DayZ Soft Skills Alternative Plan?

[Espa 711]

Hey guys, I just put this together a test for what I think would perhaps be a much better plan than the strange Rough/Precise Skill System the Devs briefly touched on for the Soft Skills. I think that a negative reward system can only be bad and won't make any sense in any logical RP sense - Chopping wood making me worse at sewing, for instance. I think that a growing, yet limited, 'grinding' system is absolutely fine. . as long as it is limited by the day. 

Lifetime Perk
On a scale of 60 Base Stamina where 1 Stamina is used every second you spend sprinting, gain +5 Stamina per day survived, up to 12 day cap. This would double the Stamina scale to 120, essentially allowing you to run from 1 minute to 2 minutes.
This is also assuming that the Stamina system will recharge .5 every second as long as you aren't in jogging mode (Not Sprinting, just moving in basic jog) - Walk or not moving only. In this way it would take 2-4 minutes to recover the Stamina bar, based on your Lifetime Perk.

Strengths -
⦁     Lumberjacking, - For each Lumberjacking task performed, increase speed by 1% of action, up to a maximum of 100% faster. Maximum of 5% gain per day.
⦁    Carrying, - For each 10 minutes that Carrying limit is reached increase maximum Carrying Capacity by 1%, up to a maximum of 100%. Maximum of 5% gain per day.
⦁    Endurance - Each full day lived increase Health by 50 all the way up to a maximum of 6000 Health, a full 1000 additional internally. 
Precisions - 
⦁    Medical, - For each Medical task performed, increase speed by 1% of action, up to a maximum of 100% faster. Maximum of 5% gain per day.
⦁    Mechanics, - For each Mechanical task performed, increase speed by 1% of action, up to a maximum of 100% faster. Maximum of 5% gain per day.
⦁    Farming - For each Farming task performed, increase speed by 1% of action, up to a maximum of 100% faster. Maximum of 5% gain per day.
Skills - 
⦁    Skinning, - For each skinning action performed, increase speed by 1% of action, up to a maximum of 100% faster. Maximum of 5% gain per day.
⦁    Fishing, - For each fishing action performed, increase success rate by 1% of action, up to a maximum of 100%. Maximum of 5% gain per day.
⦁    Driving - For each 10 minutes spent inside of a car increase car handling by 1%, up to a maximum of 100%. Maximum of 5% gain per day.

Soft Skill degradation up to Servers, but in Vanilla perhaps every day not played reduce 1 Soft skill at random by 1% up to a reduction limit of 5%, thereby not destroying players who don't get to play everyday, but lowers their abilities decently to reflect their inactivity.
 

Soft Skill Ranks - Ranks at which skill degradation cannot reduce lower once reached.

• Novice (0-24% Faster)
• Adept (25% Faster)
• Expert (50% Faster)
• Professional (75% Faster)
• Master (100% Faster)

Edited January 4, 2017 by Espa

[TikTactical 61]

5 hours ago, Espa said:

 

 

5 hours ago, Espa said:

Hey guys, I just put this together a test for what I think would perhaps be a much better plan than the strange Rough/Precise Skill System the Devs briefly touched on for the Soft Skills. I think that a negative reward system can only be bad and won't make any sense in any logical RP sense - Chopping wood making me worse at sewing, for instance. I think that a growing, yet limited, 'grinding' system is absolutely fine. . as long as it is limited by the day. 

Lifetime Perk
On a scale of 60 Base Stamina where 1 Stamina is used every second you spend sprinting, gain +5 Stamina per day survived, up to 12 day cap. This would double the Stamina scale to 120, essentially allowing you to run from 1 minute to 2 minutes.
This is also assuming that the Stamina system will recharge .5 every second as long as you aren't in jogging mode (Not Sprinting, just moving in basic jog) - Walk or not moving only. In this way it would take 2-4 minutes to recover the Stamina bar, based on your Lifetime Perk.

