Birth Skill

Birth Skill would be a major feature in the game, because not only does it allow the player to feel like they are actually doing something in the game, rather than just existing and playing it.

As mentioned in the concept post, it allows players to combine and create a skill of their own. They can name it however they wish, not offensively of course, and most important of all, the kind of skill they want to have and use in a game.

"... you feel like there is a power within you. You need to spend time, alone, and train to unravel it..."

Despite that, I do not think it is appropriate for a player to fully unleash the potential of the skill at the start of the game. Instead, a series of checks and progress would be implemented, to ensure that the power of their skills are in tandem with their appropriate level.

Imagine that a player had picked out the combination they like, A. Those combination are made up of components, and depending on the effect that the component can affect, they are given a certain number of points. Now, A costs 50 points.

These points must belong to a group that is hard to be obtained. A player should not need to go out of his way to get them and finally, must be given a trade off to choose, as the underlying game principle is based on that.

So, let's call it Super Points. This Super Points is so useful, that it can also be used to gain new attributes, learn new skills etc. It is superior than general points.

The only way that I can think of to get those Super Points, which fulfills the required criteria, is through level ups. I decided to make levels to be something that has to be achieved. Assuming that a player has the required experience points, he would now need to undertake an exam, by upon completion, he would get to increase his level. Along with that, Super Points are given. With these points, it is up to him to spend it to gain more attributes, or learn a new skill, amongst other things. It is because with the leveling up, other points such as general points are also given. Thus, the trade off exists.

Back to the Birth Skill, A needs 50 super points to be learnt completely. Let's say it is made up of components that requires 25 points, 15 points and 10 points. The player would need to 'invest' 25(max of all components) points into it. Then the game would randomly choose a component to be learnt. Assuming that 10 points was used up, then the 15 points unused would remain until another 10 points is 'invested', providing another chance to get another component.

This way, progress is made.

However, if a player decided that he needs to change the components. He would first need to acquire a component, before he is allowed to change one other component to which he desires.

Finally, upon mastering the birth skill, he can proceed to build another skill, but that chance can only be given when he 'invests' the total amount of the original birth skill. Upon meeting that condition, the points would be traded for an additional slot, and the process repeats again.

Concept

I would like to first differentiate 2 things about skills: Player Skills and Character Skills. Player skills are those inherent within the player, which allows him to extract the potential of the game character he is playing. Wherever Character skills are given to the character that is being played, to define itself from other game characters.

A good game that requires player skills are in my opinion, the Metal Gear Solid series.

However, character skills is what I'm referring to for this area.

First off, I find that requiring a player to choose a class before he even get to play or familiarize with the game will result that he would restart again, because his preconceptions about the class were not attainable. Also, he may also restart again, due to the belief that another class is superior than others. Or simply, he wants to try other classes. Regardless of the reasons, the only players that remains playing are those which the game had clicked with them. In these cases, the number of players are substantially narrowed.

In the upcoming skill sets that I'm going to put up later, it would be riding on the general trend of open-based skills, though mine may differ a lot.

The concept I had in mind is that there would be a total of nine grand sets. Within the grand set, there would be a number of smaller sets. Cutting across those smaller sets, are 7 tiers.

Imagine a black background, with 6 lines cutting across from left to right. The lowest tier is larger than most, signifying the numerous basic skills. Upon learning the basic skills, one may move up the tier, all the way to Tier 7. From here, upon meeting certain conditions, one may proceed to the next grand set, symbolize through a purple background. And the cycle repeats.

Within the black grand set, the skills dotting everywhere are actually affiliated with a certain class ie. Mage or Knight. The skills that are learnt would define the player into those classes, however, since it is not forbidden to learn anything else, one could possibly come up with an Eldritch Knight (Battle Mage). With so many known classes out there, players are allowed to pick and choose their skills, allowing them the opportunity to mould their dream character.

The grand sets signifies a mindset. For example, people could never imagine that a sword could slice through concrete, because it has been tried and proven. However, if someone who has advanced far enough, he may have acquired the ability to slice concrete. I want to signify that through the grand sets.

As with any game, there will always be a group of people who would scrutinize the skills, to come up with the best superior character.

In order to prevent the players from churning out generic characters, I would introduce Birth Skill. This skill is chosen during the creation of their character. The player would be given the range of components that makes up a skill (eg. 100% more damage, Area of Effect, Slow etc). He can select, choose and combine however he likes. Following that, he may name the skill he created. This way, numerous unique skills would appear in a game, allowing the game to be very exciting, because there are more to see with every new player.

