Are SKILLS fun/interesting?

[rusty_shackleford]

As a followup to my riveting thread "Are weapon skills interesting?", I ask the question:
Are skills in RPGs actually interesting at all? Are they… FUN?

As much crap as Bethesda got for it, I think they were kinda right with Fallout 4. Maybe not in execution, but in theory!

[logincrash]

Yes. Playing Underrail and using all the skills to do different stuff was very satisfying.

[Tweed]

As much crap as Bethesda got for it, I think they were kinda right with Fallout 4. Maybe not in execution, but in theory!

Terrible bait.

[Tadeusz]

Are skills in RPGs actually interesting at all? Are they… FUN?

What's fun for you? Skills are more of an instrument of character building. Seeing skills go up is satisfying though.

[wndrbr]

As much crap as Bethesda got for it, I think they were kinda right with Fallout 4. Maybe not in execution, but in theory!

they were only right because otherwise the game would've had garbage skills giving you insignificant bonuses.

Is it better to have a perk system where each perk level gives you +20% to damage with assault rifles, or have a skill system where each skillpoint invested into 'Assault rifles handling" increases your assault rifle damage by 1%? Yeah, the perk system is probably better. But it would've been even better if instead of that both the skills and the perks were giving you something more interesting.

A skill that goes from 0 to 100 could've been giving you tiny insignificant bonuses for each point invested, and also had breakpoints at 25/50/75/100 (or 40/70/100) with more significant rewards. High-tier guns and guns-specific perks could've been locked behind higher skill levels (i.e. a gun newbie would've been unable to equip more complex weapons like sniper rifles or machineguns, a gun enthusiast would've been able to use those guns, but would've had trouble repairing them, etc).

[TKVNC]

They're a (partly) necessary tool for turning TTRPG's into CRPG's.

However, they're not fun. They're also a zero sum race to the cap, unless you limit how many points you can get.

[MrTwinkls]

As long as it's not a convoluted mess and has a place in the narrative. I don't want another Toaster Repair skill.

[Tadeusz]

A skill that goes from 0 to 100 could've been giving you tiny insignificant bonuses for each point invested, and also had breakpoints at 25/50/75/100 (or 40/70/100) with more significant rewards.

Trudograd did this, it was fun. Are there more games with this mechanic?

[wndrbr]

A skill that goes from 0 to 100 could've been giving you tiny insignificant bonuses for each point invested, and also had breakpoints at 25/50/75/100 (or 40/70/100) with more significant rewards.

Trudograd did this, it was fun. Are there more games with this mechanic?

Oblivion and Skyrim

[Norfleet]

Skills COULD, theoretically be interesting, IFF they are not competitors to combatabilities, and IFF they are not strongly tied to stats (since stats are functionally classes as well).

If skills directly compete with combat abilities for build space, then you either build for combat abilities, and you get to play the game, or you build for non-combat abilities, and you get to watch the game (or play ****** minigames, which may then invalidate the skill investment in the first place if you can simply beat the minigame through player skill instead). This is because games have yet to adopt a consistent system wherein using your character skills to solve problems creates gameplay of comparable interestingness to using combat to solve problems. The general pattern is still to make skill use being "click butan to use skill", with attempts to make this interesting being "play ****** minigame to use skill", which then breaks down when it becomes either "you must buy this skill to play the ****** minigame" (meaning the minigame is just there to annoy you), or "the skill makes playing the minigame easier" (meaning stop wasting your build points and just git gud, scrub).

Similarly, if skills are strongly tied to stats, then skills are just class abilities by another name. Either they are tied to the class by virtue of the class also being tied to the stats (any Strength-based skill is for Fighters, any Dex-based skill is for Thieves, any Int-based skill is for Wizards, etc.), or they ARE a de-facto class ability (you are the Dex class, therefore, the Dex-based skills are your class skills).

Therefore, skills are interesting only under the conditions I outlined the beginning, where they function as fluff to flesh out characters beyond the confines of their class. Regardless of whether you a fighter, a thief, or a wizard, you can all benefit (or not) to some marginal and likely inscrutable degree by your skills in birdwatching, basketweaving, crochet, macrame, or pipe-organist. Effectively representing hobbies that have no relevance to your character's normal combat performance and are not a function of their class.