Strengths -
⦁     Lumberjacking, - For each Lumberjacking task performed, increase speed by 1% of action, up to a maximum of 60% faster. Maximum of 5% gain per day.
⦁    Carrying, - For each 10 minutes that Carrying limit is reached increase maximum Carrying Capacity by 1%, up to a maximum of 60%. Maximum of 5% gain per day.
⦁    Endurance - Each full day lived increase Health by 50 all the way up to a maximum of 6000 Health, a full 1000 additional internally. 
Precisions - 
⦁    Medical, - For each Medical task performed, increase speed by 1% of action, up to a maximum of 60% faster. Maximum of 5% gain per day.
⦁    Mechanics, - For each Mechanical task performed, increase speed by 1% of action, up to a maximum of 60% faster. Maximum of 5% gain per day.
⦁    Farming - For each Farming task performed, increase speed by 1% of action, up to a maximum of 60% faster. Maximum of 5% gain per day.
Tactics -
⦁     Scoping, - For each successful shot you make while scoping lower scoping sway in all states, exhausted to chill as a cucumber, lower sway by 1% up to 60%. Maximum of 5% gain per day.
⦁    Close Quarters, - For each successful melee strike you make increase damage by 1% up to 60%. Maximum of 5% gain per day.
⦁    Explosives - For each thrown explosive increase range player can throw by 1% up to 60%. Maximum of 5% gain per day.
Skills - 
⦁    Skinning, - For each skinning action performed, increase speed by 1% of action, up to a maximum of 60% faster. Maximum of 5% gain per day.
⦁    Fishing, - For each fishing action performed, increase success rate by 1% of action, up to a maximum of 60%. Maximum of 5% gain per day.
⦁    Driving - For each 10 minutes spent inside of a car increase maximum speed by 1 up to a maximum of 20 mph. Maximum of 5% gain per day.

Soft Skill degradation up to Servers, but in Vanilla perhaps every day not played reduce Soft skills by 1% up to a reduction limit of 10%, thereby not destroying players who don't get to play everyday, but lowers their abilties decently to reflect their inactivity.
 

I like the idea you're having here but I'm seeing several flaws with this system if you think about what the devs mentioned. Firs thin is, as you're saying yourself, It's a "grinding system" even though It's not as bad as some of the previous mentioned things It's still "grind" to get the most benefits. Which is exactly what the devs don't want. They just want you to play the game just like you would before, and then you get better at the things that you just so happen to be doing. So for example the "Explosives soft skill" that you mentioned would cause a lot of players to start throwing around grenades to get that perk up because they had some grenades laying around. If the system wasn't implemented they would never even have touched the grenade in the first place. Catch my drift? And I don't know if many of these perks are just "dummies" but quite a few of these also go against the rule, that the devs set out for, on the soft skill system. They whole plan of the soft skill system isn't to make a player "better" (which the Endurance, Scoping, Close Quarters and Driving perks go directly against) because they do so that a player have an easier time killing another player because they have been alive for longer and done certain things. The driving perk doesn't make it easier to kill someone, but it just doesn't make any sense at all. Why would you be able to go faster because you've been driving for a longer amount of time? I could see it work implemented into a system such as "Mechanics" where, if you find the right parts, you would be able to install certain types of vehicle parts that would give the engine a little bit of a boost and therefore increase top speed, acceleration etc. a tiny amount. This also makes it so that a player that doesn't have any "skill" within mechanics can find a car with it already installed in the wild. and therefore make it a bit more dynamic.

[Sqeezorz 839]

I think the Devs know for themselves that it is very difficult to make a system that, on the one hand, the interaction with the world, the objects, the players rewarded. On the other hand they want to prevent it from mutating into stupid "grinding" actions. It may even be thought of by the Devs that we are thinking about, we are many heads that think the Devs do not see anything the way we see it. I mean, maybe it's just our ideas that lead the Devs in the direction they've overlooked so far.

The whole has now brought me to a completely new idea. Hiden crossed learning. I mean an activity which one makes, improves in the background a completely different but which is relatively logical in relation to it.

