RPG Mechanics: Skill Progression and Roles

[Suhiira]

Yes. The list of skills for roles you get 1 point in each as part of choosing the role. Plus an addition few points to spend where you please (be it additional rank in role stats or in other stats). The only skills that are locked are role-specific ones (i.e. Cop - Authority). Other roles wont get access to them. Ever.

Never been wild about thew role-specific skills in CP2020, but I do see the need/advantage to having them as they keep each role at the top of the the ladder at their role.
The trouble is the role-specific skills are by no means equally useful.

 

[Rawls]

The trouble is the role-specific skills are by no means equally useful.

Agreed. And several would not transfer well to a cRPG at all. But I do like the concept ... so long as the skills result in good gameplay mechanics.

 

[Sardukhar]

Now if Sardukhar had that job I wouldn't have a problem with that either

I just want to play Cyberpunk 2077, I don't care how many people die during the development of this game.

MUwahahahahaahahaHAHAHAHAH..hey wait. How did you know I was going to be doing "volunteer" testing of game mechanics IRL?! Are you watching me..right now?

 

[walkingdarkly]

@TiaDeLamare Give that guy a black leather jacket, chrome shades and pop a datalink socket around the center of that C scar on his head and then replace those swords with a magnum and shotgun and you've got yourself and edgerunner. And maybe toss him a metal arm, preferably chromed for more style.

 

[Suhiira]

(when I played Hearts of Stone I thought Olgierd von Everec looked quite 'cyberpunky', really cool. Actually that whole gang in the beginning. Immediately I thought about CP2077)

Maybe a "test case" for the artists?
:hmm:

 

[sv3672]

I never understood it - the losing of skills for perks. "More accessible" how and to whom? Are the conventional skillsystems really too much to comprehend to "adult" audience (to whom this game is supposedly aiming for)?

It is not necessarily about skills being difficult to comprehend. If you have both skills and perks in the same game, the former become kind of redundant if they are essentially just perks with many ranks. A skill in the range 0 to 10 is technically the same as a "tree" of 10 perks that does not branch, or even just a single perk with 10 ranks. Skills do remain useful if they serve some separate purpose, like in Skyrim where they level automatically as skills are used, and skill level is what determines access to perks.

 

[Rawls]

Skills do remain useful if they serve some separate purpose, like in Skyrim where they level automatically as skills are used, and skill level is what determines access to perks.

For all the things I dislike about Skyrim, I have always liked that use of the skill is what determined how good you were at it. Really neat design.

 

[Tieco]

For all the things I dislike about Skyrim, I have always liked that use of the skill is what determined how good you were at it. Really neat design.

I ran into that concept (skills you use get better over time) in a Runequest game and immediately added it to my CP campaign. Had to reduced the "general" IP end of run awards a little, but the players all liked it. Love to see it in CP2077

 

[Suhiira]

I ran into that concept (skills you use get better over time) in a Runequest game and immediately added it to my CP campaign. Had to reduced the "general" IP end of run awards a little, but the players all liked it. Love to see it in CP2077

I use the same system in my 30-year-old PnP campaign, just requires a 'bit' of extra paperwork. And one HUGE advantage of a video game is all that paperwork can be done behind the scenes.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

It makes more sense to me to just make it so the player can swim.

But why? Why is the ability/inability to swim different from any other skill? As a concept I mean? Why should it be taken for granted that the PC can swim? I mean, there are a lot of people in the world who can't so it's not something unusual.

It can open or close possibilities through enhanced aptitude just as any other utility skill. Climbing is also a very specific, and not at all different skill by concept. And so what if they are.

The skill system should be a means to an end, a tool to interact with the game, not the sole point of it so skipping stuff like climbing and swimming, if one doesn't want them, shouldn't break the experience, just close off certain content.

It adds (potentially a lot of) character variety through a fairly simplistic action. I don't know why that woudl be "boring".

In a similiar vein, I'd tie to the players ability to read to his/her intelligence so that below certain level of INT all the the text in the game would go "asdfeiorjasdf#"¤%"&%/". That too might sound "boring", the way I put it there, but imagine playing a character like that and trying to get around. Just like with swimming (or climbing, or shooting or driving.......), what would you do to bypass situations where your inability causes a blockade? The game should create these situations and make you ask that question. Sometimes the answer is that you can't do anything about it, and that's ok too, you don't need tob e able to "everything" and not all situations have 10 alternatetive routes to complete them.

