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This thread will be open to discussion (as well as having a poll where you can change your vote if you change your mind) as to how many skills we should aim to have in this game.  As you can tell from the poll's options, I'm thinking anywhere between a low of 100 or a high of 400.  As a reference point, Diablo 2 offered 30 unique skills per character class, with seven character classes in total.  That's 210 conventional skills total.  I wouldn't even dare start counting the list of feats, spells, and skills in a game like Neverwinter Nights, as even in their incredibly eye-straining font and little more than an incomplete sentence as a description, they take up dozens of pages in the manual.

We will not have character classes, and instead we will have a system of training packages.  Each training package will greatly decrease the cost of a set of skills.  This allows people who wish to specialize in that skill set to pick up the whole lot at a reasonable price.  However, those who want to pick and choose one or two skills from the lot can still do so; they just have to pay a premium because they don't have the background training.  This allows players to dabble in fields outside of their specialty, but if they want to do more they will need to invest in the low level training skill.  Investing too much in many training packages will prevent you from reaching high level skills in any of your specialties, leaving you as a jack of all trades who is mediocre (or worse...) in all of them.  Alternately, someone who takes only a single training package will have difficulty because he's not nearly versitile enough.  His skills are powerful, but they get redundant and he will more often than not find situations where they are not sufficiant.  As I have mentioned, we also won't have class levels; characters will earn experience, and use these experience points to buy new skills.  New skills are the basis of becoming more powerful, and as such it's important to realize that if we have less of a scope of skills (that is, not a long ladder between low end and high end) that the strength difference between the weakest baddies and the strongest heroes won't be as appreciable.

Fewer skills has an obvious advantage: it's less complicated and easier for a beginner to pick up.  It comes at an obvious price, however; there are fewer options for each specialist.  One heavy warrior specialist and the next will only vary by a couple of skills.  Consider the case of three training packages per domain (nine total).  Accounting for a little overlap between them, that's only about 15 skills per package if we go for the low end on this poll (100 skills).  That's 15 skills to encompass everything from low level to high level abilities within a single specialty.  Combine with that the fact that we will only have a few specialties, and it's not hard to forsee that the amount of option (both for players and for monster varieties) will get woefully sparse rather quickly.  The advantage of more skills is the contrary of this; there will be plenty of options available.  One heavy warrior may have entirely different skill sets than another, because they chose slightly different paths.  As well, this will open the possibility for more specializations and different ways to get the prerequisits you need for higher level skills (not to mention we can support a larger range from low level to higher level with more skill options).  The downside comes to complexity; it's going to be harder to pick up and choose some skills for your hero.  This can be alleviated somewhat by offering "pre-built" hero designs (Neverwinter Nights did that) and by designing the prerequisits so that it is not overly complicated to reach any one skill.

I'm more of mind to shoot for the higher end of the skill range.  Obviously skills we be designed as we go along, and it is unlikely we will even have surpassed the first range (100-150) by the time we're ready to start doing some real gameplay testing.  It's also important to realize that a large swath of these skills won't even be considered by any given character.  If we go for the high end and do 500 skills, I doubt players could ever hope in the most absurd situations to see more than 100 of them on a single character.  The system isn't designed to see a "master of all trades" emerging.

This thread isn't supposed to be about writing things in stone (that's why votes can change!), it's about laying down a target so as we design skills we have an idea of how many we're shooting for.  This will let us gauge how many prerequisits a skill should require, and how many skills we should expect a character of a certain level of experience to have.  Remember that more skills will also mean we should expect to have a greater range of power; certainly more passive skills and a greater discrepency between the introductory and master levels of a certain specialization.  With a rough goal in mind, we can design our skill tree with that long-term goal.


Oh, and I got a new computer, so I'm currently playing the games my old one never could, like M2:TW and SupCom.  That's why I haven't been around in the past three weeks.  I woke up one morning and realized I'd totally forgotten about OpenWar.  Can't let that happen!

I woke up one morning and realized I'd totally forgotten about OpenWar.

That sounds familiar

Anyway, from a practical point of view I think 200 to 275 should be enough.
Concerning the difficulties of either making it too complex for new players, or to simple for regulars, I got a few ideas:

The first is to start small. Limit the number of skills at the start to make choices easier and less overwhelming. I noticed you already had this in mind.

Second idea is to allow reset of the skills at a character level at which the player can be considered to be well introduced to the game mechanics. It's quite annoying to find out that you really don't like the path/skills you've chosen and have to completely start over to correct your beginners mistake.