I try to explain my reason, sry as for my english as swiss-mate.

-When I sew, I make a fine work. But it does not have to mean now that I will always better with sewing, no maybe ** it helps me with the fishing or the disassembled of a chicken.

-I'm hacking wood, that is, learning to hit with an ax, but it can make me feel better with a hammer, or I can better a beast with the meat chop. Archery or Quiet looking with the binoculars brings me perhaps ** points while quietly aiming with a scoped weapon.

What I want to point out is: what you are doing will improve something else, therefore the **, it does not necessarily always have to be the same. The aim is to improve what is the similar work. But you will not be able to specifically improve a certain thing. If this system is designed to change it from week to week, then a senseless testing of the skill mechanics brings nothing ... what is today will be different in a few days.

This would promote the value of the long life, and I also think of interactions, because you might want to know what the other player can do or what he can not do well.

Edited January 4, 2017 by Sqeezorz

[sneakydude 480]

Repetitive grinding can make people walk away.

If i use an axe to chop wood and i get 1 piece to 50 pieces, it will not matter once pounded out the skill, but if i start to lose skill after i have cut down 50 pieces it is another one of those ARK constant running around gotta do this again and again and again to gain 1 skill point.

It just is not the way many people enjoy it. Your online 24/7 then keeping skills up.

Id rather gamble in that case....

 

but there is some good things in your post i like OP.

[Espa 711]

Thanks for the replies, guys! I really just put this together quite quickly as I think this, although a grinding system, may be better and really not even necessary to gameplay. It's whole chief purpose was to reward any action you decide to do by making you a bit faster or more successful at that action.

Just like in real life, if I practice shooting, fishing, bandaging, or even planting things to farm. . I get better at it IRL. - But if I spend time away from these activities, I am unpracticed and thus am worse at what I do. - The lovely thing about this system is, it doesn't matter if all of your skills are at 0% because it would be very much like it is right now. . You wouldn't even notice. However, if your character had survived for 6 Full Server days and you've been doing things to gain your practices. . Then you are just that much faster and better at it. Still, in the end, it's not a HUGE thing that people would ever need. . Just a reward for players who have given their time to the game. =)

PS - Yeah, the grenade thing. . I didn't know what else to say for that kind of activity. Maybe it should be changed to Traps, where it just reduces the Trap setting time 1% to 60% faster.

[General Zod 1114]

28 minutes ago, Espa said:

Just like in real life, if I practice shooting, fishing, bandaging, or even planting things to farm. . I get better at it IRL. - But if I spend time away from these activities, I am unpracticed and thus am worse at what I do

But my real life is where I have the time do learn and improve my skills, because that's where devoting my time matters. I don't want to have spent all of my free time to get some game given advantage Especially when it comes to combat skills. I don't want a guy who played 1500 hours of DayZ to have game given 60% lover sway because all he does is play this game. Not to mention that 60% is a massive decrease for grinding. 

[Espa 711]

11 minutes ago, General Zod said:

But my real life is where I have the time do learn and improve my skills, because that's where devoting my time matters. I don't want to have spent all of my free time to get some game given advantage Especially when it comes to combat skills. I don't want a guy who played 1500 hours of DayZ to have game given 60% lover sway because all he does is play this game. Not to mention that 60% is a massive decrease for grinding. 

Oh, I understand. But notice that there is also Skill Decay to offset any winnings unless you are an absolute DayZ freak and are on it 24/7, and the fact that you can only raise your character's skills by 5% every day played to offset a grind. That would be doing any of these actions 5 times successfully. To get to the highest level, you'd have to play on it 12 consecutive days and not die. The game should feel like it's rewarding your character as time goes on and you're doing a lot more - Not rewarding/subtracting from you as the one touched on by the Devs implicated - And maybe the percentages are off, but this was just a tester that I think would probably work a lot better :) 

These passive bonuses aren't meant to feel necessary at all, just a choice of the player to pursue if he wishes to turn a 6 second animation into a 2.4 second animation at the most - Making your character feel like a much faster, more resilient, and more resourceful kind of survivor. . Which, if you've put that much time into raising all of your skills to the highest and put that much time into your character and not died, I'm okay with them being badasses haha.

