Status Report, RE: soft skills

[emuthreat 2837]

I was reading the status report earlier, and got down to where Peter was talking about how the soft skills are going to be configured.

I'll be honest, I'm pretty disappointed.  Instead of having different skill trees, which a player can add to through experience over a lifetime, he proposes a dichotomy of rough and fine actions, with a positive, negative and neutral time/material consumption, and relative success spectrum, that sways back and forth flippantly as a player performs different actions.
What this means, it that rough skills, like digging garden plots, cutting trees, and performing CPR will be polarized from fine skills like stitching wounds, performing transfusions and harvesting seeds from plants.

That means that a player will not have the ability over a lifetime to permanently grow certain skill profiles, but rather their skill set will be an arbitrary reflection of what types of things that player has most recently done.  So if I go hunting, and skin a few animals, which for the sake of argument, I'll assume to be a fine skill, and then go to chop firewood,my axe will take damage faster, because I had just performed a repetition of a fine skilled activity; obviously having completely forgotten how to do efficiently manual labor while focusing on the fine task earlier.  It makes no sense.  I will get less uses out of a sewing kit than I had just an hour earlier, because I chopped some firewood and dug a garden.  Nonsense.

It seems that they did this because of the challenges associated with making a system of different categories of specialty, and finding a way to prevent abuse in the form of grinding.  This most recently proposed solution is a cop-out, and washes away all of my wishes (and patience) for depth-of-play and the value of developing a character skill set over that character's lifetime.

I feel that this solution is very poorly conceived, especially when proposed as an alternative to an experience system exploitable by grinding.  Did they not think that this system would also be grindable?  People will simply figure out how many bell peppers they need to carry for seed harvesting practice to buff their fine-skills for the immediate need, or how many hatchets or whatever they need to carry, to chop sufficient amounts of wood to buff their rough skills.  In this light, the goal of avoiding exploitability has already become compromised, and the result is an lackluster system of a forced false-dichotomy, that fails to provide the incentive to survive long-term.

Please reconsider your decision to scrap the previously hyped skill system that we have all been so excited to see, and replace it with an oversimplified, polarized, system that adds no value to the long-term survival of the character, and no benefit to seeking out players in game, who have mastered that certain specialty that you need.

Edited December 23, 2016 by emuthreat
Missperlingz

[Sqeezorz 839]

Good point of criticism. I also hope that when this coarse / fine system comes this is divided into different action groups. So whoever chops wood with an ax does not affect the sewing it. If you chop wood with an ax strengthens the coarse and will have more effort with the knife arrows to carve. When sewing I think rather the leather tanning and leather dresses in the part the rough is in contrast to the textile sewing / patching (fine). If it happens to be grouped then it looks something different.

[BCBasher 2465]

Sounds like the usual meaningless progression systems casuals are so fond of because their short attention spans.

I found DayZ after rage quitting Elder Scrolls Online because they fucked hardcore players to appease people who "don't have the time" and turned it into a fuckng pet/clothing collection simulator.

I get trying to discourage grinding but I don't believe you can make a meaningful progression system in a time consuming game if all you think about is anti-grinding.  

[emuthreat 2837]

54 minutes ago, Sqeezorz said:

Good point of criticism. I also hope that when this coarse / fine system comes this is divided into different action groups. So whoever chops wood with an ax does not affect the sewing it. If you chop wood with an ax strengthens the coarse and will have more effort with the knife arrows to carve. When sewing I think rather the leather tanning and leather dresses in the part the rough is in contrast to the textile sewing / patching (fine). If it happens to be grouped then it looks something different.

I hope this coarse/fine skill system NEVER makes it into the game.  I get the feeling that they are simply moving the goalposts on this one, in the interest of being able to call it beta sooner.  The previously mentioned soft skills system sounded adequate, this sounds like absolute crap.

[gannon46 788]

I say let them grind can you imagine when they die I bet they will explode from rage. 

