Owlcat skill system is a mess

[Aegmar]

Title.

Its not that im having issues finding or making workable builds or issues progressing the game, i just think its not good design.

The system is messy, badly explained and complicated. hundreds of synergies and opportunities to scale effects and damage allow to make (some) characters so strong they can basically clear a whole map (including bosses) on their own (slightly exagerrated).

Is this really good design ? Does the character bulding has to be basically a "mini game" it feels you spend a third of the time playing in ? finding skill combinations that feel like exploits when you use them ?

Sometimes i think a more clear cut and simple (and more limited) system that can actually be balanced against the difficulty tiers would have been the better design decision. Ypu can still give the player meaningful choices to pursue and customize for different weapons and playstyles, but in the current systems where you can make characters both totally useless and ridiculously overpowered it feels a bit broken...

[Aegmar]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Taifun_Vash:

So should they cater to one of the guys that does not like the design, or should they cater to the ones that like the design. What you want is for them to rework their whole skill system, that won't happen. Also repeating your initial post is not really a discussion, is it good the way it's, in your eyes it seems it's not, I quite like the freedom to build how I want. You don't need to like it.

you don't have to agree with me you know..., thats what a discussion forum is for btw. discussing stuff. We don't have to agree about everything, this is not the Imperium^^

[Revan619]

honestly OP I dont think YOU get the point.

The game doesnt railroad you into only playing the most OP min-maxed things and it doesnt give you useless options either. It gives you options for EVERYTHING. You cant get tricked into picking a useless path, you can build poorly and pick talents that dont synergise with what you are doing that makes it a bad choice. Thus a bad build.

To spell it out further. If you are building a dodge tank blade dancer, stacking all talents that give you high dodge. However you then pick heavy armour talent and then use it. It cuts your dodge by 50% which means your build can no longer dodge and likely doesnt have the other talents required to support armour stacking so you have made a bad build. That doesnt mean those choices are unplayble, if you had gone warrior taking all the heavy armour and damage mitigation then heavy armour is good.

Ive put over 500 hours into the game from August to December because there are so many options with each homeworld and origin changing the roleplay which is even further changed by the dialogue path. The skills you choose also impact what options you have in dialogue which can lead to non combat solutions. It is a good system that you seem to have missed the point with.

[Aegmar]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Revan619:

honestly OP I dont think YOU get the point.

The game doesnt railroad you into only playing the most OP min-maxed things and it doesnt give you useless options either. It gives you options for EVERYTHING. You cant get tricked into picking a useless path, you can build poorly and pick talents that dont synergise with what you are doing that makes it a bad choice. Thus a bad build.

To spell it out further. If you are building a dodge tank blade dancer, stacking all talents that give you high dodge. However you then pick heavy armour talent and then use it. It cuts your dodge by 50% which means your build can no longer dodge and likely doesnt have the other talents required to support armour stacking so you have made a bad build. That doesnt mean those choices are unplayble, if you had gone warrior taking all the heavy armour and damage mitigation then heavy armour is good.

Ive put over 500 hours into the game from August to December because there are so many options with each homeworld and origin changing the roleplay which is even further changed by the dialogue path. The skills you choose also impact what options you have in dialogue which can lead to non combat solutions. It is a good system that you seem to have missed the point with.

what you describe is somehting different and not at all about what i was pointing out. read again.

[LeftPaw]

I think cataloguing skills properly would help a lot. Heading in what the skills address.

[coolman20012]

there should be an option like "game, do automatic level ups for me" with standard builds. i mean let's be honest, most people google a build anyway and just use that as pattern...

[HB]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Revan619:

honestly OP I dont think YOU get the point.

The game doesnt railroad you into only playing the most OP min-maxed things and it doesnt give you useless options either. It gives you options for EVERYTHING. You cant get tricked into picking a useless path, you can build poorly and pick talents that dont synergise with what you are doing that makes it a bad choice. Thus a bad build.

