Character creation suggestions

[esran]

a different solution would be to have skills bought at beggining of game mean something. it should offset the diffculty grinding, and slow the skill rust rate.
for example, if you put a point into dodging you get too levels of dodging at the beggining. in addition your dodging skill should never rust below level two, and should gain levels and rust as though it were one level lower.

[Dominae]

Perhaps I overreacted, but I stand by my ideals nonetheless. Sub-optimal playstyle isn’t really that much of an issue in a long-term survival game, and it looks like you’re projecting your own desires and playstyle onto the general audience. And frankly, if people are going to grind skills, why not let them? The people like you who don’t grind for anything can play one way, and the grindier types can play another way, and neither is hurt by the others’ experience.

I wasn’t projecting. That is for the actual game developers and coders to do, they create the game and give the options to play it the way they want it played.

I have seen quite a few threads pop up here in suggestions though, where an idea gets tossed around and then snowballs into making something that isn’t too broke, overly complicated and unbalanced. My initial post in the thread was basically, “why create a complex point-system to buy starting skills when you can do it already by either, (a) choosing a profession, or (b) just changing the options to give you however many character-creation-points as you want so you can buy your skills”. I posited that maybe just removing the skill page and balancing professions better for the point cost would work instead of requiring a whole remake of the character creation system.

If you want huge tailoring skill to start, then choose “Tailor” as a profession, or just give yourself the extra points for the skill using the options menu. You can do that with the tools in game now. If stuff is made TOO complex, it’ll turn away new players as they get overwhelmed. Also, In rogue-likes you’re supposed to die often; I fear having a character creation screen that takes me a while to get through. lol

Oh, and I have no issue with people grinding skills (and yes they’ll do as they please regardless). A more complex character creation system was being discussed here, and it was mentioned that giving a bunch of points to buy skills at the start would allow people to avoid grinding. … my point was, I have never felt forced to grind. I’m a somewhat experienced player, that doesn’t feel forced to do what it was you said this new-fangled system would save us from. Books make grinding a thing of the past, thankfully.

So it feels like making a complex system to fix a problem that doesn’t exist. If everyone was forced to spend an hour of real-life time grinding skills to be able to raid the first house they find, then obviously something needs to be looked at. As it is now, the tools we have seem to accomplish what already works.

[Cherry]

3 seperate pool points for stats, skills, and traits doesn’t seem that complicated to me.

[Inadequate]

I’m definitely in agreement that adding pointless new mechanics isn’t the way to go about things, but just because one person doesn’t even look at the skill menu doesn’t mean everyone doesn’t feel that way. I’ll concede the point that the game right now might not be balanced around raising stats in game, and might not ever be. That said, the same goes for the skill menu. Right now the game is balanced around being able to choose professions and starting skills, so taking it out only serves to unbalance the game.

It just seems that right now all these threads end up revolving around the central issue of stats being unraiseable, no matter how long you play, and skills and traits modifiable through playing long enough. Then they end up making complicated workarounds, rather than simply tackling the central issue head-on.

[Cherry]

So what’s the central issue again? We need moar skill points? Yum.
-Assuming that nobody is using the options to get as many as they want. or You don’t want to mutate and already installed all the fancy stat-up bionics-
Exercise equipment to increase STRONK
"Essays on Logic" a wonderfully long and boring book to increase your SMART
PERCEPTION?
DEXTERITY?
Sorry my real-life int stat isn’t that high. :>

[zxpr0jk]

3 seperate pool points for stats, skills, and traits doesn’t seem that complicated to me.

I wouldn’t say complicated. I’d say unnecessary. A system with superfluous data could be considered over designed/complicated though. The goal should be the simplest possible solution with the same effect. Ideally there’d be only one stat, but I can see a reason for two for some situations.

I’m surprised someone took such offense to the notion of removing the skills tab. Certainly wasn’t a personal attack. I don’t even know you. The skills page is quite literally a trap for newer players. If experienced players, as per the general sentiment, skip the skills page then clearly it’s a poor choice and shouldn’t be presented as a visible option to the inexperienced. Justifying it by saying it makes the early game easier is misguided. Newer players don’t even know what each skill is useful for, let alone what points allocated to the skills award them.

So say John takes a point from strength(obvious implication) and takes lightweight(clearly explained) for a 2 point gain. He then puts those points into survival. Unfortunately he doesn’t have the game knowledge to understand the gravity of his choice. Nor the experience to know what those 2 points in survival even gained him. He’s making an uninformed choice on the promise of equal value. He’s taking it on faith that a point in stats is just as valuable as a point in survival when that’s absolutely false.

However, with the profession system, it’s possible to make the choice a worthy trade by affording the profession additional equipment and skills to compensate for the highly valuable point in stats. Defining a couple skills on creation that your character learns faster is reasonable though. That’s what Fallout did anyway. I’d still urge against it if implementation kept the clunky skill tab. Accelerated Skill learning could certainly be absorbed by professions in the form of Main Skill(1.5 rate), Secondary Skill(1.33 rate).

Personally, I’d have the point system hard limited to the base stats and traits pool, and then have the player select a profession(balanced amongst themselves) for free. So there’s one pool of points, and a free option. This both simplifies the character creation process, and also creates meaningful decisions without gimping the uninformed with sinkholes. The result is players getting into the game faster and having fun sooner. It’s a fairly classic approach akin to 1) Choose Race -> 2) Choose Class. Except here, everyone is human so the first part is a bit more involved and the second part is a starting point instead of a path. This became the most popular system for character creation across most genres because it’s such a solid system for character creation.

[Cherry]

TLDR
Free starting profession that gives benefits to whatever skill your profession is good at.
One pool of points for traits and stats.
Get rid of the “clunky” skills tab.

Alternative-
Keep the skills tab with its own pool of points for noobs to use, and experiences players to abuse use at their own discretion.