Skill Overhaul Suggestion

[MormonPartyboat]

This was spawned from the skill/leveling feedback thread, but pretty far from feedback, so I threw it into a new thread.

Something I’d really like to see would be a simplification of the various combat related skills. The pile of different skills throws way too many weird 4th wall breaking meta issues into the game as a player, and results in overly complex skill calculations (like the continuing cutting weapons issues). If a player makes a character with shotguns 10 and forget to put points into marksmanship, that character is a shotgun surgeon, but has absolutely no idea how to use a rifle and can’t figure out how to attach a laser sight.

So what I’d propose as the full combat skills lineup:

Firearms - This would bundle up pistols, rifles, SMGs, shotguns, and fast projectile launchers (like rocket launchers).
Projectile Weapons - This would bundle up archery, throwing weapons, and slow projectile launchers (like grenade launchers).
Melee Weapons - This would bundle up piercing, cutting, and bashing weapons. There’s an argument to bundle throwing weapons here instead.
Unarmed - This would stay as-is.
Combat Experience (terrible placeholder name) - This would combine the marksmanship, melee, and dodge skills, reflecting that you’re just more experienced with combat overall. For marksmanship/melee, probably half the effectiveness should be shifted from this skill to the weapon specific skills. For dodge, I’d like to see it get reined in with a pretty heavy reduction in dodge effectiveness for higher skill levels. That’d come with a side benefit of making defensive items/melee styles a much more meaningful decision.

Weapon Attachments would just use firearms/projectile weapons as appropriate, and weapons would keep their base type.

There would be some diversity lost in raw skill points and skill levels, but I think this would open up a lot of room for more interesting weapon forms. Instead of getting arrow shooting skill rank six, you would learn (or look for) new styles - say, you learn the Mediterranean grip and can fire more accurately at a small penalty to fire speed. Or learn the Mongolian grip and rapid fire headshots from your motorcycle while going 50 mph through a horde.

[Vorchar]

While not being an expert, actually calibering the scopes of guns differs from gun to gun. For scopes that I have used final calibrating is done in units smaller than mm, if you have no idea what real pose for firing the weapon is, you can’t actually calibrate the weapon since the error from you pose is greaten than the benefit from the scope.

[Arek_PL]

I think is not bad idea but i like what we have now and its too much simple maybe something like this:

[ul][li]rifles-all long weapons, half of effect on crossbows if higher than archery[/li]
[li]small arms- pistols, smg, half of effect on pistol crossbow if higher than archery[/li]
[li]archery- bows and crossbows maybe sling and slingshot too but not sure[/li]
[li]throwing- just throwing things[/li]
[li]launchers- rocket launchers, grenade launchers, mortars [/li][/ul]

i do not have marksmanshit at all, ataching accesories to guns is now avaible if you have some skills in this type of gun i do not know what to do with mele skills but maybe instead of puting everything into one maybe split it on long and short mele weapons because fighting with knife is diferent than fighting with sword while both are cutting

but leaving it alone is not bad option too because changing skills will need great rewrite of lots of books

[MormonPartyboat]

While not being an expert, actually calibering the scopes of guns differs from gun to gun.

Maybe I’m not understanding, but boresighting a gun is pretty universal. If you’re talking about differences between individual bullets’ performance in terms of drop and velocity and how your personal stance impacts the shot, that’s kind of a thing but it’s not differentiated between specific skills - once you know basically how bullets work, they work basically the same regardless of the gun’s exact size. If you took a world class rifle shooting expert and handed them a caliber they’d never shot with before (or a pistol), they wouldn’t need weeks of practice to figure out how to hit a target. They might if you handed them a reflex bow, though.

its too much simple

Why is that a problem? Having more complexity for its own sake is bad game design.

[quote=“Arek_PL, post:3, topic:9251”]maybe instead of puting everything into one maybe split it on long and short mele weapons because fighting with knife is diferent than fighting with sword while both are cutting

but leaving it alone is not bad option too because changing skills will need great rewrite of lots of books[/quote]

Fighting with everything is different. A club, a tonfa, and a mace are significantly different. The way I see the skills is that they generally represent very practical learning. When you have a high unarmed skill, it just means you’ve experienced punching a lot of things - it doesn’t mean that you know kung fu. You have to have a special book to train yourself how to do kung fu.

That’s the role I think books should play - instead of a medieval greatsword manuscript just giving you cutting weapons and a greatsword recipe, you could also learn the half-sword technique that lets you use greatswords as a faster piercing weapon. Samesies for shooting techniques (a book on how to clear rooms with rifles/shotguns, or how to shoot pistols from the hip like a wild west gunslinger). By taking away a specific need for a small library of manuals on HOW TO SHOT BULET, it opens up a lot of room for fun/interesting books.

[vache]

[quote=“MormonPartyboat, post:4, topic:9251”]Fighting with everything is different. A club, a tonfa, and a mace are significantly different. The way I see the skills is that they generally represent very practical learning. When you have a high unarmed skill, it just means you’ve experienced punching a lot of things - it doesn’t mean that you know kung fu. You have to have a special book to train yourself how to do kung fu.

