DUST Search - Learning from World of Tanks (skill system and respec discussion)

J'Jor Da'Wg wrote:

I have been thinking over the idea of skills and how the SP system is very unsatisfactory to me. While doing so I was playing one of my favorite F2P games, World of Tanks and realized something.

WoT has a skill system that is at its core very satisfying and fun.

Before I go into my idea for applying its lessons into DUST, let me explain how WoT skills work.

World of Tanks skill system is a long term system and takes quite an amount of time. Your tank has a varying amount of crew members who start at 50% training level basic. As you play the game with that tank, they gain experience points and gradually progress to 100% experience. During this time each percentage you gain affects your entire tank's stats and performance by a small amount (like 0.5% bonus to all stats per experience percentage) until you are at full proficiency and your tank's attributes have been improved by about 5-10% across the board.

At this point you select each crew member to begin training a skill or a perk.

Skills operate on a 0-100% scale and give a similar incremental bonus to a certain stat in that tank, for example camouflage lowers your tanks spotting profile by that same small single-percentage-ish bonus until you have about a 10% more camouflaged tank at 100% of that skill.

Perks operate the same as skills only their bonus only comes into effect at 100% training, for example Sixth Sense lets you know after a few seconds delay if you have been spotted by the enemy or not. However it doesn't work until you have the perk trained to 100%.

If DUST would use this system, perhaps instead of stockpiling SP and then unlocking a single level of something you could begin to "train" a skill much like in EVE, however it would begin to give you an incremental percentage of that skill's bonus as you played. The levels would still exist for the purpose of unlocking gear however you would get to experience the associated bonus of that skill gradually.

So, for example;

you want to train HMG Operation to Level II. You select that skill to train and as passive SP rolls in and you play and gain SP at the end of each match that skills training bar slowly fills up. At 20% of each skill you would unlock the next level of gear, so say at 40% of HMG Operation you would be able to use Standard HMG variants, but at 50% you wouldn't be able to use you would have 12.5% bonus to HMG heat buildup. Right now you pool SP and unlock Level 2, which gives you a 10% bonus to HMG heat buildup, and then horde SP again and unlock level 3, which jumps to 15% bonus.

With the WoT method, the formula for a skills bonus wouldn't be (Level 1 + Level 2 + Level 3 + ...), but rather the formula for a skills effect on your attributes would be

(Total Bonus @ Level 5) x percentage of training level.

aka in the HMG operations example

(25% bonus to heat buildup) x 0.75 (for example)

which would end up being a 0.1875 percent bonus to heat build up reduction on your HMG.

I believe this method of training skills would be more rewarding to players as you would be able to partially invest in certain skills and still receive the bonus as well as have a more concrete sense of progress. Seeing the percentage go up rather than that insurmountable giant lump of SP to save towards would be more enjoyable.

Lastly, WoT has an interesting respec method for their skills. At any time in training a player can choose to retrain their crew member towards another skill. This is a useful method for perks because instead of having no bonus the entire time, you can train a skill like camouflage that incrementally helps you.

At 100% you retrain your tanker to that perk you want; however there is a penalty towards the skill so you lose around 20-30% of that skill. So say you train camo to 100% and then retrain to Sixth Sense. Sixth Sense becomes 80% effective but that is much easier to grind out the remaining 20% with no skill in place to help than to grind 100% with no bonuses to your tanks attributes.

Once again, apply this to DUST. If you were sick of a specialty, then you could select a skill and retrain it to another one, however you would lose a certain modifier of SP in that conversion. So going from a Heavy Suit at 100% to an Assault Suit would mean that you would end up with the Assault suit skill at 80%. Another switch to the scout with that .20 percent modifier would net you a scout suit at 64%... and so on and so on.

This would offer a satisfactory respec method without allowing too much for FOTM to become an issue. If you respec every month to the new FOTM then eventually you would lose a large percentage of your SP and become useless.

Also, respec-ing to a skill within a similar branch (like getting a skill respec from a Gallente Assault to a Amarr assault) would net you a different percentage penalty than the Heavy to Assault example I used. Also, SP spent in a certain category (like weapons) could never be reassigned to another category like Corporations.

Thoughts? Ideas? Blasting criticisms?
I believe this could be the answer to DUST's skill system and respec woes if currently faces...