[BCBasher 2465]

5 minutes ago, gannon46 said:

I say let them grind can you imagine when they die I bet they will explode from rage. 

And really who cares if it's grind able, the people who would either grind or put in hours trying to progress are going to be playing vanilla or hardcore mods, people who don't like competing with people who "do have the time" will play on their own high loot, spawn with a gun, rinse, repeat mod servers.  

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

1 hour ago, emuthreat said:

Did they not think that this system would also be grindable?

They said you would have daily caps on how much you could add to your skills so you could only gain so much in a day.

So instead of grinding for an entire play session, you would have to just make sure you performed some of desired skill in each respective session.

I honestly would not care if there were no skills in the game and everyone had the same base abilities throughout.

As far as rough/fine skills concept, I would want to reserve some judgement before I saw more about what they had in mind.

I think it's a way to make skills more ancillary to actual game play and really just a matter of efficiency learned over a lifespan (100+ hours survived in game for example).

It was also said a long time ago that skills would not be added that change the tide of PvP, and I agree with this concept.

I don't want anything resembling a penalty for not having practiced a skill other than my own personal lack of familiarity with the mechanic.

Once you start down the truly occupation specific character skill levels, I think the game starts to move away from the original vision in a negative way.

 

Edited December 23, 2016 by ☣BioHaze☣

[emuthreat 2837]

Now that I think about it a bit more, this fine/rough skill mechanic is somewhat analogous to strength and dexterity, though formatted in a way where one detracts from the other.  I suppose it wouldn't be so bad to have this as an invisible layer on top of other skills, that you would have to regularly exercise to keep getting the best results.
What I don't understand is Peter's assertion that it is necessary to have additional UI elements to provide feedback about these skills.  There is absolutely no reason to provide this feedback while in-game.  If you want to know how good you are at a certain task, then just try it, no need for a little skills monitor.

This whole concpet is utterly ridiculous, and artificial, being only able to "specialize" in either precise or rough tasks at any one time.  Anyone who has worked in the trades will know that both fine motor control, and properly applied brute force are both necessary to get almost any job done right.  Even fishing requires a combination of both types of specialty that are now being proposed (reads planned to be introduced into the game instead of a much better system that we were told was coming); with tying very fine knots and gently bumping a bait or lure along the bottom, to jerking the rod to set the hook, and yarding the fish into shore as fast as possible, to avoid losing it under cover in the water.  Automotive mechanical skills also require the simultaneous use of both fine and rough skills, inserting bolts precisely so as not to crossthread them, and then laboriously reefing on a wrench to get it torqued correctly.  Farming is also an area that requires mixed use of fine and rough touch, in digging a hole to plant, and then caring for the plants without damaging them.

I can go on all day about the necessity to use both precise and rough physical interations  to accomplish many individual tasks.  This false dichotomy of rough and precise skilled interactions is a non-start, and it would absolutely RUIN IMMERSION.

Imagine going to a doctor and having him apologize for taking two attempts to perform a suture, and blaming it on the fact that he was working in his garden and building a fence over the weekend, and that he just pushed all those years of training right out of his experience pool, by attempting a different specialized type of labor.  Hogwash.

12 minutes ago, ☣BioHaze☣ said:

They said you would have daily caps on how much you could add to your skills so you could only gain so much in a day.

So instead of grinding for an entire play session, you would have to just make sure you performed some of desired skill in each respective session.

I honestly would not care if there were no skills in the game and everyone had the same base abilities throughout.

As far as rough/fine skills concept, I would want to reserve some judgement before I saw more about what they had in mind.

I think it's a way to make skills more ancillary to actual game play and really just a matter of efficiency learned over a lifespan (100+ hours survived in game for example).

It was also said a long time ago that skills would not be added that change the tide of PvP, and I agree with this concept.

I don't want anything resembling a penalty for not having practiced a skill other than my own personal lack of familiarity with the mechanic.

