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Complete overhaul of the skills, traits, and attribute system


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Hello everyone, 

I think the current skills, traits, and attribute system for the dupes is too simplistic and even boring.

One problem are the randomized skills and traits. If you don't like a certain combination of skills and traits, you simply reroll again and again until you find a combination that somehow suits your needs. This is rather annoying and boring. There are certain negative traits that no advanced player would accept, such as anemic, mouth breather, bottomless stomach, traits that prevent a dupe from exerting certain tasks, etc. The list is long. 

It would be better if the player could choose the needed skills and traits instead of just rerolling endlessly again. Also, the negative traits that no reasonable player would choose should be removed from the game since they are not accepted anyway. If you want to keep some negative traits, it would be better if a player is forced to choose certain negative traits. But for each chosen negative trait the dupe should also have a specific bonus in other areas to offset or counterbalance the negative effects. 

However, I would suggest a completely different approach, similar to character developments in RPGs. 

First, each dupe should have certain points to spend at the start and each time at level up. Those points can be spent on innate capacities that affect all other actions to a certain extent, like intelligence, dexterity, etc. Those capacities could affect how quickly and efficiently the dupe can perform certain activities and with what effects. The capacities cannot be increased by simply being active with the dupe (like letting the dupe do certain things). Instead, the capacities can strictly be increased only at level up, so the player must choose wisely where to spend the limited points. So, some features/capacities should be increasable only with limited points at level up, and other features/skills should increase by letting dupes do tasks.

Second, the face type and gender should be determinable. It looks like as if Klei is about to implement such a feature. This seems to be related to the developing blueprint system. Regardless, this should be expanded and include hair color and style and other details. This would make the game more customizable and refreshing. 

Third, the value of each individual dupe should be much more significant, so a death hurts and frustrates more. Currently, if a dupe dies, it is of course unfortunate, but the dupe can be replaced soon again and will level up quickly enough. If a player puts much effort into developing one single dupe by determining capacities, skills, traits, etc., then a possible death is particularly harsh. 

Fourth, the leveling should include many levels and the high levels (maybe up to 100) should take a significant amount of time, so the value of each dupe increases further and the player will get a sense and feeling of true accomplishment. 

These are only some of the ideas I had. I hope Klei will look into this. I would hope for a deep and sophisticated character development system. 

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I am a bit surprised that no one has replied to this so far. Don't you want a deeper revamp of the duplicant system?
It is in dire need of larger improvements. The current system is simplistic and superficial, and thus boring. 

I mentioned already a few points above, but there is more. 

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