Pondering the "no reason not to" issues of the skill system

[Rias]

(Inspired by discussions in various other threads, didn't want to derail any of them so started yet another thread to discuss this specifically.)

I have to admit that one major factor that holds me back from taking action on making certain skillgain processes easier (even though in many cases I very much want to do so, such as with the legendarily awful Perception grind) is the "no reason not to" issue of the current skill system. That is to say: There's no reason not to have my character max out every defense skill, every weapon skill, Melee and Marksmanship, stealth, perception, armor use ... I want my character to be as prepared as possible for any situation they might need to make skill rolls against, naturally. Climbing and swimming are two other standouts with this issue - I get that people generally want to be able to access as many areas as possible (without help from someone else), but on the other hand it's weird to think that every character is a world-class climber and Olympic-level swimmer. It also diminishes the characters that actually have being exceptional climbers or swimmers as part of their character identity, when anyone can just grind it up to max with enough time spent. That last comment applies pretty broadly, actually: It's just discouraging when you make a character and you want them to have a particular focus as something that makes them stand out, but the reality is that anyone can just spend some time grinding the skill and now they're just as good, even though they didn't have any compelling reason to list being "master of skill X" on their character concept sheet. There was just no reason for them not to also grind up to becoming a master.

The crafting/utility side of the "no reason not to" issue is increasingly being handled via ability point investments unlocking utility abilities, crafting skills, recipes, and such, but it seems a little trickier when it comes to combat, as for better or worse, combat is a huge part of this game and the content it provides to engage with. I wouldn't want to say a character needs an ability point investment just to be able to wield a weapon type, for instance. I've toyed with a few potential solution ideas, but if anyone has some suggestions I'd love to hear them.

The idea I've considered the most at this point is something like a skill aptitude system, where based on your aptitude in a skill, you only get X% of your skill number applied (but challenges would still be based on the total skill number before aptitude adjustments). So sure, you could grind your Sword skill to 2500 just because you wanted to be a little more prepared to use a cool sword you might potentially find in the future, or just to have something else to do/grind with your character. (I am not saying this disparagingly, I have been in situations like this myself as a player.) But without some kind of limited aptitude investment in the Swords skill, you're going to be getting lower die sides than your actual skill level with your Sword skill rolls. This makes it harder to gain in that skill because you're failing challenge checks more often, but if you're only grinding Swords for "just in case" purposes, or just for something else to grind, it's not like there's any rush or important reason to get that Swords skill to the cap more quickly anyway. Presumably you already put your aptitude investment into another weapon skill that you prefer to rely on.

Another potential fun application of this kind of aptitude system is that certain classes/guilds could grant inherent aptitude bonuses to related skills. For instance, with this idea a Rogue or a Nightblade is always going to have an edge over other classes when it comes to stealth. A Rogue or Nightblade who joins a guild that's all about stealthy sneakiness might be granted even more of an edge. The Artisan guild could provide extra aptitude potency for crafting skills. Stuff like that.

Anyway. It's by no means a fully-baked idea but it's been fun to think about. The main thing I like about it is that it would continue to allow freedom of skilling a lot of things up, but also enforce some limitations on breadth of capability so we don't end up with everyone eventually being amazing at everything. (Thinking about it further, the means of implementation by percentifying skill roll die sides might just be re-inventing the wheel and could instead just utilize the rerolls system. I feel like there was a reason for doing it rather than rerolls, but if so I can't recall it at the moment. Heck, it may have just been the feel of seeing higher/lower numbers, which really does make a difference.)

But yeah. If anyone else has thoughts on this subject in general, please do share!

[Dorn]

Isn't that the point of abilities?

[Ninetales16]

I want to quickly add something to this before going and writing a much in dept post about what I think
I very, very much like the idea of being unique in a way or another. it has been... disheartening, for me at least, to have some skills I highly tried to grind for because of my character's background, and have them be generally pointless now as people have outclassed me in that area. which, I feel, makes my character's aptitude and background be worhtless.

[Southpaw]

this is one topic I think I'll have to come back and post more thoughts as I have them. I'm struggling to think of a good broad approach that'll address it on a more or less even scale.
That being said though, perhaps this is something that could be addressed by certain smaller steps. One example that comes to mind is that in old Clok if you pulled your hood up or wore a greathelm, it automatically lowered your perception because, well, your field of vision is being obscured. I understand this is just one aspect of a much larger problem, but until I have a better idea, I figured I'd throw this out here.
Obscured vision equals perception penalty. Armor level equals stealth penalty Encumbrance equals dodge penalties, so on and so forth.
Maybe there's a way to not need ability points or something more extreme. Weapon focus could grant more benefits, especially at rank three so even if I have melee maxed but no focus I still won't be as good as someone with 1500 melee but rank three focus. I do think we hit a bit of a snag with things like tackle though when the only defense is 75% dodge and 25% melee. If that could also be 75% block and 25% ranged it might make players feel less tempted to train things up because they can. If there's a gap in defense its natural to want to fill said gap.