A skill in the range 0 to 10 is technically the same as a "tree" of 10 perks

Technically, I suppose. But this is what I meant by comprehending them, the difference in how these things are supposed to work. A skill is a measurement of aptitude, a perk is an extra advantage. The former weighs the difficulty of the task against the PC's ability (and the attempt can be failed by the PC), the latter unlocks him abilities that can then be performed by the player (at the players own level, even if some ranking might try to hinder it). The design of the skill is bad if it works like a perk - as in a master ability whose possible "ranks" (that try to represent the level of aptitude) can be circumvented by the players own ability.

For example, Fallout 3 has a "skill" of lockpicking, but the actuality is that you have 4 perks that each cost 25 skill points.

 

[Suhiira]

For example, Fallout 3 has a "skill" of lockpicking, but the actuality is that you have 4 perks that each cost 25 skill points.

As much as I dislike this I can see why it was needed.
In a video game you can just save spam. And with the way lockpicking is a minigame in Fallout it's even worse, you don't even need to save spam. So it was really a choice of: 1- Do something like what they did or 2 - Just eliminate the "skill".

This is one of the many tweaks and compromises needed to turn a PnP into a video game.

 

[Suhiira]

Technically, I suppose. But this is what I meant by comprehending them, the difference in how these things are supposed to work. A skill is a measurement of aptitude, a perk is an extra advantage. The former weighs the difficulty of the task against the PC's ability (and the attempt can be failed by the PC), the latter unlocks him abilities that can then be performed by the player (at the players own level, even if some ranking might try to hinder it). The design of the skill is bad if it works like a perk - as in a master ability whose possible "ranks" (that try to represent the level of aptitude) can be circumvented by the players own ability.

Let's take something simple like say vehicle mechanics as an example.

In a "perk" system you might need level 1 to change a flat tire, 2 to change oil, 3 to change spark plugs, 4 to do a tune up, etc. because in a "perk" system you are prohibited from performing an activity until you have unlocked the associated perk.

In a "skill" system you may attempt any of those activities even if you have zero levels in the appropriate skill, and there's a chance you may succeed. By improving your level in the appropriate skill that chance increases to the point many activities associated with the skill become essentially automatic successes.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

...I can see why it was needed.
...
In a video game you can just save spam.
...
This is one of the many tweaks and compromises needed to turn a PnP into a video game.

I disagree.

Save scumming is only a problem to those who feel compelled to do it and can not handle defeat, the game should not be held accountable of that, nor should good sensible mechanisms be sacrificed because the player might have a whim to exploit it somehow.

Anyway, there are ways to discourage it by:
- making it a chore, an attempt that takes time on top of reloading itself taking time
- making failure and "not-doing" things interesting and count towards something in the game (i.e. failing enough might build up and grant you a unique characteristical perk to further interact with the game, leaving containers/terminals in certain areas intact, i.e. not playing as a hoarder, might offer unexpect reactivity later on in the game... and this can be applied to more than just boxes)
- creating a seed that saves the RNG results inspite of reload
- creating game modes - iron man or some such - that restrict saving to a certain amount or to certain place(s)
- creating the minigame in conjunction with the RNG so as to obfuscate that it is a diceroll and have the player's activity therein affect the outcome in some way whilst not bypassing the RNG

Hard gating skill checks is just lazy design in games like these.

 

[Sardukhar]

As much as I dislike this I can see why it was needed.
In a video game you can just save spam. .

And that's fine. If that's how people want to play, let them. Their game, after all.

Those of us who like One-Save-Only Hardcore mode, that's us.

Although I won't be doing that for my first runthrough, because yay exploration!

 

[Suhiira]

And that's fine. If that's how people want to play, let them. Their game, after all.

Those of us who like One-Save-Only Hardcore mode, that's us.

Although I won't be doing that for my first runthrough, because yay exploration!

Oh. don't get me wrong ... I'll save spam the hell outta CP2077 my first run thru.

