2. Nexus level
   
3. Knowledge level or tree
   

One 'Skill' (capital-S) can represent a family of related activities when combined with different nexus and knowledge; a simple example of this being Harvesting:

• Gathering flora requires: Harvesting skill.
  
• Mining ores requires: Harvesting skill, Metal Mining knowledge tree, and Inorganic nexus.
  
• Crystal mining requires: Harvesting skill, Crystal Mining knowledge tree, and Inorganic nexus.
  

Arguably, harvesting and mining should be split into separate skills!

 

Taking a couple of suggested skills as examples:

• Elemental magic could reuse the current Magic skill, in combination with either 'Elemental Nexuses' and/or separate Elemental knowledge trees.
  
• Cooking (not as daft as it sounds) could use the Potion skill with a separate 'Recipes' knowledge tree, but no nexuses. This actually transforms 'Potion' into a derivation of 'Cooking' plus Vegetable nexuses!
  

Of course, abilities also depend on a character's cross-attributes to determine their chance-of-success.

 

 

Brief discussion of each facet

 

Skill levels will always increase over time -- even a character who only uses magic for the odd healing and shield will accrue substantial levels given time. Remember that this game is open ended, and the same characters could still be present in ten years time! So a character's level in a Skill need not reflect any particular dedication or aptitude, but is a measure of competence.

 

Nexus levels are something that the character must consciously decide to pursue, spending valuable resources (pick points) which are only earned over time through game play (negative perks aside). Nexus levels are also in competition with attributes and perks for the same limited resource pool. So gaining nexus levels represent a determined effort and decision on the part of the player.

 

Knowledge levels represent a financial cost to the character, so again it comes to a resource allocation decision, but, unlike pick points, gold coins are easily transferable. Characters can therefore collaborate to sponsor an expert in a field (this is of course a good thing!).

 

To summarise:

1. Skill levels accumulate over time.
   
2. Gaining Nexus levels requires a hard resource allocation decision.
   
3. Gaining Knowledge levels are financial decisions.
   

 

Savant vs Amateur

A=Ao+dA

 

In the current model, the requirements on Skill, Nexus, and Knowledge typically increase together -- more advanced abilities require more advanced levels in all facets. This does not need to be the case! More variety can be achieved by breaking this correlation.

 

Some activities could be purely Knowledge based, purely Nexus based (wearing of armour and wielding of weapons), or purely Skill based. Some activity sets could require a high level in one facet, but normal progression in the others.

 

For example, we could distinguish between 'Savant' and 'Amateur' by adding a set of high Nexus/low Skill abilities; amateurs could be quite happy progressing the skill using the regular low-Nexus abilities, while the savant would make the effort to acquire a high Nexus level from the start.

 

The fantasy stereotype role of magical savant ("peasan orphan discovers innate abilities...") could be played by allocating the first 10+ pick points to Magic Nexus (from harvesting naturally!), before being 'discovered' and venturing out into the world armed with powerful-but-hard-to-control magic.

 

Before somebody else come out with it: This is not a character class system! -- it does not deny the 'savant' the right to persue other roles, nor does it prevent other characters from accumulating the Nexus level to use these additional abilities.

"no fixed classes" does not mean "everyone must be a generalist"

[Dunian]

Another skill suggestion...

 

Martial Arts: (This would probably fall under combat) Gain exp when fighting w\o weapons or metal armor. As you get more lvls, you deliver more damage.

[crusadingknight]

Another skill suggestion...

 

Martial Arts: (This would probably fall under combat) Gain exp when fighting w\o weapons or metal armor. As you get more lvls, you deliver more damage.

203399[/snapback]

You mean unarmed combat? Martial Arts actually means combat skills - broadsword fighting is as much a Martial Art as Karate.

[Pyewacket]

animal husbandry>hunting>trap setting

 

??

[Dunian]

You mean unarmed combat? Martial Arts actually means combat skills - broadsword fighting is as much a Martial Art as Karate. 

203405[/snapback]

Yeah, srry.

[kibora]

i would also like to see an archery skill

[Kedan]

well theres two skills that i would like to see in game, problem is both are quite unrealistic, they can be done but i think it would lag the server abit.

 

first is a building skil which would let you build buildings, fences and that kind of thing (and maybe even change other parts of the land like building a lake of river) but ofcourse this would have restrictions, i wont go into detail on it though, because basicly for this to work maps have to be editable in game, which would mean keeping the map files on the server not on the cleint side, so would cause alot of lag.

 

the other skill is something that lets you build chairs pictures and little things like that (maybe it could be in the building skill and you would have to biul these at low level, whereas building a house would be level 60+) but again it means being able to change maps, because the only reason these items would be used would be to decarate houses/maps