I put forth the motion that we bring in some contractors to reevaluate, vis-a-vis the situation with weaponry in the workplace. It's my understanding that rather than developing synergies, we should be working more toward encompassing skillsets.
Bollocks, I really couldn't be assed trying to continue in corporate speak.
I think the idea of skill synergies is an interesting concept. It does make quite a bit of sense, especially within the example provided, but my opinion is that there might be other ways to get the desired results in a slightly more elegant manner. (as far as the player is concerned)
This is more or less a rambling train of thought, but firstly, consider the fundamental similarities and differences between your skills with regard to synergies. For the following, I'm keeping it simple in comparing a longsword to a dagger.
Similarities:
Appearance wise, both are similar, they're edged weapons, and both are wielded with the aim of slashing or thrusting at one's opponent.
Differences:
When you get right down to it, the use of a dagger and the use of a sword vary considerably. A sword primarily requires it's wielder to use their balance and strength to inflict high impact blows, in addition to offering a large surface with which to deflect attacks.
A dagger however, requires perception, patience and agility, with it's wielder opting for swift thrusts to vulnerable areas when they become exposed, and the trade off defensively is that the wielder is much more mobile due to the lighter and less cumbersome form of a dagger.
Now this isn't intended to debunk the idea of synergy, but to reinforce careful consideration of
Why weapon skill A would feasibly be related to weapon skill B. Now consider a rapier and the similarities to a dagger. Both are wielded in a similar fashion, with a few differences according to their defensive use.
None of this is anything particularly new or interesting, but it leads into the idea of classification.
We could classify the above three weapons (longsword, dagger, rapier) according to their predominant mode of striking. Slash for longsword, Thrust for the other two. But this doesn't entirely fit. A dagger can be used to slash, but it still follows the same principles as a dagger used to thrust. It relies on speed and the ability to exploit vulnerable openings.
And so a pattern begins to emerge. The physical traits of the character play a large role in the ability to effectively wield the specific weapons. Strength and balance greatly aids the wielder of larger weapons, while speed and accuracy/perception favour the wielder of lighter weapons. Without delving into further categorising just yet, we can institute our first encompassing stat - Governing Attributes.
This concept is widely implemented in just about every RPG known to man, but has little bearing on synergy. Yet.
Morrowind's implementation of governing attributes brings me closer to the point I'm trying to make eventually. All skills in Morrowind have a single governing attribute. As skills improve, the attributes are marked as improving also. Likewise, as a governing attribute improves, so do all the skills that lie below it in the hierarchy. In this way, we have a simple implementation of synergy, although on a macro scale.
To better abstract this inheritance, I find it better to consider an increase in strength not as an increase in strength-based skills, but an improved disposition/suitability to using strength-based skills, which results in a performance increase.
By considering this abstraction, we can delve back into synergies, by introducing another age old concept of skill sets. Let's start breaking down our categorisation, and and some more specific weapons.
Strength based weapons: Longsword, Mace, Handaxe, Claymore, Archmace, Battleaxe.
Agility based weapons: Rapier, Dagger, Kama, Fist
With the addition of two handed weapons, we broaden our scope. While they require similar physical characteristics, the skill of wielding them as compared to one-handers once again quite different, but the physical characteristics are similar.
So as promised, we break it down.
- Strength
- Heavy Weapons
- Claymore
- Archmace
- Battleaxe
- Medium Weapons
- Agility
...and through a simple method of inheritance, all skills encompassed within a skill set receive synergy bonuses, it's just a question of working out weighting and influences. Let's just say for example, everytime you invest a single point into a skill, half goes into the skill itself, and the other half goes into into the parent skill set, for a net gain of 1 on the skill level, and 0.5 across the other encompassed skills. On top of that, the governing attribute gets a bit of a kick, which can improve multiple skill sets, and their child skills.
That's my two cents, and I feel it kind of streamlines the original synergy concept, and eliminates any skill regression due to recalculation of synergy bonuses. It's all pretty straightforward at this level, but I'm sure you could implement multiple inheritances on all levels, with the biggest hurdle being effectively conveying said multiple inheritances to the player in a straightforward manner.
