205
YES, I know, this will shock many of you, but I think skill lines should be flat removed. Don't get me wrong, not the skill themselves, but the fact that you have to level one skill up to go to the other.
On the peaceful tab, every skill should be independant. But, to prevent people from mastering too much, skill cap should be lowered to like 400, even 300. Imposed skill lines are stupid, I think. Why ? Because I don't want to be a chicken farmer to process leather, for example, or I don't want to be a miner to be a blacksmith.. skill lines will create themselves amongst communities, mainly depending on the population in one group of players who do trade : little communities would have to be jack of all trades, so they can provide their own wood to saw into planks, or they would have to provide their own flax to make their own basic cloth.. that's what will happen. Large communities who manage to run a city with a lot of specialised workshop will be rewarded by the fact that they should be amongst the only ones who can manage to make Q > 60 ~ items. Cities would be collections of people mastering their own little profession. That would bring a huge amount of trading, and cooperating. I see two drawbacks about the current system :
1 - People have to know how to more than decently make the basic materials they need for more advanced skill. That will make "lower" profession a lot less valuable, because, basically, you clients know how to do it too.
2 - Dumb lines. Chicken farmer to process leather ? People were making basic clothing out of leather before agriculture itself !
Now, you may think "Yea, but everyone is going to go for the high tier skills"
Well, if they wish, let them. But they will quickly see that it's not a good move. Why ? Because too little people would produce basic goods, the prices would rise, and there ; you make a lot less money for a profession you thought more "advanced".
Having this system would, as I said earlier, bring a lot more trade in the game.
Now, for the combat tab. It is a bit different. Yes, still remove all the skill lines.
I know, skill lines kind of make sense for some skills, like warhorse handling -> mounted combat. But since you will have to get up on a horse to practive mounted combat anyway.. And, again, "virtual" skilllines would still be there : a master mounted fighter with very low horse skill would be.. useless. But ALL the other lines should be removed, for a lot of reasons :
- It makes no sense you have to know how to use a particular kind of weapon to use a type of armor
- It makes no sense you have to know how to use a particular kind of weapon to use another
- It makes no sense you have to know how to use a particular king of weapon / armor for skills like warcry, battle preps..
- Being able to train in all kinds of weapons would facilitate new players arrival in a developed world.
- Being able to train in all kinds of weapons would make early game warfare more about axes and spears, and shields, and make the kind of
"technology" advancing make a lot more sense, and be a thing.
Oh, yea, NO, it would not allow to create "OP" combos. Why ? Because if there are OP combos in a realistic game, it is either a flaw of the game balancing (not the skill system), or it is a very costly equipment with a very hard and long training required. For example : archers in plate armor : they are already possible btw, but plate should give a malus to using bows and crossbows.. or even ranged weapons. helmets could hide some of your view, and gauntlets would make you take a lot more time to load in an arrow and shoot it.
As for armor skill themselves.. personally, I think they should be removed. Why ? Because.. you do know when you put an armor on a stomp, it gives it the same protection as it would give to you, right ? Armor skills should be removed and replaced by a unique skill : armor handling. it wouldn't have to be skilled up to unlock tiers of armors or anything, but having a high skill in it would take less stamina to move with it (a LITTLE less, it would still be more about strengh), but mainly would make you faster to get back on your feet after a fall if you're wearing heavy armor, it would diminish the animations / action speed malus.. that skill would be trained by doing combat, or even everyday action, wearing a more or less heavy armor.
To prevent people from too easily making tier 3 armies, higher than tier 1 armors should take a LONG time to make, and cost more, so when you see someone in tier 3 armor, you know he's not a nobody.
If you have any questions or want more details, don't hesistate to ask !
On the peaceful tab, every skill should be independant. But, to prevent people from mastering too much, skill cap should be lowered to like 400, even 300. Imposed skill lines are stupid, I think. Why ? Because I don't want to be a chicken farmer to process leather, for example, or I don't want to be a miner to be a blacksmith.. skill lines will create themselves amongst communities, mainly depending on the population in one group of players who do trade : little communities would have to be jack of all trades, so they can provide their own wood to saw into planks, or they would have to provide their own flax to make their own basic cloth.. that's what will happen. Large communities who manage to run a city with a lot of specialised workshop will be rewarded by the fact that they should be amongst the only ones who can manage to make Q > 60 ~ items. Cities would be collections of people mastering their own little profession. That would bring a huge amount of trading, and cooperating. I see two drawbacks about the current system :
1 - People have to know how to more than decently make the basic materials they need for more advanced skill. That will make "lower" profession a lot less valuable, because, basically, you clients know how to do it too.