[Maina]

This is a problem I see on many games. I'm very passionate about niche protection and letting people do their cool thing without feeling like literally everyone else can do it the same.

Only applying a % of a skill you've grinded feels like (and I may be misreading this) making the grind longer and lowering the skill cap, effectively. If I need 100 skill to fight a monster, but I can only apply 50% of said skill, then I effectively need to grind to 200 instead. Which may not be possible if challenge is based on the unmodified number.

I think the ability system does a lot of this footwork already. Even with combat, someone who has even just one combat ability (tumble, tackle, etc) has a huge advantage in grinding over someone who does not. If a climber gets a perk to let them climb without any climbing gear (could require climbing gear for normal use) or a swimmer can swim in deeper waters due to an ability, that does a lot to distinguish those skills, too.

Skills are important, but they don't mean a lot without abilities to leverage them. The abilities will differentiate the 'master X' vs someone who just grinded to cap.

You could also set a fixed skill cap, and each ability you take in that skill increases it. Classes might give a bigger boost. Say everyone is capped at 500 skill, then they get +250 to cap for each ability they take. Something like that.

Another game I've seen has done it by doing something like: you can have two skills at 2500, four skills at 2000, and everything else is capped at 1000. But that's probably too close to the kind of caps that nobody wants anymore.

I honestly think abilities are enough. Make skill less important. What makes you unique is what you can do with those skills via abilities.

[Kiyaani]

I was very divided on the COGG system because I felt it was too limiting, but I'm pretty opposed to current CLOK's lack of limitations since it seems too generous. As a player who does not go out and grind every skill "just because I can," it's really disappointing to come across the "jack of all trades, master of all trades" that seems to be many of the veteran characters. Abilities can only comfortably mitigate this so far. On the one hand, it feels bad to be performing an action and not getting points just because you don't have an ability unlocked, but on the other hand, maybe if you don't have the ability for it, you just don't do that thing because it's not in your character's line of development.

I would be in favor of returning to some kind of tiered system or, as you suggested, a % roll on any weapon type that isn't your set specialty. Of course, those people who have already grinded all their skills would feel like it's a punishment and I can't blame them for that. I guess what it boils down to is trusting players to do what's right for their character versus gaming to game. There's no one-size fits all playstyle. So while someone grinding all possible skills to max might seem a little scummy to certain people, I also don't really feel like it's great to stop them from playing how they want to play (as long as it's not abusing game systems or intent) or taking something away that they earned just because it feels weird on an RP-level.

I would almost suggest something similar to the sunset system but using extra skill points, except some people don't have or want to have alts so that wouldn't benefit them :( I guess I don't really have any answers for how to solve this dilemma. I personally don't like how it is currently, but I can't think of a nice solution without ostracizing people who have already grinded certain skills.

[Dorn]

I would almost suggest something similar to the sunset system but using extra skill points, except some people don't have or want to have alts so that wouldn't benefit them :( I guess I don't really have any answers for how to solve this dilemma. I personally don't like how it is currently, but I can't think of a nice solution without ostracizing people who have already grinded certain skills.

*Sunsets Dorn*

[Kiyaani]

The idea isn't that you would lose your current character, just that any extra skill points could apply towards an alt's development. But that would only be an issue if we went to a threshold or ability level cap system anyway, which I doubt would happen.

[Dorn]

On a more serious note, I'm curious what element of Cv2 in regards to skills aren't working for you?

Cv1, a few things started to get locked behind abilities because you were unhappy with how everyone did everything and so some of the more "abused" skills got locked behind abilities (Smithing, and Tailoring being the most intensive). Keeping in mind, this was when Combat was highly accessible to anyone without the need for any abilities, and some basic General ones would improve it for everyone.
COGG, went a radically different route in regards to skills but if anything doubled-down even more so on the ability lock. You could have different people with exactly the same skills, but without the abilities, it didn't really matter.
Cv2, we've gone back to general skills because COGG felt too limiting, but we're very much pushing the Ability route of COGG and being more restrictive via that route.

