The point is that there is ultimately only ONE way that all characters will be played, especially for maximized rewards. There is literally no reason to play a rogue because all of the benefits of playing a rogue are replicated by a warrior/mage. Not only that, but the warrior/mage is much more efficient and fun.
The game can still be skill driven after implementing classes; but different skills will/should/could give different outputs depending on class (and/or race). Another thing that could be offered are specific skill 'packages' that could give increases to multiple skills, but at a smaller rate (like a rogue only skill that gives a bonus to all rogue skills at once).
Maybe a much larger skill base added to more skill points (per lvl) would help as well.
All roads lead to Rome / Limitations of character mechanics
Class and race don't NEED to be involved to have multiple successful character paths.
The Avernum / Geneforge series -- a common point of comparison for Eschalon, it seems -- both use similar variations on a skill point engine. Although they are (mostly) party-based, singleton play is common, and as Randomizer points out, they don't have this issue. They don't use class or race (except in Geneforge, and its effects are fairly minimal there).
The reasons this skill point system allows diversity:
- Diversity of usable attacks. Direct magic and attacks both have unique advantages, as do missile weapons in some of the games.
- Attack strength is more dependent on skill strength, so a single character can't have strong attacks with swords AND bows AND spells.
- Buffs are good, but not good enough to completely mitigate their investment cost.
- The base engine is always supplemented with additional factors that add additional dimensions to character strength, and therefore make it harder to just max everything. In Geneforge there are creations, while Avernum has special skills that require a lot of investment in other skills (or sometimes equipment selection) to use, but are useful enough to justify the single-minded investment.
Edit: that said, the "races" and "classes" in Eschalon do have less impact than any race or class I've otherwise heard of. But at least the class choice affects HP/MP slightly and the special starting item. Race is a joke.
The Avernum / Geneforge series -- a common point of comparison for Eschalon, it seems -- both use similar variations on a skill point engine. Although they are (mostly) party-based, singleton play is common, and as Randomizer points out, they don't have this issue. They don't use class or race (except in Geneforge, and its effects are fairly minimal there).
The reasons this skill point system allows diversity:
- Diversity of usable attacks. Direct magic and attacks both have unique advantages, as do missile weapons in some of the games.
- Attack strength is more dependent on skill strength, so a single character can't have strong attacks with swords AND bows AND spells.
- Buffs are good, but not good enough to completely mitigate their investment cost.
- The base engine is always supplemented with additional factors that add additional dimensions to character strength, and therefore make it harder to just max everything. In Geneforge there are creations, while Avernum has special skills that require a lot of investment in other skills (or sometimes equipment selection) to use, but are useful enough to justify the single-minded investment.
Edit: that said, the "races" and "classes" in Eschalon do have less impact than any race or class I've otherwise heard of. But at least the class choice affects HP/MP slightly and the special starting item. Race is a joke.
Valid points from the OP, and my opinion is that this is symptomatic of poorly balanced skills.
The class / race thing is really a red herring bearing in mind the character generation system appears intended to be skill based; people asking for skill restrictions based on class etc. are effectively looking for this to be made into a class based game (or at least shifted towards that end of the spectrum away from the skill based approach currently)
Reasons why the skills are unbalanced are debatable; my thoughts are that two major factors are at play:
Factor 1
Skill progression is often incorrectly set. Broadly speaking, skills can be a linear progression (e.g. weapons in the current game) or non-linear e.g:
- armor skills, which confer major benefits at level 1, virtually no observable gains in the mid-levels, and nice benefits as the skill goes quite high;
- magic skills which confer reasonable benefits at low levels (access to broad functionality), very powerful benefits at mid levels (here defined as 10-20), and virtually no incremental gains beyond 20
The problem is that the skill progression doesn't seem to have been fully thought through; in games where you can mix and match skills, you have to be careful about how 'front-loaded' you make a skill, and if you want to create separate paths for characters, you have to make dedication to a skillset payoff in the long term (i.e. if you're going to have non-linear progression, weight it to pay off at very high skill levels, not low or mid levels).
To give an analogy for those familiar with 3rd Ed DnD, the front loaded issue occurs when classes get major benefits at level 1 or 2, which results in builds that pick up these levels for the disproportionate benefits; the dedication to skills can be seen when you look at mage or cleric builds where you make sure that you retain maximum or as close to maximum as you can spell progression, because a 9th level spell is much much better than 3 6th level spells.
