Balancing a skill system

[allanon]

The new skill system is a great idea!
It certainly adds more depth to the character stat building that many players enjoy.

For myself I would put everything into the stat that raises the chance of monsters dropping rare items
I dont really need a boost to attack or defense or anything else as at the current level there aren't really any monsters that are hard to kill. Its making the grinding part less onerous that would be the biggest improvement and I'd gladly use the skill for that!

[mdmedlin]

A question about the 20% crit chance. So those of you that are lucky enough to have multiple RoLS, you have a base +40% to crit chance. So I use my poison dagger and that gives me 60% chance to crit. I add a couple of skill points to the additional crit chance and now I am at 80%. IDK seems a little high to me.

[slayer]

I thought Gold Digger was fairly humorous. But perhaps some women might be offended by it. Treasure Hunter is good, or may be something like "Midas Touch". The new skills system looks awesome

For myself I would put everything into the stat that raises the chance of monsters dropping rare items

I agree with that, I don't mind a little grinding, but needing to kill a certain monster 10000 times is really incredible. If I could get it down to 1000 kills it would be much better. Still enough of an effort that you feel you really accomplished something, but in days instead of weeks.

[slayer]

A question about the 20% crit chance. So those of you that are lucky enough to have multiple RoLS, you have a base +40% to crit chance. So I use my poison dagger and that gives me 60% chance to crit. I add a couple of skill points to the additional crit chance and now I am at 80%. IDK seems a little high to me.

RoLS only gives +5 crit chance, or +10 if you had 2. With the poisoned dagger you would have a 30% chance to critical. The more critical skill gives you a bonus of 20% of your existing crit chance, which would be 6% (30 x .20). This would give you a 36% chance with 2 rings, the poisoned dagger, and 1 point in More Criticals.

[mdmedlin]

Alas I am not lucky enough to have one and too lazy to look up the stat LOL. but still, your looking at 50% with the dagger, two rings, and one point in the more crit column. Half your hits would be crits, and then you spend the rest of your points on AC and your hitting all the time, crits half the time.

[kendraso]

No if you had 3 points in it, plus two rings and the dagger, your still 2% short of 50%. And that's WITH two rings....without them your only looking at 32% chance to crit with 3 points...

[kendraso]

Oh also, what about adding an npc that let's you pay for a skill point respec? Or would that be too unbalanced?

[Samuel]

You didn't take a stand on my request to raise the chances for Magic finder. IMO we should raise it back to 100%.

If this isn't all finalized yet, any chance of adding some kind of "Fatigue resistance" skill? Maybe similar to block chance so that the % of resistance goes against the Wyrm or trainer's chance of giving fatigue.

Good Idea. Should be magic resistance and I like it.

So it would reduce the chance by for example 10% to get an active condition.
2 skillpoints in it would lower the chance to get fatigued to 40%. (instead of 50%) There should be a max of around 80% magic resistance

I implemented the new skill Magic Resistance. Patch is on the way.

• Bark skin: Every level of this requires 10 experience levels, and a block chance of 15 per level. For example, this means that in order to be able to upgrade to level 3 of Bark skin, you must be at least level 30 and have BC greater or equal to 35.
• Corpse Eater: Every level of this requires your max HP to be (20 + skillLevel * 20). For example, to be able to upgrade Corpse Eater to level 3, your max HP must be (20+3*20) = 80.
• Regeneration: Every level of this requires one corresponding level of Fortitude and also your max HP to be (skillLevel * 30). For example, to reach level 3 of Regeneration, you must have at least 3 levels of Fortitude and at least 3*30=60HP.

The new prerequisites are great and balance skills nicely. (solved my balance requests 2 and 3) This adds even more depth to the game than skills alone did.
Seems like the 3 prerequisites above use the unequipped and unchanged values. (by other skills)

I did try it for the Bark skin.
Is this intended? If yes the description of the skills should probably changed to make it clear.

5) IMO the quest window should have its own tab too. (like skills have now)

Done.

This looks great. Thank you.

In the US, the definition of Gold Digger is "A person who dates others purely to extract money from them, in particular a woman who strives to marry a wealthy man"
Possibly rename the skill to "Gold Harvest"?

Thanks for the heads-up. How about "Treasure Hunter" ?

I like Treasure Hunter.

Oh also, what about adding an npc that let's you pay for a skill point respec? Or would that be too unbalanced?

When I look at the money everyone has, this would definitely be unbalanced.