Do you feel Abilities aren't defining enough to actually make them feel like a specialization? Do you feel a general skill point is more powerful than having access to an ability? Do you see have an "aptitude" system coexist alongside Ability prerequisites?

A side-effect of having such a long running game in an open system, is the fact you will have people who cap out on things and explore other opportunities. Currently, their capability is locked out due to Ability slots and that fact open rolls aren't worth much except for the more basic of things. I'm not sure what this would accomplish beyond reducing their rolls at stuff they're doing to just keep playing in the first place anyway?

[Dorn]

The idea isn't that you would lose your current character, just that any extra skill points could apply towards an alt's development. But that would only be an issue if we went to a threshold or ability level cap system anyway, which I doubt would happen.

Ah. I didn't realize it worked that way. Unsurprisingly, no experience with the sunset sort of stuff.

[Southpaw]

Maybe weapon caps could all be 1000. Your first weapon focus will unlock 1500, second would unlock 2000, third takes you to 2500.

[Kiyaani]

The idea isn't that you would lose your current character, just that any extra skill points could apply towards an alt's development. But that would only be an issue if we went to a threshold or ability level cap system anyway, which I doubt would happen.

Ah. I didn't realize it worked that way. Unsurprisingly, no experience with the sunset sort of stuff.

The COGG way didn't work that way. You had to "retire" the character and you got a bonus to skillgains on whoever you activated your sunset points on. But if he wanted to lower skills to make players pick one specialty weapon or whatever, then maybe he could use the "lost" points in a similar way. Is what I was trying to go for.

[Dorn]

Should being capable with several weapon types be that much of an issue? What is too many? People are locked to a focus anyway, so you can't specialize in everything even with the Guilds that have basic utilization of two weapon types instead of weapon/shield like others.

[jerc]

I feel like the skill caps being so high is a big part of the problem. One thing I liked about COGG was that caps were reasonably low. The gap between "end game" content and "early game" content was much narrower, and therefore so was the gap between characters. This meant that characters who wanted something to be a part of their identity didn't have a huge grind in order to make it actually feel like they were actually good at it, and then could potentially have ability bonuses on top to further distinguish themselves. Caps being so low also meant that the initial d100 added to your skill level actually mattered.

Here though, it doesn't matter how many abilities you have. You're going to get absolutely trounced by endgame content at mid game skill levels. Abilities only truly matter when skill levels are similar-ish.

So to echo and put my own words to what Maina said: I think the problem is that skill levels in general are too important, and that abilities should instead reign supreme.

How to actually fix this though, I'm not sure. A radical idea could be to increase the "base" roll (currently d100) to something more impactful, and condense all skills to a smaller range. Then contribution from skill levels becomes more marginal from character to character, de-emphasizing the grind.

[Rias]

Let me try and clarify a little more where I'm coming from. I'm approaching this largely from a character identity standpoint. With the system as it stands, we pretty much have to assume that for the majority of skills (those that aren't just hard locked behind an ability), reaching the cap is expected, or "normal", in that there's no reason not to do so. Sure, some people are going to voluntarily refrain in the name of what they consider appropriate or reasonable, and others may just not have the time or energy to grind everything, but those are personal circumstances and not something I feel should be used as a bar to judge this situation by.

Reaching the skill cap seems like something that should make one feel proud of their character's ability in that particular skill. "My character is exceptional at this particular thing." Then they realize that everyone else is, or eventually will be, just as "exceptional". (No, Syndrome, you can't say the line!) We could have someone whose whole character concept is being a sneaky assassin, and another with the concept of a stout shield-bearing defender of the weak. In the end, skillwise the latter is going to be just as stealthy and daggery as the former, the former is going to be just as shieldy and hafty as the latter.

So, are we okay with saying that skill levels are more of a separate "leveling experience" factor that doesn't really mean much as far as ultimate character identity? That capping should be considered the bare minimum, and that ultimately, everyone should eventually end up on a level playing field, whith the only differentiating factors between characters (mechanically) being abilities? We could say that. And some people might be fine with it. I know that to me, it doesn't feel good. I like character identity backed by mechanics, I like being differentiated from other characters, and I like seeing other characters be differentiated from mine in significant ways. I think if we've got the concept of skill levels in the game, then skills should also be one of those differentiating factors between PCs.