Once you start down the truly occupation specific character skill levels, I think the game starts to move away from the original vision in a negative way.

 

Did you read the status report?  It sounds superlatively shitty from what I got out of it.  You are right that they would be better off just ignoring soft skills altogether, rather than push this new "precise, or rough, pick one only", system.  But then we lose player character value, and are back to rinse and repeat PVP as the only viable endgame.

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

1 hour ago, emuthreat said:

Did you read the status report?

I could have asked you the same thing based on the first line I quoted.

You completely ignored the daily limit they mentioned in your OP.

I still think calling an outline for a new system "shitty" at this point is premature.

1 hour ago, emuthreat said:

But then we lose player character value, and are back to rinse and repeat PVP as the only viable endgame.

Absolutely not.

Simple things like beards and scars can keep a lot of people engaged in the personality of their characters.

And I absolutely don"t want such huge advantages to the skill set that it occupies my time to get 30% more plant matter from a farming action.

I am always invested in my character because it's my choice to project myself into their lives and protect it as such.

I do not need skills assigned to an invested amount of time to stay immersed.

If I've played 30 days, killed 6 people who tried to KoS me, 100's of infected, built 4 camps/bases, and fought off packs of wolves with my character, don't you think I'm going to be attached to my character just by playing the game?

[Noctoras 409]

Skill system in its planned form looks like another opportunity lost. I though the skill system as planned was bad already. Now they give an update and make bad matters worse. But yeah, new gun #1,283 will come and definitely change gameplay a lot...

[Kirov (DayZ) 585]

Did we have a debate about what we need the skill system for? What kind of problems it is supposed to fix? Lack of attachment to the toon, lack of variation, etc.?

It's not gonna be easy to find a system which is not prone to exploits or grind. This reminds me of Oblivion, where skills grew with using, so you moved by kangaroo jumps in order to increase your athletics (some people just went swimming for hours by blocking their keyboard button). If you add gamey rules, people will game them.

And I agree that of skill mechanics which suck, the above coarse-fine axis seems to suck double. Grinding (even if capped per day), 'I don't chop wood so I don't get worse with sewing', 'Let's sew some stuff and thus get better at fish preparing', etc. Immersion crash incoming.

Why not select some skills at the toon creation stage?

[emuthreat 2837]

I was pretty excited earlier to learn about the different skill classes, such as mechanic, medic, bushcraft, farming, etc.

I see no reason why the earlier proposed system would not work out great, simply by capping the amount of improvement per category per day, and keeping the entire soft skill experience system behind the board. If players cannot see their progress, they cannot selectively grind for any one skill, without the uncertainty that they are wasting their time.
We will simply have to do different thing often to improve them, and the only feedback we get, is in the results of our actions.  It seemed like a solid concept.  It's too bad to hear that they scrapped it before even giving it a try.

[kopo79 426]

i have thought this skill system some and really im not sure what to think about it....but sometimes i feel  my character a little ackward when i just shoot cow and the skin it with my worn knife,,,,it should be not that easy.skinnig animal and eating the flesh from it requires lot of knowledge and experience

[Roshi (DayZ) 397]

Agreed EmuThreat - I'm a long term fan of the hard core approach to DayZ with as few 'game features' as possible but soft skills seemed like an appropriate way to give that specific character purpose beyond their kit but without feeling too much like a barrier between myself and the world. 

This does seem like a step off the righteous path...

[BobbyDean 7]

I completely agree with you.  I had hoped for a system which just rewarded you xp for how long you stayed alive and then you could allocate points into whatever area you wanted.  This sort of approach would remove "grinding" because you just gain xp for staying alive - not for performing specific actions.  People could say you could abuse this sort of time-based xp system, but the game doesn't let you just "sit around".  You have to eat, drink, maintain your temperature, stay dry, warm, etc - so you can't just sit around and earn xp.   In my book if your character has managed to stay alive for 200 hours - by gosh they've earned the xp.

