Skill for carrying heavy things.

[xzcion]

So currently you can buff strength by carrying lots of heavy things around. Cool enough idea. It does make heavy weapons that rely on the strength stat better since a similar way to 'grind dexterity' does not exist... yet.

It also makes for interesting groups wandering across the desert; one guy with wooden shoes and a loin cloth baiting unfortunates to his squad of heavily armed and armoured buddies, who are jealous of the cactus' movement speed. (or am I the only one min/maxing like this?)

Similary to how the Athletics skill is used for run speed, not the Dexterity attribute, I suggest a skill that specifically relates to carrying heavy loads to decouple that from Strength. We could call it the Carryingheavystuff skill. ok, maybe the name needs work.

Strength and dexterity, and the other attributes once they are implemented, would specifically relate to their desired role instead of having intuitive ideas like 'carry heavy stuff to increase strength' have unintuitive outputs like 'and get better at using heavy weapons, not just carrying them'.

The squaddies with heavy swords and heavy armour will get big Strength scores. The squaddies who carry heavy stuff will get big Carryingheavystuff scores.

Thoughts?

[hbrown]

In my case i do not see a reason to separate strength from "carry heavy stuff", because strength itself can be said to be that, just carry loads of weight, and this does not seem to have any special "property" that makes it be a root of strength, unlike with dexterity and athletics.

[Hatsune_Neko]

doesn't see the need for it as well.
HBrown pretty much summed up what i was thinking on it

[Crador]

"Need moar skillz!"
CarryHeavyStuff
WieldHeavyStuff
TradeHeavyStuff
CraftHeavyStuff
BuildHeavyStuff

And few more attributes, as in Strength, Might and Power.

j/k. I agree with guys. There is already an attribute to carry stuff - Strength. And a skill to use Heavy Weapons. Seems enough so far. Only thing i really hope, that it'll be possible to add skillz through mods somehow In a very distant future.

[Danzigsam]

I wouldn't mind a skill that adds to your strength for the purpose of carrying heavy loads. I'd have one guy specialize in it, and then he can carry all the loot, instead of having to split it up amongst the group.

I'm all for moar skillz. I just love watching those numbers go up, I admit it.

[xzcion]

In my case i do not see a reason to separate strength from "carry heavy stuff", because strength itself can be said to be that, just carry loads of weight, and this does not seem to have any special "property" that makes it be a root of strength, unlike with dexterity and athletics.

Thanks for the feedback all.

I thought I'd outlined why just that reasonable thought process leads to grinding combat attributes and stats out of combat. Which is why this suggestion is specifically for game balance, not to make more sense because I came up with a clever word.

If I failed in conveying this point, please let me know.

Game is alpha, so multiple ways to grind all of the attributes and stats to 100 may be part of the grand plan. I was extrapolating from dexterity how strength might behave, when in the final product all attributes may be quickly grindable like strength.

So if you think the current strength implementation is fine for all attributes, (that is OK, I'm not precious about the idea), please let me know that too.

edit: added the word all.

[hbrown]

But the carry weight already has drawbacks, it makes you slower, and less efficient, if i were to see a skill for this would be kinda contradictory (this in my mind now), at least if the skill were to help carry more or something, of course you could place together with the said drawback, but it pretty much has one already.

I would enjoy see more skills as well, but this one is one i do not see as needed for now.

[Kent_Lang]

There are different kinds of strength.

In physics we talk about energy, which is measured in Joule. A strength used to hit hard in combat relies on maximizing as much Joule in as short time frame as possible (we can call this power), while carrying stuff is energy and is measured in watts (we can call this work): It's effectively x amount of joule per time unit.

When you do that - you want to use the other end of the spectrum as much joule spread over as much time as possible. How much you'll be able to do that is dependent on your endurance. That's why professional body builders - when they want to be able to lift heavy they maximize the intensity of their workouts to 100% but has a lot of pauses. You just can't lift 100% all the time and it even damages your muscle! If you have ever strength trained you know that it's more detrimental to your gains to train too much than too little (because strength training is breaking down muscle)!

When they want to maximize endurance they instead lift 50% intensity or less over as long periods of possible. That's the sort of strength that makes you better at working or carrying stuff.

I would actually like a system like this because it has benefits to both game balance and is far more realistic than it is right now, but I can definitely see the downside of more complexity. But the rest of you should also bear in mind that this particular subject doesn't have much sympathy with gamers seeing as gamers generally are quite nonathletic, so your views might be a bit biased in this regard.

[Crador]

IMO, a swordfighter is nowhere near bodybuilder. Not untill it's some kind of duelist with "One hit - one kill - two days of rest" kind of guy. Meelee fighters are either about endurance, which is very close to carrying stuff around (carrying your heavy armor weighting 30kg and fighting in it for more then 30 seconds) or to nible speed-based guy, who couldn't hold for long, but is very agile and fast with light armor.

Since you can't have both (unlike it stated in action movies and books), i would really like to see it working like in real life. With growth of strength (amount and quality of muscules) you loose some speed and dexterity. And growing dexterity, you loose weight and volume of muscules. Not 100 Strength 100 Dexterity 100 Intellect superhumans as result of two-weeks training course.

[Enjoyment]

Hmm, maybe with the appearing of Endurance the "carring" skill can be reorganized. For an example - END will add a lot to weight-carrying and a lot of hp, STR - a small amount of max weight and a lot to heavy weapons damage.

[PnzrNorm]

I speculate in the future when Endurance and Survival aspects are implemented, that Strength will carry a bit less influence when it comes to carrying heavy things over an extended period of time, at least not as much influence as Endurance should have.

What I'm thinking when future skills are implemented:

• Skills regarding weapon types will involve a lot more than just how much damage you can do with that weapon, things such as swing speed, block speed, accuracy, power, etc.
  Strength should remain the primary attribute when it comes to the maximum weight you're capable of carrying
  The ratio of how much weight you are carrying to maximum carry amount would affect how much your stamina will deplete over time
  Endurance will affect either maximum stamina or will counter the depletion effects of carrying a large amount of weight over a longer period of time

I'm really liking the things mentioned in Kent_Lang and Crador's posts. Realism would be the way to go with this topic.

[philthymcnasty]

I think a "person carrying skill" could be necessary. For example, if you carry someone who is injured, and your person carrying skill is too low, then you may hurt them or slow down their healing, or worst yet, possibly kill them.

If it was too low and you were carrying a sand ninja or bounty, then the person who you were carrying could be able to steal your sword and kill you with it.

Just some ideas.

then again, we have a lot of skills already.