Skilling Systems

[Tarq 746]

So, skilling (mining, cooking, fishing, crafting) systems are a pretty common request around the forums. They seem kind of basic and stale to me; the most common forms of diversity I see in these systems are reskins (systems that functionally demand the same of the user but just have different inputs and outputs) or just increasing quantity (why catch five different fish when you could catch ten!).

So I'd like to see if we can take skilling in a new direction; to have it be more than 'extra content'. But to do that I need to understand what it is that players who currently enjoy these systems find appealing and what it is that people who don't like them think they are missing.

 

All responses are appreciated

[Makara 96]

I used to play WoW, and those systems, or professions as I like to call them are pretty much of a grind in my point of view.

You could make them into a mini-game put many people have done that already.

 

Honestly, if it's a long game then grinding materials in order to fabricate items like armor and weapons sounds good. Maybe make it go further than just those kinds of items then.

Toys? A necessary item to the story which could be decided depending on which professions the character took? Or make the whole game about the system in itself like... a miner trapped in a mine and he has to mine his way out of them mine while using the mined ore to give him powers to defeat monsters he'll find on the way because he bumps into an ancient elven mine from 1000 years ago or something?

 

To resume, if the game is quite long and has a lot of exploration, a grind would be nice in order to make the player more attached to the game, in my taste.

Else make it a necessary mini-game in order to progress. Heck, the game would be about fishing competitions or so and it would all depend on how good the player is at the mini-game!

[Kayzee 4,032]

Are you more talking about the ability to interact with the world to do things like that or the tiered advancement systems of skill levels? Either way, it probably depends mostly on how the skills complement the rest of the gameplay and how they change the dynamic of obtaining items.

 

Take a typical survival game for example. Practically the whole of the gameplay in most of them revolves around finding basic resources in the environment and using them to craft tools and/or prepare meals that you need to survive, often with some sort of hunger meter or other time limit mechanic which forces you to prioritize tasks. If skills have levels they often serve to let you specialize in particular tasks, giving you some freedom to build your character in different ways. It's always nice I think to give the player more to do and aspire to then just combat and to give them options for how to handle situations.

 

On the other hand, just putting a gathering/crafting subsystem or something like that in a normal RPG that already has things like shops, treasure chests, and rare drops can feel kinda unnecessary or ruin the balance. There are still reasons to do it though, and it can be used in a different manner and/or to do different things. Normal crafting, possibly from dropped monster parts or gathered resources or even normal items, can be useful for getting more out of less useful items but unless it's worth enough to do so rather then finding/buying items normally and balanced to both keep you from abusing it can be pointless or break the game. Having skills to customize, fuse, upgrade, and/or repair equipment can be interesting, but those might require more in depth scripting/plugins to really feel like something that stands out.

 

But all I have said also assumes you are talking purely on gathering and crafting skills. There are also on-map skills like picking locks, picking pockets, disarming traps, climbing some areas, jumping over pits, and so on that aren't crafting related and just let you do extra interactions. All sorts of extra skills can be used in conversation too, or for haggling on items. There is no reason why there can't be battle skills too, like passive effects or new sets of moves. I have even seen a few games with navigation skills that help you on the world map to move through rough terrain easier. There can be lore skills that let use your knowledge on a subject to get clues or solve puzzles or learn more about monsters and items.

 

Games can use skill systems in all sorts of ways, but I think it's worth thinking about exactly why and how skills are going to be used and their impact on the core gameplay. I like games with skill systems and all sorts of skills to learn, but they need to be well thought out to work. It's a lot of work to do it right, but worth it if you do! :3

 

Edit: On the subject of grinding and mini-games, for me long mindless interactions that are done over and over and over are never enjoyable or necessary. I like a little randomness, but I don't think a game should be a skinner box gambling machine. Mini-games on the other hand I also don't tend to like because they usually interrupt the flow of the game and tend to be needlessly arcadey and either way too hard or way too easy. I much prefer personally to have skills be more tactical, such as mining and woodcutting taking x amount of time or draining x stamina or hunger, perhaps both. I rather you have to think about where and when to use a skill and what situation you are in then have to complete an arbitrary challenge each time. Though there is room for both in some cases (such as the way lockpicking works in several games where you are presented by a usually easy minigame, but also have to worry about the noise you make solving it alerting nearby guards).

