Make sure skills are useful

[Hell Razor]

One of the few things I was disappointed with in Wasteland was that so many of the coolest skills in character creation were of little value.

There was forgery, bomb disarm, alarm disarm, metallurgy, picklock, safecracking, etc. Lots of cool sounding stuff. You could use up two or three entire character slots just trying to make sure your party had sufficient levels of these awesome-sounding skills. My early attempts at the game would often have a "criminal mind" with lockpick, safecrack, and forgery, and an "engineer" with metallurgy, bomb disarm, and alarm disarm.

But, most of these skills only had like 1 - 3 places in the entire game where they could be used. So there was little chance to level them up, and little need to have them to begin with. In most cases with bomb disarm, you could just take the damage instead. It was always more fun to fight the guards than to try to disarm the one or two alarms in the game. And you could just use STR on a door at no cost, or a LAW rocket, instead of picking the lock. And there was often a chance to solve a situation just using CHR or INT instead.

The less interesting "scout" skills of perception, climb, and swim, on the other hand, were practically invaluable and necessary everywhere. When all's said and done, there was scarcely any room for combat skills in my party.

And don't get me started on combat shooting. I tried for months to figure out what that skill did, and giving all my characters some of it for good measure, before eventually deciding that it must not do anything.

So anyway, I would have definitely loved to see some more in-depth content available for cool skills like forgery and metallurgy and alarm disarm. Don't tease me with such a nerdgasm as a "metallurgy" skill if there's only like one cave in the beginning of the game where you can use it to get some sort-of-valuable minerals or something.

[Roger Wilco]

Agreed. Though, keep in mind Wasteland 1 was one of the first games to even attempt to have so many non-combat skills to begin with. They were being revolutionary by having them in at all.

But the way skills were used and number of problems could certainly use a major overhaul.

In another thread the idea of non-violent random encounters was brought up and I'd like to reiterate the idea there that, if resources allow it would be nice if many of these skills could have random encounters associated with their use in addition to set places in the game to use them.

[tootboot]

I agree, I'm always really annoyed when there are redundant skills in a game. Lockpicking just isn't that good in Skyrim, for instance, since almost all chests are low level, and if you do bother to blow 20 picks on a high level chest it may not even be worth it.

Same basic thing in Fallout 3 with lockpicking, I was really fascinated by that locked model house that required 100 lockpicking to open. Finally got a character with 100 lockpicking, went there, and there was basically nothing inside but a relatively small amount of bottlecaps.

[Tanglebones]

There was forgery, bomb disarm, alarm disarm, metallurgy, picklock, safecracking, etc. Lots of cool sounding stuff. You could use up two or three entire character slots just trying to make sure your party had sufficient levels of these awesome-sounding skills. My early attempts at the game would often have a "criminal mind" with lockpick, safecrack, and forgery, and an "engineer" with metallurgy, bomb disarm, and alarm disarm.

I did the same thing! I loved that WL had so many skills, and I always made sure to pick thematically appropriate ones for my rangers, so I'd have the suave talkey guy, the demolitionist, the cat burglar... I certainly hope that WL2 comes with lots of skills again! But like the OP, I'd like to use my skills in a lot of different situations, and I'd like to see them be more broadly applicable.

I had an idea about this that I've put up in comments on the Google moderator site, but not on the forums yet. I was wondering if it'd work to have certain skills give bonuses to other skills, like, for example, if you had 50% picklock, you'd also get a 5% bonus to safecracking. This would (1.) give a benefit to players who wanted to create "specialists" without harshly penalizing players who just wanted to choose cool skills, and (2.) would ensure that even if you weren't using a skill to accomplish some task right then, it'd still potentially be useful to have levels in it. There could also be certain combat bonuses carrying over from non combat skills (so that, for example, the science specialist isn't too weak compared to the demolitions expert in combat)... an example of this could be that safecracking gives you steadier hands so you have 1% better aim with handguns. (Of course, this mechanic would mean that you'd have to have an "actual" skill level and an "effective" skill level... since you wouldn't want the 5% bonus to safecracking from picklock to also grant a bonus to some third skill).

That said, I'm kinda hoping that "Combat Shooting" is the Kickstarter reward skill. And I'm kinda hoping it's just about as useful as it was in the original

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

Making skills useful can be as easy as giving you someplace or some way in the game to use them.

I am going to go out on a limb and use the dreaded "sim" word.

Every computer game is a simulation. Wasteland is really a lot of different games when you break it down into parts. It's a combat simulation. It's an exploration simulation. It's a character simulation. The chopper simulation in Wasteland is a chopper simulation simulation. It's also a puzzle game. These are all typical sub-games of the usual RPG.

My vision of Wasteland 2 is a 2D world but you also have multiple screens like an inventory, a party management screen, and maybe others. You can see your weapons and gear and dress your characters in the inventory screen. In the party management screen, you can see talking heads and full body illustrations of your party members and you can do interesting things with your characters.

You increase your exploration skills out exploring the world, you increase your combat skills by fighting enemies, and you increase your personal skills by managing your squad of Rangers and other recruits. The only things different from Wasteland is that the number of skills are increased and the party is more fleshed out.