Sigh- very disappointed as well with the system they announced.

Edited December 26, 2016 by BobbyDean
spelling/wording

[emuthreat 2837]

Admittedly, I may have come out of the gates a little bit hot with the OP.

Maybe I'm missing something from Peter's bit of the SR, but it seems an awful lot like people will have to avoid doing literally half of the actions available in the game, to avoid losing the benefits to the other half of the available actions.

At best, the effects will be inconsequential, and thus kinda pointless.  At worst, we'll have players stuck choosing between 'woman's work' and 'manly tasks,' which would result in half of players sitting on their hands for half the time, to avoid losing their specialization.

Thanks for sharing your opinions.

[Guy Smiley 534]

Here's my take on why a skill system does not work.  The moment you add skills and even a points system to those skills the game turns from being a game into a skill grind which then will end up getting turned into a cookie cutter of "these are the only skills you need and everything else becomes worthless" on top of the balancing issues around skills.  Not to mention recruitment methods for clans would turn into you a "you need x,y,z skills in order to apply" and peoplewill just become more frustrated.  I prefer the simple method of trying to figure out what tools and materials I need to create something instead of having to pick at rocks all day in order to create the best stone knife in the game after 30 hours of grinding.

[emuthreat 2837]

19 hours ago, Guy Smiley said:

Here's my take on why a skill system does not work.  The moment you add skills and even a points system to those skills the game turns from being a game into a skill grind which then will end up getting turned into a cookie cutter of "these are the only skills you need and everything else becomes worthless" on top of the balancing issues around skills.  Not to mention recruitment methods for clans would turn into you a "you need x,y,z skills in order to apply" and peoplewill just become more frustrated.  I prefer the simple method of trying to figure out what tools and materials I need to create something instead of having to pick at rocks all day in order to create the best stone knife in the game after 30 hours of grinding.

How would this clan recruitment concept you are talking about work if you lost all your learned skills every time your character dies?  The stone knife is already the best knife in the game, BTW...

I think improvement of specific actions, based on actually practicing that action numerous times, would be a reasonable and natural progression of character skill growth.  The concept of improving skills through practice doesn't seem too far-fetched, or abusable to me, as long as there were hourly caps on certain actions.

Let's say that every time you cut a bush with a knife, you start out getting one stick, and causing the same amount of wear to the knife.  After cutting 20 bushes with a knife, you can start getting two sticks, and the same amount of wear to the knife.  After cutting 40 bushes, your knife starts taking less wear, and you still get two sticks.  After cutting 60 bushes, you get 3 sticks, and the knife still takes less wear.  It would destroy at least two or three knives to complete this process, requiring you to expend resources that had to be looted in the game, and the time to do it all.  Sure, a freshspawn could spend their first hour of gameplay buffing this stick mechanic, looting around town for a half-dozen damaged steaknives, or searching stones to craft the four improvised knives that it would take to buff just this one skill.  So they would have wasted a whole hour, and a few knives, to buff just one of dozens of possible actions, and  then starve to death because they neglected to find food while grinding away at cutting bushes for sticks.

Repeat this same process for sharpening sticks, starting out with high wear on the knife, and a chance to fail; first losing the chance for failure upon light practice, then reduced knife wear on moderate practice, and finally gaining the speed to sharpen a whole stack of sticks in one action cycle.

Repeat the same process for cutting rags from clothing, yielding a reduced amount of damaged rags from pristine clothes, with high wear to knife, light practice yields same quality rags as the clothing they came from, moderate practice reduces kinfe wear, high level of practice yields maximum number of rags allowable per clothing item.

Repeat this whole process again, only using an axe or hatchet or machete.

Are you starting to get the idea I am going for here?

The amount of time and resources involved in grinding these skills would be a deterrent in and of itself.  The result would be that players who lived longer and performed various different actions on a regular basis, would eventually get better results, with less expense of materials and effort.  Naturally.

