Vault Dweller said:
Again, you're failing to grasp one huge difference. A guy with 200 points in swords is a very good fighter who can defeat most people in the gameworld, while an unskilled peasant can't defeat anything at all.
I'm not failing to grasp it, I just don't find it relevant to discuss, as your system is probably working properly in that case, and what I'm worried about is the areas where it breaks down.
The ability to beat up random thugs may be small consolation to you if you get stuck on an encounter due to 5% chance to hit, but your other skills like stealth and dialog are too watered down to pass the encounter in other ways, due to your investment in swords.
The thresholding effect makes hybridizing your guy far more risky than a more typical system where failing to match your swords to enemy dodge, but still investing substantially, just left you with 45-25% hit.
Vault Dweller said:
Take the famous "Miyamoto Musashi vs Sasaki Kojirō" duel. Kojiro was considered one of the finest swordsmen who often fought against several opponents. Yet Musashi didn't even use his sword and fought and killed him with a wooden stick, showing his disdain and superiority. I'm sure that Kojiro was very pissed off when he was dying and thought that he wasted decades of his life and at least 250 points, which were as useless against Musashi as if he had - wait for it - no skills at all.
Unfortunately for your example, accounts vary heavily of what exactly happened in that fight, some experts think that they Mushashi and his buddies just assassinated Kojiro.
Luckily, we don't need to go to feudal Japan to get examples of guys fighting; we have unprecedented access to watch guys fighting today. Admittedly, we don't know everybody's stats, but one thing is clear;
Journeymen- expert fighters tend to get beaten up by Master level fighters... but they do a lot better than an untrained person would. And when two guys who are of the same skill level fight, they hit a lot more than 5% of the time.
So your system doesn't really produce results that match player expectations which have been built up from both reality and from other RPGs.
Vault Dweller said:
First, it's basic math. -50+50=0. Not -100+50=0. Second, it's much harder to get 200 points in Dodge than in Swords. No, it doesn't cost more but it's a secondary skill. High Dodge without high weapon skill is pointless as then it's only a matter of time until your opponent kills you and since dodgers don't have heavy armor, they go down easy. So 200 in Dodge implies at least 200 points in a weapon skills, so we're talking about 400+ points, which is more than half of what you can get in the game.
Well, I will have to take your word on this for now (that there aren't going to be any strong builds favoring dodge over weapon skill), since I don't have access to the game. It's certainly possible that people won't run into the thresholds much in actual gameplay.
Vault Dweller said:
Like I said, rpg combat is not about realism, which is why we have turns, hit points that allow your character to be hit repeatedly with a battle axe, be reduced to 1hp and fight as well as if he were a well rested man without a scratch, instantly healing spells and potions, 250 pounds of spare armor and weapons that don't slow you down at all, kill hundreds of people and creatures throughout a game, etc.
True, you don't need realism, but you still want the mechanics to make sense to your players, and players have certain expectations both from real life and from other RPGs that are being defied here.
People expect spending a substantial amount of points in fighting to put them ahead of not spending any points at all, and people expect a reasonable progression of effectiveness from no investment, to moderate investment to max investment, if people run into the 20 swords but 5% hit issue in actual gameplay a lot, they're going to be confused and/or irritated.
Vault Dweller said:
Our Skills Points represent experience. In a class-based system you usually need to gain a few thousand points to gain a level and gain a handful of points. Let's say you need to hit 10,000 but you only have 9,500. Are they "entirely meaningless?"
Yes or no, please.
Not meaningless, unless you're at the EXP cap, or you have no way to earn more EXP prior to the encounter you're stuck on.
Similarly, due to the low caps in this game, a hybrid might not always be able to spend more points, or you might not be able to earn more points to raise your swords prior to the encounter you're stuck on.
Vault Dweller said:
Ok. So, our system is not like other systems. Where is the downside? If you've read the quotes I posted, it certainly appears that people were enjoying it.
The downside is that it makes building a hybrid character extremely risky, unless you've got a guide telling you what level of skill you'll need.
Whereas in a more typical system, if you guess wrong and have your sword skill a little too low for a certain encounter, you'll be at a disadvantage, but it won't be like you didn't spend points at all.
This will make it very frustrating for people who guess wrong on how many points they'll need. It is not ideal for players to be frustrated by unintuitive game mechanics.
Right now, everyone is building pure combat characters for the combat demo, so this issue would be minimized compared to the real game where people will want more skills. I know that I'm pretty much scared to build a hybrid character without a guide due to this mechanic.
Anyway, don't feel obliged to go for a super long response as I'm probably gonna respond less to this thread as it's taking me too long to write these long ass responses.