What are some lesser skills you would like to see in game?

With the knowledge of how the duelscale map will work. I would love to see some tracking and traveling skills that will allow you as the player to see different levels of detail in the world map view.

Such as a perception skill that would let you know if you spot a town under siege 4-5 hexes away from you, or if you notice the gypsies camp on the edge of the woods 3 hexes out from you.

Tracking skills that will work in conjunction with weather conditions. (Which is a new big discussion with the last update.) Certain prints will be easier to identify in snow conditions, but as time passes and snow accumulates you will lose sight of what it is your tracking, or where the tracks go at all. Perhaps tracking in spring type conditions will by extremely hard due to the ground being hard and your skill level will notice the fresh broken branches instead.

I would love to see a swimming skill that lets you keep your footing in shallow water combat, or swim around a fortified post. With your skill level determining how capable you are of making it with your current gear equipped.

Lastly, I always wanted to know what a GM beggar could accomplish in UO. I just didn't want to waste one of my skills trying to do it though, but begging and spirit speak were always really fun, and interesting skills to try and work on in the UO days. I was just to young at the time to understand what role playing was all about. Even though I had a blast playing it in the starting days of pre care bear UO.

(I'm still a care bear player myself, but nothing gave that rush like old school UO did.)

 

Many years ago I had an idea for a D&D character I called "Norton the Nuisance."

Norton, in the beginning, appeared to be the most worthless mage ever. He couldn't learn any spells beyond the most basic first-level varieties; there was no way he was ever going to be casting any fireballs.

BUT... it would turn out that he had a knack for learning minor cantrips such as Tie and Light and Grow and so on. Those, he could learn easily.

And -- as he discovered one dark night when set upon by rogues -- in moments of stress, the normally very limited effects of these cantrips would expand beyond belief. When Norton, in utter desperation, shouted "TIE!" at his attackers, every bit of string on their persons immediately knotted together, tumbling them helplessly to the stones of the alleyway.

So it went for the other cantrips as he learned to use them when someone wasn't trying to kill him. His version of Light could illuminate entire towns; his Grow cantrip could stop a party of bandits in its tracks as the grass seized them.

One of these days I'd like to see characters in a game able to make that kind of tradeoff -- they'd get none of the Big Spells, but their small spells could have unusually great impact when used smartly.

And then Norton the Nuisance would have the last laugh.

 

Anyone know if the devs have mentioned anything about skills for the world such as survival, hunting, and perception skills that will aid in traveling/exploration and preconceiving what types of skills an npc/pc has or if they are truthful?

 

hunting skills have been mentioned. In fact it will be a profession. Hunting tracking etc.

 

Do you remember where this was mentioned, or if skills that work with the world map only were discussed?

 

Fly crafting for fishing. A casual fisher might just buy or craft some standard flies and be on their merry way, while someone a little more dedicated could invest in higher crafting skill, better materials and discovering/buying/creating new tying patterns.

As in real life, particular fly patterns and materials would be better at catching particular fish, under particular conditions. A fly should resemble the usual food for the fish you?re trying to catch, so different places would afford different flies (based on the local insects). A really rare/valuable catch would naturally be really picky about what it eats, so you?d have to be a very skilled fly-crafter to make something that would make it bite and the materials needed might be rare as well. Someone skilled at crafting could also sell, trade or give advanced flies to other players, allowing them to get the good stuff as well.

This would preserve the relaxation of simple, automated fishing, and still allow for an extra dimension to the game through making the hunt for those super rare fish require more action that just hitting the ?fish? button. The more elaborate the crafting system is, the more I'd like it. It would be cool to have a journal entry the first time you catch a fish for the first time + trying to get as many types of fish as possible in you journal.

Here is a video of someone tying a simple fly pattern:
http://video.answers.com/how-to-make-the-flying-ant-fishing-fly-276853903

And here is a general overview of fishing fly crafting:
http://www.answers.com/topic/fishing-fly

(This is a slightly shorter version of my post in the thread "Make Fishing Simple and relaxing" by Isaiah)