Character Skill Instead of Slayer Type Weapons

What if your character, the warrior of your creation was a honed weapon of destruction? Say if your character killed 100/1000/10000 ratmen,dragons,ogres etc a specific monster/monster type you gained a damage increase to that type. As if your character has been slaying these monsters for years and is now a more knowledgeable killing machine. Your character knows the weak spots in the dragon scale, the blindspots of the ratmen, the clumsy blows of the ogres. Therefore your hard work as a slaying machine no longer requires the crutch of a slayer type weapon. An achievement any warrior/slayer of monsters could be proud of. Meanwhile the unexperienced still are allowed to use the slayer weapons until the day they are as masterful as you.

What do you think?

 

I'd vote for neither. Player skill should be all that matters.

 

Respectfully disagreeing. SotA isn't a FPS. If player skill is all that matters then there would be no point in having combat skills, different qualities of weapons or armor or even magic skill.

"Player skill" takes over in areas the character lacks. That being specifically the abililty to make intelligent decisions in regards to the characters situation and surroundings. The player represents the cognitive ability of the character.. but not necessarily the physical ability or knowledge of the character.

 

Agreed. These things should be cosmetic only.

 

Attempting to stay on topic.. the basic idea the more of a specific type of mob you kill the easier it is. There is some logic to this.. however there isn't muc hin the way of 'slayer' weapons. The idea of weapons becoming such is out there but that requires someone to go out and using said weapon to kill a specific mob so many times. Both character and weapon would attain this ability at the same time/ There isn't a lot of room for inexperienced fighters to rely on such weapons unless they're lucky enough to have one handed down to them. Even then the bonuses on those weapons shouldn't be quite so significant.

 

No grind-tastic mechanisms, please. If you want to specialize in ogres, then perhaps a branch of the combat skill tree will grant you a damage bonus against ogres.

BUT - as Chris Spears mentioned in the Magic Dev Chat today - that should come at a cost. Your damage against ratmen/dragons/what-have-you should then be reduced.

 

I don't especially care for that kind of cost. I realize there's a balance concern there and that's one way to deal with it.. but I'd prefer a different kind of balance mechanism that doesn't limit character potential as we are not so limited in RL. If I put in that extra time for one species I don't see how my skill vs others would suffer. It's like saying I can't drive a car very well because I usually drive a truck. The principles are the same.. base skill shouldn't suffer.

What that balancing mechansim should be.. if one is necessary.. *shrug* I'd probably have to think about it. Then again I'm not seeing any particular value in specializing in killing a certain mob either. You could RP that out without needing mechanics if you really wanted.

 

So you drive standard transmission, or automatic? I know a lot of people who can drive a car, but can't operate a manual transmission and a clutch. I can't drive an 18 wheeler, which is why there are different licensing standards for commercial vehicles. Pilots have single and multi-engine licenses, and so forth. Doctors are licensed as neurosurgeons or anesthesiologists or general practitioners. I used to fly the F-4 Phantom. That doesn't qualify me to fly the F-16. I would have to have undergone an entirely different training program for that, with different qualification criteria.

Specialization very much limits what you can and cannot do in RL.

 

For an example that is directly related, if you are an expert at hunting white tailed deer, should you also be an expert at hunting wild turkeys? Those would require two distinctly different skill sets.

 

To use your hunting example.. are not the basics of hunting.. the foundational skill on which the expertise is built upon.. more or less the same. If you're an expert in one field it doesn't make you inept in another. It just makes you better in one skill than the other. Let me just throw out some numbers..

Say you're hunting still is 50.. without specializing you're skill in hunting both deer and turkey is then 50.

Now you specialize in hunting deer.. your skill at hunting deer is 75.. that should not make your skill at hunting wild turky 25.. it should remain at 50 where it was before.

And yes I can drive both manual and automatic.. but not being able to drive manual doesn't mean your ability to steer, use the break, signals or anything else is lessened if you get into a vehicle with manual transmission.

My point is that your foundational ability doesn't suddenly suffer and become worse because you decided to specialize.

 

Basic hunting, yes, but not specialized hunting as the original post suggests. With basic hunting, I inflict a base level of damage. If I specialize in Ogres, I get a bonus for Ogers, but a damage penalty for other things. Choose wisely.

There is such a thing as 'negative learning'. When F-104s first entered the USAF inventory, ejection seats weren't powerful enough to clear the tall T-Tail of that aircraft, so the ejection seat fired downwards. If you had an engine failure on takeoff, the emergency procedure was Roll Inverted and Eject. There were many cases where F-104 pilots transitioned to other aircraft, and upon experiencing an engine failure on takeoff, they'd roll inverted and punch out right into the runway.

That's negative learning.

 

But does that not suggest that existing skill dimishes because your specialization increases. That makes no sense.

As for your F-104 example.. what you're describing is a procedue for ejecting.. that doesn't impede their ability to actually fly. They're not less skilled in flying the other type of plane just because the eject procedure is different. Their skill didn't decline..

