Maxed Skills?

[Ersk]

After reading a lot of threads in the forums I thought it was time to start my own. Every thread I read I gain that extra bit of knowledge thats gets me even more exited :D

This is regarding to a post that Damon posted a long time ago but I think It will still be there in the game design,

We will be tweaking soon how many skills you may have at 100%. We are also looking into a Hero Class type skills for people who specialize. -August 2006

Basicly I understand that you will only be able to max out so many skills so it stops people from being able to use every weapon and spell in the game at 100% efficiancy. But what will be the max of other skills.Will you be able to have other skills that are maxed out to 50 or 75%.

For E.G. Say theres 20 combat skills, if you are aloud to max out 4 (100% = max) will you be able to have say 4 other skills at 50% max or maybe 2 @ 50% and 2 @ 75%? So say your 4 main combat skills are purely melee based skills such as using swords and daggers, you could have a ranged skill at 50 or 75% to complement your melee skills. (is complement the right word to use in this sentance ???)

I want some answers! :p

Anyways I think it would be really kool to release a skill that would be in the game, maybe once a fortnight. And then we could slowly decide how were going to create our character. With each skill you declare to us will be in the game we could modify our imaginary skill 'set' to suit. That would be real kool but i guess its a bit too early to release this kind of info.

[Lord Aries]

The whole entire skill system is being changed to better suite the player base. DO NOT be surprised if things are changed around.

I honestly couldn't even respond to your question because anything that could be said is NOT set in stone. The only thing that IS, is that it will be skill based.

[Rauko]

If it is something like you are describing, I would LOVE to see that those efficiencies continue to morph.
So if I have been specializing in melee combat and have the skills related to that at 100%, then my ranged/magic are lower.
But lets say this week I start to use my guns more often? Well, my melee skill should atrophy slightly as my ranged skills increase.

So you truely aren't set in stone for any one class-TYPE. Bloodlines would clearly incline you to one and perhaps persuade me to stick with my melee focus, and if a great amount of time is required, it might be a LOT of trouble to reverse everything that it took my first 4 months of play to develope.
So that you're better of making a new character and starting him toward that ranged path from the start.

But still, I like the idea of being able to shift my own character's focus.
This would be VERY useful for making the game self-balancing.
As new content/features are introduced you would not have to worry about class balance, since all players could shift their skill focus toward what is more effective in the environment.
Next update, that environment may change slightly again, no problem, I just shift my character again.

[wassar12]

I have been waiting for a good skill-based game for ages now all the skill based games that are out arent all that good at all...and all the other mmorp are class-based and its getting old this game is going to be soo sweet and i love the whole you cant max out all your skills system this game is going to own WoW so easily

[TookyG]

What I'm curious about is:

Will I be able to "unlearn" some skills to train others up higher.
If I can have X skills at 100%, how many skills can I have at say, 90%, 80%, etc?

[Moloch]

The 'hero' system is an interesting one. WoW promised it and has never delivered. NWN had the D&D character system with more specialised options than a horny man in Vegas.

Personally, I'd be happy with well balanced classes.

[Rauko]

Something I'm going to be trying to do in my next pbbg is to allow for weapon proficiencies. Its not a new idea (FF anyone?), but I haven't seen it done in a while.
This way I don't lose the roles that classes give, but there is a great deal of personal choice in how you play it. So a magic user might choose knives, but his class offsets how easily he can learn it. He could become better with a staff fasters, but perhaps in the long run he will do better with knives?
For fighter classes, do you want to use the axe and get big damage slowly, or the duel swords for speed? You would become faster and do more damage as your proficiency rose.
Proficiency would be done on a % basis. So the weapon would have a max damage at some point, but until then you only get a % of it.

[reddo]

Something I'm going to be trying to do in my next pbbg is to allow for weapon proficiencies. Its not a new idea (FF anyone?), but I haven't seen it done in a while.
This way I don't lose the roles that classes give, but there is a great deal of personal choice in how you play it. So a magic user might choose knives, but his class offsets how easily he can learn it. He could become better with a staff fasters, but perhaps in the long run he will do better with knives?
For fighter classes, do you want to use the axe and get big damage slowly, or the duel swords for speed? You would become faster and do more damage as your proficiency rose.
Proficiency would be done on a % basis. So the weapon would have a max damage at some point, but until then you only get a % of it.
This reminds me of Tibia. Same thing, where paladins learn ranged faster, knights learn swords faster, etc.

[Nurvus]

I hope any given character cannot gain more than around 20% of the skills avaliable to him...

Comparing to WoW, I think it is unsatisfying that any Warrior learns around 95% of the warrior skills, and there is only about 3 out of 4-7 skills to learn from talents.
You mostly change skill efficiency and end up not using some of the skills you already know.

I'd change WoW so that you'd learn everything from Talents.
Talent trees would have twice as many collumns and start from level 1, gaining around 2 Talent Points per level.
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From Neverwinter Nights/D&D, I appreciate the huge character customizability, by mixing classes and specializations, creating odd configs.

From Guild Wars, I like how all skills are completely different, rather than "more powerful vs less powerful" like you see mostly in WoW.
Sure there are the Elites, but you can have 1 and it somewhat symbolizes your character "build".

In short, I like things to resort to more than Damage per Second or Healing per Second...

Bah...

[claytondora]

I think if the skill system at all resembles the skill system from SWG, that would be great. Each tier you progressed in a profession would net you stat bonuses, weapon/armor proficiencies, and a skill. I can't remember the exact % of the total number of skills you could learn, but it was very far from all of them.

A system like this also allows for a very enjoyable expansion experience. Where an expansion in a game with standard levels will merely add more levels, a skill based on can add higher tiered skills and allow for a greater % of total skills to be learned. So either a player can progress further down a tree they have specialized in or go deeper into another.