Third is to allow new players to enter a sandbox world in which they can temporarily take the role of characters with a decent range of skills. This to give an example of where the different paths lead to.

Solinx

I woke up one morning and realized I'd totally forgotten about OpenWar.

That sounds familiar

About that, that's easy to solve by getting an RSS reader (a big time-saver, believe me), such as RSSOwl 2, and putting our feed in it

Second idea is to allow reset of the skills at a character level at which the player can be considered to be well introduced to the game mechanics. It's quite annoying to find out that you really don't like the path/skills you've chosen and have to completely start over to correct your beginners mistake.

I think we can artificially solve this by allowing players to import any character into a save game.  This could allow the player to export a character, deconstruct and reconstruct him in a character builder mode, and then import him.  This feature could potentially be used to cheat, but so what?  People who want to cheat are going to do so anyways.

Third is to allow new players to enter a sandbox world in which they can temporarily take the role of characters with a decent range of skills. This to give an example of where the different paths lead to.

Already in the concept (it's in "game modes" thread, I believe).  Sandbox mode is always a must-have, and I'm always pissed off when a game doesn't have it by default.  At least games like NWN supported people creating sandbox modules.

By supporting limitless importing and exporting, I think you break down the challenge of the game. Because it's that simple to cheat, more people will be tempted to do so when things get thougher for a moment.

Yeah, I remember the sandbox from the game mode now.

Solinx

I think your basic skills should stay the same troughout the whole game. If you're unhappy with them, learn to live with them.
After all, you can't edit your sims when you're playing with them, or change your own DNA for that matter

You know, if the introduction story changes per domain or package, I agree. I forgot about that the other day.

Otherwise not. With the Sims example I had to think a bit about what can't be changed later on, aside from the looks. Basically all I can think of is that it's hard or impossible to unlearn some skills and you got the neatness, etc list when you create the sim. Those aren't really a big issue, and you'll notice right away how the neatness, etc. effects the sims behaviour.

A RPG game with a complex skill system as planned here is quite another thing. The basic skills are unlikely to be a good reflection of what you can expect later on in the game. It could be attempted to adapt them in such a way that they do resemble them, but one way of balancing skills is to make paths to really powerfull skills start with weaker skills than other paths which end with a weaker top skill. That makes the bigger rewards harder to get.

I don't know the level limit, but say it's 100. Then at around level 10 - 15 the average player should be able to tell which path he'd like to take.

Solinx

Well, what I understand, you pick your basic skills at the start. These represent your "talents" which you can't change, as in real life. Of course, you can work hard to master those things you may not have talent for, again just as in real life.

Anyway, dinner

By supporting limitless importing and exporting, I think you break down the challenge of the game. Because it's that simple to cheat, more people will be tempted to do so when things get thougher for a moment.

I can acknowledge what you mean about the tendency to cheat.  However, I do think that cheats will be available to those who search for them.  Another solution may be to break the scenario into multiple chapters, so it isn't really cheating to start the next chapter as an entirely new character.

Conceptually, I do think there is supposed to be a build up of character, where your skill selection becomes part of your development and history.  That's the reason why I'm so opposed to it.  The growth of the character and the imperfections of that growth are a part of the experience.


Once again, a breakdown of "training packages" (it has changed over the months, so this is the most recent concept):

These packages are themselves skills, and have no prerequisits (but massive costs).  The training packages have no effects except to grant discounts to the purchase of other skills.  You are awarded a free training package of your choice at character creation, and perhaps (I'm undecided) you will get the option to pick other free training packages as you progress.  So, skills that fall under that package's effects are cheaper as a result.  It encourages a degree of specialization and acts as a foundation of growth, but doesn't necessarily restrict it like the traditional character class does.  Your starting skills are your own business, to select as you see fit.

The package reflects the foundation of your skills, and it is easier to grow and diversify in such a field.  Expanding outside of your package is more difficult, as you lack the foundation skills.  However, as you continue to expand into a new field you may find a niche, and synergies will begin to make it more accessible.  In time, you may earn a training package in that field (remember that cost synergies are mutual; if "Alchemy Training" package reduces the cost of "explosive potion", then the explosive potion also reduces the cost of alchemy training.  It is possible to reduce the cost of the training package to zero, at which point you are just awarded it for free, representing that you've invested enough time in that field to be considered to have a universal background knowledge), or you could just dabble for some diversity and focus on advancing in the area of your choice.

I think the stat system better reflects talents (great strength, intelligence, agility, etc) whereas the skill system represents experience and learning.  This is what you know how to do, and what you've learned to master.  As far as a computer database is concerned, it's a trivial matter to swap my six credits of circuit analysis with, say, some field in biochemistry.  To "unlearn" one in favour of the other simply makes no sense in reality.

