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- Jan 28, 2011
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Tags: Iron Tower Studio; The New World; Vince D. Weller
Vault Dweller has come out with a new Colony Ship RPG development update sooner than I expected. The purpose of the update is ostensibly to give us a look at mockups of the game's character and inventory screens. More importantly though, it includes a comprehensive analysis of the former. It's the most detailed description of the game's character system we've gotten yet. Have a look:
1. Tagged Skills
The tagged skills will increase at a faster rate (let's say x1.25). INT will no longer give overall XP bonuses but define the number of tagged skills instead (up to 4 tagged skills at INT10). Thus a smart person will be able to excel in a larger number of disciplines.
2. Party-Based Mechanics used in DR
Charisma will determine the number and quality of your party members. The party size will range from 2 to 4. Experience points from quests will be split between the human party members (a droid will have its own leveling up mechanics and won't cost you any XP), thus a smaller party will be able to gain levels faster
3. Feats & Character Levels
Your characters will gain levels using experience points from quests. When you level up, you’ll select feats, unlocking or improving your abilities. The feats will be an important aspect of character development (i.e. they won’t give you minor bonuses but help you develop your characters along specific paths: lone wolf vs squad leader, offense vs defense, gunslinger vs sprayer or gadgeteer, melee vs ranged, which will go beyond which skill to develop, etc) and make as much of a difference as the skills levels.
The skills will determine your chance of success with certain tasks and the feats will define what you can do and how you can use these skills to maximum advantage. Basically, the feats will define your character much more than your skills.
4. Skills & Learn by Using
You will not gain XP for killing, talking, sneaking, picking locks, using computers, fixing mechanical things and such. You will not increase your skills manually. Instead your skills will be increased automatically based on their use.
1-10 ranks with hidden grandmaster ranks going above 10. So essentially a 1-20 system. Basically, we don’t want someone to max a skill and then have the xp go to waste, so we will allow raising the skill above 10 in the unlikely event of someone going over 10 via extreme specialization.
The full update includes an early draft of a CYOA-style character generation sequence that will define your character's initial reputation and disposition. Among other things, it reveals that the colony ship's name is Starfarer. Perhaps that will be the game's title?
Vault Dweller has come out with a new Colony Ship RPG development update sooner than I expected. The purpose of the update is ostensibly to give us a look at mockups of the game's character and inventory screens. More importantly though, it includes a comprehensive analysis of the former. It's the most detailed description of the game's character system we've gotten yet. Have a look:
1. Tagged Skills
The tagged skills will increase at a faster rate (let's say x1.25). INT will no longer give overall XP bonuses but define the number of tagged skills instead (up to 4 tagged skills at INT10). Thus a smart person will be able to excel in a larger number of disciplines.
2. Party-Based Mechanics used in DR
Charisma will determine the number and quality of your party members. The party size will range from 2 to 4. Experience points from quests will be split between the human party members (a droid will have its own leveling up mechanics and won't cost you any XP), thus a smaller party will be able to gain levels faster
3. Feats & Character Levels
Your characters will gain levels using experience points from quests. When you level up, you’ll select feats, unlocking or improving your abilities. The feats will be an important aspect of character development (i.e. they won’t give you minor bonuses but help you develop your characters along specific paths: lone wolf vs squad leader, offense vs defense, gunslinger vs sprayer or gadgeteer, melee vs ranged, which will go beyond which skill to develop, etc) and make as much of a difference as the skills levels.
The skills will determine your chance of success with certain tasks and the feats will define what you can do and how you can use these skills to maximum advantage. Basically, the feats will define your character much more than your skills.
4. Skills & Learn by Using
You will not gain XP for killing, talking, sneaking, picking locks, using computers, fixing mechanical things and such. You will not increase your skills manually. Instead your skills will be increased automatically based on their use.
- The main problem with a party-based, skill-based setup is that even with a 3-man party you can easily cover all skills you want to have. You’ll have a fighter/talker, fighter/thief, fighter/fixer, which is something we’d like to avoid. The ‘increase by use’ system solves this problem in the most natural and logical way possible. Your abilities reflect what you do, not how (usually arbitrary) you distribute your skill points.
- It reinforces our party-based goals. If you let one of the party members do all the repair work while you concentrate on other areas, losing this party member would hit you hard and you’d have to make sure (via choices made during quests) that he/she would stay with you no matter what.
- It rewards consistent gameplay. Let’s say you need to deal with a gang that stands between you and that door over there. If you kill them, everyone’s combat skills will improve a bit. If you talk your way through, only your dialogue skills will go up.
1-10 ranks with hidden grandmaster ranks going above 10. So essentially a 1-20 system. Basically, we don’t want someone to max a skill and then have the xp go to waste, so we will allow raising the skill above 10 in the unlikely event of someone going over 10 via extreme specialization.