Let's say a buddy and I have finished the skill grind phase, we've ground up all our skills to cap. For classes, I went Berserker and my buddy picked Rogue, based on our desired character/RP identities. All right, I get some unique Berserker combat moves and abilities, so that's good. A big invasion is on the horizon, in a big open field with nowhere to hide, no cheap stealth shenanigans - just a big open fight. Great, now's my time to shine. My Rogue buddy realizes the big open field situation is going to prevent his usual stealth approach, but he doesn't want to just sit this event out, so exercising an abundance of practicality he just throws on some heavier armor, picks up a battleaxe, and wades into the battle right alongside me. We're both swinging, parrying, dodging, with the same numbers. True, I get some rerolls that my buddy doesn't, but I don't know, it still feels discouraging to see that despite it being nothing like my buddy's character concept or identity, they can still just effortlessly swap into a reasonably passable version of what I had hoped would be my "thing", and that his own "thing" was very much not related to.

Conversely, let's say a stealth mission comes up. My Rogue buddy's time to shine. But he's not around at the moment and I'm getting impatient for things to progress, so ... I'll just strip my heavier armor, set aside my big battleaxe, grab a dagger or stiletto for the ambush bonuses in case I need to take someone out, and get to work. I'm just as stealthy (and as good with daggers) as my buddy, after all, despite stealth or daggers or sneaky subtle infiltration activities being nowhere within my desired character concept.

It just doesn't feel good. If I read about that kind of situation in a book, I'd complain about it. Imagine reading the Hobbit, but whenever some burgling or stealthy stuff needs to be done, Thorin decides "you know what, Bilbo's been a whiny little complainer this whole trip and I don't really like him, so I'm gonna send Bombur instead." And while Bilbo might have some small technical advantages in those types of situations, Bombur still gets by well enough. Why'd we establish a cast of different characters with supposedly varying capabilities if ultimately they aren't going meaningfully impact situations because the entire cast is actually pretty much equally capable at doing anything and everything? Yeah, books and games are different beasts, but hopefully the point comes across.

[Ninetales16]

it seems that ultimately, you have outlined my concerns quicker than I could take the time to write them down, rias.
I have felt the same in various situations, as well. when is my character's time to shine, if someone else can be better, or arguabbly even more versed due to actually having the time to grind and pushing for it than my character?
why should I struggle to maintain my own playstyle if others can be as good, or better, than my character while their central idea is not the playstyle I am having?
of course, my own answer, to myself that is, would be, I like to engage in the rp my playstyle might bring. but mechanically speaking, my character has suffered more hurdles than successes in anything lately de to this.
I have refrained from grinding certain skills because in my mind, the prime question I ask myself is: is my character actually, really, needing this? is my character shaping to be this kind of person? or enjoying this kind of activity? but, as you said, this can not be a essential argument to this approach. I considered, multiple times, to simply throw these (seemingly foolish) ideas I have been having down the window and simply learn everything and be done with it, seeing how much struggling and pain this can bring, mechanics wise, sometimes.
luckily, I haven't been doing that, yet!
I'm sad to say that sometimes, my dedication to this playstyle is simply not being enough to judge any mechanical benefits I might have from playing this way, and that even with specialised abilities, my character's skills have not been enough to overcome any hurdles thrown my way.

[Kismet]

I've always been a fan of limited skill point and character build systems and their ability to help characters stand out. I had no problem with the COGG 10,000 point system and was concerned about issues already mentioned above might arise when there was discussion of removing it.

[Maina]

I definitely understand that viewpoint. As I said, I'm passionate about role protection and making sure people can feel cool at doing the thing they do. I just don't think you can do that with any uncapped character feature. Limits are necessary for specialization. The affinity thing feels like a more complicated cap that would require rebalancing challenges and skill gain, but effectively still a cap. Though I'd certainly read more details if/when they come up.

I think skill doesn't differentiate as much as your examples as things stand right now. If I get into a fight with 200 melee combat skill against 200 skill mobs, I am going to get absolutely thrashed. I do not have any melee combat abilities.

I don't have any experience at the skill cap, I admit. I think my highest skill ever on v1 was like 1200. But even at the lower end, skill isn't enough to provide a "reasonably passable" version of someone else's role.

Without heavy armor abilities, armor mostly just tanks all your skill rolls. Someone not specced for it can't just put on plate and hope to function in a meaningful way.

Same with stealth. Without rerolls and other abilities, you are likely to be spotted fairly immediately. It's the nature of dice rolls.

Some people here definitely have a lot more experience than me, especially in v2, but my experience has been that skills support abilities, but abilities are what define the character. Without them, skill means very little. Rerolls alone are huge (though partials make them less extreme than COGG).

That's what I see as the current state of things, without needing to adjust much. I personally think it's a good thing. If you want role protection, something has to be limited. Skills aren't, but abilities are, so abilities are what it has to be. Abilities also just feel more cool and exciting to me, and it's a problem that will fix itself over time as abilities get added (which is already planned). But I understand wanting skills to matter more, which is why I suggested a few variations of skill caps.

