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Author Topic: Skills and Story Points  (Read 91069 times)

kenwth81

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #375 on: September 15, 2019, 03:17:35 AM »

I lean toward the current open and independent system rather than the directed and structured system you intend to implement. The act of making something simpler and easier for people to understand, often strip it of the depth and complexity.

This tier pyramid system force people to pick one of the two skills not one of 40 skills, it control someone’s freedom to do what they want and someone’s ability to be effective. It doesn't stop people from picking bad build or making wrong choices, but it kinda penalize people who do since picking 1 out 2 skill you must take is much less exciting than picking 1 out 40 skill that you actually want. The abliltiy to pick which skills and the order you take them is important.

Story point don't quite fit into Starsector. Star Wars is more of a fantasy than science fiction story. A story where you could use "THE FORCE". It is full of hocus pocus. So Story point is like "MAGIC". Some people might like that sort of thing, but it feel kinda out of place. Calling it Story point is so bland, so not magical or grandiose, please put more effort into the naming.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2019, 03:20:41 AM by kenwth81 »
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Kaisi

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #376 on: September 17, 2019, 01:23:29 AM »

I've even registered =D

This game is great. And it's been developing in right directions so far, but…

The coming changes in skill system are a bad turn, as I see it. Let me explain. The feel of Starsector is always a feel of realism so far. About pirates, factions, player story development and skills. As in real life, when we need some skill – we lean it. We spend time grinding books about that exact staff and eventually we gain knowledge of “managing a settlement”. We do not lean metallurgy or waste recycling but how to manage a settlement to it not to starve and gain profit. And this is a great part about Starsector. I learn a skill that I need right now like I would in real life. When I start my game as mercenary in a wolf and plan hunting pirates, fighting factions - doing combat staff or just know, that I will fend of hostilities and not run, first skill points go to maneuverability and speed. I start in cruiser – I dump them in weaponry and armor to tank and kill faster. When I want to play early game as an explorer, I dump points in ability to save fuel and sensors. No, this time I play, as a trader, I learn wide fleet skill to make me faster to outrun all trouble. And this how game progresses. I learn what I need to make my stories. At a time I played a military hero who was fighting for others and decided to fall of and fight for himself, dump his last points in colony management and it was perfect that he had not to learn salvaging, he despised salvaging, he even killed those space graveyard robbers on sight. The free skill system is what makes half of role-play in Starsector and that you are about to kill with MMO like linear professions. At least I hope you make it possible for mod makers to revert such changes back, otherwise it will be a huge loss for a game.

As for “story points” as described, it's more like a cheat reward for gaining levels. In my opinion it must be about forging stories. You deliver food to a starving colony – you are a kind man, people heard of your deed, take 1 point. You deliver food to a starving faraway hostile colony – take many points, people think of you, as an “honorable man who cares about them”. You save a distress call, take your point. You answer a faction call to rescue an expedition fleet on the edge of the map god knows what from – fuel loss, supplies shortage, enemy blockade – you save them – take your points. Helping fend of raids gives you points. Helping raiding, committing atrocities earns you point (or even bad points that kicks in randomly to *** you up in return).
Story points must be about forging a story, making you do stuff, not hoard EXP. That way my upgraded Onslaught will feel like a part of story, earned for my deeds, bad or good. Not just another reward for grinding.
By the way, about evading scan bonus – it can be even better. You specialists use story point to forge same fake id for a certain faction (or all factions for many points). All patrols of that faction no longer bother you. But the length  of the buff start degrading as you get in sensor range of a faction fleet. The more fleets you pass, the faster it expires (because high ranking officers start asking questions, they eat their bread not for cute eyes). You mast activate bonus out of sensor range of any ship and loose that bonus the same way, otherwise a standing hit with a faction that caught you.  That would be awesome mechanic and fully explain all this cheaty smugglers lurking around.

EXP boost smells like some lootboxes or premium accounts, by the way. You reach level cap fast enough already, it will wind away all feel of progression. And if story points are exp-earned, it's better make them separate from level progressing, maybe story-exp amount based on difficulty of missions and battles.

