How to make initial skills more desirable

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

The problem:
The problem with spending points on skills at character creation is that skills grow fast at first, which makes it an unwise investment. Even worse, the more you increase the skill during creation, the more points it costs, at an increasing scale. No one wants to spend a point on a skill that could be gained in a short amount of gameplay time. And no one wants to spend so much points on an initial skill that those points couldn’t be spent better.

A solution:
The solution I’m thinking is two-fold. First you have to get rid of the progressive skill point cost, or at least severely lower the scale. It’s enough that attributes use that. Secondly, deny the option to pick just a few points per skill. What I’m suggesting is that if a player wishes to invest in a skill on character creation, he’d have to accept a minimum skill level of 5, for example, at a cost of, let’s say, 3 character points. That way you get a nice tangible headstart while making initial skills more attractive. No one just waltzes to level 5 in any skill, so picking a level 5 skill should be an attractive option to grinding or even reading.

Additionally (or alternatively), fractions could be applied. What I mean by this is that with 1 character point, you could get 3 skills to level 1, for example, making them cost 0.33 points per shot. But you’d still be required to spend at least 1 point, and to pick 3 skills. Using the next point would only get 2 skills to level 1. Or alternatively further increase any 2 of the first 3 skills to level 2.

I’m confident that with a combination of the above, and a proper point balance, players would be compelled to consider starting skills instead of dumping all their extra points to character attributes.

Finally, not all skills should be considered equal. For one, Dodging is really dangerous to train through experience, making it a tempting initial pick. Consideration should be applied to determining which skills are more valuable or more tempting than others, and their point cost scales should be adjusted accordingly. Additional consideration should be placed to “danger level of learning-by-doing”, “the resource cost of learning by doing” and “the general availability of level advancement opportunities”.

Disregarding the notion of inequality of skills, I want you, fellow experienced CDDA players, to consider the following questions/statements, and fill in the blanks:

  1. I would spend ____ character points to get four skills of my choosing to level 3.
  2. I would spend ____ character points to get one skill of my choosing to level 6. That skill would be _________ .
  3. I would spend ____ character points to get one skill of my choosing to level 9. That skill would be _________ .
  4. Which skills do you think are the most treasured for ALL characters (of other players)?
  5. Which skills do you think are the least treasured for ALL characters (of other players)?
  6. Which skills do you consider to be the hardest to increase by doing?

Here are my own answers:

  1. Two. Quite frankly, level 3 isn’t much anything. A deal of 4 skills to level 3 with 2 points could still be an attractive deal.
  2. Three, maybe? I would pick Dodging. Mechanics and Electronics seem really attractive, too.
  3. This is the toughest question and honestly I don’t have a solid opinion. It’d be more than 5 points, but then again I have to ask, would I rather spend 5 points on attributes? It’d be a tough choice to make either way, and I feel it would really force a certain playstyle.
  4. Any 1-2 combat skills, Mechanics and Electronics. Possibly Cooking (for the chemists out there).
  5. Bartering, Speaking, Throwing.
  6. Dodging, Launchers, Bartering, Speaking. (assuming the last two CAN be increased by doing)
2

Having mechanics at 6 allows you to do almost anything with a car, it should be more expensive imo.

On a more general note, to make points in skills more attractive, you need to make books less powerful. As it is right now, i would never spend a point in skills.

Even with the changes you propose, to be honest, i still would not do that, since the first library/mansion will usually solve all my skill problems.

3

I think it would be better to just break up the creation points into stat points and skillpoints. Maybe even another one for traits.

That or make the starting stat fixed . Add stat progression through training + stat aptitude traits for some additional customization of your starting stats.

4

[quote=“Dlightfull, post:2, topic:10115”]On a more general note, to make points in skills more attractive, you need to make books less powerful. As it is right now, i would never spend a point in skills.

Even with the changes you propose, to be honest, i still would not do that, since the first library/mansion will usually solve all my skill problems.[/quote]
Good point. (no pun intended… probably)
I suppose the question then becomes, at what rate should a character learn skills from books?
Or should reading be limited to a certain amount of hours per day?
Perhaps focus doesn’t drop fast enough while reading?
Or perhaps the effect of low focus isn’t strong enough to hinder learning?
Maybe the MP3 player is too powerful in keeping morale (and therefore focus) up?

Would it be unreasonable or interesting if, lets’ say, going from level 0 to 10 just by studying (reading) would take a whole year (56 days by default)? Assuming that one would read, let’s say, 6 hours per day.

5

Instead of turning the rest of the game into an even more tedious skill grind than it already is, maybe instead increase the skills you get for a point to bring points spent there more in line with points spent in stats and traits? Perhaps make skill points bought at character creation give you recipes that are otherwise book only?

Or yeah, break up points at character creation into separate stat, trait and skill points. Caves of Qud does this, seems to work out (although it has a levelling system).

Making parts of a game more boring and unfulfilling because other parts are too doesn’t sound like the epitome of good game design to me.

6

Hmm. I don’t see what’s the issue here. You buy starting skill points to make the game more convenient. Yes, you can easily grind low level skills up. But there’ll always be time for that. Needing to do so at the beginning detracts when most fun and hectic part of the game, the initial scramble to survive.