Ok, thanks for the renewed info on the training packages.

I can acknowledge what you mean about the tendency to cheat.  However, I do think that cheats will be available to those who search for them.  Another solution may be to break the scenario into multiple chapters, so it isn't really cheating to start the next chapter as an entirely new character.

Yes, but having to look for cheats is another thing from getting them stuffed right under your nose.

Starting with an entirely new character in different chapters is interesting, but I don't see it as a solution here. The viability of this depends on how big a role equipment will play in the game. If it's going to be important and really tailored to skills or skill combinations, I can imagine a lot of people not being pleased with this sort of approach.
Even without the equipment, starting over with each chapter probably isn't something everyone will be happy about.
Still, this is a very interesting, and I think unique, idea. It reminds me a bit of the Song of Ice and Fire, a book in which chapters are written from the perspective of various characters. Perhaps this can be brought into the picture as an option somehow. The player can either continue with their character from the previous chapter or start with a new character of the same level, with blanco skills, etc. Effectively changing the player's role and perspective in the game. The potential issue would be equipment, but I think there are ways around that.

Conceptually, I do think there is supposed to be a build up of character, where your skill selection becomes part of your development and history.  That's the reason why I'm so opposed to it.  The growth of the character and the imperfections of that growth are a part of the experience.

Yes, I agree there should be a buildup of character. What I was aiming at is simply giving new players a chance to review their skills once. Just once and right after the point of introduction to the general gamemechanics.

They could be restricted in numerous ways, such as being limited to rearranging skills linked to their training packages, or they could be penatalised, getting less in return for unlearning skills, or they could be required to pay an increasing price for each skillchange, etc...

BTW. Unlearning skills is not unheard of in reality. It can actually be quite essential to the success of an innovation process within an organization.

Solinx

Darvin's right, with a single-player game, anybody wishing to cheat really bad will be able to do so. We can take measures to restrict that as much as possible though, for example by including a checksum in the savefiles (as EA does with Create-A-Heroes)

Checking that a character is valid goes without saying.  I doubt it would be hard to implement, either, since it's just tallying up the stats and skills.

I think how to manage invalid characters should be left up to the session in question, however.  If people want to take off limitations, that's their business.

I think all character files should also keep a development history.  That is, if you want to revert to your state when you had 2000 experience points, it will remember what skill setup you had at that point.  This would allow a character design to "revert" to whatever experience level demanded by the session they are entering.

Erm...what's a session?
If you have something in your head, you need to write it down

A "session" refers to any instance of the game.  It could be a singleplayer instance where you load up the game and start playing, or a multiplayer instance where you join someone else's existing game (or set up your own).  Each session would, of course, have a variety of customization options, and one could be how they deal with illegal characters.

In that case, explain why someone should be able to revert his character?
The way I see it, experience and skills earned while playing a session, belong to that session and don't go anywhere else.

For example, you have a character at level 22. A multiplayer session opens with the condition that joining players are max level 14.
With the level revertion Darvin suggest you could still join and play with your character as it was at level 14.

During that session, the character just develops as any character.
There are several things that can be done after the session.
- The player could be allowed to store the lower level character as a new character.
- The session is ignored entirely in the game mechanics.
- The earned xp during the session is added to that of the level 22 character.

Solinx

Aren't multiplayer sessions played with special character that are given some skills, don't level and don't have experience?

Not in the average RPG game. Special characters, usually, but for the rest things are usually the same as with singleplayer.

Solinx

Aren't multiplayer sessions played with special character that are given some skills, don't level and don't have experience?

There would be several varieties of sessions.  You could play a roleplay session which focuses on character and story, or a combat session based solely on fighting.  For the combat session, you would be given a set number of experience points to spend on skills as you see fit.  For convenience, you could join with any character design and expect it to revert to the experience level demanded by the server.  This would allow you to keep one version of a character, rather than multiple versions depending on the experience requirements of a session.

Ok I understand now. Allowing characters to be reverted wouldn't be hard. It's a matter of saving them as a "journal", eg:

Code:

20: Add skill "Master of Fire"
45: Add skill "Sword Throw"
50: Remove skill "Master of Fire", Add skill "Lord of Flames"
75: Add skill "Invisible"

Actually, we can just record the order in which he purchased them.  Because each skill has a cost associated with it, we can know when he purchased it.

Not if he doesn't purchase it rightaway

If we know the amount of XP a character gets to spend during initial creation, then yes, that also doesn't matter.