I think that's it for my humble opinion. I truly love this game.
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Alex

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #377 on: September 17, 2019, 07:47:44 AM »

I've even registered =D

This game is great. And it's been developing in right directions so far, but…

The coming changes in skill system are a bad turn, as I see it. Let me explain. The feel of Starsector is always a feel of realism so far. About pirates, factions, player story development and skills. As in real life, when we need some skill – we lean it. We spend time grinding books about that exact staff and eventually we gain knowledge of “managing a settlement”. We do not lean metallurgy or waste recycling but how to manage a settlement to it not to starve and gain profit. And this is a great part about Starsector. I learn a skill that I need right now like I would in real life. When I start my game as mercenary in a wolf and plan hunting pirates, fighting factions - doing combat staff or just know, that I will fend of hostilities and not run, first skill points go to maneuverability and speed. I start in cruiser – I dump them in weaponry and armor to tank and kill faster. When I want to play early game as an explorer, I dump points in ability to save fuel and sensors. No, this time I play, as a trader, I learn wide fleet skill to make me faster to outrun all trouble. And this how game progresses. I learn what I need to make my stories. At a time I played a military hero who was fighting for others and decided to fall of and fight for himself, dump his last points in colony management and it was perfect that he had not to learn salvaging, he despised salvaging, he even killed those space graveyard robbers on sight. The free skill system is what makes half of role-play in Starsector and that you are about to kill with MMO like linear professions. At least I hope you make it possible for mod makers to revert such changes back, otherwise it will be a huge loss for a game.

Hi, and welcome to the forum!

Hmm. I think the current system still offers enough flexibility to do most of this kind of thing. The first 5 points in particular - intentionally - come pretty quickly, so you can shape your early game in whatever way you want. It also makes it possible to make some skills more powerful and more fun to get/use, which you couldn't do if any skill could be picked whenever.

(It's also moddable, yes, but the skills aren't suitable to "you can pick any one you want", so a "proper" change to them would also rebalance them entirely, which is of course much more involved.)

As for “story points” as described, it's more like a cheat reward for gaining levels. In my opinion it must be about forging stories. You deliver food to a starving colony – you are a kind man, people heard of your deed, take 1 point. You deliver food to a starving faraway hostile colony – take many points, people think of you, as an “honorable man who cares about them”. You save a distress call, take your point. You answer a faction call to rescue an expedition fleet on the edge of the map god knows what from – fuel loss, supplies shortage, enemy blockade – you save them – take your points. Helping fend of raids gives you points. Helping raiding, committing atrocities earns you point (or even bad points that kicks in randomly to *** you up in return).
Story points must be about forging a story, making you do stuff, not hoard EXP. That way my upgraded Onslaught will feel like a part of story, earned for my deeds, bad or good. Not just another reward for grinding.
By the way, about evading scan bonus – it can be even better. You specialists use story point to forge same fake id for a certain faction (or all factions for many points). All patrols of that faction no longer bother you. But the length  of the buff start degrading as you get in sensor range of a faction fleet. The more fleets you pass, the faster it expires (because high ranking officers start asking questions, they eat their bread not for cute eyes). You mast activate bonus out of sensor range of any ship and loose that bonus the same way, otherwise a standing hit with a faction that caught you.  That would be awesome mechanic and fully explain all this cheaty smugglers lurking around.

EXP boost smells like some lootboxes or premium accounts, by the way. You reach level cap fast enough already, it will wind away all feel of progression. And if story points are exp-earned, it's better make them separate from level progressing, maybe story-exp amount based on difficulty of missions and battles.

I think that's it for my humble opinion. I truly love this game.

The issue with giving story points for actions is the player would feel like they *have* to do these actions for the story point reward. Imagine needing to respond to every distress call - and to your earlier point, some of the things the player would feel forced to do would likely go against the sort of character they're roleplaying.

It pretty much has to be tied to something more abstract and general-purpose (i.e. XP). In any case, part of the reason they exist is to give you a little more of a reward as you gain XP - since there are fewer levels, and they take longer to gain, since overall XP is similar-ish, so decoupling them from XP would be counter to that goal.

All that said, I'm sure some people will like the new system, and some people won't. I think it's moving in a good direction - and for me, I firmly believe it's better - but opinions will differ. That's going to happen with any large change, unfortunately, but I can't feel tied down by that, if that makes sense - I've got to do what I think will work out best in the long run. All I can ask is that you give the new system a fair shake when you get your hands on it :)
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #378 on: September 17, 2019, 10:39:51 AM »

I apologize if this is getting tiresome but I have an idea for fleet bonus officers/staff officers again.

*More like admins than than current officers. Cannot be assigned to ships, have their own slots. Cannot level up.

*Two slots by default, Leadership skill which deals officers allows three slots.

*One skill per staff officer. Players can use story points to let them have two skills (doing so also increases their pay). Second skill acquired is randomly selected.

