Skill Checks

[Ironed Maidens]

Hey Boznirith, I cannot reply to the interior you have claimed but I did want to give some feedback to the file you have so far. I do not like the idea of you putting that crevice in the cave that does an agility check to allow the player to navigate through. My reasoning being is that part of what makes Morrowind so Morrowind is the fact that you can do anything at any level if you try hard enough (climbing mountains in the ashlands comes to mind). With this agility check I feel that the element of exploration is limited, and while I can see why you would put such a script in the cave, it seems moddy over-all and I would prefer something else more organic be put in its place. There should not be many skill level checks in TR, and there are already some spell books that do this (which I also do not really support the idea of but they have long been in TR, so that is a different discussion). If anything, perhaps have the crevice be organic but be filled with more dead ends, which may be an easier demise for a lower leveled character. There are other options, and while I like the overall idea of what you were trying to do, I do not support the practice.

[Seneca37]

... My reasoning being is that part of what makes Morrowind so Morrowind is the fact that you can do anything at any level if you try hard enough (climbing mountains in the ashlands comes to mind)...

Is this true? I remember playing and I could NOT climb mountains at any level. I thought the whole point of MW was to advance in skill so that you could do more.

... there are already some spell books that do this ...

I too am not a big fan of these books, but only because, if your intelligence is too low, you are not notified of the spell that can be learnt.

What's nice about the crevice script is that either you can pass through it, or a message pops up and tells you that your agility is too low. I see no harm in this, in fact, I would suggest using more of this type of script for the more difficult areas.

[Ironed Maidens]

with enough determination you can jump up mountains in a specific path. now, yes, higher acrobatics makes it EASIER to do, but it is still possible off the bat.

but regardless, these types of artificial barriers are not good practice.

[Dormichigan64]

But it can be a way to train one's skill until they can accomplish the said task. If the player needs higher agility, he/she will be forced to train their agility to continue, making him/her a more powerful character. It's encouraging the player to go out and do stuff. Also, what's the point of having complete freedom if that freedom is going to lead to certain death to low level characters?

[Ironed Maidens]

So then the player will get their agility to rise naturally. or maybe they wont, thats not realy any of TR's business. it is moddy, thats the bottom line. i cant think of any instances in vanilla mw where there is a skill check like that, at least for the reason of exploration, and it should be taken out of the cave. nor is it something i think should be used all over, unless we want to go back through vanilla content and add spell books that require intelligence checks and caves that requite agility or strength checks. then we can keep it consistent, and even then i think its a bad idea that does not bode very well for player experience overall in the exploration aspect of the game.

[Gnomey]

I think it depends largely on implementation, but I don't see any inherent problem with skill checks. Compare to lockpicking: you need a lockpick of sufficient quality to open a lock, and the lower your security the more likely that you'll just burn through your lockpicks without opening the lock. Mages have the alternative of casting a spell, which requires the spell to have sufficient magnitude and the mage to have sufficient magicka, and sufficient skill in the right school of magicka so as to have a good chance at successfully casting a spell. A warrior does not, however, have the alternative of bashing open the lock, at least without mods. The warrior can, however, get his hands on a scroll or other item that allows him to cast an unlock spell, and there are various other workarounds.

The point of the matter is that there are various points in the game where the player will not be able to open a lock, so he has to either leave the lock be or return to it later. Every player, however, no matter what his build is, would be able to open that lock with the right tools. In the case of an agility check, a potion or spell of fortify agility should be completely sufficient, and there are many other ways to artificially raise ones agility for a limited amount of time; naturally it would be nice to provide alternative requirements to try to cater better to various builds, but as attributes in particular are fairly easily fortified -- as opposed to specific skills -- I don't think alternative requirements are really necessary in this case.

Other comparisons would be underwater dungeons that require the player to hold his breath longer than, certainly, low level players would manage, and loot perched up on ledges requiring either teleportation or, possibly, telekinesis with sufficient reach to acquire. These can form barriers to certain builds, but barriers that can be overcome with proper preparation.

[sasquatch2o]

Skill checks make things more interesting. I'd like to see them used more widely and creatively in the future. This will impress player with the importance of obtaining higher proficiency in different skills and abilities. The uniqueness of characters will be more rewarding. Checks should be used for abilities and skills. I also see this as potentially opening more options not just limiting. Persuasion vs combat vs sneak or agility for instance. For example a high agility passage might allow a player to dodge combat or a high security door. With a high personality player might be able to convince guard at a main entrance to open gate (persuasion) while a thief could pick the lock at a side entrance (security) or move through/ climb a difficult passage (agility/acrobatics). Limiting certain actions through skillchecks has the potential to create new untapped possibilities that allow the player to express the uniqueness of their character and play in a style they choose.