Coming to the technical part, how do one learn skills and how are skills treated? A brief recap to attributes, a player may gain attribute points through battle experience, training or participation in production skills. Some of those points are given immediately upon completion, while general points are given for some. Those general points gained are used to learn skills. This would result in an opportunity cost for players, to choose between attribute points and skills.

Here, skills do not have multiple levels to signify mastery. Instead, a scaling is used. Using a story line to illustrate, assuming that the skill Dagger Throw is learned. The player is able to unleash that skill as it is, competently. However, as he uses the skill more often, he latently improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the skill, delivering quality throws. After some time, he mastered it, dealing exceptional skill level.

In technical terms, it boils down to experience points, skill wise. He is given 50 points upon learning it, which decays at 1 point per 3 hours, returning him the general point used upon expiring. If he likes the skill, he would gain 1 experience point per use, where it would no longer decay upon 100 exp points. From here on out, all characters in the game who have this skill, would have their exp points scaled. With the top 1% achieving the Titan title, with the corresponding bonuses to the skill, while the rest are divided according to certain range ( eg. 45% - 55%. 55% - 60% etc), achieving specified title with their bonuses. The bonuses for the best titles would be able to outdo competent skills of 2 tiers above, thus giving players the incentive to train. On an unrelated note, an opponent, although would be notified of the skill being used at him, who never know the strength of their opponents until they receive a blow from it.

Finally, to encourage distinct characters, upon reaching the next tier, all skills of the previous tier could no longer be learned. However, depending on the skill chosen to learn in the new tier, and based on the majority of the skills learnt below, same types of skills (eg. Sword / Physical) in the lower tier would gain experience faster. Also, other types of related skills (eg. Sword / ? or ? / Physical) can still be learned, if haven't, but would require significantly more points. And unrelated skills can no longer be gained.

This would not create a fixed route for players, because the skill sets would be a complex web of pre-requisites. Many ways would open to branch out to other class areas. With the conditions that a skill can be learnt as long as the majority of pre-requisites are met, and also that a player can backtrack to learn the pre-requisites, it is possible for a person at Tier 5 to go back all the way to learn skills at Tier 1.

This concept could be very difficult to implement in reality. But with time and effort, it can be done.

How armor should work

Games these days treat armor quite differently from real life.

Citing an example, the armor value are usually translated into a percentage. It implicates that no matter how strong or weak the attack is, whether it is a cannon ball or a poke from the table knife, the damage being taken is reduced by half, even if the person is wearing plate armor.

Now that is ridiculous. Any normal human being would die from a direct cannon hit, and please do not tell me that a plate armor cannot completely negate a slash from a table knife.

Perhaps, the reasoning behind such mechanics is to keep armor consistent and useful from early game to end game, and although some games introduces a modification that improves the percentage against lower levels, I think this system removes common sense and intuition.

Instead, armor should have both fixed and percentage defense value. The fixed value would negate damage such as subtraction from inflicted damage. While the other value would work in the same way as before.

But the change is not just that simple. Every non-magically modified armor would only have that fixed value. So a chain mail is effective against a dagger, as a plate mail is effective against a short sword. However, a short sword would be effective against a chain mail, but not as much as a claymore.

The percentage defense value shall be treated as an add-on over armor as above, written as "Decrease Physical Harm - 2%". That means regardless of the incoming damage, it would be reduced by 2% due to the inherent magical properties.

This additional effect shall differentiate armor from its similar types, rather than from the current practice, where difference are only substantially noticeable when compared against another type. This is what I believe games should have, the mechanics where similar objects, can be vastly different.

The interdependence of attributes

There are 9 attributes listed : Strength, Intelligence, Constitution, Dexterity, Vitality, Stamina, Agility, Wisdom and Luck.

In each interdependence link, I write about its logic, its implementation, justifications (which for both of them, the first passage covers for most of the links) and a logical trade off.

First interdependence link:
Strength - Constitution and Vitality.
Imagine a brittle tiny child, swinging a huge axe left to right. The first thing that comes to mind is that the child is hurting himself by doing something beyond his capability. That is what this link is all about.

Strength should be in tandem with constitution (think muscles) and vitality (think body). Eg. 50 Str 30 Con 20 Vit.

Any points beyond that would be translated in damage which hurts the character.

What is the justification for this? At first glance, this link is both unnecessary and stupid in traditional games. I seek to explain this below.