*Bonuses do not stack in any combination of skill posession. Two (or more) staff officers having the same skill, or staff officer and player having the same skill, bonuses and limits do not change in any way.
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Alex

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #379 on: September 17, 2019, 11:17:26 AM »

I've actually thought about it, in fairly similar terms ("staff officers" etc)! To me that feels like the sort of thing that *could* work, but is also very much a nice-to-have; I'm not sure whether it's worth the added "things the player needs to do", UI elements, etc, but just in general, I think that could work.
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AzyWng

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #380 on: September 17, 2019, 11:36:36 AM »

Second skill acquired is randomly selected...
Two (or more) staff officers having the same skill, or staff officer and player having the same skill, bonuses and limits do not change in any way.

I'm not terribly familiar with this game yet, but I get the feeling that those two things together might wind up resulting in what could potentially be wasted story points - not even providing a benefit the way escaping from a battle for free might be useful.

I'm not sure how to balance that out, though. Maybe make it randomly selected from a pool of skills that aren't already held by the player/other staff officers, or let the player pick from 2 skills that aren't the same as ones other officers have?
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imperialus

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #381 on: September 18, 2019, 07:35:09 AM »

I lean toward the current open and independent system rather than the directed and structured system you intend to implement. The act of making something simpler and easier for people to understand, often strip it of the depth and complexity.

I agree with your concerns around depth and complexity but I'm not sure they are entirely warranted.  It's a tightrope, and if missued it can be used to mask lazy design.  Honestly I think the Skillpoints in Starsector as they exist now might go a little too far in the direction of complexity of the sake of complexity.  There are a relatively limited number of 'optimal' skill builds, and you are punishing yourself if you deviate from them.  Think of it like the skill system in post 3rd edition D&D.  It 'seems' like it offers a lot of choice, but say you are playing as a thief for example you are actively punished by the mechanics if you don't keep your lockpicking and trapfinding skills maxed out every time you level up.  It's complex, there are a lot of numbers to track, and it is balanced to a tee, but the tradeoff is that any deviation from the presumed balance is a severe handicap.  Compare that to a system where at each level you are presented with two mutually exclusive options.  Now you have a choice with some meaning. 

Not only that, but as a designer if offers the benefit that you only have to balance two skills against each other, not every skill against 40 other skills.  I mean you can't completely ignore balance within the whole spectrum, but it certainly can take a backseat.  You don't need to worry about balancing direct damage vs. colony management for example.
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #382 on: September 18, 2019, 11:13:01 PM »

Will there be API for getting the number of acquired skills in an aptitude?
« Last Edit: September 18, 2019, 11:24:26 PM by SonnaBanana »
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scrye

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #383 on: September 19, 2019, 01:42:49 PM »

@Alex, I just wanted to say I actually quite liked the overall feel of the new skill system, and I thought story points seemed like an interesting addition I would welcome as a player.  I think the emphasis on generic-versus-specialized made sense, and while I am a little hesitant about being forced to pass over one out of every two skills at each skill category level, being able to wrap around latter seems like an interesting compromise that still allows for long-term flexibility.  And I like that I can correct mistakes in my skill allocations later if I need to, via story points.

I liked the idea of story points being used to customize ship hulls and allow for more novel builds, hull mods in particular.  I would definitely use and enjoy that.  I am a little unsure about making hull mods permanent, as opposed to maybe costing more story points to remove/replace; I am constantly tweaking builds and would find that limiting if I realized there was a better loadout I wished to try later (same concerns for permanent AI installs and such; I'd rather just pay 4x-8x the story points it cost to install to uninstall it later so I could try a different setup, for example).  I also like the idea of story points being usable as a sort of event-focused currency, social influence if you will.  I felt that was something missing at times in some interactions with other fleets, and I feel that some sort of personal reputation/influence system (as opposed to faction influence/alignment) would add a lot of flavor to the game, especially for more independent captains.  Being able to persuade with something other than money (e.g. pirate extortions and such) also allows captains to gain a form of social wealth other than credits, which opens new playstyle and roleplay approaches (e.g. poor drifter mercenary living frugally/short on cash, but everyone in the sector knows their name).

I think the big question is simply how Story Points are acquired.  Personally, I might suggest that they be tied to events and to discoveries on the map - maybe don't give them out alongside EXP or levels.  That way players can pick the events and challenges that interest them, and they'll get story points accordingly as they pursue those successfully (e.g. barside shipping contracts, bounties, story quests).  The quest system allows for a number of different playstyles as it is, and has a bit of narrative structure inherently built into it; integrating them directly into the quest system feels like a natural choice to my mind since all quests are completely voluntary as it is, and it makes sense to roll them into existing quest rewards.  I think that would make them feel more special as well, in addition to ensuring the player always has a way to get more over time if they want.  If they just get handed out alongside any normal EXP gain and level ups, then they feel more like some derivative of EXP, in my mind.  This would also place more emphasis on adding content to the quest framework as it is, which seems like a good polish/playstyle expansion development target.

