Skills and stuff

Discuss the sequel to Planet Stronghold here
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jack1974
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Skills and stuff

Post by jack1974 »

I'm still doing planning about the game. Currently I have this idea, there will be 8 non-combat skills for all characters, like the first game:
Charisma
Science
Stealth
Engineering
Psionic
Sabotage
Survival
Culture
and like in the first game, some characters will begin with higher value/specialized in one field. Like Rumi obviously in Psionic, and so on. Differently from the first game there won't be big values 0-200, more like 1-20 or perhaps even smaller like 1-10. Then in the main plot there will be skill checks, but not % based (which inevitably leads to save scumming!) but more like Cursed Lands where there's a minimum value to pass the check.

Regarding combat skills, I am planning to have like 4 skills for each of the 4 classes = 16 class skills
Then, each character will have another 4 skills, unique to each one. There will be 9 characters (Lisa/Joshua included) = 36 more skills, 4 unique for each character

So not that many, but still more than the first game which had 12 skills total (both combat and non combat) shared with all characters :) Of course enemies might have other skills too.

I'll be working on defining the skills and building a prototype in the next months to test the battles and get feedback.
Troyen
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Re: Skills and stuff

Post by Troyen »

Depending on how often you need to use the skills, you may be able to cut down/merge a couple of the non-combat ones. For example, Sabotage could be part of Engineering and Stealth part of Survival.

My personal preference is to have fewer skills but more uses for them rather than a bunch of skills you only get to use 2-3 times per game. Especially in the first game, it was expensive to pump up one of the non-combat skills and only rarely were you able to benefit from it or was it needed for the story (with the exception of Survival, which I think gave you an in-combat regen bonus that I used to great effect). Ideally, it'd be cool to have the option to use each of them closer to a dozen times throughout the game (even if this means you had to pick between skills, like in the first game).

Even with 9 characters allowing you to specialize, you still have to grind up the other members of your party to level up their non-combat skills, so the more opportunities you have to use non-combat skills, the less it feels like a leveling attribute tax.
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jack1974
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Re: Skills and stuff

Post by jack1974 »

Currently I have 8 non-combat skills so I could have 1 character specialize on each one. If I reduce it, it should still be a number like 4 so I could have two starting skill specializations each character, like:
Rumi: Psionic +++ Science +
Tom: Charisma +++ Engineering +
and so on. So yes the other possibility could be 4. I agree that's better less skills but more use, it's the same philosophy I'm using in combat. Though of course for combat is a bit different and more complex to implement :)
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Franka
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Re: Skills and stuff

Post by Franka »

I've always wanted my character to be a Culture specialist...

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Epic RPG incoming!
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jack1974
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Re: Skills and stuff

Post by jack1974 »

Obviously that would be the most useful skill! Knowing how two boragrub mate will be essential to save Planet Stronghold! :mrgreen:
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SimonStardust
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Re: Skills and stuff

Post by SimonStardust »

jack1974 wrote: Sun Apr 22, 2018 2:41 pm Obviously that would be the most useful skill! Knowing how two boragrub mate will be essential to save Planet Stronghold! :mrgreen:
If dealing with a boragrub infestation, this kind of knowledge could be essential indeed! Knowing how they mate could make it easier to find a way how to stop them from mating. :lol: :lol: :lol:
Beware! Peerons ahead! xD
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jack1974
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Re: Skills and stuff

Post by jack1974 »

Indeed!! :lol:
For now I'm keeping 8 skills, even if player fail the skill checks they can still go on in the story (it would probably do like Cursed Lands, have a fight or a tougher situation than if you passed the check).
I need to write some of the various story/side missions to see how much often the skills are used. If they're not used much, I think I could scale down from those 8 to 4, like:
Science (Science+Engineering)
Stealth (Stealth+Sabotage)
Psionic (Psionic+Charisma)
Knowledge (Survival+Culture)
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Arcanalogia
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Re: Skills and stuff

Post by Arcanalogia »

jack1974 wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 6:10 am Indeed!! :lol:
Psionic (Psionic+Charisma)
Knowledge (Survival+Culture)
CHARISMA and CULTURE makes a better pair. Psionic should be completely independent and survival sabotage and stealth can all become a single specialization.
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jack1974
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Re: Skills and stuff

Post by jack1974 »

Yes maybe you're right :)
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grey_duck
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Re: Skills and stuff

Post by grey_duck »

You could consider keeping the 8 skills and allowing some skill checks to have a backup.

I.E. Oh, noes, someone set us up the bomb! On a 10-point scale:
- Sabotage can disable a bomb with a 3 (if you can plant a bomb, you can deactivate it)
- Engineering can defuse the bomb with a 4 (if you can build a bomb you can dismantle it)
- Science can defuse the bomb with a 7 (you understand the theory behind everything, if not the exact workings)
- Stealth (or maybe survival) can carefully, slowly, steadily carry the bomb to a place it can be detonated safely with a skill of 10.

Then people can still go crazy diversifying their team, but not have to worry that going into a mission without an engineer will get them killed or whatever.
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