That's radically different from getting a damage penalty vs one creature (which would be an actual skill decrease) just because you're skilled enough to get a bonus with the other.

In any case.. that's probably going to be my line of thinking for every example. None of the example so far show an actual decline in someone's ability.. rather they're example of people not building upon a core skillset to include the situations mentioned.

 

If it were the weapons gaining power rather than the character, then it could be explained by the idea that the weapon gained its power through being used against the blood of the creature.

I was reading about Parcelsus' weapon salve, wear the salve was applied to a weapon to heal the wound it caused, through some sort of underlying 'sympathy' between the two. There could also be an 'antipathy' in the reverse direction. Sympathies vs. antipathies was a common feature of magic, herbalism, and alchemy.

 

I don't think of it as diminishing a skill, but as something that doesn't continue to develop, while something else advances.

For example, as a new warrior, I start out with a base level damge using any weapon, swords, maces, fencing gear, pole arms, bows, crossbows, what have you. I can pick up any weapon and do A amount of damage.

I earn some skill points, and I decide to apply them to swords. I can still do A amount of damage with any weapon, but with any kind of sword, I can do A + B damage.

With more skill points, I can specialize in one handed swords, and now can do A + B + C. Specializing in the longsword, I do A + B + C + D damage. If I specialize in Ogres, I do A + B + C + O damage, but maybe against other creatures I do A + B + C - X damage, because I reflexively do attacks that are appropriate against Ogers, but are counter productive against dragons -> a product of negative learning.

This might even come into play if I use a weapon other than a long sword, such as a broad sword. If I try to use longsword skills with a broad sword, I do less damage than I would otherwise, because I'm using the broad sword incorrectly. I'll still do more damage than I would with a base level weapon, such as a mace, but by specializing in long sword, I actually decrease my damage slightly with other types of one handed swords.

 

I don't care for the argument I see some people make that gear should be meaningless because skill should matter. Nor the argument that skill has to be completely removed so we can cater 100% to players who aren't dexterous. I think there is a happy medium of allowing for a progression in skills/stats/gear to reward the effort in getting those, while also allowing player skill to play a role in combat.

You don't want the game to feature exceedingly difficult twitch combat to turn away RPG players, but the best players should be able to differentiate themselves.

 

Ok now I see where you're getting the - X.. I suppose that's technically possible. I tend to compartmentalize very well and so don't relate very well to this. I have a hard time thinking it might be common. I still can't say I'm fond of the notion but that's for Devs to call. If they did it this way I'd like to see a way to overcome the negative with some extra effort.. such as specializing in multiple creatures. After so many your mind would stop focusing exclusing on one set of moves (I should think).

 

I dig it. This is kind of how the Anatomy skill in UO worked, only more specific.

However, there should still be weapons of the slayer variety, as that sort of thing is like, a fundamental part of fantasy roleplaying games at this point.

EDIT:
Also, negative learning, as Owain is suggesting, seems a bit unfair and would imply that your character is a sort of moron who is inept at learning. When you learn how to drive an 18 wheeler, you don't suddenly become a terrible sedan driver.

Expertise in various things shouldn't mean that you suddenly suck at fighting other things. The end result to that would be that nobody would bother with expertise, as it would make their character slanted towards certain types of monsters, and eliminate alot of the fun.

Who honestly mistakes Ogres and Dragons? I mean, what are you going to do, try to chop the dragon in the kneecap so it falls over so you can kill it easier? No. You're going to keep on your toes and look out for the breath weapon so you can cry behind your shield until the dragon stops.

If you're out in a dungeon and suddenly encounter something you've "negatively learned", your entire party is going to punch you for doing less damage.

 

I don't really agree with doing something just because "everyone else is doing it". If that were the logic for all things SotA we might as well just build another WoW clone. Game features should be considered on a case by case basis. Are slayer weapons really necessary for a good game? How would they improve SotA? How powerful should they be? Is there anything that can't be killed without one?

I believe the arguement is more to do with habits than intelligence. Unless you diversify regularly you get into habits that you use instinctively.. and really in combat you don't want to have to spend a lot of time thinking. The less you are forced to think about how you're moving the more you can focus on what you're doing (contradictory as that might sound) and your surroundings. It's easier to make a mistake fighting something you're not accustomed to vs something you fight all the time.

 

Well, in a world where there are magic spells, I find it hard to believe no one has come up with the magical means to enchant a sword to cut trolls heads off easier. Not having weapons of the slayer variety would just seem shallow.

UO had slayers. D&D has slayer weapons. It's had them since the 70s.

LOTR had slayer weapons. Sting even told you when crap was about to hit the fan.

I don't even think WoW has slayer weapons.

 

LoTR didn't have slayers.. they had magical weapons sure but nothing specific towards a certain type of enemy. Elvish blades like Sting only glowed.. there was no damange bonus vs orcs or spiders or anything else there. UO may have had them at some point most Ultimas didn't.

In either case I think it's a preference issue. If you want them that's fine.. but 'because others do it' just isn't a convincing reason to me.