New ideas for advanced/branched skills

[SailorMars]

Inspired by the combat improvements thread, it got me thinking how much I love finding out a character can do something new with a skill, or having a new skill branch. Honestly, for me, it's more just the expanded capibility than having some new 7ee4 way to kick ass that makes it fun.

I wanted to start a general thread for ideas regarding how skills might advance, and new ideas for branched skills.

I don't have a lot of time, but to start this off...

1) A really high subdue skill being able to reverse a subdue attempt. Have it check to see if the reverser is armed. If yes, have them shove the attacker back (similar lag to being bashed), or shove them clear out of the room if highly advanced. If not armed, attempt to reverse the subdual.

More later...

[UnderSeven]

This actually exists to a degree already in game and it is really cool.

The only problem I see with it, is we don't want the difference between an uber buff char and a newbie to be so great that an uber buff can kill all of allanak without getting hit or anything.

[gfair]

we don't want the difference between an uber buff char and a newbie to be so great that an uber buff can kill all of allanak without getting hit or anything.

I don't think this is what SailorMars is talking about.  If I read her idea right, it's a request to see more countering abilities for things like Subdue, Bash (if there isn't one already), and other skills.

For example, disarm - in disarm, when successful, the weapon always falls to the ground.  It becomes a crucial determinant in who survives the fight.  If the one that lost it gets it back, he is suddenly better off; if his opponent gets the weapon, he suddenly has one more weapon to use, and his opponent has one less.  So something along the lines of a scuffle, like brawl code, for the fallen weapon ensues.  A fighter in a life and death situation would never let a disarmed weapon be picked up by the guy he just disarmed, he would fight hard to either get the weapon, or keep it away from his opponent.

At even higher skill levels, perhaps the fighter could learn to disarm in a manner that ended up with him grabbing it out of the air, or if the defender's skill is high enough, the same thing.

Kicking, as well, has the potential for greater impact.  For example, if you belt a guy in the kidneys with a foot, he could be permanently incapacitated, it happens in boxing from time to time.  Or you hobble the opponent by impacting a significant muscle group, like the thighs, shoulder muscles, or even in the groin depending on the fighter.  There's no Chivalry in Arm, why should there be some sort of unacceptable, dirty tricks that are not perfectly viable?

For subdue, you could get the target in some sort of arm lock or leg lock, making it much more difficult to get out, and, if successfully, potentially very painful or disabling.  Police officers use a wrist lock on people such that they can snap the wrist if the crook attempts to get out of it.

There are all sorts of possibilities.  Some may not be abilities, they may just be random chances, or a random outcome of some combat maneuver may lead to a new, branched skill that someone suddenly realizes is possible, but at a very low level, and has to put in a lot of practice to get it up to even a rudimentary level where it isn't completely random, just very, very hard to do.

[Angela Christine]

On a related note, I'd like to see deeper skill trees.  I don't know how deep the skill trees are now since I've only had a few characters make it to 10 days and none to 20, but I'd like to think that the skill tree is effectively bottomless, that even a 50 day character has branches to look forward to discovering.

For example:

Throw
-> Archery
-> Fletchery
-> Bowmaking
-> Piercing weapons
-> Knife making
-> Throw

Wait, that's where I started.  Ok, how about this one:

Scan
-> Hunt
-> Hide
-> Search
-> Trap
-> Poisoning
-> Herbalism
-> Cooking

Ok, for that one to work there would have to be a guild that started with scan but not cooking, but you get the idea.  DEEP skill trees so that if you use your skills a reasonable amount you get your first branch in a few days, branch 2 in ten days, branch 3 in 20 days, branch 4 in 30 days, branch 5 in 40 days, branch 6 in 50 days, and so on.  It takes years of real time to get a 50 day character, so it isn't like this would be easily abusable.  But someone who has been around that long might start getting skills that are not "typical" to his class.  A warrior that has been dealing with shady types for a long, long time will have the opportunity pick up some shady tricks, if he wants to.  

The merchant skill tree seems deep, with the holy grail of being able to make your own wagons waiting at the end of the road.  I'd like to see other trees similarily deep.  I'd like to see an old reliable character start doing something unexpected one day.  That way if you live long enough that your stats start to really suck, making it difficult to keep up with the youngsters despite your awsome skill with anything pointy, then you have something to do in your golden years.


AC

[SailorMars]

If I read her idea right, it's a request to see more countering abilities for things like Subdue, Bash (if there isn't one already), and other skills.

Yes and no. At least with combat skills there seem to be various advancements a skill undergoes before (if ever) actually branching. If there aren't already, those kind of advancements would be neat for just about any skill. This thread was to suggest that sort of thing, and new branches.

Example advancement:
Disarm, reverse, reverse out of the room, reverse in chosen direction*
* new advancement.

Example advancement:
Cooking, advanced cooking*
*new advancement giving a small chance to make something exceptionally well, adding 'delicious' before the description. *shrug*

Example branch:
Shield use, shield block

Shield block: Masters of shield use can eventually have a small chance of altogether blocking ranged weapons fired at them.

[darksheep]

I'm really in favor of deeper skill trees, but with limits on how good a person can get at the skills that arn't normally associated with his starting set of skills. Otherwise you would end up with people who are just too skilled at too many unrelated things. A larger skill tree would make playing longer termed characters more interesting, since theres always something more the characters can do even though they're already uber good at most things.

[wizturbo]

I would hope you could block ranged weapons already, its only realistic.  A tower shield should block -most- ranged weapons just because of its size.  Though some might penetrate it.

[Summer]

If you start to make disarm better than it already is, please let other people that get good at fighting get the skill. I've played a warrior who wasn't all that good and yet I could beat two other people simply because I had disarm. They ran out of weapons.

[John]

I've played a warrior who wasn't all that good and yet I could beat two other people simply because I had disarm. They ran out of weapons.

So you were good at fighting, because that was your style Fighting armed combatants, you sound like you were good. Fighting animals, you sound like you sucked. Which is realistic

Being good doesn't necessarily mean being good in slashing type weapons. It means you have a style that your good at using.

[UnderSeven]

I've played a warrior who wasn't all that good and yet I could beat two other people simply because I had disarm. They ran out of weapons.

So you were good at fighting, because that was your style Fighting armed combatants, you sound like you were good. Fighting animals, you sound like you sucked. Which is realistic

Being good doesn't necessarily mean being good in slashing type weapons. It means you have a style that your good at using.

There should be a limit to how far along a single skill can carry you.  If you can land one skill but NOTHING ELSE, the opponent might catch on and would only have to learn to dodge one thing.  This isn't reflected in the code but would be in real life.  

Disarm is a good example.  It's almost like using a trick.  The first few times likely the person will fall for it, but after a while they'll avoid however it happened to them before and if it's all you can do, they'd proceed to then beat the crap out of you.  I think actually advanced skill branches that counter existing skils are a good idea, but I also think it's actually already in game to an extend, just not so clearly obvious as a skill that shows up.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

The skills as they are are fine. New skills are generally degraded and derided at first, then lauded later on. I, personally, love to see new skills. Bring them on.

[RideTheDivide]

I think people may not be entirely aware of how deep the existing skills are.  For example - I know of one skill that has all sorts of layers to it.  The initial skill lets you do certain things.  After you get *much* better at it, the skill actually changes a bit and lets you do other things.

Sorry to be so vague, but I don't want to spoil the fun for anyone.  The point is, there is a lot to the skill system that people may not have discovered because you have to have a char. survive for a LONG time to see it.