To spell it out further. If you are building a dodge tank blade dancer, stacking all talents that give you high dodge. However you then pick heavy armour talent and then use it. It cuts your dodge by 50% which means your build can no longer dodge and likely doesnt have the other talents required to support armour stacking so you have made a bad build. That doesnt mean those choices are unplayble, if you had gone warrior taking all the heavy armour and damage mitigation then heavy armour is good.

Ive put over 500 hours into the game from August to December because there are so many options with each homeworld and origin changing the roleplay which is even further changed by the dialogue path. The skills you choose also impact what options you have in dialogue which can lead to non combat solutions. It is a good system that you seem to have missed the point with.

Exacatly, ie its a good design not bad. Its very nearly all things to all players, the options in game are that so many and varied.

[deus]

The interface is a bit of a chore to be honest, but I don't have anything against the skill mechanics in principle.
The new icons really helped the mnemonics though.

What I would really like is the ability to pre-select traits for upcoming levels you haven't reached as you please.
So you can plan ahead and not risk forgetting what specific combinations you were gunning for.
I know that's what "favourite" tagging is for, but its so easy to overlook what exactly you were thinking with so many characters.
And when you reached a level you can fast track to lock in your pre-selection.

[HB]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Aegmar:

what you describe is somehting different and not at all about what i was pointing out. read again.

He is not the one, with comprehension issues.

[Rizilliant]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Folderwin:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Azure:

welcome to 40k Roleplaying rules, not for for everyone but very good for the games they were used for

Baldur's Gate 3 is not a role-playing game?

Baldurs Gate 3 is rpg on training wheels.. You will not find a more oversimplified ruleset, than D&D 5th Edition.

I came into Rogue Trader a massive 40k fan, but completely new to the ruleset.. This is pretty good, but not as deep as Pathfinder, or even Pillars of Eternity.. But its definitely one of the better ones. i waited a long time to grab it, because I wasnt convinced it would translate well to a crpg, having come from Pathfinder, and while its not AS good, Im still thoroughly enjoying my time.. Not without its typical Owlcat issues

Początkowo opublikowane przez Aegmar:

Title.

Its not that im having issues finding or making workable builds or issues progressing the game, i just think its not good design.

The system is messy, badly explained and complicated. hundreds of synergies and opportunities to scale effects and damage allow to make (some) characters so strong they can basically clear a whole map (including bosses) on their own (slightly exagerrated).

Is this really good design ? Does the character bulding has to be basically a "mini game" it feels you spend a third of the time playing in ? finding skill combinations that feel like exploits when you use them ?

Sometimes i think a more clear cut and simple (and more limited) system that can actually be balanced against the difficulty tiers would have been the better design decision. Ypu can still give the player meaningful choices to pursue and customize for different weapons and playstyles, but in the current systems where you can make characters both totally useless and ridiculously overpowered it feels a bit broken...

If character build depth is not your thing, you should try Baldurs Gate 3 instead.. Maybe Wasteland 2 and 3, if you prefer pew pew

Having played lots of crpgs, extensively, I can say without a doubt, that there are ALWAYS builds that feel far better than others, or "broken", as you say.. They fill different roles.. If youre just measuring damage, then sure, there are clear cut winners.. But you having buffing, debuffing, crowd control, tanking, bartering, skill monkeys etc.. I dont expect my Abelard, to put out the damage that my Argenta does, and I dont think Argent will soak the hits that Abelard does. Cassia can maniupulate the entire field of combat, but Kibella can manuever in between all the enemies, picking off individual key targets.. Kibella has High, single target damage, as opposed to Argenta, who has high aoe damage. This is the case for every game..

In Dragon Age Origins, as your example, Morrigan does amazing aoe dmg, and crown control, but sucks at single target, and cant survive anything.. Zevran does amazing single target damage, but also dies instantly.. he removes the big threats to the arty, in a single attack.. Allister sucks at any damage, but keeps aggro, and rarely takes damage. Wynne sucks at nearly everything, but no one is going down with her in party, and she keeps the mana/stamina flowing. So which one is broken? Depends on the task

[knowthyself2]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Aegmar:

Początkowo opublikowane przez knowthyself2:

I'll say this again: this game is a recreation of a paper&pencil tabletop ruleset

and this makes it better how exactly ?

