Character Creation, Skills, Traits, Abilities

Suggestions
1

Okay, this might be a bit too in depth, but I’ve thought about this a lot and I think this could be pretty neat. For Each different point I will have a short summary in bold for those that dont want to read too much.

We have commonly discussed hidden traits in players, skill builds, races and abilities.
Given that this game is going to be an MMO i think there are a ton of different building, crafting and fighting skills to consider.

First:
Use it or lose it
Skills such as: Crafting, Masonry, Carpentry, Farming, Skinning, Herb Gathering, Alchemy, Enchanting, Terraforming, Mining Get better the more you use or do them (similar to skills in Skyrim), and the skill drops over time if unused, whether due to long time of not playing (capped at -15 or somewhere near there) or just not using the skill for a long time.

In many aspects people commonly consider “Either you are getting better or getting worse, theres no staying the same”. I really like this fundamental and I don’t think it is used enough in games.

Im thinking each of these skills (maybe less maybe more) should be a level of 1-200.
at each level the character can gain a passive skill:

1-19 Unskilled
No bonuses

20-39 Beginner
Crafting bonus - All armor you craft has +10 durability

40-59 Apprentice
5% Faster with pickaxe (mining) axe (lumberjacking) shovel (terraforming)

60-79 Intermediate

80-99 Veteran

100-119 Professional
Crafting bonus - All armor you craft has +20 durability

120-139 Expert
10% Faster with pickaxe (mining) axe (lumberjacking) shovel (terraforming)

140-159 Elite

160-179 Superior
Crafting bonus - All armor you craft has +30 durability

180-199 Master
15% Faster with pickaxe (mining) axe (lumberjacking) shovel (terraforming)

200 Grand Master

Obviously these are just examples and there would be plenty more, but basically similar to Skyrim’s abilities. You get better at the things you do often, but it also has a effect of diminishing skills that are unused for long periods of time.

Second:
Racials, and Inherited

Lets say we have 5 different race types:
(as mentioned in other posts)
https://forum.oortonline.com/t/oort-online-race-suggestions/192/5?u=b00n

Reptiles

Insects

Avian

Mammal

Amphibian

There may be animal characteristics or subspecies inside of these species, but from these species the player can draw inherited abilities.
You may choose what type of parents your character had.
This is dependent upon the types of body (and body parts) you create your character with during character creation.
You then get to choose special inherited abilities from your parents based on the body they gave you.

Example:
My Character’s parents were of the Cat species and the Owl species, Therefore I get:
Cat
Major: Improved night and cave vision (can always see at least 30% visibility)
Minor: Quick Reflexes (3% Increased dodge chance)

Owl
Major: Insulated Feathers (Never get cold due to precipitation, 30% resistance to cold climate)
Minor: Hunters Vision (Ability to see better from far away, can zoom camera )

I would want there to be a few different traits both major and minor per each type of species. (These arent exact qualities im requesting just an example)

I think this could add a lot to both characters backstories, and customization of players.

Third:

Sign of the Oortians

This was an idea I had that would be kind of random and further make every player a bit different. I would want it to be completely random, and it could possibly be taken advantage of by players who would just create different characters over and over and over just to get teh sign they wanted (maybe after you have created 3 characters you may only create 1 every day and have a max of 5 characters total?)

Anyways you could basically say that there are 12 Oort guardians (or gods) and that when anyone is born (in our case created) they are blessed by one of those gods, and get a special bonus.

ex:

blessing of the fish god - 2% faster swimming
blessing of the cat god - 2% faster land move speed
blessing of the sun god - 2% bonus gold drop from NPCs

It would be small and mildly insignificant, but it might change the way players approach their character and it might add more lore.

I dunno guys, just some thoughts I had and I would definitely like you to expound upon them.
I am obviously a big fan of passive abilities and bonuses and think they can be a neat way to differentiate players greatly.

Maybe some of these would ruin balance and gameplay, but its just some ideas, let me know what you think.

3 Likes
2

Maybe you shouldn’t get a “random” trait when creating a new character, but receive one of 3, for example, for your race, randomly. So if you were a wolf, then, you would receive one of 3 random traits that support your role as a wolf race, and so on. It would depend on your race to see what random boost you would receive, but it would still have an element of randomness.

1 Like
3

I very much enjoy the concept of ‘use it or lose it.’ It adds that nice little extra touch to skill leveling. I have a fairly comprehensive guide to skills and leveling in my mock guide:

https://forum.oortonline.com/t/a-mock-players-guide-to-oort-complete-edition-or-a-field-guide-to-oorta-by-the-scholar-majiel/198

I also expand on character races and subraces in the same guide, you should give it a look and see if it is what you had in mind, as well!

On random boons, while interesting, I do feel people would spam character generation to get their desired boon. Maybe have an altar to change boons through a ritual of some sort to prevent this? Obviously make it intensive so people still get the thrill of the initial randomness.

1 Like
4

Excellent work on the mock guide, its extremely well written and im sure took a great deal of time :smile:
Maybe I didn’t read well enough but my suggestion on races was less to do with the races themselves and more to do with passive abilities that players may gain from their selection of racial and physical properties during character creation.
It seems like this game is going to stray away from a traditional class system like in other MMOs - and for a good reason. I just want to try to think of off the wall character customization that can help differentiate things that my player does well compared to yours :wink:

1 Like
5

For sure, check out this part:

https://forum.oortonline.com/t/a-mock-players-guide-to-oort-complete-edition-or-a-field-guide-to-oorta-by-the-scholar-majiel/198/6

6

Not everyone always has time to play, losing skill experience would be harsh for me

4 Likes
7

Thats why I would want it capped at a small amount for time outside of the game, lets say -5 would be the cap and it would take a week to get there.

