Heavily reworked skill system

[PycasneEesost]

At the moment, the game is filled with min maxing, alt spam, and a patched system for changing your template. Years ago, I had an idea on another mmo very similar to this one to make it possible to eliminate all min-maxing issues by allowing players to gain whatever skills they'd find useful.
Under my idea, the issue of templates being unbalanced would be eliminated by everyone having access to the same things and side strengths. This would also alleviate some issues with low community numbers and make it easier to create items in the field as well as making it possible to have the same usefulness on all characters

Here it is.


Attributes are divided into skills. However, skills no longer have skill points.

Attributes cap the maximum you can have in a skill. Skills themselves are leveled individually. For instance, if you wanted to be a pistoleer, you'd have to get maximum dex, as usual, and also use pistols until you maxed them out. Skills in general would be earned by doing said skill.

Potentially, you could max out everything if you wanted to in the same way you can now. Realistically, you'd either have no life for the next 3 months or a grindfest for the next 3 years if you tried. And that's only for your first character.

How long would it take to max out a skill? If you already have maxed out the attribute the skill is in, you would need to get the equivalent of the lom pill loss in experience in your goal.

Essentially, it should take the same amount of time to gain pistol skill as it would to swap from rifle to pistol skill in the current game. You can only gain pistol skill by using a pistol. Similarly, you could only gain hacking skill by hacking objects. It would also take the equivalent of 3479 redbull to grind these all out.


Now, suggested ways to gain skills


Intelligence

Hacking - BY hacking into things, as well as killing in the hacknet.
Barter - By buying and selling.
Psi use - Very slow gain, but by using psychic powers.
Weapon Lore - Again, very slow gain, but by using guns.
Constructing - Constructing!
Research - Researching!
Implant - Implanting!
Willpower - By using drones. Slow gain.


Strength

Melee combat - By using knives and swords.
Heavy Combat - bY using cannons and flamethrowers
Transport - Passive gain by simply walking, gain far more by being encumbered slightly.
Resist Force - By being attacked by explosives.

Constitution

Athletics - By jumping and running like a nutjob!
Body health - By being hit in general. Slow gain.
Endurance - By running only. Faster gain than athletics.
Resist Fire/Energy/X-Ray/Poison - By resisting that. XD

Dexterity
Pistol combat - By fighting with a pistol!
Rifle COmbat - By fighting with a rifle!
High tech combat - BY fighting with a hightech! Aka: fighting with high tech weaponry
Agility - By attacking with melee weapons and running and jumping. Slow gain.
Repair - By repairing stuffs.
Recycle - By recycling stuffs.
Remote Control - By flying drones!


Psi power
Passive psi use - By using passive psy abilities.
Aggressive psi use - Attacking with psi.
Mental steadiness - Slow gain from using all psi
Psi power - Slow gain by using psi again.
Resist psi - By being hit by psi.





Reasons this is good:
Everyone operates a template anyway. The skills are separated in a way that if you had max pistols and max rifles, the only bonus you'd have over someone with only max pistols is that you could snipe them as they ran up and swap to a sidearm.

This would make alt spam less of a common thing. Everyone already can implant, medical aid, use psy, research, construct, and hack. This is from the thing known as alts. Everyone is self sufficient already. This just makes the grind to become self sufficient possible on 5 characters rather than 5 accounts.

Private eye would become FAR more useful. Being a fairly good hacker, a fairly good field medic, and a fairly good EVERYTHING matches what the class is supposed to be. A swiss army knife.





Reasons people will say this is terrible:
"YOU CAN BE A SWISS ARMY KNIFE!!"
Yeah, but keep in mind you have to grind out all your knives independently. Unlike now, you're not going to suddenly become an expert hacker just because you popped a few LOMs on a whim. Chances are if you hate hacking or being a medic, or crafting, then you're not going to have the patience to learn how to do it for combat. The other side of this coin is "eliminating the need for more people when invading" to which I respond "Erm?"
So what? You can hack that terminal yourself? If you're taking a base that would normally take an army, you still need the army.



"It's unbalanced!!"
This is sparta.


"You can research and construct on the same toon!!!"
Oh no, you no longer have to log out and back in on your alt conveniently placed outside your first character's apartment.


Later, I am going to work on another idea for improving crafting in a few ways and make gathering possible. It ought to be an amusing read at very least.

[Powerpunsh]

The idea sounds logical but i believe its massive time consuming to implement. We just should make the best of our current system. :P

btw: This system would make uber hybrids possible, like holy self shielding tanks. It also kills community interaction because everyone can everything on 1 character.