Edited January 4, 2017 by Espa

[emuthreat 2837]

I see some good, and some bad points to this OP.

The bad things involve combat skills.  This should NEVER be a thing.  The Devs have stated before that soft skills should absolutely never affect player to player combat.  So things like faster reloading, reduced sway, increased ADS speed, ala Call of Duty will not be a part of the skill system.
Also on the bad side of things is the skill decay, as it is pretty unrealistic.  IRL, of you are out of practice, you will not lose all of your aggregated knowledge and experience, but rather might have to practice a little bit, to get back to where you left off.
It's been almost twenty years since I touched a saxophone, but I guarantee you that I will get back to my level of proficiency with a saxophone, long before I could learn the trombone a with similar level of competence.  Experience doesn't just go away.  Knocking the dust off should be all that is ever required in this sense.

Along the better side of these suggestions comes the daily caps on grindability, and the law of diminishing returns.

In essence, soft skills should make all non-combat aspects of the game faster, easier, and generate consistently better results for the players who have managed to survive long enough, put in the time to practice those skills, and have had the materials to expend in the course of gaining the experience.

A big part of this soft skill concept that some people seem to overlook is the permadeath of characters.  Grinding will be automatically balanced by my ability to put a bullet into the back of someone too preoccupied with grinding a skill, to look after their  own safety.

Making soft skills slightly OP for those who have managed to max them out is going to hurt nobody, only help the player who invested the time and played carefully enough to do so.

[Espa 711]

24 minutes ago, emuthreat said:

-snip-

I can agree on quite a few things on this :)

So essentially, without the Tactics section of Soft Skills (Combat ones) it's a pretty decent list, I think. 

The skill degradation was something I thought might balance the game when players take off days from playing or have IRL stuff to do. - As for reducing your skills 1% every full day you miss with the limit of 10% reduction, it MAY be far too much a reduction. . 

Perhaps if it picked at random 1 Soft Skill to reduce by 1%, the reduction penalties for inactivity a solid 5% at max (5 days not playing). Remember that even at 0% bonus passive, you can still utilize any of these skills. . You'll just be slower and less effective as someone who's practiced these out. 

[Espa 711]

Fixed post. 

[Badfinger 3]

Interesting ideas,

like others here have already mentioned, I feel this would make maintaining your skill level a bit of a chore. Dailies were very often the worst thing about MMOs like WoW. Dailies in which you actually lose something you have already gained if you don't complete them sounds like a nightmare to me.

HOWEVER, a simple solution would be to limit the decay, so that it's not a huge deal if you miss a few days, or a few weeks. If the max is 50, make it decay down to 30, as an example.

So once you reach max, its more a matter of keeping the ones you are using at that time maintained, and you can let the others decay knowing that it won't be taking you all the way back down to 0.

I think that's pretty reasonable in terms of realism too, I know I have returned to activities after months without practice, and yeah, I'm rusty, but there's a baseline level of skill there which will take a long time to lose.

Edited January 4, 2017 by Badfinger
grammar

[Espa 711]

30 minutes ago, Badfinger said:

Interesting ideas,

like others here have already mentioned, I feel this would make maintaining your skill level a bit of a chore. Dailies were very often the worst thing about MMOs like WoW. Dailies in which you actually lose something you have already gained if you don't complete them sounds like a nightmare to me.

HOWEVER, a simple solution would be to limit the decay, so that it's not a huge deal if you miss a few days, or a few weeks. If the max is 50, make it decay down to 30, as an example.

So once you reach max, its more a matter of keeping the ones you are using at that time maintained, and you can let the others decay knowing that it won't be taking you all the way back down to 0.

I think that's pretty reasonable in terms of realism too, I know I have returned to activities after months without practice, and yeah, I'm rusty, but there's a baseline level of skill there which will take a long time to lose.