2 - Dumb lines. Chicken farmer to process leather ? People were making basic clothing out of leather before agriculture itself !
Now, you may think "Yea, but everyone is going to go for the high tier skills"
Well, if they wish, let them. But they will quickly see that it's not a good move. Why ? Because too little people would produce basic goods, the prices would rise, and there ; you make a lot less money for a profession you thought more "advanced".
Having this system would, as I said earlier, bring a lot more trade in the game.
Now, for the combat tab. It is a bit different. Yes, still remove all the skill lines.
I know, skill lines kind of make sense for some skills, like warhorse handling -> mounted combat. But since you will have to get up on a horse to practive mounted combat anyway.. And, again, "virtual" skilllines would still be there : a master mounted fighter with very low horse skill would be.. useless. But ALL the other lines should be removed, for a lot of reasons :
- It makes no sense you have to know how to use a particular kind of weapon to use a type of armor
- It makes no sense you have to know how to use a particular kind of weapon to use another
- It makes no sense you have to know how to use a particular king of weapon / armor for skills like warcry, battle preps..
- Being able to train in all kinds of weapons would facilitate new players arrival in a developed world.
- Being able to train in all kinds of weapons would make early game warfare more about axes and spears, and shields, and make the kind of
"technology" advancing make a lot more sense, and be a thing.
Oh, yea, NO, it would not allow to create "OP" combos. Why ? Because if there are OP combos in a realistic game, it is either a flaw of the game balancing (not the skill system), or it is a very costly equipment with a very hard and long training required. For example : archers in plate armor : they are already possible btw, but plate should give a malus to using bows and crossbows.. or even ranged weapons. helmets could hide some of your view, and gauntlets would make you take a lot more time to load in an arrow and shoot it.
As for armor skill themselves.. personally, I think they should be removed. Why ? Because.. you do know when you put an armor on a stomp, it gives it the same protection as it would give to you, right ? Armor skills should be removed and replaced by a unique skill : armor handling. it wouldn't have to be skilled up to unlock tiers of armors or anything, but having a high skill in it would take less stamina to move with it (a LITTLE less, it would still be more about strengh), but mainly would make you faster to get back on your feet after a fall if you're wearing heavy armor, it would diminish the animations / action speed malus.. that skill would be trained by doing combat, or even everyday action, wearing a more or less heavy armor.
To prevent people from too easily making tier 3 armies, higher than tier 1 armors should take a LONG time to make, and cost more, so when you see someone in tier 3 armor, you know he's not a nobody.
If you have any questions or want more details, don't hesistate to ask !
Like
mattanjakos, omar_rolon_dx, henrylebichon0 and 123 others likes this post.
Comments (93)
-
Accepted Answer
12Another great idea. The skill trees don't make sense and don't improve gameplay in any way. Scrap 'em. I would happily sacrifice a couple hundred skill points for the chance to be able to actually customize my template.
It's not so rewarding to spend hundreds of hours building a character that in the end is the exact same cookie cutter build as everyone else. I remember when I started playing UO so many years ago I was amazed at the freedom they gave you to create any character you want. My first character was a tamer/fencer with spears. An absolutely terrible build, but I had an incredible amount of fun nonetheless. Learning about the game and experimenting with different builds kept me playing for years afterwards. I hope LiF can keep me engaged for years to come as well. -
Accepted Answer
8It is stupidly limiting I agree, everyone should be able to do everything but specialize into certin fields since obviously if the game is going for a realistic look its possible. "Oh look pritty leather in taning tubs, 2 bad im a blacksmith cant touch that...." it will reduce quality perhaps of things you get but still u can do it insted of going trough tons of same usless skills to the one u want. Same goes for combat "oh look a 2h sword 2 bad I cant even touch it to defend my poor life" etc. -
Accepted Answer
1Totally agree that the skill lines are rubbish. Still there are some skills that in some kind depent on each other. For example if you are good at forging weapons you will have an advantage to forge other things.
