Passions vs. Skill Levels

[Saffron]

Just recently I was given a settler that was very passionate (2 stars) for both melee and marksman ... and he had a skill 2 in marksman and a skill 1 for melee. To be blunt, that just stupid.

That's like saying, "Why yes, I have a very deep passion for history. What? No, sorry, I have no idea what happened on July 4th, 1776. Was it important? December 7th, 1941? Uh, no idea what happened on that day, either. Should I know these things? John F. Kennedy, who's that? Should I know him?"

How can you be deeply passionate about something and yet know nothing about it or have any skill in it whatsoever? How can you even know if you have a passion for something if your knowledge and/or skill is so ridiculously low? "My god, yes, Sumo Wrestling is my absolute favorite sport? What? No, I don't know anything about it. Is it fun to watch?"

So what I think should happen is that when the computer throws together these random settlers, there should be certain parameters to keep them realistic and not so random as to produce idiotic results.

So let's just say that a settler has 1 star of passion for a job. That settler's skill in that job should start with a base 10 and then apply its usual random skill number. For instance, let's say the computer randomly gives a settler 6 points in botany. If that settler has 1 star of passion for botany, his botany skill would be 16, not 6.

To avoid getting a relatively large number straight away, the first star would give the biggest bonus of +10 with every star thereafter giving another +3. That way you don't have the kind of silliness of having a settler with 2 stars of passion for marksman and melee even though both skills added together totaled a whopping 3. It's doubtful that settler has ever seen a weapon of any kind before let alone actually used one.

[DGH!]

yeah

[That Drunk Fellow]

I mean I tend to interpret low skill, high passion as someone who has not discovered they were passionate about this thing yet.

[Red Luck]

Passion means they want to learn it and enjoy doing it, this doesn't necessarily mean they start off as a master at the craft

[taylan13]

I think it's quite a good thing actually. When the settlers are passionate about a skill and you prioritise it for them they keep doing it even when they're not very skilled at it. The more they work at it the better they get at the skill and their mood doesn't drop over it. It's certainly worked for a few of my settlers!

[Caz]

Originally posted by Jared9292:

Passion means they want to learn it and enjoy doing it, this doesn't necessarily mean they start off as a master at the craft

I would accept this if all their other skills were low. But someone with a passion for Melee, but a skill of 1, while having no passion at all for Tailoring but having a skill of 12+ is just asinine. There needs to be some sensible logic to the passions.

[RedwoodElf]

Hey, I have Shion in my settlement: Double Passionate in Cooking, but level 1 Culinary.

[Romain]

Having both skill doest seem a problem You can actually imagine a situation where you switch all your archer into melee combat right before the last door break

What I found very annoying is the fact that you can have these 2 both passion at the same time. I always feel I'm "loosing" the best of my character

[PhamTrinli]

I agree it doesn't make much logical sense, but it still might be better for game balance