Am I seriously the only person that finds investing in starting skills to ALREADY be worth it? 2 skill points is more than enough to make that particular skill usable early on, and you already have that “first 2 skill points for the price of 1” thing.

I suppose it could be balanced further by increasing how many skill points that first character point spent buys you, but that should probably be an optional, adjustable value. And if you go THAT route, why aren’t you just increasingly how many character points you start with? :V

7

Messing arround with the initial points is disturbing the games balance.
Its something that should be well thought through. I doesn t feel right to me to mess with the vanila creation point settings.
And unless i can not survive without points alloted to skills early on its not worth it Imo.
Traits and stats will show impact on early game and persist.

8

I do find that doubling the default value makes for an easier game sometimes, and a smoother one.

Then again, what I tend to do more often is bump up the maximum instead of the starter value, for more minmax. >.>

9

To be perfectly honest, skills are barely worth it in Character creation, at least in my opinion. The only skills I sometimes invest in are dodge, speech and barter, as they are somewhat hard and/or dangerous to train, but even then, I only take them when I have a point left and don’t know what to do with it.

As it is now, Attributes are worth more. Why would I ever choose to take a skill, knowing that I can get most skills up to level 3 with only 1 book and a mp3 player, when I also know that there is no safe way in increasing your own attributes (besides certain mutations and Granades, both ways which can be quite dangerous).

Hell, investing points in some skills are, in fact, pointless (pun intended?) - take fabrication or sewing for example. I can promise you that pretty much every experienced CDDA player will have both of those skills up to level 2 or 3 in no time. It’s similar with mechanics, you can easily get the first few levels in there when you start playing around with your first car. Cooking is also on the list of the easy to level skills, as you naturally start cooking somewhere down the line, in order to sustain your character.

It’s when those skills hit the higher levels when I’d be willing to spent points, but not the ridiculous amount the game currently asks from me. Level 6 and higher would be attractive to me, considering that this is the point where it starts being hard to train certain skills - you either have to find and read books, which can take a lot of time, or you’d have to grind away for a while, which takes a lot of time too. On the other side, what’s the point of playing if you already have a character which can survive perfectly on their own, with great skills right from the start?

What I’m trying to say: There has to be a big change in how skills are gained, how they level and how books work, same with attributes.

My take on it would be the following: Nerf books, a lot, let them take a lot longer. And every skill level you earn should in some way modify the base attributes. There is already a mod out where the attributes are static and only increase by skills, but a hybrid system would be better in my opinion. For example, give the player the base 8 stats and let them have…3-4 points they can freely put into the attributes, simply because every person is different, some are naturally stronger, some are more intelligent and so on - then, ingame, let the attributes slowly increase with the skills. It’s only natural that you become stronger when you keep using a melee weapon, you’ll get more accurate/perceptive if you keep firing guns and so on…Sounds reasonable?

10

What about making investing points in stats give you skill points to spend? Like, every two stats gained from 8 or every 1 taken from 8, there could be free skills.

11

Is till think that separating stat points and skill points is the best solution. Even if you make gaining skills harder … Its still questiopnabkle whether that temporary char boost is worth investing points as oposed to invest into permanent traits and stats that can not be gained by normal means.

12

So let’s address the problem here.

If investing in stats is “10” of conveniency value, skills is like 0.5.

Skills are temporary and erode in the normal game, aren’t as noticeable at first days, and don’t sound quite as awesome.

What about making skill buys be two skill points per buy instead of one, and make them unerodable?

13

Making initialy baught skills unerodable sounds good but:
Everyone and his daughter plays with skil rust turned off :confused:

14

…people play with skill rust? o3o

15

I know, hahahaha, but I guessed it could be for main game.

I got an idea. What if, instead of skill points, we get skill multipliers, where we can make the skills be gained faster? Like

Skill Points = Skill Gain
0= 100% gain
1= 150% gain
3= 200% gain

Etc.
I think that is actually good.

16

You mean you put a point into say unarmed combat and you therefor gain uptitude?

Would be cool if we had a hardcap on skills like 12 and if i invest a point in a skill the cap goes up and i gain lvls faster in that skill? That would be … kinda cool.

17

YESSS this is way too great.

18

You’d have to put the cap lower than 12 though - everything above 12 gives you nothing in non-violent skills, as there are rarely any recipes which require such a high level - you pretty much maxed out your crafting skills with roughly 8 or 9, at least in my experience. There isn’t much more.

However, if you play with such a cap…why not putting the cap on a level where you’d actually need that one/two skill-up in the character creation in order to get the best crafting recipes?
Think about it - you do have to be interested in a certain ‘skill’ or ‘work’ in order to really be outstanding in it. Be a Master of a few, selected skills (aka put points in those skills in your character creation) and you’d be average everywhere else. cant excel at everything after all.

Of course some would reason that this is a bad idea, because its limiting how you play your character or how you start out. That’s why those special recipes would only consume less time or materials for example - or materials which are more common instead of the super rare stuff.
Another option would obviously be that there is another way of aquiring those items. For example, be a ‘Master of Cooking’ would allow you to make your own mutagebs/serums - one who is not specialized in cooking couldn’t make mutagens, or only the most basic one and would have to find the specialized mutagens/serums on npcs or in labs.

19

Brainstorming actually works?

20

Looks like it. I really hope this system gets implemented, it’s way more useful, specially to get to late game.