Skill System Overhaul

The biggest contribution that I can make is to not over-complicate things too much. Some complexity is certainly a good thing, but for a game like this to go too over the top with that will just make it all offputting to anyone getting into it.

I might have a suggestion that could be useful, I wouldn't know if it would be too much time to implement though. I've been playing a couple of card-based combat games recently (one of them being the new-ish Marvel game Midnight Suns) and an idea popped into my head for a way to add more value and variety to the leveling/skill system rework. I think it would be a cool idea to maybe have different trees for different effects. Like for instance a sword tree, health tree, bow tree, armor tree, communication tree, etc (This is just the first ones that popped into my head while writing this. Also, if the differing trees have a lot of similarities between them or if they would not be able to be implemented that easily, maybe it could be split up into basic trees like Combat, Social, Personal). In the combat based trees I thought it would be a cool idea to have certain skills not be skills per say but be a way to unlock different cards that you could play in battle. Also in the combat system, I think it would put a bit more emphasis on the usefulness of both the bow and the sword if they are not split into different attacking choices. Maybe they will both be shuffled into the same deck and be able to be pulled at the same time without the need to switch what type of tool you are using. Also it would be a good idea for them to have special damaging types, like the sword is more effective at attacking enemies that have tougher/more resilient skin for instance, and the bow would be easier and more useful for small, agile enemies, giving a reason to not prioritize one over the other In the current state of the game that I have seen so far, it appears that the bow just does more damage compared to the sword "." meaning that there is little reason to use the sword, unless you want to use that 1 useful card that I've found, so far, that does bleed damage (which is not that useful anymore because of the new health system upgrade to combat. I'm pretty sure that you updated the enemies bleed as well as the overall character/enemy health, but not the damage overall that the bleed does) Anyways, back to the skill system. I think it would be a good idea for the player to go through a skill tree system except with it being different combat cards that you could unlock and favor (for example, maybe "Swing Strike", which gives you the ability to attack 2 enemies with only one card, "Arrow Barrage", basically the same thing, but for the bow, "Piercing Shot", an ability to ignore armor to a certain extent, "Charged Stab", an increased chance to cause bleed (or maybe an upgrade to a previous card), etc. There are many different ways to use this type of system to benefit the current scope of combat that is chosen for this game, and just imagine if it comes to the point when it is not just the simple sword and bow, it could be things like a Warhammer that could by default do more bludgeoning damage to armored enemies, but be weaker against other types, or maybe an elemental staff that allows the use of a specific elemental attack in the battle and certain enemies are weak against one type but strong against another. In summary, a cool, all-be-it complex choice to change the skill system is to have the ability for the character to unlock different card abilities to use during battle (as well as the choice to merge the card decks of both the weapons)

As far as combat skills go I'd enjoy some extra variety. For example, a skill that provides a chance to double the amount of block damage from a card. Or a skill that gives you a chance to poison on hit.

Well rested, Last one day, On days where you get extra sleep the night before the first hit if every fight does double damage.

I have a few ideas like Sneak: where you can be the one to start combat and do a sneak attack on one enemy for increased damage and it could be used outside of combat as well os a skill like Perception: which could be an active or passive skill where in combat after defeating certain amount of enemys or have enough information on a boss you can learn there weaknesses so you can be more afficient in combat or outside of combat where you would discover money or items in random nooks and crannys or even locations that can only be discovered by you(this also could be a different skill like treasure hunting if you feel like it) or you could tell when someone is lieing to you.What i would add to Stephen Sterbenz ideas is:Persuasioncould be used on the girls to make the, wear certain outfits and with that introducing an outfit system or wat the girls are willing to do with you in private because now it just looks like everyone is open for anything for the:Girlfriends Skill it can be percentage based on how deep your feeling for each other is and there also could be the girls affinity towards each other there would be issues with certain combinations of girls and you would lose one or both of there buffs or they even stop beeing available as party members untill you resolve there conflict.

Before I go to my points I need to agree with @Stephen Sterbenz few ideas. The Girlfriends Unique Skills (more precisely Buffs) and Trapping system are pretty interesting—especially the buffing mechanism. It doesn't need to provide overpowered stats, but imagine Blessings of the Nuns, Spells from the Witch, Vampire Oath or Elven Grace giving some unique attributes like increased counterstrike or dodge chance, vampiric healing or some other effects. As for Trapping - the ability to set up a trap in a specified location (i.e. forest or cave) morning time each day, to collect random loot the next day at the same time. It matches the game lore and the hunter history + doesn't impact the combat mechanism too much (since the loot would be random people would still need to go and kill the monsters!) About my insights: The skill's tree system looks good to me, but it rise another question: How exactly would we get the skill points to improve our Hunter? - Typical leveling system where our main protagonist has a character status page displaying experience points? - A quest rewards system - where we would get skill points after finishing the quests? - A story reward system - where we would get skill points after completing the X part of the story (i.e. finishing all the quests with Elf girl?) P.s. What exactly would the eloquence bonus do :D ?