So what about some kind of "skill field"? There you can learn everything whenever you want and every few points you invest in it give you a little bonus to every other skill in this field:Like Deantwo, flamingsoul65, Blackcolt and Soriki likes this post. -
Accepted Answer
-6while I agree that the skill tree needs changing, I think the interdependencies are fine(ish) as is saying that I doo think that there needs to be a few changes to the combat tree
1. remove armour from the weapon trees, and give it a line of it's own.
shields - leathers - scale/chain - Plate. I mean it's silly that you need to learn an armour skill in order to learn weapon skills. most warrior's of the time are peasants and didn't Have any armour other than a skull cap and a (hopefully) large shield to protect themselves with.
2. 2 handed weapon tree should be moved to behind the corresponding single handed weapons. with Duel wielding 1 handed as the third step
3. Ranged combat line should be split into 2.
line 1 Brute ranged weapon's
Throwing Mass's (shot put, Hammer)
X-Bows
Rock throwing siege weapon operation (mule and oniger etc)
trebuchet's and other such extreme heavy weapons (Cannons ? ?) that could blow up in your face if you don't know what your doing.
line 2 Finesse ranged weapons
Slings
Simple Archery (light bows such as short bow and self bow)
Advanced Archery (Composite bows and longbows) which use a different but related shooting stile to simple archery
Heavy Archery (Arberlist and other such 'precision'/troop killer artillery)Like stewbailey likes this post. -
Accepted Answer
5Yes. Please remove skill trees. They are pretty ridiculous and confining. This feature is NOT an appeal to prospective players.Like AsherMaximum, Svangr, Blackcolt and 2 others likes this post. -
Accepted Answer
5I agree with the idea of removing the skilltree as it is now, while changing it would also be an option removing it is the easier way since you dont need to do any more balancing.
Also making the armor a new tree wouldnt make any sense at all, I dont need to know how to use a shield or leatherarmor to wear plate, since its a totaly different story how to use these kinds of armor.Like Soriki and alexgvarela94 likes this post. -
Accepted Answer
-3i agree only i think the cap should be 450 or 500, plus 30 for pietyLike alexgvarela94 likes this post. -
Accepted Answer
-9Removing the skill tree would be good for make skills more accessible and aid having small groups create some kind of settlement more quickly (even if it's low QL). In removing it I think something else interesting needs adding such as having an output quality multiplier for a skills based on related skills.
For example, making bows: If you have just bow crafting at 100 you can make ok bows, QL 33 or something. If you have carpentry and bow craft at 100 you can maybe make a better bow, maybe QL 66. If you have bow crafting, forestry and, carpentry at 100 you can make a 100 QL bow (you know how to build bows, how to best craft the parts for or take best advantage of how the parts of made, and how to get the most from the grain of the wood from knowing how the tree the wood comes from grows). The weighting would not have to be even or require 100 in the secondary skill(s) to get the full QL modifier that skill contributes, the values could all be stores in the database somewhere to be nice and Modder friendly.
Example crafting equation:
Bow QL = max( [QL contributed by materials] * ( max(bowcraft, [x]) * [a] + max(carpentry, [y]) * [b] + max(forestry, [z]) * [c] ), 100 );
Where a, b and c are values scaling the contribution of each skill, and x, y and z are values specifying what is the maximum value in a skill that still give a contribution to the output. The primary skill in this case bow craft probably wants to have x as 100.
If you want even more detail the crafting QL equation could be per item, not per skill. So a primary skill is needed to craft the item, then other skills can contribute to the output QL.
Apologies for spamming this detail here, but it's dependant on the existing skill tree being removed, as per this vote. (+1 this post if you want to see this posted as it's own feature to vote on).Like AsherMaximum and aydjile likes this post. -
Accepted Answer
8I am no fan to just remove skill tree.
In my eyes best possible option is server checkbox (like we have Judgement hour Enabled/Disabled, Decay Enabled/Disabled etc...)
"Skill lines" Enabled/Disabled
If server admin decides he wants skills linkedlike now, he can, if decides free independent skills, he can. And player can choose which server is best for his enjoyment.