[artus]

I'm probably going to incoherently ramble on this one. Sorry in advance.

It seems to come down on what abilities and skills we eventually have and can have, which by now some are still not in so we can't see the whole picture yet. If reaching cap is to be expected and those who can and want to will do so. What can make a 2500 dagger guy different than others? First and foremost, rp. That's the reason why we're all here. But supposedly that's not really relevant because we're talking mechanics here. Then there's that itch mechanically that I have to have something different than guy B somehow, but how? What if I can set myself to not gain skill in this thing so that he has it and I don't? What if I have more options to choose so I can develop my playstyle?

One thing about Clok is that your skills only go up, not down, meaning pretty much all skills will just cap if and when you're in the position and mindset to grind. I don't really know how capping everything really feels because I don't have any but woodworking capped. And to be honest, if people want to grind, they will grind. You just can't stop them.

One thing I'm thinking of is that ability tree system that was once a cogg idea somewhere where you have more than one abilities branches to choose from, say, at like 1000, you have two styles of sword abilities to choose from instead of just this awesome ultimate sword attack, so 1000 people don't just get the same ultimate sword attack because that is the only option and it's awesome. Another thing I'm thinking of is the noskill toggle where you can do something like set a skill to noskill and it won't go up as long as you toggle it on. The best kinds of roleplayers know how to build their characters. All they need are tools to help out.

I never like the skill point system as some may already know. It's too tight of a box. But I can understand the concerns and the necessity to be something in a world based on the same principled mechanics.

Not sure if it helps. Everyone's ideas have been great already.

[Ela]

This is a difficult topic to approach and I hope I don't offend anyone by speaking my mind in this post or the next.

Idea 1:

We implement a number of "background abilities" which can be taken at the time of character creation to allow our characters to do these things - Swimming, Climbing, Instruments, so forth and so on - past a certain point. The cap would need to be reasonable, but it'd allow us to have varied characters and builds. The innate problem with this is that people could min-max; Climbing has a real benefit for getting into certain locations. By comparison, playing a harmonica or harp isn't going to be as "useful" to most players.

Given that ability points are so tight, they'd need to be separate so people don't simply use extra points to buy normal abilities and we don't feel excluded from building on our characters.

Idea 2:

Another potential fun application of this kind of aptitude system is that certain classes/guilds could grant inherent aptitude bonuses to related skills. For instance, with this idea a Rogue or a Nightblade is always going to have an edge over other classes when it comes to stealth. A Rogue or Nightblade who joins a guild that's all about stealthy sneakiness might be granted even more of an edge. The Artisan guild could provide extra aptitude potency for crafting skills. Stuff like that.

Building on this, we could lower the cap on some of these skills and then have classes, guilds and abilities bump them up as appropriate, giving additional cap and rerolls. It'd allow people to still have some skills, like Climbing, to represent making a climb daily to train with their teacher atop a mountain, but wouldn't allow people to be Olympic level rock climbers unless they're part of a survivalist or mountaineering guild suited to doing those things.

One problem here is that not all guilds are readily available or able to be joined right now and it could impugn those little niche traits people want to build on.

Maybe weapon caps could all be 1000. Your first weapon focus will unlock 1500, second would unlock 2000, third takes you to 2500.

At written, this could work but it'd make stuff like Followup Punch nigh useless since you'd be capped at rolling melee combat + 1000 Brawling against enemies you'd be making use of your 2500 weapon/occult cap against. Maybe if it only applies to actual weapon types like Polearms, Hafted Weapons and the others, but not unarmed combat.

Finally, I don't like limited skill points/caps. I think they aren't very fun and typically create the problems they aim to solve by homogenizing builds or creating min-max situations.

[Ela]

Let me try and clarify a little more where I'm coming from. I'm approaching this largely from a character identity standpoint. With the system as it stands, we pretty much have to assume that for the majority of skills (those that aren't just hard locked behind an ability), reaching the cap is expected, or "normal", in that there's no reason not to do so. Sure, some people are going to voluntarily refrain in the name of what they consider appropriate or reasonable, and others may just not have the time or energy to grind everything, but those are personal circumstances and not something I feel should be used as a bar to judge this situation by.

