Forums » Suggestions

Character Development Ideas

Jun 25, 2003 cembandit link
I think vendetta characters should be skill based rather then class based. A few rough ideas of the top of my head for skills.
The skills should go up with usage - this makes the game addictive and more people will pay to play over a period of time, like in UO. Skills could go up to, say, 200 points each with a cap of 1000 points total.


Light ClassPiloting

Heavy Class Piloting

Super Heavy Piloting

Mechanical - on the fly light repairing when no
enemys around.

Energy gunnery - tachs, guass ....

Rocketeering - missles and rockets usage

Mineing Enginering - asteroid mining!

Diplomacy - friendlier npcs

Waste Management - hual away sector garbage for cash,
mmm garbage hualers..can reclaim broken ship
hulls, dead ships.

Blacksmithing - make weapons and stuff out of mined material

Ship Engineering - make ships out of mined materials and cargo

Fishing - no not real fish, or even alien fish, but using a towed array to collect various valuable units of space dust.

Pirateing - neaturlize enemy robot ships and tractor them, not really a skill...

Exploration - Use treausre maps found off npc space pirates to search for thier booty! Grey dots of hidden wormholes appear from farther away.

Leadership - 2 ai ships you outfit and buy follow and fight with you.

Merchantship - cargo hualers get discounts.

Just some raw ideas, rather sucky but a start. It is hard to think of skills for a space game, though garbage hualer sounds fun to me.


Anyone have any ideas?

-homestar "spacefishingwtfamithinking" runner

Jun 25, 2003 Suicidal Lemming link
*shiver*

Can we say EQ?

Your swiming skills have improved! (110)
Your fishing skills have improved! (5)
You have gotten better at channeling! (5)

Don't make a cap of 1000 points total, have the cap (not total) be 100 points, then every update it'll go up 10.

How would you get these so called points?
Jun 25, 2003 Pyro link
Actually, Project Entropia has a nice system for this. There's no cap (AFAIK, either that or nobody's reached it). You don't pick what to put the points into, though. Go mining and you might get some experience for your mining skills. Go hunting and you might get some experience for your fighting skills. It even depends on what weapon you use. Use a rifle, and you get experience in your rifle skills. Use a pistol, and you get experience in your pistol skills. Use a sword, and you get experience in your sword skills. For the rifle and pistol, you get experience in your ranged weapon skills. For the sword, you get experience in your melee skills. Yeah...
Jun 25, 2003 Celebrim link
I have no idea what sort of character development ideas the devs have, but I do have some ideas to toss aroundthat hopefully someone will find interesting. Note that alot of these ideas depend on other ideas I have (sensors, ECM, passengers, manufacturing, etc.) some or all of which probably won't make it into the design, and all of which will probably be implemented somewhat differently than I imagine even if they do make it into the design.

On character creation, each chacter recieves 3 points to spend on attributes. There are three attributes: physical, mental, and social. A player planning on making a well rounded character would spend 1 point on each. A player planning on being a hot shot fighter pilot might spend 2 points on physical and 1 point on mental. A player planning on being a wealthy trader might spend 3 points on social, and so forth.

After spending attribute points, the newly created character recieves 6 skill points to spend however he likes. There are many skills. Raising a skill level requires spending as many skill points as the new skill level. For instance, to gain 1 skill level in 'Piloting' you have to spend 1 skill point, but to raise 'Piloting' from level 1 to level 2 you must spend 2 additional skill points. Skills can never be raised above level 20. To raise a single skill to level 20 requires the expenditure of 210 skill points.

New skill points are acquired automatically each month that you have purchased an account. At the beginning of each week, each character recieves one skill point to spend on skills in a particular area (physical, mental, social) for each attribute point the character has in that area. Skill points can also be acquired by completing missions in that area. For instance, completing a trade or diplomacy mission might net you 1 social skill point, while completing a combat mission might net you one physical skill point. Missions are rated in terms of difficulty, so that you recieve no skill points for completing a mission if your total skill points in that area are greater than the missions difficulty. This prevents gameplay from being reduced to doing a certain simple and repetetive task over and over again, and forces players that want to advance to go searching for new and tougher missions.

A partial description of the three attribute areas:

Physical Attribute - Increases effective physical skills, the number of physical skills recieved per week of play, and reduces the number of skill points lost when character suffers death. Also cybernetic implants are more likely to work.

Piloting: Your character is a top notch pilot, with a deft touch on the stick that makes larger ships seem as agile as small ones. The effective mass of the ship is reduced by 1% per skill level, with a minimum mass similar to the Centurian (to prevent absurdly high agility). With sufficient skill, your Hornet flies like a Vulture and your Ragnarok flies like a Hornet, etc.
Gunnery: Your character is a hot shot gunner. Direct fire weapons (not rockets, missiles, etc.) do 1% more damage per skill level.
Survival: Your character knows how to stay alive. Your 'Escape pod' more likely to function during an explosion.

Mental Attribute - Increases effective rank of mental skills and the number of mental skills recieved per week of play.

