Introducing: Skill Slot System

Suggestions
1

Okay, so – I was reading something by Reki Kawahara, and I came across a description of that world’s skill system. I will try to find and take a picture of the passage, but suffice it to say, it had to do with “skill slots.” As I understood it:

  1. Skills progress through use, but only if they are “active.”
  1. Make skills active by switching them into a limited number of skill slots.
  2. Players slowly increase their number of skill slots through leveling up.
  3. The player does not get the benefit of inactive skills, but those skills do not lose their progress, and can be switched back in at any time.

So, I thought to myself, what would that look like in Oort?

Well, maybe something like this:

1. Press 'E' to open your player info.

1-equipment.png749×410 24.2 KB
This lets you see your inventory, equipment, and active skills.

2. Click "Switch Skills" to open the Skills Menu.

Here you can see all the skills you have learned, as well as their individual progress. You can also drag + drop to manage which skills are active and which ones are not. Note that the number of skill slots can be increased as the player levels up.

3. Click on a skill to see its progress in detail (skill tree).

Every time the skill levels up, you get 1 point to choose a benefit (or perk). Some perks require other perks to be unlocked first. (This could be a much bigger matrix.) Hit Back to go back to the Skills Menu.

4. Let's switch in a skill.

I have switched "Dual Wielding" in, and "Mining" out. That means that for the moment, I lose all my Mining perks – but now I get to level up my Dual Wielding skill and unlock its perks.

5. Hit "Done" to go back to the main player info screen.

5-equip.png749×403 24.4 KB
You can see that Dual Wielding now appears on my player info screen as an Active Skill. I can hit those skills to see their progress from this screen as well.

What I like about this system
• Removes all formal classes/professions in favor of a do-it-yourself approach
• Inactive skills don’t lose their progress, you just don’t get the benefit
• A fun and fair way to build up and reinvent your character over time

Other thoughts
• Do you have to learn a skill before you can progress it? Or do you just start off with a full skill list and choose which to activate?
• Some skills must be unlocked by progressing pre-requisite skills to a certain level

23 Likes
2

Thats exactly what i dont like. But nice post!

3

If you would only be able to fully master (lvl. 100 i guess) one skill this would be the perfect system for me :slight_smile: great idea

4 Likes
4

Jepp, looks nice. The “Penmaster” was spend well on you :wink: … The idea of active skills that level when “equiped” is a good way to slow down the Progress while supporting the building of specialist characters. I also love the concept of leaving the old ways of classes like in many other games.

To have to learn the basic level of a skill would be good and ok, as long as it would not leed in to much work to get them. May be to get a skill gets more expansive if you have more of them. On this way you still would be able to master all but it would be quite a lot of work AND a lot of bills your char has to pay :wink:

The only concern I would have with this system is, that you may have an end of progress if you hit the maximum of the “level” (I don’t even know if there will be a level in oort ^^). Would be cool that the progress slowes down at the end, but never stops (like in Guild Wars, where you still get xp at max level, but only get skill points, but no more stats).

But I believe in the devs (like always) that they will satisfy our needs :pray: :sunny:

3 Likes
5

I like the idea a lot XD

1 Like
6

What you think about @DarkRepulsor ´s idea and possible UI @ben , @james ?

7

I love your work and images really well bring your idea loud and clear to us/devs.

After while I had troubling thought about maxed player who constantly need to switch active skill, but that can be somewhat canceled by leveling up and opening new active skill slots. Feels kinda punishment to have everything at high levels or maxed if you need to go through work every time you want to do something something else. It´s just feeling that I now have, because even thought skilling would be slower at higher levels…there is always people who will get to that point sooner or later.

Like you said after that: You could have few basic skills at start like One-handed weapon that will have option to open Two-handed skill when leveled up to level 5 for example. Alchemy or Magic or both together opens healing skill at some point etc.

What if training one skill to maximum possible awards corresponding title and you can have effect from that skill even if you don´t have it active?

Could some skills have at later levels passive ability that works even if they aren´t active?

2 Likes
8

Liked for aesthetics

also it’s a really cool idea anyway.

2 Likes
9

I really like the way this is presented. One thing I would like to see added is the ability to save skill sets. If I am going to be building for a while, I may switch to skills that better benefit building. If I’m going out for pve, I should be able to switch to my pve skill set where all of my skills are switched to my favorite pve skills.

4 Likes
10

If you was used with a train/mastery system instead of a SP system you would actually have to use the skill to level it

in games that do it right leveling one skill can take days to weeks even months if the system is done right so if its really good then mastering all the skills would possible take years where if the game evolves over time thus they could add more skills and make requirements only available in higher tiers therefore making players wait to up certain skills

You could even make the skill tree as a specialty thing so each skill is unique to the player as well as have other skills help dictate other skills.

So like if a players had his blacksmithing up to level 15 they would have to pick a specialty in this case im going to go with spears as the specialty but say that they wanted a element. Well then they would have to practice that element to do so. for example lvl 22 Spear crafting + lvl 16 ice mastery would give you a ice spear with certain buffs depending on the levels of both skills

that way being a crafter could build some fame

players would also get bored of doing skills that dont fit there play style making thous skills level take much much longer

3 Likes
11

I’ve played a game on Nintendo DS called Fantasy Life. In this game, you had to switch your “life” or professions to obtain the benefits and special abilities of it. Basically it’s the same thing you have here, but that game only allowed one “active” at a time.
It was an interesting approach except for one thing. while I was let’s say a paladin, equivocal to your “shield” ability, I could level up and learn new shield techniques and use them, but I could not level up or even get credit for a rare mineral find because my miner life was not active. So having to constantly switch skills to level them up and get credit for rare occurrences became annoying.