Reaching the skill cap seems like something that should make one feel proud of their character's ability in that particular skill. "My character is exceptional at this particular thing." Then they realize that everyone else is, or eventually will be, just as "exceptional". (No, Syndrome, you can't say the line!) We could have someone whose whole character concept is being a sneaky assassin, and another with the concept of a stout shield-bearing defender of the weak. In the end, skillwise the latter is going to be just as stealthy and daggery as the former, the former is going to be just as shieldy and hafty as the latter.

So, are we okay with saying that skill levels are more of a separate "leveling experience" factor that doesn't really mean much as far as ultimate character identity? That capping should be considered the bare minimum, and that ultimately, everyone should eventually end up on a level playing field, whith the only differentiating factors between characters (mechanically) being abilities? We could say that. And some people might be fine with it. I know that to me, it doesn't feel good. I like character identity backed by mechanics, I like being differentiated from other characters, and I like seeing other characters be differentiated from mine in significant ways. I think if we've got the concept of skill levels in the game, then skills should also be one of those differentiating factors between PCs.

Let's say a buddy and I have finished the skill grind phase, we've ground up all our skills to cap. For classes, I went Berserker and my buddy picked Rogue, based on our desired character/RP identities. All right, I get some unique Berserker combat moves and abilities, so that's good. A big invasion is on the horizon, in a big open field with nowhere to hide, no cheap stealth shenanigans - just a big open fight. Great, now's my time to shine. My Rogue buddy realizes the big open field situation is going to prevent his usual stealth approach, but he doesn't want to just sit this event out, so exercising an abundance of practicality he just throws on some heavier armor, picks up a battleaxe, and wades into the battle right alongside me. We're both swinging, parrying, dodging, with the same numbers. True, I get some rerolls that my buddy doesn't, but I don't know, it still feels discouraging to see that despite it being nothing like my buddy's character concept or identity, they can still just effortlessly swap into a reasonably passable version of what I had hoped would be my "thing", and that his own "thing" was very much not related to.

Conversely, let's say a stealth mission comes up. My Rogue buddy's time to shine. But he's not around at the moment and I'm getting impatient for things to progress, so ... I'll just strip my heavier armor, set aside my big battleaxe, grab a dagger or stiletto for the ambush bonuses in case I need to take someone out, and get to work. I'm just as stealthy (and as good with daggers) as my buddy, after all, despite stealth or daggers or sneaky subtle infiltration activities being nowhere within my desired character concept.

It just doesn't feel good. If I read about that kind of situation in a book, I'd complain about it. Imagine reading the Hobbit, but whenever some burgling or stealthy stuff needs to be done, Thorin decides "you know what, Bilbo's been a whiny little complainer this whole trip and I don't really like him, so I'm gonna send Bombur instead." And while Bilbo might have some small technical advantages in those types of situations, Bombur still gets by well enough. Why'd we establish a cast of different characters with supposedly varying capabilities if ultimately they aren't going meaningfully impact situations because the entire cast is actually pretty much equally capable at doing anything and everything? Yeah, books and games are different beasts, but hopefully the point comes across.

That's a good example of the problem. I want to offer my perspective of what I'm facing to maybe help understand a little bit of what I'm experiencing, but I want to say that I completely agree it's an issue and that it doesn't feel good. I agree with what Artus wrote.

It'd be difficult to represent this in your example so I'll use my character instead. I picked Dreadnought for Templar because I wanted to be a two-handed weapon wielding armored defender of the innocent and weak capable of using her Inner Light to smite netherim. Everything pretty much works out right now.

But in your original post, you said:

There's no reason not to have my character max out every defense skill, every weapon skill, Melee and Marksmanship, stealth, perception, armor use ... I want my character to be as prepared as possible for any situation they might need to make skill rolls against, naturally.

I don't care about Marksmanship on my character in the grand scheme of things, but it'll help with the example so I'll use it. The only Templar ability right now capable of dealing direct damage to netherim on its own is Spear of Light. To reliably use Spear of Light, I need to level up Thaumaturgy and Marksmanship. I think Spear of Light is also the only way to level up Thaumaturgy for Templars at this moment. Do I want my character to be able to pick up a rock and throw it like some sharpshooter? No, not at all. But I do want to be able to hit the enemies I'm fighting with her ability, and it's my only option right now, because we don't have some cool melee attack which uses Thaumaturgy and Melee Combat to strike our enemies.

If I don't level up Marksmanship and Thaumaturgy, the attacks consistently miss and I'd probably feel more frustrated trying to use it than I would satisfied with my ability investment. If I do level up the skills, I get the benefit of having my ability work. If I level them up and then you implement a cool melee ability like the one I've described, I would personally swap off of Spear of Light, but I'd keep the Marksmanship that I don't really care to have because I wanted my vision to work so I made it work with what was available to me at the time. I could also not take Spear of Light and hope that you implement something, but there is no guarantee I'll ever see my vision realized because my vision of game aspects might not align with yours. Lastly, it also gets to be a lot of work because it requires you to create and balance a bunch of abilities for all of these variable situations.