Skill POINTS, however, are pointless. Either you have the skill or you don't. If you have to allocate points one by one to it, you're effectively saying "I want this skill, but I don't want it to actually be useful after some point in the game", because either you're maxing it out so you can actually pass all the increasingly difficult skill checks, or you're abandoning it, and thus all the points you put into it are wasted.

As long as it's not a convoluted mess and has a place in the narrative. I don't want another Toaster Repair skill.

Counter-argument: ALL the skills should be Toaster Repair skills. That way all of the skills are of equally questionable and dubious utility. Also, see aforementioned notes on skill points. If you could choose between a diverse array of dubiously questionable skills like Toaster Repair, Motorcycle Maintenance, Ornithology, Catfishing, and Vampire Hunting (in a game that does not feature vampires), where all of these skills just represent random, mostly useless hobbies and/or neuroses, and never directly tie in your character's normal functionalities, the game would be better for it.

[Tangerine]

I like numbers go up. I prefer if combat skills and non-combat skills have different point pools. Social skills should not be "Get out of combat" cards; some people want to kick your *** no matter how much of a smooth talker you are.

[Kalarion]

As a followup to my riveting thread "Are weapon skills interesting?", I ask the question:
Are skills in RPGs actually interesting at all? Are they… FUN?

As much crap as Bethesda got for it, I think they were kinda right with Fallout 4. Maybe not in execution, but in theory!

Yes, within certain guidelines. To be fun in game, skills should be:
Exclusive - total skillpoints available should not allow a character to max out all or most skills. This can be circumscribed with mastery breakpoints ala Might and Magic 6-9.

Impactful - raising skill should have some noticeable effect in the game, even if small. Investing heavily into skills should result in semi-frequent—say, once per 2 levels of full investment, but no less than once per 3 levels in my opinion— "A for Awesome" impacts. Oblivion and Skyrim's skill threshold bonuses are a decent example.

Gated - raising skill should require more than entering a character's sheet and pressing a + button any time you have spare points. Requiring training is a good start. Finding masters in the skill as you increase your proficiency is even better. Those masters requiring something from you for the privilege of learning from them—at least at high levels—is double-plus good!

Useful throughout the game - I don't think you have to get golden lootboxes at every stage, nor do I mind overlaps in usefulness between skills—it's okay for demolitions skill and lockpicking to both be options to deal with a locked door most times—but going back to exclusivity, big rewards only accessible with investment into a single skill are desirable.

My list probably makes it obvious I think Might and Magics 6-9 did skills best. Other notable examples include Age of Decadence (despite the wailings of its haters—some of which is justified!—raising skills in that game was very impactful in different ways), Caves of Lore (ticks most of the boxes, although raising skill is a little grindy), Vagrus (skills directly affect numerous checks during events, and are tied to feat acquisition), and Wizardry 8 (despite the skill system's flaws, it felt really good to max a skill, some of them (spellcasting/music/gadgeteering especially) were directly tied to in-game power, and maxing attributes gave access to exclusive special skills that skyrocketed non-casters' power).

EDIT: it was attribute maxing that gave skill access in Wizardry 8, not skill maxing. Corrected.

[DemoGraph]

Are skills in RPGs actually interesting at all? Are they… FUN?

Yes, if they're impactful and limited.

Come to think of it, most RPGs tend to fall flat on that.
Fallout is especially bad. You have about 30 skills and maybe half of them are not gimmicky. And the skills themself are just "number goes up".
Also, I find that skill systems are often too gamey. You're either hard limited by an arbitrary level cap (class-based systems) or have no functional change with level gain and have no progression limits (Morrowind, Kenshi, EVE).

[asf]

skill issue

[Val the Moofia Boss]

As mentioned earlier in the thread, I often find that there is a conflict between the combat skills and the noncombat skills. The noncombat skills usually add more roleplay fantasy to your character. However, they usually cost skill points which could have also been spent on combat skills, which can make the main gameplay loop of the game more fun to go through, as opposed to the RP fluff stuff that is usually highly niche or situational and often not used.

[Tweed]

As much crap as Bethesda got for it, I think they were kinda right with Fallout 4. Maybe not in execution, but in theory!

they were only right because otherwise the game would've had garbage skills giving you insignificant bonuses.