Maybe the skills are not divided up like that into strict exploration, combat, personal, this is just an overview. Any skill or skill combination could have an effect on your party; and fighting and working together can also strengthen your party's abilities. Part of the fun would be to figure out how your skill mix affects the characters.

A fleshed out character interface gives you more story and more opportunities to use your skills. You reprimand one of your party members, there's a skill check. You fail and the party member might leave your party, you succeed and your characters gain experience. It's no different in fact from walking around the map finding places to raise your climb and your swim skills, but a slightly different interface.

[krellen]

Making skills useful can be as easy as giving you someplace or some way in the game to use them.

A skill usable in one place, and only one place, is a "useless" skill. I'm not sure on a clear number of a minimum number of uses before a skill is no longer "useless", but I'd say it should have a use in at least 1-5% of the game to qualify.

[Oesophagus]

I always thought that if a skill seems useless, then it's not necessarily the fault of the skill itself, but possibly of the game design. I've never found the explosives skill useful in any of the Fallouts, but when you think about it, in a post-apoc setting this would be a really useful thing to master. Same goes for traps.

[Proton Axeman]

I'm fine with there being useless skills so long as the player should be able to reasonably guess that such skills are not going to be useful.

Throw in an Underwater Basket Weaving skill if you like; just don't make it central to a major quest, because that's out of left field and it's up to the player to not be a fool. Likewise, don't throw in a load of modern weapon skills into a game, but nothing more advanced than swords, because again that makes pretty much no sense unless you're modern people time-traveling naked into a primitive one (in which, again, you'd be a damn fool for choosing those skills and should be punished accordingly rather than accommodated).

[Drool]

A skill usable in one place, and only one place, is a "useless" skill. I'm not sure on a clear number of a minimum number of uses before a skill is no longer "useless", but I'd say it should have a use in at least 1-5% of the game to qualify.

Yes and no. Clone Tech, Cyborg Tech, Toaster Repair, and Helicopter Pilot all had but a single use, but they all added flavor to the game, and in the case of Toaster Repair, humor. I don't think things would have been improved if those skills had been left out or given more uses. Then again, they were high level, specialized skills, so you weren't burning starting points on them.

You could also make the argument that Medic and Doctor only had one use, but they were far from useless. Still, stuff like Sleight of Hand? Yeah, that was pretty pointless. Did it have a use outside of the stage in Scott's Bar?

[Oesophagus]

Throw in an Underwater Basket Weaving skill if you like; just don't make it central to a major quest, because that's out of left field and it's up to the player to not be a fool.

Does it make sense to include skills which are of little use? I think it would be sort of unfair to allow the player to make a character who's skilled in barter, tracking, and masonry,(all of which sound as if they could be useful), and then tell them "haha, you made a useless character, you fool!"
I mean, if it's not a part of the game mechanic then just don't implement it.

[undecaf]

I have to agree here. No useless skills. They won't help the gameplay and lead to unnecessary frustration and unrewarding experience once one finds out his investment has been equal to dropping skillpoints in the sewer.

[Signal]

Count me in as another voice agreeing that there should be no useless skills.

Developers, if you are reading this: If you are going to have a skill in the game, please ensure that it can get plenty of use through the course of the game. A player can't help but feel frustrated if they spend hard-earned skill points (or whatever will be used to improve skills in the game) only to find out the skill never gets used in the game, or once and then never again.

[krellen]

Clone Tech, Cyborg Tech, Toaster Repair, and Helicopter Pilot [..] were high level, specialized skills, so you weren't burning starting points on them.

Skills like this are okayish, because anyone can learn them later in the game after you know what gate they unlock.

You could also make the argument that Medic and Doctor only had one use, but they were far from useless.

I don't actually think a skill that does the same thing, but does it many times and variable intervals in response to game mechanics - like healing - counts as "one use". By that logic, combat skills are "one use".

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

Wasteland has single-use skills like sleight of hand and bureaucracy. They come in handy at critical moments in the game. You have to guess and figure out when those opportunities are. Wasteland has skills that overlap, lke Medic and Doctor. Wasteland has skills with more than one use, like Acrobatics that gives you something to perform on stage and helps you dodge bullets. Wasteland had silly skills like Toaster Repair. All of it is in service of the story and gives the proceedings depth and color. No single-use skills? That is a fundamental misunderstanding of the Wasteland universe. There needs to be more skills with obscure uses and more skills with more uses. That skill system is part of the uniqueness of Wasteland and one of the reasons why fans have been clamoring for more for 24 years. The fact that so many people are complaining about it shows that it's still very unusual and that's good, please keep that Wasteland, please don't give in to the pressure to dumb down my game Brian Fargo!

[nenaza]

You can implement useful skills using context enviroment. For example, lockpicking is for open doors and chest but can allow you to take a stealth route for a quest or flanking enemies in combat situations.

The key to get useful skills along all the game is allow the player to take small advantages using his skills and the impact on the environm plent in the current situation (context). Make theayer feels smart and creative using the skills, reward them for be meticulous.