Eschalon needs to rebalance skills by front loading many of the single function skills (such as picklock or skulduggery), keeping core combat skills linear (and somehow making armor less useful at level 1 but more useful at mid levels), and weighting pay-off for magic skills to high levels rather than mid levels as currently. This will make the current 'must have' skills either more expensive (e.g. magic), meaning less to spend elsewhere, or less useful (e.g. armor) and therefore requiring more investment. The end result is that players will have to weigh up going for dedicated builds that are powerful, or hybrid builds that sacrifice power but gain versatility
Factor 2
The end result of skill usage doesn't seem to be properly managed when you look at combinations of skills (e.g. melee weapons + low/mid level enhancement magic), or interchangeable skills (e.g. picklock vs. elemental magic to cast the lockmelt spell). Its cheaper to get very high skill levels by mixing and matching, e.g. having divination at 11 and swords at 10 will give you more benefit in fighting than swords at 22, as the bless spell alone gives you the same effect as the extra 12 points in swords. This is plain wrong from a balance point of view; mixing and matching should always pay-off less than dedicated skill expenditure; the benefit of mixing and matching should be versatility, not power
The class / race thing is really a red herring bearing in mind the character generation system appears intended to be skill based; people asking for skill restrictions based on class etc. are effectively looking for this to be made into a class based game (or at least shifted towards that end of the spectrum away from the skill based approach currently)
Reasons why the skills are unbalanced are debatable; my thoughts are that two major factors are at play:
Factor 1
Skill progression is often incorrectly set. Broadly speaking, skills can be a linear progression (e.g. weapons in the current game) or non-linear e.g:
- armor skills, which confer major benefits at level 1, virtually no observable gains in the mid-levels, and nice benefits as the skill goes quite high;
- magic skills which confer reasonable benefits at low levels (access to broad functionality), very powerful benefits at mid levels (here defined as 10-20), and virtually no incremental gains beyond 20
The problem is that the skill progression doesn't seem to have been fully thought through; in games where you can mix and match skills, you have to be careful about how 'front-loaded' you make a skill, and if you want to create separate paths for characters, you have to make dedication to a skillset payoff in the long term (i.e. if you're going to have non-linear progression, weight it to pay off at very high skill levels, not low or mid levels).
To give an analogy for those familiar with 3rd Ed DnD, the front loaded issue occurs when classes get major benefits at level 1 or 2, which results in builds that pick up these levels for the disproportionate benefits; the dedication to skills can be seen when you look at mage or cleric builds where you make sure that you retain maximum or as close to maximum as you can spell progression, because a 9th level spell is much much better than 3 6th level spells.
Eschalon needs to rebalance skills by front loading many of the single function skills (such as picklock or skulduggery), keeping core combat skills linear (and somehow making armor less useful at level 1 but more useful at mid levels), and weighting pay-off for magic skills to high levels rather than mid levels as currently. This will make the current 'must have' skills either more expensive (e.g. magic), meaning less to spend elsewhere, or less useful (e.g. armor) and therefore requiring more investment. The end result is that players will have to weigh up going for dedicated builds that are powerful, or hybrid builds that sacrifice power but gain versatility
Factor 2
The end result of skill usage doesn't seem to be properly managed when you look at combinations of skills (e.g. melee weapons + low/mid level enhancement magic), or interchangeable skills (e.g. picklock vs. elemental magic to cast the lockmelt spell). Its cheaper to get very high skill levels by mixing and matching, e.g. having divination at 11 and swords at 10 will give you more benefit in fighting than swords at 22, as the bless spell alone gives you the same effect as the extra 12 points in swords. This is plain wrong from a balance point of view; mixing and matching should always pay-off less than dedicated skill expenditure; the benefit of mixing and matching should be versatility, not power
![Officer [Gold Rank]](./images/ranks/officer3.png "Officer [Gold Rank]")
Yes I think you will see some differences with weapon and magic skills for sure as well as some of the other skills....varying levels of skills that become available as you progress may also be seen....Its early in for Book 2 and it will be awhile before skills get fully fleshed out I think...but as far as I know its the direction Thom is going.
can someone tell me what high lvl light armor and heavy armor does? i found that its about 3% damage reduction per 5 skill lvl of light armor or so 0.0.
also lvling up is weird, for 2 lvl ups if i went:
1 str, 2 endure lvl up
then 2 endure 1 str lvl up
i get 71 hp,
but if i went:
3 endure lvl up
then 2 endure 1 str lvl up
i get 70 hp...
wouldn't it be best to invest in dodge rather than heavy or light armor? xD
In short this game requires melee class skills: ie:
warrior: dual weild? bash? etc?
ranger: double shot, piercing shot? etc?
rogue: BACKSTAB
mages: what sauron did to gandalf thingamajigger... u know the staff push thingy.
priests: how about some skills relating to god?
also lvling up is weird, for 2 lvl ups if i went:
1 str, 2 endure lvl up
then 2 endure 1 str lvl up
i get 71 hp,
but if i went:
3 endure lvl up
then 2 endure 1 str lvl up
i get 70 hp...
wouldn't it be best to invest in dodge rather than heavy or light armor? xD
In short this game requires melee class skills: ie:
warrior: dual weild? bash? etc?
ranger: double shot, piercing shot? etc?
rogue: BACKSTAB
mages: what sauron did to gandalf thingamajigger... u know the staff push thingy.
priests: how about some skills relating to god?
