Combat skills & damage - to increase build variety and viability

[Woody]

I mentioned this as a reply to another suggestion but thought it was worth a nudge as it's own topic.

I'm suggesting that all combat skills that determine damage output (weapons, mounted & magery skills etc.) should still be viable by all players who don't have those skills maxed by changing their respective damage thresholds per skill point to be a range of "potential" damage instead of a static lower & upper amount. This also partially solves mounted viability for a larger group of players without diminishing the builds of those wanting to main mounted.

Take for example weapon skills, right now by levelling up swords it simply increases the lower & upper limits of damage you can do at all times however, these damage profiles start significantly low in comparison to when they're maxed, meaning it's not viable to only have some points in these skills. E.g. if you have 10 skill in swords you're limited to always dealing let's say 5-10% of the total damage you might do at 100.

And so there's an easy solution to all of these skills that determine damage output (or proficiency in a weapon/skill class) including mounted skills. Allow players to pick up any weapon, ride a horse and shoot arrows, swing or cast whatever and instead of capping the damage they can deal with these modes of combat at all times based on their skill, make it a spectrum or range of possible damage dealt per hit out of 100% - by raising the minimum % amount per skill point invested.

Here's a diagram of what I mean (blue being roughly what current damage profiles are like, red being what I'm suggesting)



For example with this idea, at 0 Swords I could do anywhere from let's say 10% to 100% of total possible damage of that weapon but by levelling it up to 100, I can tighten this to 90%-100% of possible damage at all times. This maintains the incentive to level up a skill but doesn't lock you out of one entirely had you not. It also simulates the idea of anyone can pick up and swing a sword but they'll be wildly inconsistent and inefficient with it.

This could open up the doors to some interesting new build options for those happy to add a bit of RNG to their damage profile. It also doesn't all of a sudden make mages OP at melee as strength is still a limiting factor. Same goes for fighters without intellect.

Damage skills affected:

• All melee weapon combat skills
• Archery
• Mounted combat, archery, magery
• Mental Offense
• Beast Mastery (pet damage scale)

 

[Jatix]

I'm mixed but I like the concept. Within reason. It was aids when everyone was running around with a longbow but 0 primaries into archery skills. So then it comes down to what skills deserve this. But it is dumb when my foot fighter who may have archery skills, does insane bad damage shooting from a mount or swining from a mount just because I didnt spec into the skills that I almost never use. They made riding more tolerable by having riding be the secondary. So I see how doing it for other skills could help.

 

[Woody]

I'm mixed but I like the concept. Within reason. It was aids when everyone was running around with a longbow but 0 primaries into archery skills. So then it comes down to what skills deserve this. But it is dumb when my foot fighter who may have archery skills, does insane bad damage shooting from a mount or swining from a mount just because I didnt spec into the skills that I almost never use. They made riding more tolerable by having riding be the secondary. So I see how doing it for other skills could help.

Agreed although on the note of secondaries, these should always be reserved for skills that everyone needs to be able to do or are just there for flavor/categorisation. They shouldn't have any performance aspect or impact toward builds unless tied to a primary imo. This is where finding a middle ground within primary points (along the lines of this suggestion) and enabling viability in the 1-100 scale needs to be addressed in general. Otherwise, all primaries serve to do toward build choice is limit/timegate players instead of giving any real agency to them.

 

[Silenko]

We have a lot of skills that just open other skills and add nothing to the build, might as well give use to those.

We also have many skills that stop working past certain levels, like 81 for instance. I think all skill points should count to something, this is a good idea.

 

[Hodo]

I mentioned this as a reply to another suggestion but thought it was worth a nudge as it's own topic.

I'm suggesting that all combat skills that determine damage output (weapons, mounted & magery skills etc.) should still be viable by all players who don't have those skills maxed by changing their respective damage thresholds per skill point to be a range of "potential" damage instead of a static lower & upper amount. This also partially solves mounted viability for a larger group of players without diminishing the builds of those wanting to main mounted.

Take for example weapon skills, right now by levelling up swords it simply increases the lower & upper limits of damage you can do at all times however, these damage profiles start significantly low in comparison to when they're maxed, meaning it's not viable to only have some points in these skills. E.g. if you have 10 skill in swords you're limited to always dealing let's say 5-10% of the total damage you might do at 100.

And so there's an easy solution to all of these skills that determine damage output (or proficiency in a weapon/skill class) including mounted skills. Allow players to pick up any weapon, ride a horse and shoot arrows, swing or cast whatever and instead of capping the damage they can deal with these modes of combat at all times based on their skill, make it a spectrum or range of possible damage dealt per hit out of 100% - by raising the minimum % amount per skill point invested.

Here's a diagram of what I mean (blue being roughly what current damage profiles are like, red being what I'm suggesting)

View attachment 5322

For example with this idea, at 0 Swords I could do anywhere from let's say 10% to 100% of total possible damage of that weapon but by levelling it up to 100, I can tighten this to 90%-100% of possible damage at all times. This maintains the incentive to level up a skill but doesn't lock you out of one entirely had you not. It also simulates the idea of anyone can pick up and swing a sword but they'll be wildly inconsistent and inefficient with it.

This could open up the doors to some interesting new build options for those happy to add a bit of RNG to their damage profile. It also doesn't all of a sudden make mages OP at melee as strength is still a limiting factor. Same goes for fighters without intellect.

Damage skills affected:

• All melee weapon combat skills
• Archery
• Mounted combat, archery, magery
• Mental Offense
• Beast Mastery (pet damage scale)

Ok so I like the work you put into this but the issue I have with it is what we had at release. Hundreds of people running around with the bare minimum if not less skill investment in things like Mounted Archery or even Archery and absolutely destroying someone who has invested the time and effort to max that skill.

As it stands currently in game a player with the skill unlocked will do the same max damage as a person with the skill maxed. BUT they will tend to lean towards the lower end. The sad fact is the current system is fine, not perfect but fine.

It is like comparing an average nerd with a sword thinking they are Miyamoto Musashi when in fact they look like this.

Instead of this.

 

[Woody]

Ok so I like the work you put into this but the issue I have with it is what we had at release. Hundreds of people running around with the bare minimum if not less skill investment in things like Mounted Archery or even Archery and absolutely destroying someone who has invested the time and effort to max that skill.

As it stands currently in game a player with the skill unlocked will do the same max damage as a person with the skill maxed. BUT they will tend to lean towards the lower end. The sad fact is the current system is fine, not perfect but fine.

It is like comparing an average nerd with a sword thinking they are Miyamoto Musashi when in fact they look like this.

Instead of this.

This change would not suddenly enable players with the bare minimum of skill invested to destroy someone who has invested more time and effort to max that skill. They'd still across the course of a fight have less efficient damage output but at least they'll still be somewhat viable while not min/maxed which is the point. If viability can only be found at max, then there's no point having a skilling system with a scale of 1-100.

Archery at launch was fairly incomplete and it's probably in a better state now with the recent changes. What I think you're referring to at is more toward longbows with max strength oghs + 0 archery still doing significant damage due to the way bows scale with range/str requirement.