Levels VS Skills (voting)

Even if claiming the majority is a standard practice it is not necessarily true I think here are many Ultima I - IX and Ultima Underworld I & II players also And all these games have a skill development based on experience points one can redeem at a trainer or shrine. Therefore the SotA leveling system is a successor in a strict sense of the Ultima history

 

Hi Cabirus, I'm also a huge fan of Ultima IV - IX. And UW1 & UW2.

I agree with you, the SP system was also very good.

Would a compromise be a system where both:
skills increase from use
and
selected skills are boosted significantly from shrine or trainer use

Let me know your thoughts?

 

Yes, I think this could be a good compromise to satisfy both camps But I fear your suggestion is very costly to implement.

 

No questions asked. I just wanted to point out a few cases where either system had been used and highlight what I saw to be their benefits and flaws.

Honestly, I don't like skills at all, not in the traditional sense. I mean, people shouldn't be able to do everything, so in that sense they should have to pick some skills, but I'd prefer to see no leveling, nothing to distinguish who has grinded more, because it's always going to be an empty accomplishment, regardless of which of the two systems is used. If they could somehow make using skills difficult, then the prestige would come from player skill. After all, the meta game is always going to be max level vs max level (unless you're playing Runescape which is a god-awful level-grind game).

To play my own devil's advocate though, leveling and character development are a huge part of RPGs, and taking them out would seemingly detract from that.

 

In the current system people may well find out what kind of grinding is more effective, but my recollection from the earlier deep dive videos was something like this: that crafting experience can only be used toward crafting skills, combat experience can only be used toward combat skills, (and as blaquerogue alludes to, pvp experience could only be used toward pvp oriented skill trees). They did suggest that occasionally a small amount of points from other trees also might be rewarded for experience gains - supposedly to encourage players to try other activities. I'm not sure if that is still the current plan, but at the time I did not realise they would be using a level based system. I suppose at least level numbers makes it easier to keep track of how many skill points a player should have.

 

Example:
you have Magery 53 and trying to cast spell lvl6 .You 'll cast spell once from 4-10 times. If you have magery 63,then you''ll cast it as much as possible with 1-2 fizzles max.

Here fizzles are also available,but as some strange sort...

p.S. combining system also would be good :
hero level -> points->open skills
skills->exp from using skill->skill levelup

 

I think this type of system come from pen and paper days where it would not be very easy or fun to calculate individual skill gains on the fly. But with computers we can.

But even that said, with the point system there is still almost a game in itself putting the points in the skills you want.

This is kind of what I was thinking when I suggested putting the points into each individual skill pool as you earn them. That way it would still leave the player with the choices in distributing the points throughout that skill tree.

Having both types of play in game seems to be a win win to me.

 

Right, if I remember correctly from the earlier videos the original plan was to grant skill points in either combat or crafting at each level (percentage in each category dependent on what skills the player was using - i.e., so if I spent 80% of my time using crafting skills and I got 5 skill points at the next level, 4 would be crafting and 1 would be combat) plus a small amount of general skill points which could be used for either category (to encourage players to try out other activities as Siriustar mentioned). I suspect they opted for the more traditional approach because it would have been more difficult for them to track individual skill usage to determine skill point distribution

 

The UO approach encouraged people to macro skills to level unattended. You had to grind where as with SotA, you level by playing the game normally. Not only do I prefer this approach, this is the way SotA has gone for better or worse.

It wouldn't merely be a one month delay to change this, it would be much longer. People would be irate about another delay. And delays aren't free. Portalarium has to pay salaries every month.

This isn't changing this late in the game. You can discuss what system you prefer, but the game isn't changing.

 

The biggest reason why I prefer systems where you gain skills from using them is because I simply like the idea that if I stumble upon a fight and get some hits in or cast a heal or something then I can learn something from that regardless of what we're fighting or how big the group is or whatever. XP systems at some point start driving people apart simply because they don't want to split the XP with other people.