Technician: Your character is a wizard with a roll of duct tape and a sonic probe. You have a higher percent chance of repairing 'smoked' and salvaged gizmos, and critical hits are repaired more quickly.
Mechanic: Your character really knows how to handle a fusion torch. For each skill level, 10% more hull points are repaired when a repair is purchased.
Design: Your character is a modern Edison. You have an increased chance of producing a blueprint widget without having to purchase it, letting you make your own weapons and other gizmos.
Industrial: You are an industrial tycoon, and you know how to program a robotic arm. Use blueprint widgets in combination with manufacturing gizmos to make your own gizmos. The higher your skill, the faster new gizmos can be produced, and the more complex the gizmos you can manufacture.
Electronics: You know how to talk to a computer, and you can think in binary. Radar, passive sensors, mass detectors, scanners, radio, ECM, ECCM, and other similar electronics systems have 2% greater range per skill level.
Science: Your character is a modern Einstein. Perform research missions faster.
Engineer: You know how to squeeze that little extra bit of performance out of the engines. For each skill level, the maximum energy storage of your ship is increased by 1% and 1% additional energy is recovered each second.
Maintenance: You know exactly how to keep your ship ship shape. For each skill level, the maximum hull points of your ship are increased by 1%. For instance, with a 5 in effective maintance skill, a newly bought Centurian would have 6500 hull points but could be 'repaired' by the play to up to 6825.
Mining: You are a space prospector with the right stuff. Produce mining widgets 2% faster per skill level.
Sensors: White noise isn't noise as far as you are concerned. Time required to scan an object is reduced by 2% per skill level. ECM, ECCM, and similar systems are more likely to work, and you are more likely to penetrate smuggler suites and false identities.
Forgery: You are able to create your own permits, bills of sale, and generally make stolen goods and other illegal activities appear legal. Smuggler suites and false identities are more likely to fool scanners. Essential skills for the successful pirate/smuggler.

Social - Increases effective rank of social skills and the number of social skills recieved per week of play.

Negotiation: You drive a hard bargain. Each skill point reduces the cost of all goods by 1%, and increases the profit for selling a good by 1%.
Law: You know how to get yourself out of a jam. Gives you a chance of mitigating or elimenating the penalty when you lose reputation points.
Admistration: You know how to handle paperwork. The cost of docking fees, tariffs, and permits (salvage permit, mining permit, casino permit, weapons permit, visas, letters of marque, etc.) are reduced by 2% per skill level.
Diplomacy: You are just hard not to like. Increase your effective reputation points with regards to all factions, provided
your reputation with that faction isn't already negative. Also, you are more likely to be successful when engaging an NPC in 'small talk' leading to improved dialogue choices.
Ettiquette: You are graceful and you know how to mix with a high class crowd. Increases profit on passenger missions, and the classier the passenger mission (2nd class, 1st class, and luxery riders) the greater the increase in the profits. Enhanced friendliness rating with certain 'classy' NPC's, and 'classy' NPC's are more likely to do business with you.
Rogue: You are smooth and you know how to blend in with a low class crowd. Enhanced friendliness rating with certain 'criminal' NPC's, and 'criminal' NPC's are more likely to do business with you.
Command: You can effectively delegate tasks to the crew (whether human, AI, or robot). Normally your effective skill is reduced by 2 for each size class of the ship above 1. (Size class 1 is a fighter, 10 is a Battleship). Each point in command reduces the size class skill penalty by 1.
Leadership: People want to follow you. The cost of hiring NPC's is reduced, and high quality NPC's are more readily available. NPC's can be 'equiped' on a ship to increase your effective skill in another area, or to improve the quality of the AI in a fighter carried by your ship. For instance, if you had skill 0 in piloting you could hire a skill 5 NPC pilot to partially make up for your neglect of your piloting skills - though of course an NPC is never as good as a skilled PC.
Jun 25, 2003 Suicidal Lemming link
Thats how it should work pyro!

"Dance Dance Space Bass Fishing 2004" Fishing skills has reached 24!
;-)

I like that implementation a lot, of course i expect missions to give oodles of points depending on how hard the mission is.

AHHH, not again!
SL changes into a none drool soaked shirt.
Jun 25, 2003 roguelazer link
w00t! For the 2nd time in all history I ACTUALLY AGREE WITH Celebrim! Good post!
Jun 25, 2003 ctishman link
Bandwagon? Where? Sweet!

Mental:
Cartography: You are a modern Magellan. You can create and publish maps of your travels without needing to dock at a station. If you have the wanderlust, put points here to make a profit off of it. Increased investment in this skill yields more accurate maps, produced more quickly that sell for more.

Social:
Warrior: You carry the aura of a veteran, and your build, bearing and perhaps dress let people know you are not to be messed with lightly. Potentially hostile NPCs are less likely to attack if you communicate with them. You associate well with military personnel and are more likely to get missions from them.
Jun 25, 2003 cembandit link
Well thought out, it will be very important to have skills and actions that allow the player to "do" more things, like mineing and makeing custom ships. The most common woe I hear from testers is not the rampant pirateing, but that there is simpley not enough to do other then tradeing or fighting.

-HSR
Jun 25, 2003 Suicidal Lemming link
What you can do:
Trade
Fight
Capture the flag
Mine stuff and blow the mines up.

And thats about it!
Jun 25, 2003 roguelazer link
Personally, the feature that I want is mining. Real mining. As in you get money/widgets from roids. Mmmmm...
Jun 25, 2003 Suicidal Lemming link
Mining would be good to pre occupy us for now.
!!!
Stations mine stuff from the rocks near them, a ship is latched onto a rock and ships fairy goods back and forth!

I can't think of anything else to do that doesn't require missions.
Jun 25, 2003 Pyro link
As usual, Celebrim comes up with a bunch of great ideas... This is why I love having people like him around... :D I'm not sure about the selecting what to put points into, but the rest I like (except maybe the 1 per month part). Actually, those attributes (and skills under each attribute) would work great under the system I suggested... Keep the skills coming!
Jun 27, 2003 Eldrad link
/me thinks about how ridiculous my "light class pilot" and "energy gunner" skills would be under these systems.