What I like in the skill system is that we improve replayability of the game greatly with them.
On average one would gain 10 to 20 skillpoints. So no one could skill all different skills enough to have a "strong" effect.
Excellent work.

[Mino]

• Bark skin: Every level of this requires 10 experience levels, and a block chance of 15 per level. For example, this means that in order to be able to upgrade to level 3 of Bark skin, you must be at least level 30 and have BC greater or equal to 35.
• Corpse Eater: Every level of this requires your max HP to be (20 + skillLevel * 20). For example, to be able to upgrade Corpse Eater to level 3, your max HP must be (20+3*20) = 80.
• Regeneration: Every level of this requires one corresponding level of Fortitude and also your max HP to be (skillLevel * 30). For example, to reach level 3 of Regeneration, you must have at least 3 levels of Fortitude and at least 3*30=60HP.

The new prerequisites are great and balance skills nicely. (solved my balance requests 2 and 3) This adds even more depth to the game than skills alone did.
Seems like the 3 prerequisites above use the unequipped and unchanged values. (by other skills)

I did try it for the Bark skin.
Is this intended? If yes the description of the skills should probably changed to make it clear.

I noticed in v0.6.9, it doesn't show unequipped stats anymore, so will it be added back into 0.7.0 so we can see what our unequipped BC is for the Bark Skin? Or will it just tell us what we need to do to upgrade further?

[kendraso]

You didn't take a stand on my request to raise the chances for Magic finder. IMO we should raise it back to 100%.

If this isn't all finalized yet, any chance of adding some kind of "Fatigue resistance" skill? Maybe similar to block chance so that the % of resistance goes against the Wyrm or trainer's chance of giving fatigue.

Good Idea. Should be magic resistance and I like it.

So it would reduce the chance by for example 10% to get an active condition.
2 skillpoints in it would lower the chance to get fatigued to 40%. (instead of 50%) There should be a max of around 80% magic resistance

I implemented the new skill Magic Resistance. Patch is on the way.

• Bark skin: Every level of this requires 10 experience levels, and a block chance of 15 per level. For example, this means that in order to be able to upgrade to level 3 of Bark skin, you must be at least level 30 and have BC greater or equal to 35.
• Corpse Eater: Every level of this requires your max HP to be (20 + skillLevel * 20). For example, to be able to upgrade Corpse Eater to level 3, your max HP must be (20+3*20) = 80.
• Regeneration: Every level of this requires one corresponding level of Fortitude and also your max HP to be (skillLevel * 30). For example, to reach level 3 of Regeneration, you must have at least 3 levels of Fortitude and at least 3*30=60HP.

The new prerequisites are great and balance skills nicely. (solved my balance requests 2 and 3) This adds even more depth to the game than skills alone did.
Seems like the 3 prerequisites above use the unequipped and unchanged values. (by other skills)

I did try it for the Bark skin.
Is this intended? If yes the description of the skills should probably changed to make it clear.

5) IMO the quest window should have its own tab too. (like skills have now)

Done.

This looks great. Thank you.

In the US, the definition of Gold Digger is "A person who dates others purely to extract money from them, in particular a woman who strives to marry a wealthy man"
Possibly rename the skill to "Gold Harvest"?

Thanks for the heads-up. How about "Treasure Hunter" ?

I like Treasure Hunter.

Oh also, what about adding an npc that let's you pay for a skill point respec? Or would that be too unbalanced?

When I look at the money everyone has, this would definitely be unbalanced.

What about costing an entire levels worth of exp as the payment? When you get higher level, even with grinding, it can still take a while to level, and having to sacrifice that much exp to respec your character would be a more ideal way. Or could charge PER skill point as well, not a one-price-fits-all respec. The higher the level, the more gold or exp it costs per point, so its proportionate to your level. Or have it cost x% of your money, but no less than y amount to make a base cost but add more to the cost the more you have. Heck even making pay per point and raising the price per point gradually as you purchase them back. Say x for 1 point, then x + (1/2*x) for point two and so on until it becomes too expensive for most players to fully respec. Or even basing it off how many points you already have unused and charging per point to buying the next one back.

Basically I like being able to respec as the need arises, gives me flexibility for situations. And if it means costing me money and/or exp to do it, I can live with it. As for the amount of money people have now, I could see it being a problem, but as more people start playing, where they haven't spent near as much time as the rest of us, money isn't so plentiful, therefore once we get closer to a true end product, it might be a better idea to allow it.


just random thoughts BTW, hit lvl 33 today, and found out I'm gonna be a daddy..