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Suggestion: Skill Up Through Use

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
The current proposal for the new skill tree is a topic for another thread (probably many other threads, lol). For all that it does some really awful things there are still some good ideas. The subject of this thread is regarding the removal of the more specific weapon type categories.

Combining the specific types into more general categories was a great idea. It just didn't make any sense to have all of the weapon types separated throughout the tiers at different costs in terms of skill points. This often lead to the waste of skill points or pretty much everyone running phasers. Now that everything is combined we have an opportunity to flesh out the skill up system and make it a bit more interesting.

I'm suggesting that we keep spending skill points to boost things but maybe have them be boosted to a lesser degree. Then we make up the difference through use and random chance. The idea, obviously, is that practice improves performance.

The point of skilling up as you use something would be to improve skills related to that thing you are using. So in theory you'd increase your accuracy, damage, critical chance and even critical severity. These would be innate so you'd always have these boosts and they would work with the modifications that come with whatever weapon you've equipped.

Suppose you have a ship that you outfit with all phasers beams. Each time you hit a target there is a chance that you'll gain a point of skill that improves your phaser skill as well as your beam skill. If you had equipped the ship with disruptor beams then each successful hit would come with a chance to improve your disruptor skill and beam skills. In that case, your disruptors would start out unskilled because you hadn't used them before, but since you are using beams you'd have those skills carry over.

This wouldn't just be for energy weapons either. Torpedoes and mines could be skilled. Maybe even some science skills. Certainly evasion could have a chance to skill up whenever someone misses you.

Does that make sense?

Maybe it seems unnecessary but it feels like something that could benefit the game. I read somewhere (can't remember which forum it was in) that there was interest in increasing grind. Grinding isn't really all that much fun I don't think I'm the only one who gets addicted to random schedules of reinforcement. I know in some other games I've spent hours just farting around trying to cap a sword skill.

Aside from the obvious benefits of a capped skill, maybe we could gain random chance perks. For example, a fully capped Phaser Dual Heavy Cannon skill might come with a .5% chance to drastically boost critical severity. Or a capped Beam skill might come with a .5% chance to fire off an extra shot. The percent chance of whatever boost should be pretty small considering the rate that these weapons tend to fire. The boost shouldn't be anything game breakingly crazy either. But a nice little addition like this could really incentivize playing more without really hurting the more casual players.

Thoughts? Feedback? Clarifications?
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