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Skill Upgrade System
Stoic- 07/22/2014 02:18 PM
- 2029 views
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CloseSounds like a solid concept to me. I'd honestly rather have a few useful skills than a ton of them I never use. Plus, by slightly limiting what characters can do on their own, it becomes more of a challenge for players to find workarounds and clever alternatives if they don't have the "perfect" skill against a specific enemy at their disposal.
My additional suggestion would be to also add some passive or passive-active skills that can be upgraded as well. Those can often give the option for interesting stategic combinations. (Plus, they simply are a lot of fun.)
My additional suggestion would be to also add some passive or passive-active skills that can be upgraded as well. Those can often give the option for interesting stategic combinations. (Plus, they simply are a lot of fun.)
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
One major issue I've encountered with skill upgrading in past games I've worked on:
For skills that are similar except for their element, skills that are used in some kind of rotation like a stronger attack with a cooldown, skills that are weaker than a different skill but have an added effect, or other certain types of situational skills, you can run into a problem once the player has enough levels in one skill. The skill which was previously weaker in some situations but stronger in others can be leveled up until it's better in all situations. This effectively causes the player to have fewer skills, making it so that the game actually becomes less interesting as the player gets stronger.
Example A: Wizard has a fire attack and a lightning attack. Some enemies take 50% extra damage from fire and others take 50% extra damage from lightning. When the player first learns both skills, they are both situationally useful. However, you can level up the skills, giving them +20% damage per skill level. Once the player gets the lightning attack to level 3, there's no longer any reason to ever cast the fire attack. The player's combat becomes more boring as a result.
Example B: Thief has a weaker Backstab attack and a stronger Finishing Blow attack. The Finishing Blow attack is twice as powerful but can only be used on enemies below 25% HP. However, the player can level up the skills, giving them +20% damage per skill level. Once the player gets the Backstab attack to level 5, there's no longer any reason to ever use the Finishing Blow attack. The player's combat becomes more boring as a result.
This problem of tactics disappearing as the player levels up isn't specific to this kind of skill leveling system - Final Fantasy games do the same thing by making the best spells in the game non-elemental.
The best way I've found to solve this is to make it so, for the skills that would cause problems, you don't level up the skill itself - but you level up something else instead. A passive skill.
Example: Wizard has a fire spell, an ice spell, a lightning spell, an MP recovery spell, and a spell that puts enemies to sleep. The MP recovery spell and the sleep spell don't conflict with the others, so they can be leveled up individually. The elemental spells cannot be leveled up. Instead the player has three passive skills that he can put levels into: a passive skill that increases all magic damage by 10% per level, a passive skill that increases magic damage by 15% when it hits the enemy's weakness, and a passive skill that reduces the MP cost of the elemental spells. As a result, wizard still has five things it can level up, the same number as other classes... they just aren't the five skills.
For skills that are similar except for their element, skills that are used in some kind of rotation like a stronger attack with a cooldown, skills that are weaker than a different skill but have an added effect, or other certain types of situational skills, you can run into a problem once the player has enough levels in one skill. The skill which was previously weaker in some situations but stronger in others can be leveled up until it's better in all situations. This effectively causes the player to have fewer skills, making it so that the game actually becomes less interesting as the player gets stronger.
Example A: Wizard has a fire attack and a lightning attack. Some enemies take 50% extra damage from fire and others take 50% extra damage from lightning. When the player first learns both skills, they are both situationally useful. However, you can level up the skills, giving them +20% damage per skill level. Once the player gets the lightning attack to level 3, there's no longer any reason to ever cast the fire attack. The player's combat becomes more boring as a result.
Example B: Thief has a weaker Backstab attack and a stronger Finishing Blow attack. The Finishing Blow attack is twice as powerful but can only be used on enemies below 25% HP. However, the player can level up the skills, giving them +20% damage per skill level. Once the player gets the Backstab attack to level 5, there's no longer any reason to ever use the Finishing Blow attack. The player's combat becomes more boring as a result.
This problem of tactics disappearing as the player levels up isn't specific to this kind of skill leveling system - Final Fantasy games do the same thing by making the best spells in the game non-elemental.
The best way I've found to solve this is to make it so, for the skills that would cause problems, you don't level up the skill itself - but you level up something else instead. A passive skill.