My first reasoning for this is to introduce a hint to the players, that they would face risks of gimping their character in the future. When they would earn attribute points less quickly later, the time needed to spend on correcting it would be long and suffering.

The second reasoning is to introduce tactics. When a player meets someone who looks weak but wields a disproportionate weapon, they could wait until he weakens himself before finishing him off. (It might be possible to compute body size and features to their underlying attributes.)

Basically, I want bring in the concept of opportunity costs, or trade offs. A player who goes overboard will truly be unique and powerful, in exchange for less survivability. It may appeal to some players who loves to deal huge damage, and so long as he is able to win before he wears himself out, he would be happy.

Intelligence - Stamina and Vitality
Intelligence refers to the capability to wield magic, regardless what kind it is, be it dark. holy, elemental or spirits. As Stamina forms to replace cool downs, having a proper amount is needed to use magic over an extended time. And finally, Vitality, as always, is the body's ability to perform.

Justification as above.

Constitution - Vitality and Stamina
I guess this is pretty straightforward. But what happens if they aren't in tandem? It makes no sense to get hurt wouldn't it?

Back to common sense and imagination, anyone would assume that a huge thing, those bigger than vehicles or houses, would move very slowly in comparison to a child hobbit who could sneak and run off like thieves.

In that sense, the penalty would be reduced speeds, movement, attack and others.

Dexterity - Agility and Stamina.
Dexterity is the quickness of the hands to use weapons masterfully. As such, the body must be quick (Agility) and a sudden burst of movements drains the body of stamina. Think in the sense that when we say a person is dexterous, we meant his fingers and hands, while agility refers to the limbs of the body, it would make this passage more easily understood.

Let's imagine when Bruce Lee swung his nunchaku around his body and under his arms, if his body(arms) weren't fast enough to catch and dodge the nunchaku, he would have lots more bruises everywhere. As we all know. bruises can be easily ignored until we feel the pain. And we usually feel the pain whenever we want to do something other than basic body movements. Formulating on this, a reduction of skill level is proposed. It is relevant because to a quick and nimble person, what matters to them are their skills.

Vitality - Wisdom and Stamina
It is like stating the obvious, to have a strong body that provides energy, one must have the wisdom to eat the proper foods and to exercise regularly.

So if someone who takes his vitality for granted, and does not take steps to keep it functioning well, the body would soon fail him one day, sooner than later. However, it would be extreme to kill the character for exceeding the cap. Instead, the regeneration it gets from the attribute would be limited to the maximum of Wisdom and Stamina.

Side note: It would be interesting to see healers - who focus on Wisdom, may opt of a lot of Vitality to capitalize on huge regeneration speed rather than Constitution for HP.

Stamina - Strength and Intelligence
I chose Stamina to replace cool downs, and the skills who uses the stamina bars, derives it's damage mainly from Str and Int. So, this link should be obviously needed.

It is inappropriate to levy a penalty for having too many Stamina points. The reason being that, if he have too many points, it is already suffering by dealing low damage through skills.

However, this link should still have something relevant to prove its existence. One such method would be to have skills cost less Stamina points, for every tier (range to be decided) which Stamina exceeds Str and Int combined.

This is something like reverse psychology. A player may want to enjoy that benefit, in which case he would bind himself into low but frequent damage output. Which could be a penalty since fights do not last very long.

Agility - Stamina and Wisdom
I cannot really explain the reasoning behind Wisdom in the logical sense, other than that one must know how to utilize body momentum to move around quickly. The actual reason for that is to induce healers to also take up Agility, to substitute their fragile selves with a good chance at running and escaping from danger zones.

Having too much Agility should sap Stamina points. That is understandable, especially after asking a marathon runner to sprint than jog/run the whole length instead.

Wisdom - Intelligence and Vitality
First and foremost, I must explain that I view that Wisdom comes from using power correctly. So, Int comes before Wisdom, of which Int bases itself on Vitality. Thus, Wisdom is based on Int and Vit.

We usually call those hermits who live away from villages as sages, people of great wisdom and for some, they were said that they could even see the future. These hermits avoids material wealth and power, for they are illusions in the grand truth about the world.

For a character who have become very wise ( frankly, more than Int and Vit), they would have reduced defense. ( Interesting and weird penalty IMO)

Luck would not have any interdependence links, because I intend it to be the wild card, to represent the random and unexpected things.

