Design Feedback: Selectable Companion Abilities

Method of Selection: (You can pick up to 3 choices. Each are explained in OP "options" spoiler)

  • Tiered Pools (Limited Selection Based on Ability Strength)

    Votes: 9 12.9%
  • Point Buy (Free for All, Balanced combinations based on point values)

    Votes: 22 31.4%
  • Pool Choice (Limited Selection Based on Ability Type)

    Votes: 23 32.9%
  • Preset Paths (Class groupings)

    Votes: 33 47.1%
  • Emblem Purchase (Free for All, Current presets with option to override with emblems)

    Votes: 28 40.0%

  • Total voters
    70

Users who are viewing this thread

My AAR... sheesh I totally forgto about that thing... I guess I should get back to it xD

Anyway, since there's a lot of dicussion going on here, I'll try to react to some people...

WizardOfAtlantis said:
This right here. The abilities are what define that person for me. Before Silverstag, the companions were pretty shallow, imo. They were there, they existed, and they had their different skills, but those skills are very manipulable. Even their weapon preferences can be changed by putting points here and there.

However, these new abilities make everyone unique, and as soon as this is diminished, so will the uniqueness of each companion, unless of course the selection is guided by some kind of limiting factors by keeping the companions' abilities more or less inside some kind of 'professional tree' that is appropriate to their story.

That's exactly why I proposed the idea of "skill pool" tailored to fit the character. Player would still be able to influence the final setup of skills for his companions, but still within the limits of the character's "personality"

gsanders said:
I like the idea of a point based pool where the player "buys" the skills, which maintains balance while allowing more customization.
I disliked Perisno's high level companions where all the skills were spent in advance; I'd prefer to have a pool of unspent points as suggested for Silverstag so I could select the role and skills I wanted in a companion, even if that's a bit "unrealistic".  The proposed pool of abilities has a better value.  If abilities are so unequal assign a rating of 1-3 points to a given ability, and a pool of say 5 points to spend, and this limits the number of very strong abilities purchased for special abilities.

Tha main problem with a system "You can choose from all abilities" is balance. As Windy already said, abilities are not entirely balanced themselves, it's their fixed nature (for companions) that makes them balanced.  Since Silverstag aims to be a gameplay overhaul balance is an important factor.

@Windy

I fear you'll have to chose for yourselves and disregard our opinions, since it looks like every opinion has it's supporters and no one has the upper hand xD
 
The choice will still lie with the team, but it is useful to hear everyone's thoughts on it.  The more discussion the better the likely end result would be.  I had no intention of ever adding a Freelancer-like mod to Silverstag until the community convinced me to do otherwise.  And now that is the project being worked on.
 
Yeah, I know that :smile: I guess adding more variants player could chose from (ideally at the same time he chooses mod difficulty) would be problematic, right? :smile:
 
gsanders said:
I like the idea of a point based pool where the player "buys" the skills, which maintains balance while allowing more customization.
I disliked Perisno's high level companions where all the skills were spent in advance; I'd prefer to have a pool of unspent points as suggested for Silverstag so I could select the role and skills I wanted in a companion, even if that's a bit "unrealistic".  The proposed pool of abilities has a better value.  If abilities are so unequal assign a rating of 1-3 points to a given ability, and a pool of say 5 points to spend, and this limits the number of very strong abilities purchased for special abilities.

I was just about to suggest this, but he worded this better than I could.

Or maybe you could just outright pre-set the current abilities for a companion, but apply a slight penalty for customization (current abilities get a bonus, changed abilities get a penalty or just be the same like for any other standard troop).
 
Maybe a good compromise would be having most of the companions abilities be pre-determined, while allowing the player to choose for them the last three or two? That would allow for some degree of customization in accordance with what the player has built them towards while still retaining the unique personality and 'theme' as intended by the devs for each companion.
 
While I don't mind the preset abilities, I have to say that would work better if we had a lot of companions to choose from. Right now we're sorta limited by our companion choices. Not only do we need to find a good synergy between the companions so they aren't always bickering and threatening to leave (no, having complaints off in settings isn't really a solution; it's more of a cheat to avoid that inconvenience), we also need to try to fit them into roles like storekeeper or a court position, worry about how to build them as they level up, etc. They're already limited and it limits our play style with them. The only truly customizable character seems to be Ymira, who starts out at level 1 so you can pretty much turn her into anything at that point. But some of the others, considering their backstory and pre-determined attributes and skills, would be unwise to veer into a different area. Then there's also personalities, nobility, etc.

Coming back into the topic of abilities, if the characters were more customizable as far as abilities were concerned or we at least had more choices among companions so that we can still have something that isn't so cookie-cutter, such as a frontline shield-user that actually gives a bonus to ranged attacks to nearby allies making them great if you play with javelineers or like to position your archers right next to or even inside the shield wall, then it'd be significantly better.

Since I think it'd be more complicated to make hundreds of companions that could fit every bill, I think that allowing us to customize them to some degree, even if it's just 1-2 custom abilities on top of their preset ones or something, could make a big difference.
 