Remember, its Your Own, so developers should provide as much variability to server admins as is possible to create "His Own" rules for "His Own" server
. Like Hoshiqua, capitaniojr, Metal and 5 others likes this post. -
Accepted Answer
4I completely agree with removing Skill lines, but I don't really support the lat part of your argument Hoshiqua because it seems like it is a different discussion.Like Oreios and alexgvarela94 likes this post. -
Accepted Answer
-
Accepted Answer
12I agree with Hoshiqua. Removing the skill trees adds a lot of customization options to the player, and drives the economy in a more complex way. Cookie cutter characters are not valuable to players. Also, the economy is driven by quality already so no additional skills are needed to inforce this. For example, if I am a bowcrafter and I do not have the skills for gathering high quality boards or linen ropes; however, I do have the skill to make high quality bows, so my only option is to trade with a lumberjack or a rope maker to make my high quality bows. This drives the economy effectively and efficiently.Like Aniimosiity, Dextrome and Durka likes this post. -
Accepted Answer
3Along with changing the skill lines. I thought that there might need to be specialties within many of the skills. Every blacksmith should not be able to make quality 100 anything. A blacksmith who makes farming supplies isn't going to make armor and weapons just as well. If we could have specializations that were logical such as that, it would make room for people to operate in a town.
You could go even further than this. Specializing in certain types of armor or weapons. If you need a scimitar, I'm the best blacksmith in town for that. But my colleague here actually makes the best knight swords. These specializations could go for many classes and could be made logical with different tiers. Even farmers who raised cows, sheep or pigs their whole lives would be specialized and raise better quality animals. So, farmer>animals>pigs, or Blacksmith>weapons>axes>war axe. It adds the possibility of extra tiers to help differentiate and expand the need for more people in a society at its highest levels.Like capitaniojr, Deantwo and Aniimosiity likes this post. -
Accepted Answer
1While i compleatly agree that skill trees should be removed, I compelatly disagree that the skillcap should be lowered...
Mainly because forexample if we take a miner. You need to have prospecting, mining and terraforming to be able to mine, thats allready all 300 points spend.
And im sure we all agree that terraforming is one of the most boring jobs in the game and mining is basicly just different from of terraforming.
So as a miner all you would do is terraforming... and after doing few weeks of nothing but terraforming most people will get bored.
Thats why we need to have enough points so that we can get few different things to do so that we dont get bored by repeatedly doing same thing over and over again. -
Accepted Answer
-
Accepted Answer
1I agree with the OP. some of the skill tree progressions simply make no sense.
I like the way that separate skills progress, but the trees for me, limit the game,
To me it is illogical that i'd need to know 2hd swords to wear plate, or I need to know how to use a crossbow before I can use a bow. There are a few that do make sence, namely warhorse line (with the exception of the chainmail requirement) and perhaps the construction tree line. Im not advocating them and to be blunt I think the idea is broken. -
Accepted Answer
-8What needs to happen is as they continue to develop the game, each person at the beginning needs to pick the skills when they create their character or each character has a set skill line. I am for choosing skills when you create your character. Each person has basic survival skills so they won't die. Such as fishing hunting farming....etc but then like the original post says there are some skills I will almost never use because I don't want them. This would also increase trading/fighting in game because if you did not have some one as a part of your group that had say tanning skills for clothing you would either have to trade for it or kill. But having to use my skill points for things I don't want it is stupid when there is a cap. On the flip side the skill cap in real life is much larger than this game so why not increase the skill cap. I can tan hide hunt game fish build masonry sew shoot a bow fight with an axe or sword forge metal and a number of other things that this game has skills for so there is no reason why I couldn't actually learn the rest and more so why the cap. The reason you need other people is because it goes faster not because you couldn't do it yourself. -
Accepted Answer
4No, I don't think you should have to "choose" skill lines when you create your character. Remember that each characters will have to be paid for, and I don't think most people will enjoy buying a new char just because they want to re-organise their skill lines. Remember, this post is about REMOVING any CONCEPT of skill lines in the game, except for those that REALLY make FULL sense like the one described in the post, and that wouldn't even be mandatory for "virtual" skill lines to still exist.Like JohnHunter, Aniimosiity, L0ngster and alexgvarela94 likes this post.
