Quote:

Original post by Thoughtless Quote: Original post by Thoughtless Berserker Rank 1 - Increase damage dealt by x-y while reducing your armour by 30% for z seconds. Berserker Rank 2 - Increase damage dealt by (x+a)-(y+b) while reducing your armour by 30% for z seconds. Berserker (0%) - Increase damage dealt by x-y while reducing your armour by 30% for z seconds. Berserker (20%) - Increase damage dealt by (x+a)-(y+b) while reducing your armour by 30% for z seconds. :)

The original version seems to be inficting a penalty for taking an action that's related to a skill (implied by "for z seconds"), rather than inflicting a penalty for having a better skill. That's something that all games employ, and not related to the topic.

The second version doesn't make any sense. If it were implemented, the same constant negative effect would always be applied. It's no longer related to the skill. All characters will have something between berserker 0% and berserker 100%, so the penalty is always there.

What about giving penalties in other categories than the one in which the bonus applies? So lets pretend your characters can both use melee and cast spells. If I use that ability to boost my crits what about docking his magic attacks? Or something similar. To increase your intellect / trading skills would be at the cost of melee skills. Or other such things.

I also wouldn't do this for every skill. I might even scale the negative effects the more points are put into it. So for your melee finaltiy maybe the first point is free and clear. The second point incurs a minor penalty, the third a bit, and so on and so forth. The penalty for the 10th point would be alot more significant than the penalty for the first or second point.

Sounds like an interesting concept.

I think that's an awesome idea, boosting something but having to trade something else. it definitely makes you think more on how you build your character. I would agree with Andruil on making the penalties affect different categories, but it's definitely a solid idea, i think it would work well.

I agree with nightech.

Does fable not implement a system with skills that do bad? I mean on a quest you can get more for doing it handicapped. Fable also didnt make you choose a class from the start to my memory so the player is given a little time to choose what they want to do in game and then they are handicapped again by for example being a ranger with great bow skill but if they hadn't leveled melee, it would be hard. I liked that flexibility so perhaps if you also look at it from this perspective it might help.

What about just negative skills period? So lets say we have a negative skill that lowers the crit chance by 2% per point. You select it and get points to spend elsewhere. I've been playing lost labyrinth lately and they have those pure negative skills which allow you to have more points to spend elsewhere.