As someone who always turns his companions into this little elite unit that all uses the same weapons and armor, the ability to choose their skills would be lovely.
 
Let's break this down into a few ideas, maybe turn these ideas into a vote on how the system will be changed? We can use the vote here currently to determine development speed.

Idea #1: Tiered Pools

In this system each tier is tethered to levels 5,10, and 20 being tier 1,2, and 3 respectively.
Better abilities are in higher tiers however the subjective nature of each ability can be argued as some skills have synergies between them. Example: Bloodlust and Berserker have great synergy.
Abilities with clear synergies are hard to put into tiers.

Idea #2: Point Buy

In this system each ability costs a number of points out of a pool. The pool can be either a fixed number, the companions level, or any other sort of scheme for advancement. Really I can think of a handful of different ways to determine how the pool is calculated.
Either the slots in which we can fix abilities to opens up at 5,10, and 20 or we can leave open a certain number of slots like 3.
So how do we determine what an ability costs? Clearly we can assign a value based on usefulness but ,like above, synergies make things interesting. The value of Charging Strike goes up if you have Second Wind. It's value goes up again if you have Blademaster. On top of that Blademaster's value goes up if choose savant. Granted if we have 3 slots you don't have to think about balance beyond 3 abilities.
Therefore there are two approaches: 1) Static fixed value: Simple, may cause imbalance issues 2) Value increasing: As you assign abilities, the point value of synergies goes up.
Honestly option 2 is a bit of a mess to get working right and explaining it may be even tougher.

Idea #3: Pool Choice

This system is a negotiation between game play balance, player choice, and pro-lore. In this system at the levels where companions are given abilities the player is given a choice. He can choose between a set of abilities. You don't have to worry about tiers in this system as the developers choose which based on the companion. Developers can assign abilities that make sense or fit the lore well.
We have a few options here:
Option 1: Choose one out of three - Give 3 options for each slot, one personal, one party, one adviser. You could do 4 but i think party could include both party role and benefit without much trouble.
Option 2: You get to pick some - Some slots are fixed but you get to pick some slots
Option 3: Hybrid - Some slots are fixed but you get to pick for some slots any ability

Idea #4: Free for All

This system is very simple. You have a number of slots that you can fill with any ability. The pros are that players get to do a lot of customization. the cons are that players get to do a lot of customization. You will get scenarios where Charlie's Angels are running around the battlefield, unstoppable war machines, while the player takes the support role (Charlie). You can also get the reverse where the player has made the companions into great party assets and the player takes to the field. Likely you will see a little of both. You could also see ridiculously good advisers in some cases.

Idea #5 Pick a Preset

This system is likely to be the more lore friendly and easy to balance. When the player gains a companion, the companion stops the player and says "Look I work for you now, what do you want me to work on doing for you?". The player is presented a number of preset ability arrays. Each preset will have a theme like advisory or combat. You could have options to reset the choice for Silverstag Coins or lose a few levels to make a change later.
For example Klethi might present presets like these, I made up a few abilities to showcase how it could be made lore friendly.

Set 1: Combat
Poisoned Blade
Knife Thrower (Bonus to projectile speed, bonus to ammo, a kill with a thrown knife refunds 1 ammo)
Savagery

Set 2: Party
Scavenger
Stealthy
Useful Contacts

Set 3: Advisory
Kitchen Mastery (bonus to feasts)
Attention (bonus to patrols spot)
Spymaster (learn who is coming to the feast, get reports on lords and feelings)

You could even have certain signature abilities show up in every preset like Klethi could have Poisoned Blades in every preset.

Idea #6: Silverstag Emblems

This system allows you to add abilities to companions via Silverstag Emblems. This is much like #4 in that near the endgame you can have unstoppable and really good companions. However the rate at which you hit the endgame companions can be controlled by adjusting the rate you gain emblems and the cost of abilities. Considering the many uses of an emblem this is gives the player another hard choice on where to spend his hard earned emblems.

Other Considerations:

What happens to a companion that becomes a lord? Does the companion get plugged into the lord system which gives abilities? Do they retain what abilities they already have and gain more based on the system? If the companion is low enough level where he or she does not have an ability do they gain it when they reach the correct level? If we are king do we get to influence our vassal's abilities?

My Opinion:

Personally I like idea #3 option 1. I think it gives the best balance and compromise to both parties.
If that is not an option I like #5. I think this option is best suited to Silverstag's ideology.

Edited to add TripleThreat's idea.
 
How about silverstag emblems?

I think a good idea would be to award the Silverstag Emblems when you complete certain quests (or just make them more common by other means), and these can be spent to add abilities to your companions. Making emblems slightly more common, could in turn balance out what the player decides to spend their emblems on, furthermore it means a whole new 'points' system isn't needed. I find that too many systems to keep track of can be overwhelming for new players. Though this might mean balancing the prices of existing things the player can spend emblems on.
 
Actually I think that's a cool idea. It gives us another use for the emblems.

