Topic
Skills tree
I don't know about you guys, but I miss it.
Replies
- I miss it too... seems weird it not being a tree anymore!
- it was much easier to read how you were progressing and see how the skills related... not sure on the new chart
- I loved the old skill tree too! *sobs*
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there will be a more tree-like thing coming soon.
also, skills are going to be changing, big time.
so while we're working on that, what kind of skills would you like to see? what did you like the most so far? -
I'd quite like a carpentry skill to make tables and wardrobes and chests to put in my house and maybe a nice bed.... I like the idea of getting stuff from around the world to make items.
and maybe a boat, I want to sail a boat! -
Glad to hear it will be a tree again :o) Much easier to follow!
I've really been enjoying the cooking, it's oddly satisfying making tasty looking treats :o)
I'm looking forward to trying out mining, but I didn't manage to level up this evening get a skill point! - what about being able to help people design the layouts of their houses?
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pottery
puppetry
candy and confections--ery
glasswork
australian rain stick making and playing
balloon sculpture
clowning -
some great ideas! i think i like all of them, especially carpentry and musical skills.
i have a bunch of new skill ideas i'll write down later, but i'd like to list the existing skills i like and dislike while the testing is fresh in my mind.
existing skills i like:
mining
animal kinship
existing skills i don't like:
gardening
cooking
skills i wasn't able to test because i got stuck in high level XP molases:
refining, alchemy, etc
i like mining for reasons articulated here - alpha.glitch.com/forum/gene...
i like animal kinship because chasing animals around, capturing them, and setting up remote herd tending equipment is fun, although remote herd tending almost requires a tutorial, since there's no feedback to tell you it is 'working', and the time scales are so long.
i don't like gardening because bubble making, gasmorgification, fruit changing, and spice milling are all too similar. i think they create a big, boring, overcomplicated knot in the middle of the gardening skill tree, and infect both the cooking and animal kinship trees. i think some of these skills could be removed or consolidated. bubble tuning and gasmorgification probably.
i don't like cooking because it isn't creative enough. it would be more interesting if semi-random selections of ingredients could be thrown together to make semi-random concoctions. like some modular system for sandwich building where you could layer ingredients in experimental ways to make experimental dishes. or 1000 different kinds of stew. -
also - creativity in cooking - like if we could bake cakes and then use different coloured icings to write messages and draw designs on the cakes and then send them to friends. like for birthdays.
i guess i expect *everything* in the game to be a little less mundane than simply mixing a few items together to achieve a predetermined result and then repeating the process again and again the exact same way.
even very subtle variations can have big dividends in fun! because the mining nodes shift around and change, makes a huge difference in terms of mining not being boring. - Good!
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I'm finding myself really drawn to cooking, but it's disappointing how few freestyle combos will ever lead to anything. My butterfly-fried steak didn't turn out...
It isn't yet clear why gas and bubbles are pulling their weight. -
I had a random thought after logging off last night... crafting/cloth making :o)
Bother sheep/rabbits/goats to get fleece/hair
Use a drop spindle/spinning wheel to turn that into yarn
Use varying veggies/fruit/spices plus a big pot to dye your yarn interesting colours
Use crochet hook/knitting needles/weaving loom to turn your pretty yarn into hats/scarves/gloves/socks/jumpers/rugs/flags
Could be used to decorate yourself, your house, random animals, etc. :o)
Can you tell what I spend my spare time doing when not playing Glitch? ;o)
I like the idea of being able to be more creative/random with the cookery. Also like the idea of some form of musical skill tree (another of my hobbies!) - Injecting some fantasy world imagination, make clothes with a yarn that plays a song when you walk in the finished product. It would only be audible on the wearer's computer, maybe something from their mp3 library.
- dowsing - would require a divining rod and could get you all sorts of odd liquids
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so far, i liked:
- cooking/frying. it was fun to learn new recipes, though i agree that it's frustrating when freestyling it doesn't work out. was interesting to see in the video posted recently that there are indeed secret combinations to stumble upon.
- making new trees and animals, and it was nice being able to make the various ingredients with the grinder/tuner/etc. likewise i'll probably enjoy a bit of gardening once level and skill are split up, because my garden won't be tied up with potato-grinding all the time.
- mining, but so far, honestly, it's just cause i got a kick out of littering my campground with sparkly junk. yay!
- animal skills are fun and i look forward to checking out herdkeeping once i can store my food off the ground.
i definitely like the idea of skills that allow for creativity, love Katrina's ideas. music is good too. people could contribute their own glitchy tunes perhaps, and with Tingly's idea, you could market your own jingle hat or whatever. or you could team up with a friend -- one to design the hat, one to write the tune!
i agree that experimental recipes would be good. maybe you could cook up a batch and set up a taste-testing. the food's xp given could be modified based on preset values for various ingredient combinations, or maybe your taste-testers could decide, say within a given range depending on the ingredients, how tasty/filling it is.
i also like the idea of skills that'll be useful once we have houses with insides. yes, carpentry would be good (though i'd worry about the deforestation effect).