Edited October 8, 2016 by KilloZapit

[Guyver 65]

I prefer the term "professions" because the old  die hard wow player in me still isn't dead yet. The reason most crafting systems are reskins, at least in my opinion, is because they're just super basic in general. A lot of side progression in my game is tied to crafting and flows fairly well. You'll gather the materials along the way to level up the professions, even if you fail and get broken down materials like slag or tattered scraps you can still use them to craft other things and still get exp out of them. I don't really make the player go out of their way to level it unless they choose to.
 I'm currently using venkas crafting script at the moment and I have seven total professions right now which include:

Cooking (many recipes provide excellent combat buffs)

Fishing

Harvesting (lumber and fruit which are tied to other professions)

Mining

Blacksmithing

Tailoring

Alchemy (you can craft a lot of items to help you in and out of combat, advanced potions, stat boosts, grenades, etc)

 

At some point you're tasked with finding a master alchemist, chef, tailor and blacksmith for your village. The craftsmen won't even talk to you unless you're crafting level is 25+(the max being 50) so before you recruit them you have to keep up with your crafting. After you recruit them, they'll teach you some more advanced recipes to help you along with leveling the professions and when you reach level 40 they'll teach you even more and so on until 50. At 50 the tailor and blacksmith will teach you to make the master craft tier armor which you'll need later.

 

You'll come across a class hall in the game, and there will be masters there representing specific classes, or archtypes of classes and they'll reward you with class souls if you've mastered the the class and pass the conditional branch checks. You'll learn new recipes for a class specific weapon and armor, which will require the master craft armor from the tailor and blacksmith. So if you want your class/archtype specific armor that upgrades your existing skills and gives you new abilities you'll have to get in depth with the crafting system.

 

I try and give people as much reason as I can to use the crafting system without absolutely forcing people to use it unless they want a cheaper and easier set of armor to get, rather than stealing it from the enemies in each area as they progress.

[Disponi 18]

To me, a good subsystem is about resource management and decision making. One of my favorite crafting systems was in Grandia III (a game which did a lot of things great, but got so much more wrong): in it, you had these things called Mana Eggs, which you could either equip in order to power up your elemental spells OR destroy them in order to acquire equippable spells. To add another wrinkle, later on you gain access to a machine that can fuse together Mana Eggs in order to create more powerful ones -- which you can then equip, destroy for magic or use for more fusions. One resource, multiple uses, all yielding tangible, useful rewards.

[+ Gongorro 2]

I remeber playing an rpg game with crafting in it, dont remever which one it was, but i really didnt focus too much on it, even thou it was a neat and cool idea, but for an rpg i really dont expect it and it really wasnt the best crafting system from what i can remeber. i am putting something similare into my game as well, but nothing to that extent. Mine is kind of like ff8, where you just have 1 wep, and you can upgrade it with minerals that you can either mine, drops,or buy. But thats about it, nothing to the extreme. Skilling would be something cool thou, could have a big impact on games and you can do a lot with skilling. For example using a sword you get points into it, and increase your dmg output from using it, and it would intress a lot of people considering that having something to look forward to with battleing (which is about 80% of rpgs) makes it more fun and would make peoplw play it more. Other skilling are great too, like cooking or crafting, sometimes i rather just make things in the game instead if finding it as drops from monsters. I do think that fiahing is a great mini game and if you have it in your game its a plus, cause its a nice break away from the acual game. I am for the skilling, i think it would bring a little bit of unqiuness in the community. Sorry for the randomness of my post. Im posting on my phone so no proof reading.