If I may propose a slightly different approach? Instead of inactive skills not being able to level up, let them. So you can still get credit for mining a rare mineral even if your mining is not active.

Instead, let the active/inactive skills be the base for your “perks.” For example, even though my mining is inactive, I am still leveling it through mining this rare mineral, but I am not getting the perk of, for example, extra strength. Instead, my active skills are one-handed and shield because I’m probably in a dangerous area and need the attack and defense perks, and luck so I can get something more from this rare mineral. I don’t want to have to be forced to switch to mining and leave myself vulnerable.

As I said, I’ve seen something similar to this in another game and it was more bothersome than fun. A simple change of still allowing inactive skills to level would have been better.

4 Likes
12

I have a dull taste in the mouth if I think about crafting skills to be used to trained them. Just think about all the trash somebody would have to make until he reaches a high level that he wanted. For fighting or automatic used skills such “leveling by using” fits well, but most games which had such a system for crafting were just annoying (WoW, Skyrim, Guild Wars 2 (even if the last one had some good improvements through inventing)).

The system presented here (gaining skills trained when equipped, even when not used active) would help to get rid of such pain while still feeling similar to a learning-by-doing system.

3 Likes
13

Perhaps a different approach to “leveling to gain skills” would be to only have the levels determine the perks.

In yet another game I play called 7 Days to Die, you don’t start out knowing how to craft everything. In that game, you have to find books in the game to unlock recipes before you can make them. Even the most basic forge has to be found in a recipe before you can make one, then you can start crafting your metal tools and weapons. But then you have to find all the different gun books to make the gun parts and construct them, so it’s all about finding the recipe rather than leveling up for it.

Perhaps your skill level can have something to do with the quality of the item you can make. Sure you can still make a shovel at level 1, but you have a chance for a “good” shovel at level 10 and a “best” shovel at level 20. This concept is also taken from Fantasy Life. The higher level you are to the base level of the item, gives you a higher percent chance for a better quality. Then that quality could have perks such as “digs faster.”

1 Like
14

So actually earning it is bad?

Well it would produce goods to sell seen as how there might not be any NPC’s or goods that are not player made so having to make weapons more then once could help supply lower level players if they need new items or if theirs got destroyed as well as more cash for the crafter so they can buy more supplies if there not into collecting them.

And it could be balanced so that its not too boring like have to make certain items that are uniqe or even more of an active process that require the player to actively do something like pound the metal on an anvil and if they do good it could up the skill faster or give the weapon better stats. Thus adding more of a challenge but also making it more entertaining

1 Like
15

Beautifully presented, and I like it!

16

Yes, if it is earned by actually crafting, then it has to be balanced to the positive outcome. In most games I played it ended in countless piles of useless and/or to much items then needed by players. It was useless to try to sell the stuff because the markets were filled up with to much of those items. Nobody want to fill trashcans only to raise his skills I think :wink:

17

Well in a lot of other games you can get items from npcs so if these items are solely from players this might not be the case as much players will be buying from the market and also be able to make there shops and players arnt stuck to one market or a few shops but many shops as well as tiers and if your in a harder tier making week items would be useless and this could help with being over filled with certain items seeing as how its player ran so the market and everything can be adjusted by the the players actions and how they manage this

And if the crafters have to specialize in certain things so say a blacksmither could go into spears or dagger then they might not be able to make other weapons so limiting items by lvl, towns wants, play styles, tiers, and crafters specialty I think it would be fine and also work well

1 Like
18

Believe me, I know what you mean – I made soooooo many Iron Daggers and Leather Bracers!!

A few thoughts:

Tools, weapons, and armor all break over time – and the weaker it is, the faster it breaks. In Minecraft, you are always having to go make more pickaxes and swords. It’s just part of how the game works. Having a chest full of backup pickaxes actually saves you a ton of time later, and is quite handy as you progress into the game.

Maybe there’s a way to melt some crafted things down. I don’t know, random thought…

What counts as “crafting?” Is making weapons different than making flower pots? Or armor? Could someone have an Armorer skill vs a Weaponsmith skill, in addition to the Basic Crafting skill? Hm…

That sounds like a cool game, but I think that will feel like a step backwards for anyone coming from the Minecraft side of things. If I have the materials, I should be able to build it – requiring a recipe seems like an unnecessary barrier.

I don’t know. Remember that this system allows for multiple active slots at once, and that you gain more as you level up – that feels like a good balance of your two questions to me. You can level up multiple skills (but not all at once) and by the time you’ve mastered a skill, you’ve gained an extra skill slot, so you can keep it with you and start leveling something else.

The idea of being granted a title, though…that is awesome. DarkRepulsor the Master Swordsman. Love it.

1 Like
19

you know I’m a total sucker for some slick graphics. If you explained this to me with a text wall I would fricken hate it. But package it up nicely in a well thought out visual system and I love it. Just goes to show the importance of good design. Anyways I really dig the system- good job.

2 Likes
20

I think just of Shroud of the Avatar, where you will be able to try to craft many items, but higher items need higher skills. If you don’t have it high enough you have a fail chance and the items may come out broken or not as effective as made b a skillful crafter. Higher skilled players even can make enhanced items which may have a higher durability and/or better other stats.

Training by repairing or altering items (like using gems on them) could also be a good way.

Having to much individual skills could be problematic. For example just let there be one weapon crafting skill, not three or five of them. Let the perks be special enough so that each player still feels a bit unique by his choices.

I also dislike the need of recipes for many items. That system may be useful for rare skins or special event stuff, but the main items of the game (through all tiers) should stay like the items ingame now: If you have the right mats and try long enough in the crafting window you will find the item and can try to build it :wink:

2 Likes