Oh wow, I think you found what I was missing! Ranking levels that once reached cannot degrade lower. 

I'll fix my post as soon as I'm back home! 

[Espa 711]

Fixed with Soft Skill Ranks

[emuthreat 2837]

I don't really like the idea of decay, that's what bullets are for.  All it does is punish players for IRL time not being used to grind maintain skills.  It would make much more sense if decay was related to in-server time for each character.  It would be better altogether, I think, if death was the only way to reduce learned skill advantages.

[General Zod 1114]

6 hours ago, Espa said:

Oh, I understand. But notice that there is also Skill Decay to offset any winnings unless you are an absolute DayZ freak and are on it 24/7, and the fact that you can only raise your character's skills by 5% every day played to offset a grind. That would be doing any of these actions 5 times successfully. To get to the highest level, you'd have to play on it 12 consecutive days and not die. The game should feel like it's rewarding your character as time goes on and you're doing a lot more - Not rewarding/subtracting from you as the one touched on by the Devs implicated - And maybe the percentages are off, but this was just a tester that I think would probably work a lot better :) 

These passive bonuses aren't meant to feel necessary at all, just a choice of the player to pursue if he wishes to turn a 6 second animation into a 2.4 second animation at the most - Making your character feel like a much faster, more resilient, and more resourceful kind of survivor. . Which, if you've put that much time into raising all of your skills to the highest and put that much time into your character and not died, I'm okay with them being badasses haha.

That's only 12 days for people who have abundance of time but from those who don't it's a lot.

Also you can't say they aren't necessary for me to play, not having them means I'm at a game mechanics level disadvantage. So even if on a skill level I'm better that advantage is cancelled out because he just got a game given perk that increased his accuracy. 

At the end of the day grinding will always favour those spend more time playing the game. 

[Espa 711]

10 minutes ago, General Zod said:

That's only 12 days for people who have abundance of time but from those who don't it's a lot.

Also you can't say they aren't necessary for me to play, not having them means I'm at a game mechanics level disadvantage. So even if on a skill level I'm better that advantage is cancelled out because he just got a game given perk that increased his accuracy. 

At the end of the day grinding will always favour those spend more time playing the game. 

I actually deleted that section as yourself and Emu showed me the flaws of having Combat related passive bonuses. Now everything would be user actions that benefit you in normal ways - No more better sway or damage, just speed involved in menial tasks.

Also, I made it a 5% Max Gain a day, with a max limit of 100% - Taking a full 25 days to max out everything.

30 minutes ago, emuthreat said:

I don't really like the idea of decay, that's what bullets are for.  All it does is punish players for IRL time not being used to grind maintain skills.  It would make much more sense if decay was related to in-server time for each character.  It would be better altogether, I think, if death was the only way to reduce learned skill advantages.

Truthfully, I wouldn't be against death as the only reduction - Making the life of the character easier to level up and not feel like you're losing anything when not playing. 

The only reason why I added the skill reduction in inactivity would be to give those players who are coming back a task to try to practice forward again. -- With the Rank Levels, I think it kind of fixes what you were talking about. If you were an Expert of Medical tasks, you could never drop below Skill 50 - and such and so forth. 

[Badfinger 3]

Cool, glad my contribution helped (:

Because I really do like the idea. It just needed a less steep risk and reward, as with everything when trying to translate realistic mechanics into fun. The power players who want to make sure they are maxed up at all times can go for it, but you won't be taken all the way back to the beginning if you don't.

Edited January 4, 2017 by Badfinger
grammar

[sneakydude 480]

20 hours ago, emuthreat said:

I see some good, and some bad points to this OP.

The bad things involve combat skills.  This should NEVER be a thing. 

Emu is correct, this is not COD, and it is not Arma 3 (best example),

Combat skills earned the more i snipe someone should never be given, my aim goes up +1 due to me sniping a guy. The reason why this should never be done, is because it will be Grind to win type game then. I can see maybe a steam award "You can snipe!"

but never skill awarded for sniping. Also you have to look at the steam pages, authentic to RL survival. Combat skills are not authentic, but there might be some work around to this, such as making bullets, making items, etc.. skill ups. Learning a trade skill.