If we're going down that path anyway, maybe to help curb this, we could move away from abilities/skills somewhat related to our class fantasy. The other thing I've heard, and I might have misunderstood at the time, is that you intend for us to have "ability trees" and different paths to go down. In tackling this problem, those trees could provide skills or limit us from using certain skills. I'd still take the melee attack in my example even if it prevented my character from ever using ranged attacks again, because it would fit my concept/vision perfectly and I'd have no need for an alternative.

[Rias]

Admittedly, there's a simple presentation/psychological/intuitive factor with skills.

As a GM, if I look at a character sheet and see that they have capped their Stealth skill, I feel like it should be reasonably accurate to assume that the character is to be considered an exceptionally stealthy one, and that the skill is an important facet of their character identity.

As a player, if I see capped stealth on my skill list yet I feel like my character is generally bad at stealth because the skill level doesn't really factor in that much and I don't have related abilities, that's not great.

As for my personal experiences, I've done a fair amount of running around on a non-combat-focused character without any combat abilities and I've felt pretty good about how they've fared in combat, both opening from stealth and in completely open combat. My fighter character with combat abilities does better for sure and is more fun to play in combat situations, but the first guy still gets by well enough in that I feel I can effectively grind up my skills against badguys near their skill (and they haven't died in CLOK2 yet, woohoo!). Well beyond newbie combat skill levels, but still a long way to go to cap. All this to say, when it comes to combat I don't think abilities are completely make-or-break, but they certainly help and make things more fun. For my character who hasn't picked up new abilities yet after losing a bunch to the prerequisites wipe a while back, they feel like they're doing well enough relying on skill alone, even if I really want to take some of those juicy abilities.

While I continue to have frustrations with CLOK's skill system, I had frustrations with COGG's as well. To me it felt too constraining, and it also felt a little shallow. (I love having the individual weapon skills rather than just Melee and Ranged, for instance.) Skill systems are hard. Game design is hard! It may be that we just continue focusing on limitations via ability points (and more stuff behind ability locks). It's still going to bug me seeing characters with zillions of capped skills, though, and I'm going to continue thinking about potential solutions!

In any case, I appreciate all the responses, ideas, and feedback! Whether anything will actually change anytime soon I can't say, nor can I say how drastic any changes will be. Drastic changes are fun to think about and discuss, even if not always practical. I just thought it would be a good discussion to start, and it has already sparked some ideas for potential updates that could be done in the shorter term.

[Zeldryn]

Scatter brained ramble incoming:

I'm also in the "do more with abilities" camp.

Why:

I've always felt these were the things that were intended to make our characters more distinguishing fixtures. These have also, consequently, been the things that I use in my own roleplay to make my character more distinguishing.

Zeldryn, for example, I think, is known relatively well for being a, "Gun guy". But, really, that only happened because he was one of the few that decided to go in on the revolver fanning grind and use the weapon class enough to get the skill level needed to access the visible ability tied to it. Despite his reputation as a "gun guy", he is by no means the most skilled firearms user in the game skill wise. Not by a long shot.

However, thanks to main-gauche and it's off-hand pistol shooting goodness, he continues to maintain that reputation because he continues to constantly have a pistol in hand, or visible on his person like.. ALL THE TIME. This would probably be a factor regardless of my roleplay. And if revolver fanning returns, I'll be extremely indecisive about whether or not to change my weapon focus so I can pick it up.

To further elaborate on that, I think the weapon focus abilities make one's combat style more distinguishing, at the very least. Someone getting multiple hits with a dagger presents differently than multiple hits with a sword. I think continuing down this line of thought would do wonders for helping folks distinguish themselves. The more dagger abilities there are, and the more sword abilities there are, and the more polearms abilities there are, the more all of the specialists of those particular weapons have a chance to distinguish themselves visibly through that specialization, and mechanically through the benefits and drawbacks of that specialization.

The idea of ability trees is interesting specifically in regard to character identity because the more paths there are, the more opportunities people have to make themselves.. Identifiable with mechanical support, and gain satisfaction for achieving milestones to make themselves more distinguishable along the way.

