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Roguey

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I'm personally not even a fan of a 1-100% skill scale, but if you are going to do it, making it even higher and more granular just makes it worse. And it isn't primarily about intuitiveness, although that is a secondary concern. The problem is the difference between 55%-56% is not noticeable and it is wasted granularity. Character development and customization options should have a much larger impact.

However regarding intuitiveness, your skill value should not be presented as a percentage success chance anyway. Because as you mentioned, other factors should affect how hard or easy a task is, not just your skill %. And if you express it as a percentage, it makes it sound like that should be the percentage to succeed. If you have a 60% skill, it is can be very unintuitive if you are only hitting 20% of the time because of other factors.

I would rather see the scale go 1-5 than 1-100, although 1-10 or 1-20 or whatever else might also work. And I think 1-20 is probably already getting to the limit of how granular it should be. And really a 20 scale is only really desirable if you are talking about tabletop and an actual 1d20 die roll which lines up nicely with a 1-10 or 1-20 scale, representing a 5% increased chance to succeed.
My opinion on coarse versus granular is that coarse is just fine for shorter RPGs that can be completed within 30 hours or so but really doesn't feel all that great with longer ones. There might not be much of an effect per point when you go from 1-100 or higher, but it feels good to put points into things at regular intervals.
 

darkpatriot

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I'm personally not even a fan of a 1-100% skill scale, but if you are going to do it, making it even higher and more granular just makes it worse. And it isn't primarily about intuitiveness, although that is a secondary concern. The problem is the difference between 55%-56% is not noticeable and it is wasted granularity. Character development and customization options should have a much larger impact.

However regarding intuitiveness, your skill value should not be presented as a percentage success chance anyway. Because as you mentioned, other factors should affect how hard or easy a task is, not just your skill %. And if you express it as a percentage, it makes it sound like that should be the percentage to succeed. If you have a 60% skill, it is can be very unintuitive if you are only hitting 20% of the time because of other factors.

I would rather see the scale go 1-5 than 1-100, although 1-10 or 1-20 or whatever else might also work. And I think 1-20 is probably already getting to the limit of how granular it should be. And really a 20 scale is only really desirable if you are talking about tabletop and an actual 1d20 die roll which lines up nicely with a 1-10 or 1-20 scale, representing a 5% increased chance to succeed.
My opinion on coarse versus granular is that coarse is just fine for shorter RPGs that can be completed within 30 hours or so but really doesn't feel all that great with longer ones. There might not be much of an effect per point when you go from 1-100 or higher, but it feels good to put points into things at regular intervals.

That's an angle I hadn't considered, but even then I think 1-20 is more than adequate for that. That is also assuming they are using a multitude of skills so you aren't always just increasing the same one constantly.

You can also track experience towards the next skill level if you want steady frequent rewards with lower granularity. I especially like when early levels are easier to gain requiring less experience, but the later levels take considerable investment so it feels special to max out or almost max out a skill.
 

Saint_Proverbius

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But if you are talking about a CRPG that isn't simulating dice rolls, I think the value for highest skill should generally be somewhere around 4-10.
I'm not sure why. The main reason most tabletop RPGs have low values for skills and attributes is due to the dice.
 

darkpatriot

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But if you are talking about a CRPG that isn't simulating dice rolls, I think the value for highest skill should generally be somewhere around 4-10.
I'm not sure why. The main reason most tabletop RPGs have low values for skills and attributes is due to the dice.

For the reason I stated, so each skill level increase is impactful. It also makes designing, balancing, and explaining it to the player easier.
 

YourMomsHouse

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Is the first one even worth playing...? I got it for free and it has been sitting in my Steam library for quite some time, untouched like a fat ugly kid in a Roman Catholic Sunday school program. It just screams "Made By a Self-Impressed Blue Haired Faggot"
 

Cheesedragon117

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Meh, it really depends on how much you liked New Vegas and the Bethesda Fallouts. If you weren't all that fond of them then it's gonna be a pass. If you've beaten NV multiple times and are itching for something, anything similar, then it's worth a try.
 

Saint_Proverbius

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For the reason I stated, so each skill level increase is impactful. It also makes designing, balancing, and explaining it to the player easier.
In the case of SPECIAL, and honestly a LOT of the games that have skill systems like SPECIAL with a 0-100+ system(TOW for example), it allows for your intelligence to have a bigger impact on how you can choose how skills raise each level. As much as I like 3.5E D&D and Pathfinder, the contrast between the impact of how you can fine tune skills with your intelligence bonus between the two demonstrates why an expanded system is better. With 3.5E, you can raise a few skills 5% each. With systems like SPECIAL, you get 10+ points you can do whatever with. How much difference is there between two level 5 fighter subclasses with 13 intelligence in 3.5E in terms of skills is there? Probably not much because they only get 2 points and limited skill choices. Meanwhile, you can have a pretty big variance with two level 5 melee characters in Fallout that have a 6 INT.
 