Is it better to have a perk system where each perk level gives you +20% to damage with assault rifles, or have a skill system where each skillpoint invested into 'Assault rifles handling" increases your assault rifle damage by 1%? Yeah, the perk system is probably better. But it would've been even better if instead of that both the skills and the perks were giving you something more interesting.

A skill that goes from 0 to 100 could've been giving you tiny insignificant bonuses for each point invested, and also had breakpoints at 25/50/75/100 (or 40/70/100) with more significant rewards. High-tier guns and guns-specific perks could've been locked behind higher skill levels (i.e. a gun newbie would've been unable to equip more complex weapons like sniper rifles or machineguns, a gun enthusiast would've been able to use those guns, but would've had trouble repairing them, etc).

Bethesda didn't even reach that level of thinking. Their philosophy was that people love perks, so we should just turn EVERYTHING into a perk, BRILLIANT!

[rusty_shackleford]

Perhaps the question to ask is are skill points interesting?

[Norfleet]

Perhaps the question to ask is are skill points interesting?

No. Skillpoints are deeply uninteresting.

Because there's only two real possibilities:

1. You max out the skill, otherwise it doesn't function properly and you may as well not have bought any of it.

2. The skill has a functional cap below max investment, and knowing this and thus avoiding the trap of overspending requires metagame knowledge. This includes skills that are completely ******* useless so the functional cap is zero.

At the end of the day, you either have the skill and therefore pass the skill checks that require it, or you don't, and so you fail it. Any investment into the skill below this is pointless and accomplishes nothing. You may as well just give the skill a flat purchase cost, and either you have it, or you don't.

[J1M]

Skills are not fun.
Skills are not interesting.
I guess they somewhat succeed at making the player feel like they made a choice and somewhat succeed at a sense of progression as the number goes up.
Ironically, number-go-up often causes the biggest problems within skill systems as the difficulty ratings scale to higher levels.

A number in a skill doesn't tell me what the character can do or not do. And it doesn't tell the game designer what the average player will do via save scumming.

I would much rather have a quantized set of perks than a skill system. ("You can open bronze locks." -> "You can open silver locks." -> "You can open all locks.")

[Norfleet]

Skills are not fun.
Skills are not interesting.
I guess they somewhat succeed at making the player feel like they made a choice and somewhat succeed at a sense of progression as the number goes up.

That's pretty much it, yes. They let you feel like you've made a choice and that you have experienced a sense of progression as number goes up.

Problem is, the average gamer is like, what, 42? This ****'s not novel or exciting anymore. The illusion is gone and we see it for what it really is.

And it doesn't tell the game designer what the average player will do via save scumming.

Honestly, if you've created a system where the player can only defeat it via save scumming, what did you expect? You've created a binary pass/fail scenario where the only input a player has into the system is "number of attempts". So what other options do you have if you want to actually have the content you paid for?

Even D&D has therefore effectively abandoned this idea: Any time a player is not under any kind of time pressure, he takes 20 and automatically gets the best possible outcome.

I would much rather have a quantized set of perks than a skill system. ("You can open bronze locks." -> "You can open silver locks." -> "You can open all locks.")

Of course, since you will only encounter "bronze" locks early on, with the other locks not being encountered at all because the player would otherwise have no means to open them anyway due to limitations on how fast you are allowed to progress, and later on, you will only encounter silver and then gold locks, what this functionally means is that if you stunt your progression at the lower tier, you've essentially wasted your points. So it once again becomes "all or nothing". It may as well just be "you can open locks". Because you won't encounter locks higher than your allowed level because those would be impossible anyway, and lower level locks will no longer be relevant at higher levels because otherwise the functional cap on lock-opening would stop there and investing any further would be a trap option.

[J1M]

I wouldn't scale the locks to the player. I would put high level rewards throughout the game and if someone wants to invest their limited perks in lockpicking they would gain access to great items early. Which would actually fulfill the expectations of having high lockpicking skill. Nobody would take that thinking, "oh yeah, I'll have 5% more currency in my backpack!"

Basically, the litmus test would be: is each perk useful in isolation? The first level would grant you some extra items and maybe a few shortcuts. The top end would be a different play experience, on par with the amount of differences you would see in a low-INT character build.