If a group of people all want to take turns putting the same spark plug into the same sedan, so they can all get the experience, then good for them; that's how automotive technicians are trained in real life!!!  All it takes is a reasonable cap to prevent preforming the same distinct action multiple times for credit.

If people want to sit in the woods and grind away at bandaging to improve their results of that particular action, they will have to hit each other, spill some blood, and use up rags and bandages, and consume extra food to replace the lost health and blood.  If they get attacked while doing this, they will be weakened and risk dying and losing all their skill progress.
The simple reality that it takes expenditure of materials and time, as well as the risk of being in-world to perform all of these actions acts as a self-balancing mechanism.

If someone wants to run around and kill 50 chickens their first day, to get 100% cuts each time, then they will have to spend the time, and be exposed to danger while doing this.

I really don't see the issue with exploitability.

Edited December 27, 2016 by emuthreat
clairity

[Coheed_IV 381]

I guess I missed this thread, it's a interesting subject. 

While I agree that the goal post may have moved or maybe the programmers nixed the design of capping, I had more problems with the old system. 

When I first read about the precise/rough system it felt like a deflating ballon. But, the more I think about it, the more I would say it matches the game. Hardcore doesn't not mean over complicated skill trees or points systems, that has always had a bigger relation to causualfing games than not. Hardcore has more a relation to actual real skill, something that standalone has yet to define. These skills have no effect on how hardcore it is, I would go as far to say the opposite, the less artificial, the better.

The preposed system only has a positive benifit with no penalty. So you either remain neutral or go up in one domain, which has many skills. 

What I don't like about that is, where do your skills start out at? Neutral. So, you will never get better at some skills at all. I doubt there will be much differentiated total skills then. 

It would make more sense to start out inexperienced, then improve both strength/dex until you are experienced. Then branch into the strength or dexterity meter.  

It would be a three tier system with the top tier having the meter.  Inexperienced>Experienced>Master (master of only one domain)

This way it would feel like you accomplished something. 

Edited December 28, 2016 by Coheed_IV

[emuthreat 2837]

That's all good and well, but with the two-sided polar system proposed, it would still mean that half of the players would likely avoid doing half of the actions to maintain their specialty; which seems kinda lame.  I'm totally in favor of keeping the quantification of these skills permanently out of view, to discourage abuse.

Giving a choice between just two options seems a bit ham-fisted.

[Coheed_IV 381]

It really just depends how they design it. I would be shocked if you see anything or if it could change rapidly. 

[emuthreat 2837]

I agree.  It seems far-fetched that my earlier examples would be accurate, with such a fast swing of the needle; it may have been a bit hyperbolic.
But having just the two polar opposites and a slow rate of change, would make it either ineffectual or force the behavior changes I mentioned in my last post.  I just don't understand how it would work, I guess.

Edited December 28, 2016 by emuthreat

[Coheed_IV 381]

The biggest point to the skills IMO should be a reward for long-life.  So maybe it could be modified by days survived as well. 

I'm also interested in how they give UI feedback for this. I liked Deans ideas of achieved status without seeing constant player feedback, which reveals the in and outs of the system. So, I would go with "Master         " status just showing up. Strength and dexterity sounds better than rough and precise too. 

[Funkmaster Rick 373]

I dislike this system as initially presented - not because it makes specialization harder, but because it may very well end up forcing specialization.

If I end up doing a lot of rough tasks because that's just what the day happened to present me with, it seems like I might get penalized when I later decide to do some fine tasks in the same category.

[KingOfTime 267]

This is a skill system, that as I understand it, is effectively pointless. It changes nothing and is of no use to you if you are alone. So if I do a ton of gardening, then do some fishing, I cant garden as effectively? Makes no sense. I think there was some fear of angering the player base if it changed the game too much, so they went with a system that essentially changes nothing-unless of course, you have a squad with designated roles. Maybe Im wrong, only time will tell.