 

Brilliant! I could live with that

 

There's always a hybrid approach:

You gain XP through normal activities. When you level, you gain skill points for adventuring (combat, magic) and crafting. You spend those skill points at a skill trainer to unlock those new skills. But you must now use those skills to advance them individually. You will still gain overall XP through normal activities to unlock further skills. So you can be a jack of all trades but be a novice at all of them if you don't actually use those skills.

 

The combat points and crafting points are already separate from one another and they have said some XP will go to only one or the other, some to both. So you can't make potions to get better at swordsmanship.

The macroing, exploiting and grinding has been pointed out before as a drawback of the ability use for advancement system. I hated the default Skyrim system for some skills, armor was the worst.

We'll have the same problem now in that many trees are mainly worth it for the passives. Plus how do you earn points in new trees since you don't have any skills in them, or even after you do you won't have enough for them to come up often unless you're using the fixed slot system?

Just say the skills you're putting points into that you didn't use when logged in were studied or trained by your character while you were logged off, done.

 

How bout reduce amount of skill points spent, and have a sub-leveling system that gives points up to a certain amount towards skills, let's say 10 being high for a sub-level skill. Solely gained based on use of that skill. The effects gained could be from a set of randomized benefits geared towards enhancing that aspect of the game for your character. To go further there could be a specialized skill tree beyond that to hone what benefits you receive, making them less random.

 

I believe PvP will have separate skills and a pool as well. You can't improve PvP skills through crafting.

 

Let me try and make an example. My character uses a sword. I want my skill points from General experience to go towards blades, heavy armor, a dab in light spells for healing, maybe some shield (although tend to use two handed blade), and definitely the tactics skills tree. Ok, so there is the general active and innate skills I want to use.

By fighting a bunch of monsters I gain general exp, and then sub level exp should be a rare occurence after you get a point or two into the sub skil tree so you don't master anything too fast. So the results from combat give garunteed General exp while the sub level experience would be more difficult to attain and based on random dice rolls for succes or not. Benefits from using a two handed sword should be different than if I used primarily a one handed blade with shield or a blade and a mace, and so on. I haven't thought about this too much so let's just say I gain 3% more damage as one benefit for having 3/10 in sub-skill two handed sword. Other benefits that could randomly occur could be a crippling hit, stun, etc. just genral things someone who doesn't normally use that kind of weapon would receive.
For the third tier you could choose from the list of benefits you would like to receive more often and get a higher chance of getting those when a random benefit does occur.
Hope this makes sense. I believe they could add this while keeping the current system.
Thanks.

 

In a sense you're describing the skill tree we have now.

You can levels of overall experience, but you get skill points that give you either a new active ability, or a passive/innate ability such as bonus damage.

 

Yes, because I like what they have just think it needs to be completed. I agree with the other posts. And like the idea of gaining attributes based on actions. I guess I'd have to draw it and then post it. Too complicated for words. More a visual interpretation would be helpful. I just think they could add a little more depth into the skills, which will probably happen anyway. Just a big fan of ultima in general and want to help. I had the original game until a few years ago. Floppy had melted and the box wasn't in good shape. Not sure what happened. So far I'm liking the game. Feels similar to others I have played but not the same as any.

 

Never mind. Disregard that stuff. I think I confused myself. Feels like I'm trying to describe a moment in time but want to simplify it and I'm just struggling with how to describe what I am thinking.

 

Ok.....
Combat:
Weapon type or spell ability:Success or failure
% of max damge done determines chance for tier two experience in combat action.
Here where I get stuck.
The best way I can can explain it would be to Encorporate a modern fallout combat system(general swing button/Attack mode) to be more interactive and fluid like. But encorporated the existing icon clicking frenzy in a way that's not focuse on watching the bottom of the screen clicking icons. Hope that's not hurtful. I just feel something's missing and want to help figure out what it is, like the rest of ya. Night