I'm just saying I understand the reason they did what they did with lockpicking.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Let's take something simple like say vehicle mechanics as an example. In a "perk" system you might need level 1 to change a flat tire, 2 to change oil, 3 to change spark plugs, 4 to do a tune up, etc. because in a "perk" you are prohibited from performing an activity until you have unlocked the associated perk. In a "skill" system you may attempt any of those activities even if you have zero levels in the appropriate skill, and there's a chance you may succeed. By improving your level in the appropriate skill that chance increases to the point many activities associated with the skill become essentially automatic successes.

Yeah, that's what I meant (the example).

But... It should never be the case that the success is automatic. Never. Everybody makes mistakes. Even with the simplest of things. Have you ever come home from work and close to your door you dropped the keys? That was you failing at opening a door with a key; it happened, what are the odds? Surely it wasn't because you were inept at the job.

Not having the skill essentially means the character has no idea what he should be or is about to do, it is possbile to blindly fiddle a success even there, but the chances are astronomically small. An acquaintance of mine told a story about how he, at six years of age, reached out to a num lock that he couldn't see and started fiddling with it. Well, lo and behold, it opened. And he wasn't even looking at it. It was pure luck, but it happened.

It's different, of course, with some highly sophisticated contraptions that might require coding or electronic tools or something, but you get the idea.

 

[Rawls]

But why? Why is the ability/inability to swim different from any other skill? As a concept I mean? Why should it be taken for granted that the PC can swim? I mean, there are a lot of people in the world who can't so it's not something unusual.

because as a skill it's pretty much an either you can or you can't skill. I'm not sure how the skill could be made mechanically more interesting other than "(1) Now you can swim. (2) Now you can swim underwater and hold your breath. (3) Now you can swim underwater longer. (4) Now swimming takes less stamina. (5) Now you can swim quietly. (6) Now you can hit things underwater. It seems more like perks than skills.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

because as a skill it's pretty much an either you can or you can't skill. I'm not sure how the skill could be made mechanically more interesting other than "(1) Now you can swim. (2) Now you can swim underwater and hold your breath. (3) Now you can swim underwater longer. (4) Now swimming takes less stamina. (5) Now you can swim quietly. (6) Now you can hit things underwater. It seems more like perks than skills.

How about just greater speed (and longer sprint), more time holding breath, more time unfatigued in the water overall and less chance of drowning when tired and/or too far off the shore per point, with first point allowing you to float without effort? I don't know why it should be much more than that.

You know, getting gradually better at swimming. No underwater fighting or anything. Just swimming.

 

[sv3672]

Restricting the ability to save because of save scummers is a bit like DRM, it punishes the honest players while cheaters will still find ways to cheat anyway (debug console, mods, etc.). It can be useful as an extra challenge in a "hardcore" difficulty mode (provided the game has great stability, or offers a way to load auto-saves in the case of an unclean exit, e.g. crash to desktop, power outage, or whatever else), but unlimited saving will hopefully be available at normal difficulty. It is nice to be able to freely return to your favorite quests later, try different choices, or share the saves with the community.

In a "perk" system you might need level 1 to change a flat tire, 2 to change oil, 3 to change spark plugs, 4 to do a tune up, etc. because in a "perk" system you are prohibited from performing an activity until you have unlocked the associated perk.

In a "skill" system you may attempt any of those activities even if you have zero levels in the appropriate skill, and there's a chance you may succeed. By improving your level in the appropriate skill that chance increases to the point many activities associated with the skill become essentially automatic successes.

It may be an argument over the semantics of what a "perk" is, but I do not think your example is something that is inherent to a perk system. It is possible to have perks where each rank is simply "you are now X% better at something", even if those tend to be criticized for being boring, they do usually exist. It is also possible for a skill to automatically unlock perk-like abilities as it is improved, like in Oblivion. For me, it is more about linear progression (the state of a skill can be expressed with a single number that increases as the skill is improved) vs. a tree where the player can make choices over the direction of progress.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Restricting the ability to save because of save scummers is a bit like DRM, it punishes the honest players while cheaters will still find ways to cheat anyway

Yeah, it is. And so is hard gating skill tests because somebody might bulldoze a result through the save system, or because the minigame is just too damn easy to be allowed to be attempted at low skill.

I was just listing the possible options. I don't think save restrictions are a particularly good one, but I also think I would rather have some form of it instead of hard thresholds for skills.