How many estimate number of skills can a hero have?

[ScoopJohn]

This may be a hard question for me, but i want to know an estimate number of skills a hero can have. I've been planning a document where i have a character list along with a skill list for each playable character, and i'm pretty confused on how much i should estimate.

 

[Zortik]

I'm assuming this is for VX Ace, since that's what your profile says is your primary engine.


By default, you're limited to creating a total of 999 skills.


Within the class tab of the database you can assign these skills to that class one at a time for however many you want.


In short, no limit outside of the maximum skill limit. Just make sure your skills are useful and not there for the sake of variety. Clutter and scrolling past "useless" skills is bothersome to the player and ends up being a big waste of time for you to develop when that happens.


If you're asking a question about how many skills should a hero have? That all depends on your game and design. On AAA games it's not uncommon at end game for me to use only 2 - 4 skills (even if they've given me 30+ of them over the course of the game). So, if you strive to make 4 unique and valuable skills per hero then that will be a good baseline.


Ultimately, it really does depend on your game though.

 

[sabao]

There may not be a hard number on that, but always consider quality over quantity. And these guide questions:


IS IT USEFUL?


The way skills are designed in MV and Ace, output can be set to be proportional to character stats keeping them relevant even as you progress through the game. There isn't a need for a character to have seven different kinds of single target sword skills. It's redundant. Unless said skills have unique functions to them outside of causing damage, they're just there for the sake of being there. Perhaps one has an elemental affinity? Or, it stuns on hit? Think of skills as specialized tools designed to solve problems you as a developer have presented to the player, and not as giant clubs players just use to smash at things.


IS IT BALANCED?


Usually in RPGs with more than one playable character, each unit serves a particular role. Perhaps one unit specializes in dealing a lot of damage but has horrible defense, or another unit is a little more durable but mostly only functions to support the rest of the team? This isn't a hard rule in RPGs, especially when players are given the freedom to build characters however they want, but even then going in one direction ought to come at a price: that skill point you put in strength could have gone to defense, for example. Having a unit excel in all aspects across the board runs the risk of invalidating the need for a party if we're talking about just one unit and making the game far too simple if we're talking about all of them. It's possible in some games, and only as a reward toward the end for people who've done some serious grinding.

 

[Alexander Amnell]

   That kind of depends on a lot of different variables, the short answer being as many as the player needs. First thought would be to the battle system you are using. For instance, games taking place in an action-battle like system (Zelda Style) usually don't have tons of skills to choose from as the combat is more focused on the player's reaction time and positioning whereas a traditional turn-based rpg will likely have a significantly larger skillset per character because the focus of combat is highly strategy/numbers based and requires you to give the player and enemies more options in order to make it interesting/enjoyable.


   The first step is to make sure every skill has a consistent purpose, any that don't or that's purpose is limited to specific unconventional situations you might need to consider scrapping or revamping as having to many skills can actually be as bad for a game as having to few. Length and pacing play an important role as well, for instance the game I'm working on is only about 3 hours in length gameplay/speedrun wise so having a character who only ever has access to six skills throughout the entire game is acceptable, and works really well for my game. That would never fly if I were making a final fantasy like 50+ hour epic however, as even if such a limited skillset were still diverse enough to handle anything the game throws at the player it'd still ruin the game from a progression standpoint as it would essentially mean long hours of playtime between each of the 5 stages of character progression outside of boring numbers and leave players feel like they're not progressing at all, thus games like that are usually chalked full of skillsets and allow players to customize their characters in various ways, often to the point of redundancy and having a useless set of skills to scroll through. It's hard to find a balance that's inbetween but those are the two major pitfalls I see often in rpgs, you just have to line up skill progression with the game's pacing though, and hopefully find a way to replace weaker skills if you go the classic final fantasy route so you don't scroll through 20 weaker and unneeded versions of the skills you actually want to use by endgame.

 

[Alvonso]

it's relative, depends on the system you made to your game. Element skill, passive skill, optional skill, also a unique skill for every heroes you will make and how much time your game.

 

[Wavelength]

If the question is technical; that is, how many skills can you give to a character, the answer is there is no limit.


If the question is design-oriented; that is, how many skills should you give to a character, we've already gone over that recently in this thread.