[Norfleet]

I wouldn't scale the locks to the player. I would put high level rewards throughout the game and if someone wants to invest their limited perks in lockpicking they would gain access to great items early. Which would actually fulfill the expectations of having high lockpicking skill. Nobody would take that thinking, "oh yeah, I'll have 5% more currency in my backpack!"

Well, if you're not gated from accessing those perks early on, then it comes down to "Do I want the skill or not?". Which means you must then buy the full skill early on or the value rapidly dminishes as you clear areas, since, like you said: If the payout is any good, then there's no fake-cap and it's once again an all-or-nothing deal.

[rusty_shackleford]

Skills are not fun.
Skills are not interesting.
I guess they somewhat succeed at making the player feel like they made a choice and somewhat succeed at a sense of progression as the number goes up.
Ironically, number-go-up often causes the biggest problems within skill systems as the difficulty ratings scale to higher levels.

A number in a skill doesn't tell me what the character can do or not do. And it doesn't tell the game designer what the average player will do via save scumming.

I would much rather have a quantized set of perks than a skill system. ("You can open bronze locks." -> "You can open silver locks." -> "You can open all locks.")

this is just skills with less skill levels

[Lhynn]

When they are impactful.
Often times I fail to see the difference between using or not using a skill in rpgs, they make them either barely better than just a basic attack, or a weaker alternative with a ****** effect you dont care for. The "gamble" type skill where its a low chance to have a big effect is the worst.

To make them feel good you can go two ways about it, either they make you feel smart for using them a certain way, or they make you feel powerful for using them.

[Bertram_Tung]

As much crap as Bethesda got for it, I think they were kinda right with Fallout 4. Maybe not in execution, but in theory!

Terrible bait.

tpbp
(tweed post best post)

[Tweed]

I would much rather have a quantized set of perks than a skill system. ("You can open bronze locks." -> "You can open silver locks." -> "You can open all locks.")

Skyrim does this and it sucks. It locks every significant thing behind a perk, a perk that often completely invalidates the one that came before it, and those perks are often just to let you do something your high skill level says you should be able to do in the first **** place. This is what skill levels are for. Perks should be for letting the player do something extra or special like not losing lockpicks, never jamming a lock, being able to pick faster....whatever.

[rusty_shackleford]

I would much rather have a quantized set of perks than a skill system. ("You can open bronze locks." -> "You can open silver locks." -> "You can open all locks.")

Skyrim does this and it sucks. It locks every significant thing behind a perk, a perk that often completely invalidates the one that came before it, and those perks are often just to let you do something your high skill level says you should be able to do in the first **** place. This is what skill levels are for. Perks should be for letting the player do something extra or special like not losing lockpicks, never jamming a lock, being able to pick faster....whatever.

what is your opinion on ARCANUM?

[Tweed]

I would much rather have a quantized set of perks than a skill system. ("You can open bronze locks." -> "You can open silver locks." -> "You can open all locks.")

Skyrim does this and it sucks. It locks every significant thing behind a perk, a perk that often completely invalidates the one that came before it, and those perks are often just to let you do something your high skill level says you should be able to do in the first **** place. This is what skill levels are for. Perks should be for letting the player do something extra or special like not losing lockpicks, never jamming a lock, being able to pick faster....whatever.

what is your opinion on ARCANUM?

Arcanum's system is pretty brutal and without any kind of knowledge it would be easy to **** it up on the first go, but the skills themselves are interesting and useful. Magic is ridiculously OP over technology.

[rusty_shackleford]

I actually can't remember how skills work in Arcanum beyond needing trainers.

[J1M]

Skills are not fun.
Skills are not interesting.
I guess they somewhat succeed at making the player feel like they made a choice and somewhat succeed at a sense of progression as the number goes up.
Ironically, number-go-up often causes the biggest problems within skill systems as the difficulty ratings scale to higher levels.

A number in a skill doesn't tell me what the character can do or not do. And it doesn't tell the game designer what the average player will do via save scumming.

I would much rather have a quantized set of perks than a skill system. ("You can open bronze locks." -> "You can open silver locks." -> "You can open all locks.")

this is just skills with less skill levels

Most skill systems give you a percentage chance to succeed, not a boolean pass/fail based on challenge type.