Sadie's interior design idea is intriguing, and reminds me that from what i understand, there are people in puzzle pirates that market themselves as wedding coordinators. while i don't know if weddings are a particularly glitchy thing, (but i bet they said the same thing about the pirates!) maybe there could be a higher level 'event planning' skill. you'd have to produce, or gather (or with friends as a party quest) music, food, decorations. groups could hire you to put on their fundraising event or farmers market or the annual Festival of Lem or PARP convention or whatever. -
"i guess i expect *everything* in the game to be a little less mundane than simply mixing a few items together to achieve a predetermined result and then repeating the process again and again the exact same way."
I -
random recipes would be really fun and i'm sure cake decorating would be a hit, but in order to have a proper game economy, some level of "mixing a few items together to achieve a predetermined result and then repeating the process again and again the exact same way." has to occur.
i think the trick is making that "fun" instead of tedious. and i think i have some specific suggestions for how to do just that:
knife and cutting board: two ideas here..
one is that while making, you button mash to increase your yield. if you aren't mashing quickly enough, a warning appears. if you chop really fast then you get maximum yield. flavour text could make this even more fun, with messages like *REAL CHEFS CHOP FASTER* and *YOU ARE INDEED A CULINARY WARRIOR*.
the other is a Guitar Hero type interface, where ingredients fly toward you along four "tracks" and you have to use expert timing to chop up the various incoming vegetables as they pass over the cutting board.
frying pan: this one is a little bit simpler. a "heat meter" thermometer rises up. once it reaches the top, you have 5 seconds to click a button to "flip" the contents of the frying pan to prevent them from burning up and ruining the recipe.
awesome pot: same mechanics as trying pan, except you're stirring to prevent from boiling over.
cocktail crafting: this should be more creative than timing based. liquids in a glass seems like a great place to put in some modular design opportunities, since you can colour shift the contents of the glass based on ingredients and put different items on the end of a stick floating in the glass etc. etc. this doesn't have to be super complicated. for example you can leave the existing cocktail crafting as is, but provide the option for players to add a "twist of" to anything they make. think "Cosma-politan [with a twist of piggie meat]" or "Cosma-politan [with a twist of cabbage]"
i think you only need to have a couple of these 'skill challenges' in the tree to shake things up, since you don't want cooking to just be an endles parade of skill challenges. there's no need to force a reflex challenge into grilling, just to have one. besides, the grilling probably requires an ingredient made by chopping, so you've already got the random challenging variety inducing part out of the way with the chopping.
the psychological payoff is that people won't just be chefs .. they will be capable of being *good chefs* through skill, which makes a huge difference. - Striatic, I love the idea, as long as it's not too difficult to complete these challenges. I suck at any kind of games that require good hand eye coordination or a fast response time. I like that in glitch I can be "good" at the game without having gaming skillz.
- How about growing flowers as well as vegetables? We could grow pretty flowers and give bouquets to one another to decorate our houses? :o)
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What if efforts in a couple of skill branches could result in passively developing a third skill or skill set? Say as you increase your Meditation and Transmorgrification skills, you would start to passively gain abilities in the "Shadowy Arts":
mind reading. the game could generate a randomly generated thought bubble of another player's thoughts for you when you apply that skill to them. It would be fun to tell people what they are thinking--I confess I only half know what I am thinking most of the time anyway.
judicious application of the EVIL EYE--to take away small amounts of another player's mood points. We don't always have to play nice, do we?
fortune telling: once applied to another player, you would get info about how many points they need before they level up next, or how long before they will be stomping grapes in hell if they don't eat something.
aura massage: restore lost mood points to a player who has been given the Evil Eye. -
I like the skills suggested above that imply collaboration or sharing as they're different from individual skills. Athleticism (Teaming?) or flower gardening with bouquet sharing are two.
I was thinking a performance skill would be fun too, where you had to pontificate or speechify and get others to watch and applaud your performance - it would be awesome to see a Round (or Polygon) of Applause somewhere. :D -
"I like that in glitch I can be "good" at the game without having gaming skillz."
i agree. i think the point is not to introduce a lot of difficulty, but the shake up the interactions and introduce variation.
results for making games should be like:
10% of the time: failure - player probably wasn't paying attention at all, blew the timing, complete making failure.
60% of the time: success - player was paying attention, making success!
30% of the time: perfect timing - success + a slight bump in yield every so often for being elite. - p.s. i love the flower growing idea. for home decorations : ]