8

I am against a penalty as well but if you must implement one, make it a debuff that reduces 25-50% of the skill level you currently have but being logged in for a solid hour will remove the debuff. Hell, make it four hours to really punish people and make them play again.

1 Like
9

There is whole different way to approach this which has the same effect, but makes people happier.

Instead of a debuff for not being active, make a buff for being active. It turns the glass from half empty to half full. For some reason, players don’t like debuffs, but they love buffs.

4 Likes
10

Another thing you could do so that players arent punished is use the skill levels as plateus.

160-179 Superior
Crafting bonus - All armor you craft has +30 durability

180-199 Master
15% Faster with pickaxe (mining) axe (lumberjacking) shovel (terraforming)

200 Grand Master

Once you reach 160 (you would then be the rank of Superior in my example) and then dont play for a week your skills may diminish down to 160, but never below…
so you play and get to 169, you stop playing, you come back a month later you have a notification saying your skill is down to 160. It gives you both incentive to play (to reach the next tier) and not a huge loss for not playing.

2 Likes
11

Again punishing players for not playing is a no go. It would make vacations and other kinds of things that took you away from the game impossible.

4 Likes
12

Yeah basically as thorbjorn is saying, you should never force people to play but on the other hand encourage them and reward them for doing so.

also i dont think you should allow to have mixed race parents, although a nice idea of choosing special talents i think it should be kept within 1 race and make it make sense and to not nullify racial abilities. so instead of saying ‘‘my parent were owls and cats so i either get slower fall damage from owl (although i have no wings) or faster reflexes from cat (although i dont have that slender body)’’ it would work as Normal Races and say cat has this, owl has this so on.

2 Likes
13

Then I suppose we are going to have to agree to disagree.
The punishment i discussed here

imo, this penalty is absolutely negligible and enough to not hurt players for taking vacations and time away from the game. Again, I would want some sort of notification upon logging in for the player to see that their skills have diminished.

My biggest point in all of this was more meant for active players losing skill over time if they do not use it. Such as: I play every day but I haven’t used my cooking or herb gathering in 2 weeks, at some point that skill should go down a bit.
So really, my biggest thing about use it or lose it would be more focused on players that are active and not using certain skills.

14

why not only give a debuff if you inactive while online? … Being offline is not something you have to feel bad about. And like others said: Don’t let it feel like a debuff for inactivity, but a buff for activitiy. So If I’m online and 50% the time crafting armor, then they get better - cool. But if I’m online and run like hell through the deserts without crafting, I get no buff - uncool, but hey, I can live with that :wink:

15

''But why ‘’ is my question?

should we punish people for trying to level up instead of gathering herbs all of the time? should we force a specific playstyle on people? how easily do YOU forget something you learned? if you became a master swordsman in real life do you think you one day would be like ‘‘oh. i forgot how to do this thing even though i have done it a million times just not within 2 weeks’’ Applying same logic to music, i play the piano, i can play songs that i learned by heart several years ago even though it might be months since i did it last, even if i dont play piano for a month i dont suddenly forget the chords, ya know?

16

Also let me try to point out.

you suggest a system for punishing not being logged on, or using certain skills so minimal that it doesnt affect the player

so lets split it up what that would take

Track when every single character used every single type of skill last
Make an algorithm system that would scale appropiately to how much exp you lose.
Automatically pull those skill points from the character, but stopping at certain predetermined points.
Create an automated system which would tell you how much skill you have lost.

for a minimal system

and all of those man hours which have been lost might maybe be enough to make 1 or 2 whole new weapon types. fx

that would be like trying to create a lightsaber to fry your bread because a toaster is too simple >.<

2 Likes
17

Negligible? Skills in this high level would normally take hours to acquirer and therefore loosing them would be insanely frustrating.

I am by the time in the Danish equivalent to high school and exams can if i am unlucky take 3 weeks where i would have near to no time to play the game. Loosing up 40 skill levels because of this would be enough for me to just give up on upgrading and maintaining that skill.

2 Likes
18

yeah it is true, in denmark we have sooo long exam sessions in the normal STX system >:<

19

right, i completely agree, which is why there would be level plateaus…
I took spanish for 3 years in high school and became pretty good at speaking Spanish (obviously not 100% fluent and I probably spoke way too formal but now were getting too specific) and I had to speak and answer questions throughout the entire class.
That was 6 years ago, and now I can speak about 20-30 phrases and ask to go to the bathroom and where is your car and other random junk, but if i was required to speak to someone I wouldn’t be able to do it.
Its because over time my skill in this has diminished due to me not using it.

If you all dont like the system then that is fine… I just dont think its an awful system, and yes as you stated

Maybe it is out of scope for this team and this game. I think we all need to keep scope in mind at times with our suggestions :wink:
I dont think it would be insanely out of scope (As inventing a lightsaber to make toast may suggest) as it could maybe be done similar to armor that gets damaged and needs repaired.

If you read this correctly you would see there is NEVER a time where you would lose up to 40 levels of skill points. as the skills plateau after every 19 points.

As I have said a few times before, some of my ideas are probably too demanding for this game, as half of the audience is most likely going to be drawn more towards the sandbox casual MMO portion, where I am usually drawn to world first clears of bosses and high level cooperative teamwork, with also having some nice looking things in the sandbox :smiley:

I do appreciate the feedback and your all’s points though!

20

Ah sorry :slight_smile: i did not quite catch that when i read it.

That would make the loose easier to take but i would still say that it would be kind of manhandling the player to player regularly.