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pdiddy anfama KILL-EM-QUICK RISE of LEGION 52	Posted - 2013.09.25 15:09:00 - [1] - Quote J'Jor Da'Wg wrote: I have been thinking over the idea of skills and how the SP system is very unsatisfactory to me. While doing so I was playing one of my favorite F2P games, World of Tanks and realized something. WoT has a skill system that is at its core very satisfying and fun. Before I go into my idea for applying its lessons into DUST, let me explain how WoT skills work. World of Tanks skill system is a long term system and takes quite an amount of time. Your tank has a varying amount of crew members who start at 50% training level basic. As you play the game with that tank, they gain experience points and gradually progress to 100% experience. During this time each percentage you gain affects your entire tank's stats and performance by a small amount (like 0.5% bonus to all stats per experience percentage) until you are at full proficiency and your tank's attributes have been improved by about 5-10% across the board. At this point you select each crew member to begin training a skill or a perk. Skills operate on a 0-100% scale and give a similar incremental bonus to a certain stat in that tank, for example camouflage lowers your tanks spotting profile by that same small single-percentage-ish bonus until you have about a 10% more camouflaged tank at 100% of that skill. Perks operate the same as skills only their bonus only comes into effect at 100% training, for example Sixth Sense lets you know after a few seconds delay if you have been spotted by the enemy or not. However it doesn't work until you have the perk trained to 100%. If DUST would use this system, perhaps instead of stockpiling SP and then unlocking a single level of something you could begin to "train" a skill much like in EVE, however it would begin to give you an incremental percentage of that skill's bonus as you played. The levels would still exist for the purpose of unlocking gear however you would get to experience the associated bonus of that skill gradually. So, for example; you want to train HMG Operation to Level II. You select that skill to train and as passive SP rolls in and you play and gain SP at the end of each match that skills training bar slowly fills up. At 20% of each skill you would unlock the next level of gear, so say at 40% of HMG Operation you would be able to use Standard HMG variants, but at 50% you wouldn't be able to use you would have 12.5% bonus to HMG heat buildup. Right now you pool SP and unlock Level 2, which gives you a 10% bonus to HMG heat buildup, and then horde SP again and unlock level 3, which jumps to 15% bonus. With the WoT method, the formula for a skills bonus wouldn't be (Level 1 + Level 2 + Level 3 + ...), but rather the formula for a skills effect on your attributes would be (Total Bonus @ Level 5) x percentage of training level. aka in the HMG operations example (25% bonus to heat buildup) x 0.75 (for example) which would end up being a 0.1875 percent bonus to heat build up reduction on your HMG. I believe this method of training skills would be more rewarding to players as you would be able to partially invest in certain skills and still receive the bonus as well as have a more concrete sense of progress. Seeing the percentage go up rather than that insurmountable giant lump of SP to save towards would be more enjoyable. Lastly, WoT has an interesting respec method for their skills. At any time in training a player can choose to retrain their crew member towards another skill. This is a useful method for perks because instead of having no bonus the entire time, you can train a skill like camouflage that incrementally helps you. At 100% you retrain your tanker to that perk you want; however there is a penalty towards the skill so you lose around 20-30% of that skill. So say you train camo to 100% and then retrain to Sixth Sense. Sixth Sense becomes 80% effective but that is much easier to grind out the remaining 20% with no skill in place to help than to grind 100% with no bonuses to your tanks attributes. Once again, apply this to DUST. If you were sick of a specialty, then you could select a skill and retrain it to another one, however you would lose a certain modifier of SP in that conversion. So going from a Heavy Suit at 100% to an Assault Suit would mean that you would end up with the Assault suit skill at 80%. Another switch to the scout with that .20 percent modifier would net you a scout suit at 64%... and so on and so on. This would offer a satisfactory respec method without allowing too much for FOTM to become an issue. If you respec every month to the new FOTM then eventually you would lose a large percentage of your SP and become useless. Also, respec-ing to a skill within a similar branch (like getting a skill respec from a Gallente Assault to a Amarr assault) would net you a different percentage penalty than the Heavy to Assault example I used. Also, SP spent in a certain category (like weapons) could never be reassigned to another category like Corporations. Thoughts? Ideas? Blasting criticisms? I believe this could be the answer to DUST's skill system and respec woes if currently faces... I like this. it gives you an opportunity to try something new at the same time it costs you precious SP, so its a respect at a cost. I really would like the opportunity to try something new , so I agree with this message.