Example: Wizard has a fire spell, an ice spell, a lightning spell, an MP recovery spell, and a spell that puts enemies to sleep. The MP recovery spell and the sleep spell don't conflict with the others, so they can be leveled up individually. The elemental spells cannot be leveled up. Instead the player has three passive skills that he can put levels into: a passive skill that increases all magic damage by 10% per level, a passive skill that increases magic damage by 15% when it hits the enemy's weakness, and a passive skill that reduces the MP cost of the elemental spells. As a result, wizard still has five things it can level up, the same number as other classes... they just aren't the five skills.
@NeverSilent I do plan on having one passive you can upgrade related to your class. Possibly upgrading active skills could also have passive benefits. Like having a basic attack upgrade your overall attack. Still need to think about this more.
@LockeZ Thanks for the insight about the potential pitfalls of this system. Each character has a unique element and skills are mostly divided between physical/magical, scope and buff/state changes. I was trying to avoid having skills that just hit harder but have a higher AP or time cost on the same character.
An alternative is to have the player upgrade different paths the actor can take. For example, Rustek is a paladin who relies heavily on holy attacks, defense and healing. The player could have the option to choose which path he takes. Upgrading holy attacks would increase Rustek's physical and magical attack and also unlock offensive skills. Defense would increase his defensive power and unlock buffs and attacks related to defense (like Shield Bash). Healing would increase his healing effectiveness and unlock more healing skills, etc..
This limits the option to basically just 3 paths instead of upgrading individual skills and passives. But it would lump everything nicely together and prevents skills from rendering others obsolete since they have different functions.
@LockeZ Thanks for the insight about the potential pitfalls of this system. Each character has a unique element and skills are mostly divided between physical/magical, scope and buff/state changes. I was trying to avoid having skills that just hit harder but have a higher AP or time cost on the same character.
An alternative is to have the player upgrade different paths the actor can take. For example, Rustek is a paladin who relies heavily on holy attacks, defense and healing. The player could have the option to choose which path he takes. Upgrading holy attacks would increase Rustek's physical and magical attack and also unlock offensive skills. Defense would increase his defensive power and unlock buffs and attacks related to defense (like Shield Bash). Healing would increase his healing effectiveness and unlock more healing skills, etc..
This limits the option to basically just 3 paths instead of upgrading individual skills and passives. But it would lump everything nicely together and prevents skills from rendering others obsolete since they have different functions.
author=ArtBane
This limits the option to basically just 3 paths instead of upgrading individual skills and passives. But it would lump everything nicely together and prevents skills from rendering others obsolete since they have different functions.
If you decide to do this you'll have to be careful to either give the player clear pointers that these paths are permanent and cannot be merged, or make taking options from different paths outright impossible. It would make matters more easy to control, but it could also result in trapping the characters in "class" models and running the risk of "bad character development". If you want to make this work properly, you'll have to be very careful and consider possible interferences between all characters' paths.
Crystalgate
694
Having skills with entirely different functions will ease the whole "only use the skill you've level up" problem a bit, but it won't solve it entirely. If I focus on a certain character's offensive skills, chance is I will use its buff less the more I upgrade the offensive skills.
On the other hand, the player is guaranteed to upgrade the skills she/he plans on using the most in the first place. My suggestion would be to design the upgrade system so that upgraded skills are used more frequently, but non upgraded skills are still tempting to use in special situations. For example, imagine a Fireball spell. That spell would be the most tempting to use when there's a fire weak enemy. I imagine the upgrade system could be designed with the assumption that a player who doesn't upgrade the Fireball will only use it on fire weak enemies while a player who does upgrade the Fireball will often use it on fire neutral enemies as well. How that could be done is hard to tell with another person's project, but it should be possible.
You definitely have enough skills if you have double and triple techs as well.
On the other hand, the player is guaranteed to upgrade the skills she/he plans on using the most in the first place. My suggestion would be to design the upgrade system so that upgraded skills are used more frequently, but non upgraded skills are still tempting to use in special situations. For example, imagine a Fireball spell. That spell would be the most tempting to use when there's a fire weak enemy. I imagine the upgrade system could be designed with the assumption that a player who doesn't upgrade the Fireball will only use it on fire weak enemies while a player who does upgrade the Fireball will often use it on fire neutral enemies as well. How that could be done is hard to tell with another person's project, but it should be possible.
You definitely have enough skills if you have double and triple techs as well.
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