I would not stop in skill uses, I would add a context menu in things in the enviroment. Select a electric generator, open its context menu, break it, put your new night vision goggles and start kill blinded post-apocaliptik punks in a warehouse.

I think you all catch the idea...

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

I would not stop in skill uses, I would add a context menu in things in the enviroment. Select a electric generator, open its context menu, break it, put your new night vision goggles and start kill blinded post-apocaliptik punks in a warehouse.

I think you all catch the idea...

I concur. Context-menus is a concise way of describing what I have been taking too many words to explain.

There can be as many context menus for as many skills as you want in the game. Combat is a context menu.

There can be context menus for the characters too. Talk to this character, like opening a lock, use your skills, succed, fail, gain experience, or set off a bomb. It's the same thing whether you're talking a treasure chest or a pretty girl.

[Gabriel77Dan]

I agree in a way, I want skills to be useful but I don't mind it if they aren't all "as" useful as the others.
For example, I have a game idea in my head (which I will not bore you with) and in it it would use about 30 skills, one of the skills is Doctor.
Now, Doctor in this game is for treating broken limbs, sewing up gaping wounds and for fixing internal bleeding or collapsed lungs et cetera.
But, these things will not happen to the party "constantly", that'd make it horrible as it'd feel forced to use Doctor for every character.
Nah, it has a chance of happening to your party but it's not gonna happen once every hour.

Where the Doctor skill shines is not for the party specifically, but for the rest of the gameworld.
Say you do a quest where it ends up with an ex-convict who's bad past has caught up with him and he is shot through a scripted event, then after killing the bandits or whatever you can talk to him before he dies.
But with Doctor tagged in any situation like this you can fix them and avoid their deaths, which will earn a lot better rewards, both materalistic and for dialogue and reputation.

Now, Doctor may have it's moments in the spotlight, but in comparison to Electronics which is used for crafting electronic devices and grenades, repairing Prothem and Ceramic weapons, fixing consoles, terminals and computers, and fixing or disabling fuse boxes, it doesn't seem like it's "as" viable of a skill.


And I don't mind that kind of design.
Not evey skill has to be as useful as the next skill, nor do I want them to.
And I do not want skills to be cut down and merged together just so every skill feels like as much of a valid choice as the next.
What I do want is for each skill to have a fair amounts of times it can be used, but I do not want them all to be as useful as the others.

So Doctor in my game idea would certainly have it's moments, and without it or a companion who has it then a lot of times when people are dying from wounds by scripted events in quests you are simply screwed.
And whenever you or your party hurt yourself badly then you will have to pay lots of cash for doctors to fix whatever injury you got.

It's not as useful as Electronics.
It's not as useful as Sneak.
It's not as useful as Chemistry.
It's not as useful as Armorer.
And it's not as useful as Intimidation.
But it's not a useless skill.


That's what I want.
Lots and lots and lots of skills, all of them have varying levels of usage, but none of them are "completely useless".

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

I agree in a way, I want skills to be useful but I don't mind it if they aren't all "as" useful as the others.
For example, I have a game idea in my head (which I will not bore you with) and in it it would use about 30 skills, one of the skills is Doctor.
Now, Doctor in this game is for treating broken limbs, sewing up gaping wounds and for fixing internal bleeding or collapsed lungs et cetera.
But, these things will not happen to the party "constantly", that'd make it horrible as it'd feel forced to use Doctor for every character.
Nah, it has a chance of happening to your party but it's not gonna happen once every hour.

This is a good example. You're right; skills should come in handy when we need them and not have to use them constantly.

Something like Doctor is going to be frequently useful in a party of people fighting battles.

If we have a wide selection of character traits and consequently, gameplay options, useful skills don't have to be the ones that you constantly use. In one game you might use Doctor a lot but in another game you don't fight as much and need it less, so you spend your time using other skills.

The game can be very different on every play through, with options for political characters to rise in political power and options for sexual characters to rise in seduction powers, etc., which will give you different ways to accomplish the same goals and different goals to accomplish for each character.

[paultakeda]

Toaster Repair needs to be in the game, if only as an homage. And it still needs an IQ of 20.

I have 4 PCs, I can minimally gimp one with a point in this skill, no problem.

[Hell Razor]

I do agree with several of the counterpoints here.

I liked Clone Tech, Toaster Repair, Helicopter Pilot, etc. Once you found out you needed them, you could save up some skill points and get them and use them.

And I liked having multiple ways to solve a problem and even some overlapping skills.

And holy cow, I forgot about beuracracy and sleight of hand. I did like the quirkiness of some of those skills, like using acrobatics to entertain the crowd at the bar.

I guess I just got mad when I used almost all my skill points during character creation to make sure I had a righteous 4 in acrobatics (which also could be used as a lesser form of climb, by the way), only to find out that it's only use was to entertain that crowd, and you only needed a 1 in it. Or conversely, if I spent points to get a 1 or 2 in alarm disarm, but the couple of places you could use it would fail if you didn't have at least a 3. A 1 or a 2 in alarm disarm was literally a useless skill, like combat shooting.