Thought of a few more skills. Also attached all previous skills in the spoiler below.
Spoiler
If you really want to go off with the skill system here are a few new ideas, and some personal revisions to some of the skills you're already contemplating.
WOODCUTTING
Should be handled similarly to mining. Different trees require a higher level to cut down, and yield noticeably different wood types.
FIRE-MAKING
Aye, this should be a skill.
Different types of fires can be made utilizing different wood types, and fire-making level is critical here. If you're just starting out, let's say you can only make oak fires. (oak would be like...the lowest level tree you can cut). Next thing ya know, you're at level 5 for fire-making, now you can make birch fires or something like that. The higher the level of wood you're making the fire out of, the longer it burns for.
Fires can be grabbed and sat around depending on which direction you grab. This would institute a maximum of 4 people (up, down, left, right). Maybe you could even restrict sitting around the fire to people who are members of the same guild as the fire creator.
Sitting around the fire will slowly heal players, and will also allow for cooking (see cooking skill).
HUNTING
Hunting should be revisited, redone and expanded on. Rather than random hordes of mobs to gun down, it should be a much more...intricate process. New hunt-able animals should be added (bears, deer, rabbits, coyotes, etc) and two methods should be introduced to hunt them in.
Gun 'Em Down Method
This would be the most simple, and yet most irritating method. Game should be programmed to run away from the player when the player reaches a certain distance, and run away when a gun is fired within a wider radius. However some animals should also remain aggressive to the player. So let's say I'm hunting a deer. It takes 3 bullets to put them down right? Easy? Not so much. I have to chase them around and wait for them to settle before I can try and get a shot in. Maybe even add a chance system for the occasional critical hit? To mimic an instantly fatal head or heart shot?
Sly Hunter Method
This is where it gets a bit fun, introducing items such as rabbit traps. Rabbit traps can be purchased from a hunting lodge and are placeable by the player. Once put down a timer for 5 minutes shows above the trap as well as the trapper's name. If the trapper is lucky, a small game animal will "get trapped" inside. (What really happens is the system will randomly trigger the trap at some certain point within the 15 minutes with a certain animal being caught.) Once this happens, the player must retrieve his/her trap and the animal caught inside. They will get fur and/or meat from the animal and lose the trap. However 1/5 times, the trap will run the 15 minutes without "catching an animal" in time. At this point, the trap springs with nothing inside, and the player can retrieve his trap and re-use it until something is caught. Players can place a max of 3 traps on the map, to ensure that the map doesn't become clusterf*cked with traps. Maybe after a certain point, other players can gather the trap, just to make sure people aren't leaving traps there forever. How do levels affect hunting you might ask? Well they play a higher part in the trap method than the gun method, but do affect both.
In traps, the higher the level, the more likely a player is to catch an animal and in a lesser amount of time. Also levels can be made to affect what kind of animals are caught, example: squirrel = level 0+, rabbit = level 5+, fox = 15+, beaver 30+, etc.
In the gun method, levels can effect how long an animal runs for, or how close you can sneak to an animal before it runs off. Or even how much it drops. Who knows?
COOKING
Meats gathered from hunting and vegetables farmed by the player can be cooked in fires made via fire-making or in stoves buy-able by the player as furniture. The interface will be similar to the smelting interface, however only stoves require a fuel item to operate.
Different meats and vegetables will require not only a higher cooking level, but take a longer time to cook. This means if you're cooking in a fire, you might not be able to cook something on a lower level fire. Which will spur you to improve your fire-making skill. This also makes stoves a valued method, as the go for as much fuel as you put in. Meaning, you can bump up the price on stoves a bit. ;)
I'll add more as I think of it. |
RIDING
The riding skill brings about mount/horse tiers. As players level up their riding skill, they can now buy and use higher level horses which move faster, can hold more than 1 player, or even swim in certain depths of water (granted the team does all the necessary dev to make horses swim).
To upgrade the riding skill players must successfully lasso, and ride a wild animal around until it's calm. How I'm envisioning this process is as follows. Player equips lasso and throws it at a wild animal. Once lassoed, the player will proceed to ride the animal, just like usual. However for the first minute or two, the animal will either move around randomly or shake violently. There's a 70% chance (chance becomes lower as level increases, and is also affected by the type of animal lassoed. Lower level players will have more of a struggle trying to lasso and ride a bull than a sheep) that the player will be thrown off and gain no experience. However, if the player does stay on through the whole minute, he/she will have "tamed" the animal and can now ride it freely, and will receive skill points based on what kind of animal it was.
CRAFTING
Don't know if this was the plan or not, but crafting should become its own skill. Levels can be gained by smelting ore bars, fashioning planks from wood, or crafting items with said materials.
Recipes will require a certain level, and so will smelting higher level ores. (All ores besides gem stones should become smeltable.) Also a shop should be made to sell ore bars for high prices.
Pretty straight forward. Just some more leverage room.
ENCHANTING
Before y'all give me sh*t for getting off theme here with some magical bullsh*t, let me explain. Right now there isn't much differentiation between the Native Indian faction and the Cowboy faction. This helps change that.
Natives had shamans. Witchdoctors. People more in tune with the mystical side. And we have a bunch of gemstones that are more or less useless besides as a way to get gralats right? Well let's knock out two problems in one.
This would be an Indian exclusive skill, and ties in closely with both hunting, mining and crafting. Players would need bird feathers which would be obtainable by hunting birds, and gemstones by mining.
So let's say I had a diamond and a ruby. Diamonds require eagle feathers to enchant, and rubies require...let's say swan feathers or something. Now I have to go hunting birds for those feathers. Once I attain those feathers I go to a witchdoctor/shaman's hut. There I can enchant the gemstones.
I have some enchanted gemstones, what now? Well you can use it in crafting recipes for speciality items or weapons like the Indian Axe. Or you can make quite the profit at the trade tables, as cowboys can't enchant gems, and people might be too lazy to do the process themselves.
FISHING
Simple concept...pretty sure it's already planned somewhere here.
Get a fishingrod and cast it into water. There's a 1 minute timer on the rod. 40% chance you'll catch something. Chance increases as your level increases. Every 5 or 10 levels a higher level fish is thrown into the mix of what you can catch.
Caught fish can be cooked, or sold to a fisherman at some fisherman's hut.