What it means is that Owlcat was simply transposing the rules from a popular tabletop game and putting them into videogame form. Your complaint is akin to playing a digital chess game and complaining about the rules of chess. Chess is a very popular game with popular rules, ergo it does well on a digital platform. Rogue Trader is also popular with a liked ruleset, so of course its ruleset has many followers in a digital platform as well. If you don't like the paper and pencil Rogue Trader game, then 1) don't blame Owlcat, they didn't design it and 2) maybe stick to something less complex

[Ancient Toaster]

Początkowo opublikowane przez BigJ:

A more clear cut limited system is also by definition, less diverse unique and allows for less player freedom/expression.

Aren't like more than 70% of these skills and abilities absolutely useless?

[BigJ]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Ancient Toaster:

Początkowo opublikowane przez BigJ:

A more clear cut limited system is also by definition, less diverse unique and allows for less player freedom/expression.

Aren't like more than 70% of these skills and abilities absolutely useless?

No, depends on build heavily. The skills that are useless no matter what are rare or bugged. Like breakthrough.

Even stuff like backdraft may be meh on a staff build but shine for forgeworld melee builds.

[Revan619]

Początkowo opublikowane przez BigJ:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Ancient Toaster:

Aren't like more than 70% of these skills and abilities absolutely useless?

No, depends on build heavily. The skills that are useless no matter what are rare or bugged. Like breakthrough.

Even stuff like backdraft may be meh on a staff build but shine for forgeworld melee builds.

break through is actually very strong. Shearing strikes is what is bugged as it consumes all MP regardless of rigorous training. On an Arch-Militant or when you using daring breach it doesnt matter. They are aware and working on a fix.

Some talents might be useless on one build but like you said, they are very good on others. Some arch-types might be vastly weaker than the others but all of them can win on unfair.

[BigJ]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Revan619:

Początkowo opublikowane przez BigJ:

No, depends on build heavily. The skills that are useless no matter what are rare or bugged. Like breakthrough.

Even stuff like backdraft may be meh on a staff build but shine for forgeworld melee builds.

break through is actually very strong. Shearing strikes is what is bugged as it consumes all MP regardless of rigorous training. On an Arch-Militant or when you using daring breach it doesnt matter. They are aware and working on a fix.

Some talents might be useless on one build but like you said, they are very good on others. Some arch-types might be vastly weaker than the others but all of them can win on unfair.

My bad, confused the two.

[Obscure]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Aegmar:

Title.

Its not that im having issues finding or making workable builds or issues progressing the game, i just think its not good design.

The system is messy, badly explained and complicated. hundreds of synergies and opportunities to scale effects and damage allow to make (some) characters so strong they can basically clear a whole map (including bosses) on their own (slightly exagerrated).

You're 100% right OP. In addition the system has far too many active skills that have no downside, but you need to manually activate every turn in combat. Click to improve my stats, click on the character, click to lower their armour, click on the enemy, click to increase my damage, click on the character, click to increase my range, click on the character, click to cause bleed effect, click on the enemy, finally click to fire the actual gun *miss*.

So in summary the skill system is :-

Needlessly complex and time consuming
Completely unbalanced in regard to the outcomes it creates
A chore to use in combat

Which is all a shame, as under all the mess is the soul of a great game. Sadly when some people like a game, they dig in and defended every aspect of it, even the parts that could be really improved.

Here's a good set of guides for each build, the author wrote a section that agrees with with pretty much everything you said:

"This mean owlcat RPGS are not hard. Ever. They are tedious."
Guide

The lessons of why tabletop RPG rules are best changed when moved to a computer game was learned by most developers long ago, which is why most RPGs do that. Hopefully, Owlcat will catch on one day :).