Unwanted

Sweeper

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This is a good example of CRPG cargo cult design: focusing on importing the entirety of GURPS: Locksmithing into your game instead of thinking about the depth of interaction.
There was actually a discussion on this in the shoutbox, and I got some push back on why it's better to have skills above 100%. I really should have said that if you take someone that can pick a lock every single time, you could say that he has a 100% lockpick skill, because he can do it every single time. Now turn off the lights in the room and see what happens. Now shoot at him while he's trying to pick that lock. Or punch him while he's picking the lock. Now pick the lock underwater. There are a number of circumstances above and beyond just the skill of the guy versus the difficulty of the lock that can affect that guy's ability to open it. His skill with the lock hasn't changed. The lock didn't change. The circumstances around picking the lock have changed.

This is for Roguey and darkpatriot who were two of the ones that seemed to thing 100% should be 100% because it's not intuitive enough otherwise.
I'm gonna have to side with Roguey here (may Allah forgive me). Ideally, 100% should be 100%, and if there are any penalties to skills like picking a lock in a dark area the player should be given tools to illuminate the area and remove the penalty.
Allowing the player to pump the skill past 100 isn't a product of genius design, it's a product of laziness (and budget constraints).
The same goes for combat skills tbh. You aren't going to improve your chance to hit an enemy in pitch blackness by becoming more proficient in a weapon, but by using NVGs, flares, tracer ammo, what have you.
RPGs are a simulation, so simulate damn it.
 

Saint_Proverbius

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and if there are any penalties to skills like picking a lock in a dark area the player should be given tools to illuminate the area and remove the penalty.
There's still people who can do it without needing a flashlight. Not only can they pick the lock every single time, their skill is beyond being able to do it every single time(aka 100%).
 
Unwanted

Sweeper

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and if there are any penalties to skills like picking a lock in a dark area the player should be given tools to illuminate the area and remove the penalty.
There's still people who can do it without needing a flashlight. Not only can they pick the lock every single time, their skill is beyond being able to do it every single time(aka 100%).
Sure, but allowing the player to counteract negative conditions adds more depth and leads to an ultimately more intuitive system.
Having an arbitrary number over 100, I don't see what that accomplishes or why it's better.
 

Gargaune

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Eh, looks like it's time for me to engage in my semi-annual partial defense of Fo4. It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it.

Which is part of the problem with Fallout 4's plot. Right out of the gate, they shoehorn you in to the role of being a parent with a new born. They went even further by establishing the background for both the male and female character, which has no tie in with the game beyond, "This is Dick and Nora's background!"
This is part of Bethesda's differing strategies for their Elder Scrolls and Fallout IPs. The former is their freeform roleplaying sandbox, whereas with the latter they tried to move towards tighter storytelling aided by a predefined PC, as we saw in both Fo3 and Fo4. They failed, because Bethesda's allergic to Microsoft Word and every other implement of literary expression, but that's the idea behind the structure.

It's a business strategy to diversify your portfolio and cover more ground, as some players will prefer freeform characters, others want stronger drama. CDPR tried to do the reverse, moving from The Witcher, centred on, uh, the witcher, to Cyberpunk's more open protagonist... and they also failed, with V feeling even more restrictive than Geralt, albeit for different reasons.

It gets even more stupid at the cryo vault when they shoot your spouse once you realize what the plot is. In fact, it's stupid they didn't take EVERYONE from that vault given the plot. It's not like the Enclave in Fallout 2 didn't take everyone from Vault 13 and everyone from Arroyo.
This isn't that egregious as plot holes go. The Institute's priority is only the infant at the time, the PC is specifically referred to as "the backup" and successfully put back on ice, though there is a legitimate question why the other spouse doesn't get similar consideration. Kellogg shooting them could be passed off as losing his temper, but it would be at odds with the rest of his characterisation so the absence of an explanation is a mark against Bethesda.

I don't recall whether the rest of the cryo subjects had already expired or they did so later, as a result of the Institute's tampering, but they clearly weren't relevant to that project and Vault 111 was already a pretty secure refrigerator for the one remaining backup. The safest play would've indeed been to take the other spouse too, but maybe they wanted to keep them pickled and didn't have cryo tubes lying around at home, you can come up with passable excuses.
 

YourMomsHouse

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I hate to ask...but is Avowed worth playing?
No. But for what it's worth I've heard it's better than TOW. As bad as I imagine Avowed to be, I honestly can't fathom it being worse than TOW.

TOW just seemed came off as very cringy and too simplistic. Is the combat in Avowed at least visceral and does it have actual role-playing elements?
 

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