In this topic I will give my take on the skill system.
This is mostly a continuation of a topic by @MR and we have a similar idea.
The the skill system works in U3 is fun but it is quite broken. You can just chop down a bunch of trees with a chainsaw and suddenly you are a more accurate shot. Or you kill a bunch of zombies and all of a sudden you have crafting 3 or cooking and can craft more advanced stuff and food.
Kinda stupid if you ask me.
A more logical and possibly balanced skill system would be: When you cut down enough trees for example, your “outdoors skill” would level up. Or when you have fired a gun a certain amount of times your “sharshooter skill” would level up. When you cook things you could get better at it. I’m yet to come up with a good idea for crafting but feel free to suggest something.
Another thing I dislike about the system in U3 is that you can max out all skills. There is no strategy or prioritizeing other than what to upgrade first. @MR’s topic mentioned a skill tree which would be great. Maybe it could depend on which roll you choose. That way you could not have all the skills maxed at the same time.
indeed, you could also go more in depth that you eve “specialize” just on the gun you use, when you shoot with your old trusty 9mm you get used to it and know how it handels, and when you use your rifel you get more skilled with it.
this would also make that you get some “classes” mabye you are a person that likes shotguns, are worthless with using assault rifels, so you use shotguns, you master the shotguns but you dont use the assault rifels which makes you quite useless with them.
this could work in different ways with everything…?
This sure is an interesting extension to the system.
Question is: How necessary?
My take is that the player itself already has their strengts and weaknesses. For example I myself am pretty good with hawkhound and decent with masterkey but kinda suck at using assult rifles.
it depends on, This exstension could be done to not only the gunplay but also for vehicles for example, you could prefer using an pickup over an sedan, so you fix more on that car, make upgrades and stuff, so you soon know that vehicle in and out, you yourself and your character. But you don’t know the sedan.
so as an example, this would make it much harder and time consuming to become a master and you could also say that you can’t become a master in all branches.
Yes indeed, I myself am quite shit at pvp, but I know a few people that can use any gun, but then I am a car enthusiast so I knowmore about that stuff and are more intrestted in that making me superior around cars, whilst they are superior around pvp and guns, making it harder to master everything would crate a balance in the end.
The equivalent for “crafting” would be to craft a lot, which is kinda a bummer.
My personal (non-SDG) opinion:
Assigning an activity to each skill feels excessive and hard to keep track of (internally). Also feels a bit limiting unless there’s a general experience system, and I feel that it’d make a “PoE skill tree” (popular suggestion) more difficult to pull off.
Having multiple separate skill trees for each major genre of skills, with activities tied to each separate tree, would reduce the complexity and still restrict how experience can be spent (as you’d be limited to certain trees based on what you’re doing to farm experience).