Combat skills, some can argue well the more i practice my aim will improve, well we already have a fix for this. Dayz devs have been making sway, etc to slow and help us improve. They want what i understand an even playing ground.

Dayz devs should not have skill ups for us, on knowing how to use your mouse and keyboard. Its the luck of the draw, as it should be.

I really do not want to hash out 5000 infected, so i can be better at using an axe. "You would learn fast, or die" This simply is the same as saying well i am awarded for mashing buttons, and keys behind my computer.

Push comes to shove in real life we all learn, and have some basic instinct and common sense.

Most of all, we would have 1-2 trainers left in this world if we are lucky to show us everything possible with gun play, survival, etc... so we learn as we go... 0 skills, you learn behind your computer. If you know of tricks you keep those to yourself.

 

[Badfinger 3]

Agreed about no combat skills. The way you get better at combat is already implemented... you just get better at combat! :P

The largest pitfalls of combat are bad positioning and bad timing, skills which are learned simply by playing the game enough, and couldn't be affected by an in game mechanic anyway. Unless you want to put in little markers for where to stand based on enemy position, and a little timer telling you when to poke out and fire based on whether the enemy is likely reloading or not.

Which I very much doubt ANYBODY wants!

[Noctoras 409]

Pointless exercise - if I go fishing / sewing / whatever I try to pick a relatively safe environment. Couldn't care less, if I am 10 or 20% faster. Doesn't affect the outcome either. (and in real life it's pointless as well. I want someone who does the job BETTER, not quicker) .... yeah, I know that was the initial dev idea, but it was bad enough - the devs just made it even worse, so maybe it's time to drop the skill stuff entirely, as they want to push the game to release anyway. No point wasting time on it, if it's implemented in a rather useless way.

[emuthreat 2837]

59 minutes ago, Noctoras said:

Pointless exercise - if I go fishing / sewing / whatever I try to pick a relatively safe environment. Couldn't care less, if I am 10 or 20% faster. Doesn't affect the outcome either. (and in real life it's pointless as well. I want someone who does the job BETTER, not quicker) .... yeah, I know that was the initial dev idea, but it was bad enough - the devs just made it even worse, so maybe it's time to drop the skill stuff entirely, as they want to push the game to release anyway. No point wasting time on it, if it's implemented in a rather useless way.

This is garbage thinking.  Encouraging the Devs to cut out entire systems, just to call it finished sooner, is a complete non-start.

I can't believe you would think that is an acceptable solution.

[Whyherro123 2283]

1 hour ago, emuthreat said:

This is garbage thinking.  Encouraging the Devs to cut out entire systems, just to call it finished sooner, is a complete non-start.

I can't believe you would think that is an acceptable solution.

That isn't what he meant, Emu.

If they are gonna implement a shitty system, then he would rather there not be skills at all. I kinda agree.

[Espa 711]

In a game where every outcome is the same kind of success every time, the only thing you can affect would be how fast you do it. .

Just saying. . 

[Sqeezorz 839]

3 hours ago, Noctoras said:

 (and in real life it's pointless as well. I want someone who does the job BETTER, not quicker) .... 

This is indeed a very good point. I had to sharpen my Badly Damaged Axe today with a stone. I could sharpen them "only" on damaged. Better would be if I could go by experience on worn or even on pristine. So instead of time reduction, quality improvement or efficiency improvement. As with the skinny of animals ... with increasing experience more meat / bones / lard. This would be a real boost to boost something, and would make your opponent perhaps more valuable, because what if your opponent has the ability to repair your damaged shoes right up to pristine?

[Mr_Joe 38]

Stamina shouldn't be connected to soft skills, I think it should just be connected to how healthy your character is.  So if you want to be able to run the longest, stay hydrated and energized.