In a brief recap, the links are:
Strength - Constitution and Vitality
Intelligence - Stamina and Vitality
Constitution - Vitality and Stamina
Dexterity - Agility and Stamina.
Vitality - Wisdom and Stamina
Stamina - Strength and Intelligence
Agility - Stamina and Wisdom
Wisdom - Intelligence and Vitality

Str (1x), Int (2x), Con (1x), Dex (0x), Vit (4x), Sta (5x), Agi (1x), Wis (2x).

That line above shows how many times each were used to cap others.

Dexterity is not used at all. It's because having too much of it will result in characters attacking super fast, and also of Opportunity Strike which mimics Critical Strike. It would result in possibly imbalanced characters.

Str, Con and Agi were used once. In most cases, physical attacks contributes most of the dealt damage, so they are important enough already. In my opinion, having too much health defeats most of the hard worked efforts put into choosing and learning skills, and also reduces reliance on teamwork. As for Agility, quick movements should belong to the realm of players who are fragile but are good in skills, and not for lazy players.

Int and Wis are needed twice. Since I intend to pit them against each other, it is appropriate that both gets the same amount of representation. Int are needed in Sta and Wis. Wis are needed in Vit and Agility. INT - This may result in mages having extended amount of battle time (Sta) or casting amazing holy spells (Wis). WIS - We may see healers being able to heal consistently without running out of mana (Vit) and being able to keep themselves alive (Agi). I believe that the allocation are placed nicely, in that they really provide and define mages and healers as they are.

Vit and Sta are needed most widely. As for Vit, because I had taken the regeneration away from other attributes (mainly HP from Con and MP from Int), it is required that their importance is returned by being used widely. The same reasoning applies for Sta, because all skills shares the same cool down pool, aka stamina bar. VIT - are properly spread out between melee and spell users. Sta - are widely spread out among those who uses skills often, with both Con and Vit needing Stamina to ensure that everyones would get it too. In addition to that, Stamina is linked directly to the 'damage' attributes, Str and Int.

Attribute

I'm done with the concept, so here are the more detailed opinion. To start of first, I find it too simplifying to reduce a human into 4 to 6 attributes, it feels... demeaning. Not only that, the lack of interdependence between them presents the characters as 'parts of a machine'. Actually, it's worse than that because every part of a machine relies on the other parts to perform.

What I like to see.. is that the attributes have a direct link to complement and synergize each other.
First is to deal with the most basic of them:

Strength The physical part of the character, symbolizing its capability to carry objects such as weapons, armors, backpacks etc. It is measures the physical damage it is able to inflict.

Porting it over to gaming terms,
1. A main over-encompassing factor in deciding physical damage.

Intelligence The mind power, most used to describe the capacity to understand magic. However, it should be more than that. With a better brain, would he not learn skills with ease? With a quick thinking mind, would she not be able to decide the best course of action?

Thus,
1. The main factor in deciding magical damage.
2. Faster growth in rising up the skill ladder. (Check skill concept)

Constitution The body. The summation of the muscles, joints and bones. In other words, capacity.

In that regards,
1. Measurement for health points.
2. Measurement for mana points. (In the view that casting magic hurts the body.)

Dexterity The ability to utilize an item. For example, how Bruce Lee is able to keep the nunchaku revolving around his body. More specifically, the sharpness in the utilization. Many games tried to symbolize that through critical rates, which in my opinion, an inappropriate word for its effects.
Porting,
1. A secondary factor in deciding physical damage.
2. Opportunity Strike - is the better word. The character is able to take advantage of 'openings', to strike for additional damage. Critical (point) strike, would be the better word to describe acts from martial training.
3. A factor in increasing attack speed.

Then to more uncommon attributes.

Vitality I believe this should be defined separately from Constitution. Whenever someone mentions that a person have great vitality, it usually refers to their capacity to survive over the long term.

1. Affects regeneration. (HP, MP etc)

Stamina Instead, this word refers to the capacity a person have in the short term before he gets exhausted.

1. A stamina bar. (To substitute cool down times.)

Agility Whereas Dexterity affects the speed and mastery over a weapon, Agility is about the speed of the body.

1. Quicker walk movements.
2. A factor in attack speed.

Wisdom Heals and buffs are a major factor in team play. As such, it is appropriate to allocate an attribute for that. Care must be taken that any party it does not force a healer to have max Wisdom.

1. Increases heals and buffs abilities and range.
2. Increases holy/divine powers.

Luck It is hard to quantify luck in real life, but there is no denying it either. Luck is basically the unexpected things, be it good or bad.

1. Separate count for hit, dodge, block, critical rate etc.