Persuasion: Personally, I like the current skill checks for charisma/persuasion, but I am biased based on the sheer number of hours I have in New Vegas. I wouldn't want it to be a percent based chance roll for fear of missing content and needing to save scum (more). Chance-based Combat Events: As for combat, if you want chance based variability, I can recommend adding chances for bonus effects. An example would be: [Medical Expertise - 7% chance to double healing effects of Bandage Wounds (1/3) ] [Killing Frenzy - 10% chance to gain an extra turn upon defeating an enemy (1/3) ] This would provide some positive chaos for the player. Enemies can have similar mechanics, but you run the risk of getting trolled by bad RNG, which always feels cheap and unfun, so it may be wise to limit the scale of their potency. Like, their bonus attacks cannot do more than 50% of their previous normal attack's damage. I also like the prospect of adding more minigames to the combat, so for the bonus effects it could be a range that is determined by player input. To use the previous examples, Medical Expertise could provide between double and 2.5X the base effects of Bandage Wounds based on a slider similar to the current critical hits, or another sort of minigame. It should be quick enough to not break the flow of combat but still incorporate more player input beyond the fundamentals. Enemy Typesets: I think adding variety in enemy typesets would benefit the dichotomy between sword and bow. If flying enemies are easier to hit with a bow than a sword, a player who was fully specced into swordplaying may still opt to use the bow in those unique circumstances. You could take it further to have a sort of Rock-Paper-Scissors dynamic a la Fire Emblem, but that is entirely up to you. I already like the current combat system as it is. Combat Consumables: Additionally, I would like to leverage the Hunter's knowledge of wildlife and plants to benefit combat. Having consumables or other items that provide short term bonuses during fights would allow for more flexibility in builds, as the charisma-focused players would still be able to survive combat with these. Something like a spider's venom gland being turned into an item which is used to increase damage to non-monster enemies for 3 turns. This would increase the utility of loot drops, which then further incentivizes investing skill points on that path. Tough to get the balance right, but that's what we are here for, right? For more inspiration, I can recommend the very first Witcher game with its relatively complex alchemy system. Knightly Passions doesn't need to be as in-depth as that, but some ideas may come to you just by playing. Skills related to these consumables would affect duration, potency, and production optimization (i.e. bigger batches per set of inputs, or just fewer inputs per batch). Trapping: In the prologue, we see the Hunter is proficient at trapmaking which allows for easy, instant kills. That could also be a skill point path that would allow for passive farming of mobs to acquire loot without spending time hunting directly. You could spend points to increase the likelihood of successfully capturing prey per time of day change and to increase the value of loot obtained by these mobs or just the chance of getting the undamaged versions and rarer drops of loot. Girlfriends Provide Unique Skills: As all of your patrons know first-hand, managing the affections of many women is time consuming, but can be quite rewarding. I propose that a unique temporary skill is activated whenever the Hunter has fun with any of the girls who can be repeatedly romanced after their questlines are completed. Each girl would have a different skill associated with her to reflect her own traits. An example would be... [Elven Grace - Doubles the chance to perform a counterstrike in combat] ...and it would stack with the other skills. The girlfriend skill would be replaced by another based on the last girlfriend involved with or it will simply wear off after a couple days. It would then need to be reactivated to reobtain the benefit. I know, I know, the time spent with the ladies is its own reward, but this is just a hypothetical. Maybe this concept could be applied elsewhere to similar effect then. In the end, I hope that some of these ideas help to spur on your own. I have no knowledge of programming and know nothing of the complexities involved with setting these up, so I can only spitball randomly with no concept of limiting factors or realism. If it's overly convoluted, it's probably not worth it, or at least not yet. All I can hope for is that reading these paragraphs hasn't been a total waste of your time, but no matter what I am ultra hyped for March now. :)

While i like these changes i hope that there will be enough content to actually use it on

Personnally, a big improvement would be to find a way to bring the cards closer from the character and monsters. Or to have an easier way to target directly the relevant character. Like if we click on a card, one pointer go directly to the character and we just do left or right to switch. Indeed, on a high resolution that's a real chore to constantly click to one edge of the screen to the other 3 to 4 times per turn ! And there are many turns in any fight and there are many fights to do, to farm some gold or ressources.

Big fan of skill trees, but any chance we could get more differences in kind, rather than differences in scale? The current combat system tends to result in a first-order optimal strategy with no improvization.