IMO all skills that determine damage output (weapons, mounted, magery skills etc) should still be doable by all players who don't have those skills min/maxed by instead changing it to be a range of potential damage with the higher the skill, tightening this range to simulate proficiency through consistency of damage output. This partially solves mounted viability without making mounted skills into secondaries as it would diminish the builds of those who want to primarily play around mounted.
Take for example weapon skills, right now by levelling up swords it simply increases the min&maximum damage you can do at all times. This means if you don't have the skill in swords you're limited to always dealing let's say 10% of the total damage you might do at max.
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, swing or cast whatever and instead of capping the damage they can deal with those things at all times based on their skill, make it a spectrum or range of possible damage dealt per hit out of 100% by JUST raising the minimum % amount.
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.
Additionally, 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.
Here's a diagram of what I mean (blue being roughly what current damage profiles are like, red being what I'm suggesting)
Damage skills affected:
Take for example weapon skills, right now by levelling up swords it simply increases the min&maximum damage you can do at all times. This means if you don't have the skill in swords you're limited to always dealing let's say 10% of the total damage you might do at max.
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, swing or cast whatever and instead of capping the damage they can deal with those things at all times based on their skill, make it a spectrum or range of possible damage dealt per hit out of 100% by JUST raising the minimum % amount.
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.
Additionally, 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.
Here's a diagram of what I mean (blue being roughly what current damage profiles are like, red being what I'm suggesting)
Damage skills affected:
- All melee combat skills
- Archery
- Mounted combat, archery, magery
- Mental Offense
- Beast Mastery (pet damage scale)
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