Another solution to this would be a gradient of successes rather than pass/fail. For example:
>70 player passes narrow underwater passage unharmed
"You deftly pass through narrow passage unharmed"
>50 player passes passage but takes damage or is drowning at exit
"You clumsily and slowly make your way through the passage"
<50 player is unable to pass
"You lack the agility required to pass through the narrow passage"

I think this discussion should be relocated to an appropriate thread so the topic can be more thoroughly explored.

[sasquatch2o]

Skill checks make things more interesting. I'd like to see them used more widely and creatively in the future. This will impress player with the importance of obtaining higher proficiency in different skills and abilities. The uniqueness of characters will be more rewarding. I also see this as potentially opening more options not just limiting possibilities. Persuasion vs combat vs sneak or agility for instance. For example, a high agility passage might allow a player to dodge combat or a high security door. With a high personality player might be able to convince guard at a main entrance to open gate (persuasion) while a thief could pick the lock at a side entrance (security) or move through/ climb a difficult passage (agility/acrobatics). Limiting certain actions through skillchecks has the potential to create new untapped possibilities that allow the player to express the uniqueness of their character and play in a style they choose.

Another solution to this would be a gradient of successes rather than pass/fail. For example:
>70 player passes narrow underwater passage unharmed
"You deftly pass through narrow passage unharmed"
>50 player passes passage but takes damage or is drowning at exit
"You clumsily and slowly make your way through the passage"
<50 player is unable to pass
"You lack the agility required to pass through the narrow passage"

[rot]

The only occurences for explicit skill checks (numbers given) are for faction rank requirements, and even these are questionable;

Implicit skill checks aren't out of the question, keeping in mind that they must be intuitive enough, since the player is only familiar with Speechcraft checks and, if they're savvy, soft level checks - intuitive: strength to move something; agility to dodge; endurance against poison; willpower to resist magic...
Needing agility to pass an obstacle, though, seems too far on the moddy side for me - and I'd rather not have any such hard checks at all that impede exploration other than as part of a set of alternatives. Possible shortcuts or traps that might hurt you, sure; but an invisible wall as the only path to your goal that you can't pass until one of your stats has reached an unspecified amount - too gamey.

The character options as a "set of keys" can get old (compare the gameplay of Deus Ex with the simplified Human Revolution), so it shouldn't become a staple of interior design either.

[Ironed Maidens]

lol, ok delete my post, but to expand upon my simple "no"; that type of mechanic is something i could see bethesda doing for TES 6, and by that I mean it is a horrible idea simply because it is a mechanic older than time itself as far as RPG games go. MW is already heavily reliant on dice rolls for everything else, which is good because it is an interesting take on pen and paper RPG gameplay put into a 3D world. But this mechanic is simply a filler for what the game already has, which is skill checks. So many skill checks that are done so much more fluidly in fact, that this skill check mechanic is outright ruining the charm of MW's dice roll system. I still say no, and I still think that it is moddy no matter how regular the usage is. In fact, the less regular the usage, the more moddy it will look when it is used. I would say that a skill check like this is almost a lazy way of adding something cool into a dungeon. I know you can only have so many daedric artifacts require levitation to get to them before it becomes redundant, but there are better ways to make exploration unique and interesting using scripts than this way....

[Gnomey]

Ironed Maidens, I'm really unaware of any post of yours ever being deleted in TR. Generally the only times posts ever get deleted here are if they're duplicates, and even in that case many duplicate posts go undeleted. Even posts that blatantly and flagrantly violate forum rules are generally only consigned to the Forum Archives.

In this case, the original discussion started in a [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=326017#326017]showcase thread[/url], but sasquatch correctly started this thread as the discussion was derailing the original thread. I've simply been rather tardy in moving over the posts from the original thread, including yours.

[Ironed Maidens]

oh no, i simply replied "no" in this thread and it was deleted. which is fine, because my previous post is still "no", just with a lot more words.

[rot]

I moved that post into the archives (which you could've seen from your PMs) as it had to be either a misclick, or something less than commendable. All good