Why are skills so lame now?

[Ty Cobb]

Stats are gone, perks are gone, non-combat/general skills are gone, weapon skills are rolled into fixed classes.

Every other skill is some twice-per-fight wonder. Oh, look, twice a fight I can do a melee attack at half-strength and inflict -50% enemy movement for an enemy that won't disengage anyway . Thank God I got that one. They are all things like class max skills that say:
"Once per battle make 2 attacks at -50% damage -50% accuracy."
"Once per fight restore shield HP to full, inflicts exhausted on character after use."
"Once per battle make enemies in a 3 hex radius feel bad about themselves."
"Once per battle mark an enemy. All attacks against them do 3% more damage. Inflicts liver cancer on character after use"

Hey, look, a knockdown! That's actually useful! Except you can only do it twice and getting back up only costs the enemy *some movement points*. Not even a lost action, but move points. If you aren't going to remove their action then why exactly limit the ability? Not like you can stun lock them. Hell, even *normal attacks* have a once per round cooldown.

One more sacrifice upon the Josh Sawyer Altar of Balance.

[Parane]

Are you drunk, mate?

[GeneralGonzo]

just lock the thread

[upuaut2]

i dont even know what is trying to say lol.

[Sir Clavius]

Yeah, he is drunk.

[Solomon Kane]

He is not entirely wrong there, the skills the classes offer, are not that impressive to be honest, also, now any characters build and skills is class locked, in vikings every character had access to every skill and build, enabling the player to create his own dream team based on the players playstile.

While it is, at least for me, a minor minus point, I am still looking forward eagerly to play the game, but I can understand were the OP is coming from.

[Cutlass Jack]

I hope he brought enough booze for everyone.

[ゲ-で]

I feel the opposite, skills are better than options we had in Viking, especially since an upgraded kick was a must have for pretty much everyone.

[Hathur]

While he's over-stating it, he is right about many of the skills that SHOULD have a tactical benefit having no actual beneficial use in the game. Knockdown is particularly useless and any skill that reduces enemy movement in general is useless since I have not once seen an enemy even attempt to disengage and reposition. Once you are in melee with them, they stay there.. so what's the point of reducing their movement or doing a knockdown if all it does is reduce their movement when the enemy will never risk disengagement in the first place once they are in melee range?

Now if this changes later and the enemy will actually behave intelligently and consider things like risk vs reward for a tactical disengagement to reposition themselves, then yes, those movement reducing skills will then have great merit... but in the demo I played, they are completely useless / unhelpful.

And also in general I find nearly all the skills extremely underwhelming to use. Expeditions Viking didnt seem to have this problem or at least not nearly as much - many of the skills / abilities there felt quite useful.

[Black Hammer]

The skills do seem rather low impact. A lot seem reliant on combos that aren't action efficient to set up in the first place. Why sacrifice damage to apply bleed so you can use a skill that removes bleed but does extra damage? Enemies without armor and shields seem to die pretty quick, but you can't reliably apply status effects for the combos to the dangerous enemies with shields and armor.

Burning is a complete crock, given that enemies can just resist it immediately. Sure, it's a low percentage chance, but it's basically a reverse crit chance, where on a crit it does nothing.

[F2F01]

I feel like this is how it was in all their games. Skills in Vikings absolutely had these sort of synergy-first design to them.

[AlyaBT]

Dude is correct unfortunately, Vikings was perfect, rome seemed to be dumbed down, hate saying this and still hope i would enjoy the game, but yeah.. he's right

[Ty Cobb]

Originally posted by Solomon Kane:

He is not entirely wrong there, the skills the classes offer, are not that impressive to be honest, also, now any characters build and skills is class locked, in vikings every character had access to every skill and build, enabling the player to create his own dream team based on the players playstile.

This guy gets it.

Originally posted by Hathur:

While he's over-stating it, he is right about many of the skills that SHOULD have a tactical benefit having no actual beneficial use in the game. Knockdown is particularly useless and any skill that reduces enemy movement in general is useless since I have not once seen an enemy even attempt to disengage and reposition. Once you are in melee with them, they stay there.. so what's the point of reducing their movement or doing a knockdown if all it does is reduce their movement when the enemy will never risk disengagement in the first place once they are in melee range?

So does this guy.

Did you see that shield wall skill? Once per fight, shield hp bonus but your guy gets exhausted and can't restore his shield for the rest of the battle. Eagle eye? One turn of full range damage once per fight. Whoa, watch that deadly skill. Lure? One round of one enemy not having cover once per fight. There's a keeper right there.

There are some passable skills in the Triarius trees, but are there *any* skills that really pop out as amazing? Barrage? Reaper?

[SkyRiderJM]

Interesting reading. I find the knock down only useful if I can have another member nearby to take a free stab to try to finish him off and not have to worry about him hitting us back but when they get back up what's the point?

[Jonas]

Just so you guys know, Knockdown takes a character completely out of the action for 2 whole turns before they can stand up. I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that it only costs them movement...

Sounds like a lot of the issues OP had was from not noticing the cost of a skill. For example "a melee attack at half-strength and inflict -50% enemy movement" sounds like the Triarius skill that doesn't cost an attack action. So that's why it's good: because you can do it in addition to your attack.

It might be worth taking a closer look at the skill tooltips. You can see the status effect duration on each icon, and the cost of using each skill (action, charges, or Focus) is shown with the icons on the bottom :)

[Solomon Kane]

That is all good Jonas, but that does not change the fact, that with expeditions Rome you made a step in the wrong direction in my opinion, see, in Conquistador, the player was able to pick his own Team, based on the players preferences and playstyle, there was freedom to build your own team, in Vikings, it was even more so, as the player was free, to build his team according to his likes and playstyle once again.

Now in Rome, your Companions have their class and skills set in stone, me personaly, I do like to build my own team, I am not talking about the Characters Backstory, their " roleplay " I am sure I am gonna enjoy dealing with them, now you could argue, that their class and skills, are based on their backstory, well, you have proven in Vikings, that this does not need to be going hand in hand at all, so, this is a disapointment for me, none the less, I am eager to play, as the pro still outweights the cons to play for me.