That’s the role I think books should play - instead of a medieval greatsword manuscript just giving you cutting weapons and a greatsword recipe, you could also learn the half-sword technique that lets you use greatswords as a faster piercing weapon. Samesies for shooting techniques (a book on how to clear rooms with rifles/shotguns, or how to shoot pistols from the hip like a wild west gunslinger). By taking away a specific need for a small library of manuals on HOW TO SHOT BULET, it opens up a lot of room for fun/interesting books.[/quote]

This is where a perk system would be invaluable. We already have traits/mutations but that is getting fairly cluttered on its own as well.

[Turtlicious]

I’m %100 on board with this as it makes the game less obtuse, but it would be a ton of work.

[Eliijahh]

I don’t agree. Using a piercing weapon and a cutting weapon is a huge difference, or using a bow and throwing a knife. Also, it really isn’t that annoying to have a different skill for each weapon type.

[Muaddib]

I don’t agree. Using a piercing weapon and a cutting weapon is a huge difference, or using a bow and throwing a knife. Also, it really isn’t that annoying to have a different skill for each weapon type.

This.

[MormonPartyboat]

Using a piercing weapon and a cutting weapon is a huge difference

It’s really not, when talking about people learning how to use weapons through fighting zombies. That kind of raw skill implies neither formal training nor a specific style - someone who specifically learned how to fence using those techniques with a fire axe is certainly not going to get anywhere, but if you’re running around whacking zombies in the head with a cricket bat and then switch to whacking zombies in the head with a fire axe, you’re not going to suddenly forget how to swing it, even though that’s what the skill system implies. And not only does it imply that, it implies that by whacking things with an axe instead of a bat, you’re suddenly learning how to better use a knife.

The tack you’re taking implies that there should be far MORE weapon granularity, since a quarterstaff, a mace, and a bokken are all vastly different in technique. Someone who has mastered knife fighting might have no idea what to do with a zweihander, and someone who is an excellent pitcher doesn’t automatically know how to use a sling. Would you think adding a mace skill, an axe skill, a staff skill, etc., would improve the game at all? If not, why not? I imagine reasons against that kind of granularity are awfully similar to the ones I’m using against our current granularity - that it serves no game purpose and causes all kinds of meta conflicts in player motivation.

using a bow and throwing a knife

Throwing’s the only real wild card in the suggestion since it’s nowhere near useful enough to be its own skill but doesn’t neatly fit into anything else. It was purely a balance reason to throw it into either projectile weapons or melee, specifically to make throwing weapons more attractive to use.

[Eliijahh]

It’s really not, when talking about people learning how to use weapons through fighting zombies.

I don’t agree. Skill represent a proficiency with something, not a proficiency related to a particular enemy. Imagining a three-armed man, swordfighting against you. Of course half of your knoweledge goes to waste, because your discipline is based on fighting two armed men. But in-game this is not represented. You have a skill, he has a skill, there is no dynamic change of skill based on the enemy.

The tack you're taking implies that there should be far MORE weapon granularity, since a quarterstaff, a mace, and a bokken are all vastly different in technique. Someone who has mastered knife fighting might have no idea what to do with a zweihander, and someone who is an excellent pitcher doesn't automatically know how to use a sling. Would you think adding a mace skill, an axe skill, a staff skill, etc., would improve the game at all?

You are taking a black or white approach. What I think is that having three skills to manage all the characters abilities is a dumbing-down approach. In the same way as having a skill with all of the weapons would be a overcomplication. I think having this set of skills is quite enough without being too much or too little. From a gameplay point of view it is also nice, because you can’t just find a better weapon, and change immediately without any sort of practice.
What I’d like is to have better differences between blunt, pierce and cut weapons. I don’t want to have less skills.

[quote="Eliijahh, post:7, topic:9251"]using a bow and throwing a knife[/quote]

Throwing’s the only real wild card in the suggestion since it’s nowhere near useful enough to be its own skill but doesn’t neatly fit into anything else. It was purely a balance reason to throw it into either projectile weapons or melee, specifically to make throwing weapons more attractive to use.

I’ve never used throwing myself, so I don’t know what to say about this one. In any case it makes sense to have a different skill for throwing. And, as I wrote before, it doesn’t really make anything THAT much more difficult. It is just another skill, it won’t destroy the game to have obsolete stuff. Eventually they could be use to do something nice, instead of just taking them out of the game.

[Lesseps]

Firearms - This would bundle up pistols, rifles, SMGs, shotguns, and fast projectile launchers (like rocket launchers).

You probably don't know that different rifles have shooting tables included in manuals because they have different ironsights and different bullet raise/drops. Even non-experienced person knows how to point barrel at someone and pull the trigger. Knowing the nuances of different calibers, bullpup abd traditional types of rifles etc. makes difference between handguns, shotguns and rifles. Simplified approach is not welcome in such a complex and somewhat hardcore game as DDA. My opinion. Also I've read the article from military instructor where he gives advice: "If you can't shoot grenade launcher (like RPG and even underbarrel) then don't and leave that to experienced guys". Sounds fair for me and is a really good argument in not using single skill for all.