Long story short, I think the new system has enough merits that it's worth trying.  It's hard to know if it's an overall improvement until it's testable in practice, but yeah, first impression is good.

As an aside, I also really liked the ideas for scalable skills relative to fleet sizes and ship sizes.  I think it makes sense and makes for interesting trade-off challenges when deciding on fleet composition and size.  I would want to try it.  Being able to use AI cores for ships is a really fun option as well that I welcome, I have honestly felt like AI core uses were somewhat lacking in the game relative to their lore importance and rarity, especially so if you don't have any colonies.  Selling them feels like a waste unless it's an emergency, and otherwise they just sit in my inventory forever until a colony becomes an option.  A ship-related use (ideally a non-permanent/reusable one) is very welcome, either to play with until I get a colony or as an alternative use if I don't want to pursue that approach to the game.

Thanks for your work, I have been really enjoying Starsector since I picked it up.
« Last Edit: September 19, 2019, 01:57:41 PM by scrye »
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acheron16

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #384 on: September 19, 2019, 09:59:36 PM »

I'm still hung up on the frigate portion of the post.

I think a major reason as to why people simply drop frigates come late game is their propensity to die off so easily. Why bring, say, 3 frigates with a very real chance to be destroyed when I can just bring 1 destroyer, that is both more survivable as well as cheaper in terms of supply cost?

Instead of making them give arbitrary bonuses to other ships for just being present, I think one of the new skills should be dedicated to them:

- one skill gives them MASSIVE bonuses to their combat stats so they can actually do something to bigger ships and not be instantly obliterated the moment they sneeze at them
- another skill makes it so frigates are ALWAYS recoverable and can never have more than 1 D mod OR never get D mods but their recovery isnt guaranteed.

These skills would adress the biggest issues with frigates, their lack of punch and/or their lack of survivability without making them just give a bunch of bonuses to the already strong ships in your fleet.

Speaking of D mods, I feel that the system is a bit too punishing for newer players as well as late game players since most (all?) D mods double dip the punishment. You get a debuff on ship stats as well as a CR hit or maintenance hit.

Supplies are an extremely annoying albeit necessary part of the game, so losing a ship/salvaging a ship not only gives you a subpar combat vessel but also one that drains your economy, be it just maintaining it or wasting money restoring it. Not to mention that it makes no sense that it cheaper to buy a new ship than restoring it. My ship's armor is weakened? Whelp, better buy a new one. Just nonsense.

I feel that a good change would be having ship restoration price scale with the ammount of D mods the ship has. 1-2 D mods? Restoration is cheaper than buying a new ship. 3-4? Yeah that rust bucket would be better off in a junkyard, buying a new one is cheaper.

Even if ship pricing had to go up as result, I feel that with these changes ship salvaging would be much more viable. As it currently stands, it is better to break down and salvage a ship than recovering it and restoring it or even sell it.

Regarding permanent hullmods, I like the idea, especially with story points being continuously earned. I still feel like hullmod pricing in terms of OP should be reduced a bit, especially in bigger ships, but atleast having 2-3 hullmods won't be unreasonable.

Just my 2 cents.
« Last Edit: September 19, 2019, 10:02:15 PM by acheron16 »
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Megas

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #385 on: September 20, 2019, 05:42:37 AM »

I'm still hung up on the frigate portion of the post.

I think a major reason as to why people simply drop frigates come late game is their propensity to die off so easily. Why bring, say, 3 frigates with a very real chance to be destroyed when I can just bring 1 destroyer, that is both more survivable as well as cheaper in terms of supply cost?
For me, it is peak performance, then size of the enemy.  If AI wants to play coward, I want to outlast them so they lose if they try to run down the clock.  Small ships run out of peak performance too quickly.  No fun to retreat ships one at a time due to peak performance expiring seconds apart - big CP sink.  Later, endgame fights are against something like ten capitals and the rest mostly cruisers.  I need a similarly large fleet to fight that.

I dump most frigates almost immediately, and I dump destroyers (other than Drover) shortly after I build my first colony.