[PycasneEesost]

The idea sounds logical but i believe its massive time consuming to implement. We just should make the best of our current system. :P

btw: This system would make uber hybrids possible, like holy self shielding tanks. It also kills community interaction because everyone can everything on 1 character.

The solution to the psi abuse would be to lower the level possible for psi for tanks. As for community interaction, there's not that much to begin with, but it would make leveling less exploit-y. Essentially, having to construct to become a good constructor is going to take much longer than droning to become a constructor.

As for the system sounding logical, Thank you! That's the greatest compliment I've ever received on a post on any forum. I still think that it won't kill community interaction because people who would grind out EVERYTHING would just dual box anyway.

And of course, the suggestion is just there for the future. I'd much rather see graphic bugs and anomalies being fixed than this any day.

[Dropout]

The idea sounds logical but i believe its massive time consuming to implement. We just should make the best of our current system. :P

btw: This system would make uber hybrids possible, like holy self shielding tanks. It also kills community interaction because everyone can everything on 1 character.

Mmmmm a 100 INT/full WEP Dev tank with holy shields.. Greatness!

This would be hard as hell to balance tbh.
Everyone would be using the same very few weapons, have capped CON and capped PSI.

[PycasneEesost]

Mmmmm a 100 INT/full WEP Dev tank with holy shields.. Greatness!

This would be hard as hell to balance tbh.
Everyone would be using the same very few weapons, have capped CON and capped PSI.

I don't think people understand what I meant. The restrictions that you normally have are still there. For instance, all the attributes you normally have capped are still capped. The only difference is the skills in those attributes.

[Torg]

Youre right, there are similar concepts in other games. just to make that clear: so you dont want to remove classes? ie a spy would never be able to use a holy spell etc? and you would gain main skills like before, just wont distribute skillpoints after gaining a level? that in turn would make lom pills obsolete, and droning to woc, or repping your way to monk dex max. i find your proposal quite interesting, as i enjoyed games with a similar concept (elder scrolls?), but i believe the NC crowd would never approve your ideas. And, between you and me, what would we gain from that change? Besides getting something changed. And tuning down the need for Alts to a limited extent.

tl;dr i can see your point, but i'd rather not buy that idea.

[PycasneEesost]

Youre right, there are similar concepts in other games. just to make that clear: so you dont want to remove classes? just wont distribute skillpoints after gaining a level?

Yep, exactly!


And, between you and me, what would we gain from that change? Besides getting something changed. And tuning down the need for Alts to a limited extent.
More fun, for one. When I first started, I almost quit when I found out I'd have to make alts for every single skill I found interesting because investing enough points in them to use them would mean giving up the ability to play effectively.

tl;dr i can see your point, but i'd rather not buy that idea.

Good thing it's for free?

I responded in the quotes.

[Dropout]

Ah okay, makes a little more sence then.. Still not a good idea for NC though IMO.
PvP players will always do whatever they can to min-max their setups.
And another flaw, how would tanks level their resists? By getting shot by poison mobs for poison resists and so on? That would take... AGES! lol

[William Antrim]

Ultima online and wow have both operated this kind of system to various successes. The current one sticks closer to a fallout style of progression in my opinion - the turn based one at least.

I like your idea but I don't think it fits nc.

[Divide]

I'd fully support this if, like UO, we could macro.

Otherwise, the shift in play and how I would level are so open ended that it seems almost impossible to imagine. I'd like to see something like this played with on a test server, but only as a candidate and not a destiny.

Also,
I would fully support macroing and afkleveling a character. No one here needs the 'experience' if they don't want it. Most of you have been playing for more time than I have- you know exactly what I mean.

[PycasneEesost]

I like your idea but I don't think it fits nc.

I am unsure, to be honest at this point. I feel as if it would fit the open world of NC perfectly, and only the grinding lengths would need to be balanced.

Not to offend but I believe the reason people think it wouldn't work is because they have been with the original NeoCron for so long it'd be hard to imagine it in another way.

If this idea was accepted in the perfect way, it would be a neocron 3 with neocron 2 still playable. No change to the original game, similarly to how SOE releases Everquest overhauls lately.

[Torg]

...similarly to how SOE releases Everquest overhauls lately.

since youre showing the SOE Everquest card, heres my answer: SOE SWG NGE.

in other words: i'm all for playing with new ideas. go on with that, please.

[Drachenpaladin]

If currentl level caps on the main skill remained then ok. Implants would still be required to go over the edge for in some areas.

[William Antrim]

But if it's not broke why try to fix it is all I am saying.

Personally I prefer to stick with the current system and drastically lower the skill caps so that we see more variety in weapon choice and sub skill choice too.

[Drachenpaladin]

But if it's not broke why try to fix it is all I am saying.

Is it really that not-broken?