Maybe give them a feature kinda like the player's, where you can spend a bunch of emblems to reset companions. Not just abilities but also their stats or something, so you can rebuild if you want.
 
In reviewing your PRO/CON list, it seems to me all those items are (or ought to be) matters of personal preference for the player.  Therefore I'm in favor of choosing abilities, especially if there's an "off switch" in the prefs for those who don't want to do it.
 
UniversalWolf said:
In reviewing your PRO/CON list, it seems to me all those items are (or ought to be) matters of personal preference for the player.  Therefore I'm in favor of choosing abilities, especially if there's an "off switch" in the prefs for those who don't want to do it.

I assumed that Windy does not have time to develop all the systems so each person can pick their prefered system. If that is not the case, Windy, you might be a coding god.
I agree that giving the ability to return the game to set abilities is a must as usual for this mod.
 
What I would really like to see are more abilities that are unique to individual companions (ie Katrin's chef ability).  My ideal system would be a hybrid system where characters have 1 preset, preferably an ability unique to that companion, and two open slots where the player gets to chose the remainder of the abilities from a pool of abilities based on character's background and role. For example Katrin could get the chef ability at level 1 and then chose 2 abilities from the support companion pool. Some abilities would need to be generic and be available in every pool ofc.

An obvious problem with this is that right now the two "safe" parties are either made up primarily of support characters or combat characters. You can add more combat focused companions, Nissa is a big help in this regard, or simply put some combat abilities (stuff like bloodlust and berserk should not be available to them) in every tree so it is easier to give a support hero more focus on combat.
 
TripleThreat said:
How about silverstag emblems?

I think a good idea would be to award the Silverstag Emblems when you complete certain quests (or just make them more common by other means), and these can be spent to add abilities to your companions. Making emblems slightly more common, could in turn balance out what the player decides to spend their emblems on, furthermore it means a whole new 'points' system isn't needed. I find that too many systems to keep track of can be overwhelming for new players. Though this might mean balancing the prices of existing things the player can spend emblems on.
I think that is a very interesting suggestion.  What does the community think of it?  I have no issues with people gaining a stronger combination of abilities when earned over time like that.  The consideration point though is even if a range of 1-3 emblems on any ability was set then across nine companions it would cost 27-81 emblems.

BurgherKing said:
What I would really like to see are more abilities that are unique to individual companions (ie Katrin's chef ability).  My ideal system would be a hybrid system where characters have 1 preset, preferably an ability unique to that companion, and two open slots where the player gets to chose the remainder of the abilities from a pool of abilities based on character's background and role. For example Katrin could get the chef ability at level 1 and then chose 2 abilities from the support companion pool. Some abilities would need to be generic and be available in every pool ofc.

An obvious problem with this is that right now the two "safe" parties are either made up primarily of support characters or combat characters. You can add more combat focused companions, Nissa is a big help in this regard, or simply put some combat abilities (stuff like bloodlust and berserk should not be available to them) in every tree so it is easier to give a support hero more focus on combat.
The main hindrance to this plan is workable ideas on abilities.  Not many get requested so I just add ones as I think of or need them.
 
Windyplains said:
I think that is a very interesting suggestion.  What does the community think of it?  I have no issues with people gaining a stronger combination of abilities when earned over time like that.  The consideration point though is even if a range of 1-3 emblems on any ability was set then across nine companions it would cost 27-81 emblems.
If it were me I'd give more opportunities to earn emblems. Maybe some are rare script-controlled rewards from tougher battles, like if you survive a siege defense when you were greatly outnumbered or something like that.

Other than that though I think that's the best way to handle this. Customizing companions and things in general is part of the fun of games like this, so giving us more freedom even if it'll cost us something one way or another is a step in the right direction.
 
I had planned on implementing an achievement system with a set for the current character and across all characters with emblems as a reward.  That's one supplement.  Part of the reason I am asking about selectable abilities is that such a system needs to be designed for companions if it is ever going to be implemented for customizing faction troops in-game.
 
As it is, some companions are obviously better than others. I'd welcome the ability to mix things up and try out not only different companions, but different abilities as well.
 
I however don't think it's a good idea to give players absolute freedom in choosing companion abilities. Companions are strong even now, we don't need to make them OP. Imho...
 
I've been thinking about this for a while now, and I would like to make one more suggestion:

Rather than choosing all abilities for all companions, how about choosing which companion has which companion-defining ability? I'm thinking about the abilities useful contacts, chef, efficient, siege commander, etc. . These abilities define what role a companion is to play in the game, if we left everything else as is, but gave the player to ability to perhaps prior to the game or during the game somehow, choose which companions have which abilities, that could allow for some degree of customization, while still making it so that certain companions being given certain abilities will still be the best for their role.
 
My personal choice would be a check box on the same screen as 'Gather Companions' allowing the player to choose whether they want selectable abilities for companions or not.  I wouldn't impose restrictions on what abilities the player can choose either - those players who enjoy creating an unstoppable army of killing machines can do so, and those who prefer to 'roleplay' their companions can do so without restriction.
 
Back
Top Bottom