As for restoration, I expect to restore (or reload games) much more to preserve ships with built-in mods.  It would be nice if restoration will be cheaper than it is now.  It is nice to crank out pristine replacement ships (along with more free stuff) with heavy industry today, but since such ships will not be produced with built-in mods, I do not know what I will do.  Depends which will be easier to accumulate, story points or money.
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Alex

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #386 on: September 20, 2019, 09:46:49 AM »

Just wanted to say thank you for your feedback, and welcome to the forum, both acheron16 and scrye :)

- one skill gives them MASSIVE bonuses to their combat stats so they can actually do something to bigger ships and not be instantly obliterated the moment they sneeze at them

- another skill makes it so frigates are ALWAYS recoverable and can never have more than 1 D mod OR never get D mods but their recovery isnt guaranteed.

I feel like if you boosted the stats too much, you'd end up with frigates just being superior to other options. That said, one of the bonuses *is* actually considerably higher damage vs larger ships.

The frigate bonuses are set up to only apply to frigates with officers (which can get skill effects that make the ship always recoverable), and another of the frigate bonuses is making them always recoverable, so there are plenty of easily accessible options for that. In addition to Reinforced Bulkheads, of course.

So I think generally we're on the same page here, actually!
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kenwth81

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #387 on: September 20, 2019, 12:57:44 PM »

I lean toward the current open and independent system rather than the directed and structured system you intend to implement. The act of making something simpler and easier for people to understand, often strip it of the depth and complexity.

I agree with your concerns around depth and complexity but I'm not sure they are entirely warranted.  It's a tightrope, and if missued it can be used to mask lazy design.  Honestly I think the Skillpoints in Starsector as they exist now might go a little too far in the direction of complexity of the sake of complexity.  There are a relatively limited number of 'optimal' skill builds, and you are punishing yourself if you deviate from them.  Think of it like the skill system in post 3rd edition D&D.  It 'seems' like it offers a lot of choice, but say you are playing as a thief for example you are actively punished by the mechanics if you don't keep your lockpicking and trapfinding skills maxed out every time you level up.  It's complex, there are a lot of numbers to track, and it is balanced to a tee, but the tradeoff is that any deviation from the presumed balance is a severe handicap.  Compare that to a system where at each level you are presented with two mutually exclusive options.  Now you have a choice with some meaning. 

Not only that, but as a designer if offers the benefit that you only have to balance two skills against each other, not every skill against 40 other skills.  I mean you can't completely ignore balance within the whole spectrum, but it certainly can take a backseat.  You don't need to worry about balancing direct damage vs. colony management for example.

That idea isn't correct. You aren't being punished for deviating from the meta-build, you are hugely rewarded for using optimal builds.

There will always be good optimal builds and bad sub-optimal builds. If you want feel strong and powerful, play optimal builds. Don't play bad sub-optimal builds to complain the builds suck. It is like smashing your head against the wall.

There is a lot of viable non-optimal builds in open and independent system, people just don't like to play those, they like strong and powerful cookie cutter builds. People like Picking the winning option. It is as simple as that. It is metagaming culture. We can sometime play non-optimal builds for trivial reasons like we like how that character or class look or never play this class before I am gonna try it. A wide spectrum of viable builds usually exist but the spectrum for great optimal builds is really narrow.

Oh sure... Having to only balance two skills against each other. How hard can it get? If you are asked to pick two different skills, you probably would do it fairly quickly. The more choices we have, the more time we need to understand and evaluate and we may even choose suboptimally. The problem is not poor decisions, but poor options. It isn't skill balancing if you no longer need to compare or have any access to them instead it is just a skill restrictions to two choices when picking.
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SCC

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #388 on: September 20, 2019, 01:42:03 PM »

If you know there are better builds, playing suboptimal builds can be done only for two reasons: one is that you want to see if it plays differently, the other is that you want to play suboptimally for challenge. As of late, I typically play Starsector with the worst skill build of all (that is, no skills at all) and I don't feel that the gameplay is significantly different. Which is a shame, because it means that there are no skills that open new ways of playing, with perhaps zombie fleet being the only one (without skills, you just don't get enough ships anymore). Then again, I'm pretty good at the game and I may overcome issues that other players need skills to get through.
The main reason I may like the new skill system is purely that skills might end up interesting. The skill that allows you to recover droneships certainly is one such skill, that shakes up the gameplay.

Alex

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #389 on: September 20, 2019, 02:19:46 PM »

The main reason I may like the new skill system is purely that skills might end up interesting.

I'll just say, that's exactly the goal with *a lot* of the skills.
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