Skill flourishes also helped with this, but skill flourishes were accessible to anyone who had the skill level to use them, so it only solves part of the problem, as said. Especially if we're talking about a hypothetical situation where all skills are evenly maxed. So if these became available again-- maybe tie the levels of flourishes to the different levels of ability focus, like the weapon focuses and dodge/parry/block focuses, respectively.

TLDR: I am also of the mentality that further ability implementation would help with this problem. With other mechanical changes such as armor use changes and the like, it makes older tactics like swapping armor type significantly less ideal, or even possible, really. Much as it might be painful to some people, I feel like giving weaponry the same treatment isn't a bad idea. Giving people more control of their weapons and fighting styles and combat identity in exchange for ability points seems a reasonable ask. Particularly given that it seems to be effective in other areas so far.

The big variable here in my mind is ability implementation. If we want to be able to give people the power to distinguish themselves through ability choice, there has to be enough variety of choice, both in terms of flavor and level of effectiveness. And there has to be flexibility within the structure as much as there's rigidity-- that way, it lets people be unique despite falling into similar archetypes.

There is the other thing that no one else has brought up that, loathe as I am to bring it up, I'm going to bring up now.

SKILL RUST.

*gasp*

What if the longer you go without using/grinding a skill-- the more it rusts and you have to "practice" it back up before you're as effective as your skill number says you are?

I'm not talking number go down forever, here. I'm talking effectiveness level. What if every skill had an "effectiveness" level tied to it that ranged from 0% to 100% depending on how often you used that skill? Depending on your effectiveness level, you could gain skill or not gain skill. Maybe you have to max your effectiveness, or raise it to a certain level to unlock the ability to gain skill again, and the higher that effectiveness level goes, the more skill gain you get? It would require more variables than this alone, but I think it's a discussion worth having because, frankly, it solves the problem being presented.

The key variable in regard to rust, of course, is-- how long. How long should it take before we start getting rusty? And that's way above my pay grade.

But-- Even if two individuals maxed out all of their skills, there's absolutely no way those two people are going to continue to use all of those maxed skills so often as they were when they were grinding them, or so often in their daily routine that they're going to be a master at it. They're exceptionally skilled, sure. But even when masters, or the exceptionally skilled don't practice, they get sloppy. They mess up. They have to knock off the SKILL RUST to make sure that they can function at peak efficiency once again.

Anyway. That's all i've got so far. DISCUSS THE RUST.

[artus]

Actually, having an ability vs no ability combatant does make or break because you have more viable solutions to get yourself out of tight situations. It won't shine early to mid game. It will start to shine when you tackle liberi all day or when what you have left to train is tanglewood and you have something like 1700-2100 pure skills, get stun locked and mauled by someone there. Well good luck getting out without abilities. This is what makes skill matter little in the long term aside from helping you hit and avoid getting hit, to me at least. This also is why abilities play crucial survivability role.

[jerc]

I really like the "rust" suggestion - it's another "radical" suggestion I was going to make... eventually.

It's got a lot of pros:

• Characters stay good at skills that they actually use.
• Characters can pick up hobbies for a time if they want, to the detriment of other skills. Put your hobby down? Well you get kinda bad at it after a while.
• Staying good at everything should be hard. It's probably not realistic to practice absolutely everything all the time.
• It encourages characters to continue using their skills at an appropriate challenge level. (I think armor use would need a lot more tuning here)

So how should it work? As many have pointed out in Discord, if it was time-based, it pretty harshly discourages alts. So I think time-based is out.

Instead, what if it used the exp bucket? Back in COGG, you could "skill decrease" a skill, and it would eat exp from your bucket as it drained. What if this decrease was applied to every skill in a much-reduced fashion, and counteracted by gaining practice in it. The skill system would track your "practiced max" and your "current practice," which is what gets reduced by bucket drain and what actively influences your rolls. Any practice you gain contributes to bringing it back up to its max. When a skill's current practice is equal to its max practice, a smaller portion of your practice gains go toward increasing your max. This way it can be easier to recover your "rusty" skills than it is to push your max higher, much like getting back on a bike after years of not riding.

Edit: More thoughts.

• Class or other abilities could reduce the rate at which skills decay due to neglect, making it easier for you to stick to your class niche, even if you take a sidequest to learn to play the lute.
• This probably synergizes well with the "initially high with diminishing returns" practice per-skill per-mob suggestion in the other topic for keeping things like defense and perception practiced up.
• The bucket behavior could have some unintended effects, like encouraging endless grinding since you wouldn't be filling the bucket past 100, so it would be "free"(ish) in terms of heaping on more decay. Could also encourage people to log out rather than let the bucket drain. Not sure how to best combat those, but maybe not a huge issue.