[Stupid question, Skills Database] Why put occasion in "Never"?

[48Tentacles]

I'm watching tutorials as I found this.


You can see in the image the section of skills in the database. I was sort of thinking and say "Why should I put my skill as Never?" I can't think of a reason to do that.

 

[DoubleX]

The simplest reason I can think of is to temporarily disable a skill during game tests, like testing what all enemies and/or autobattle/confused actors will behave with and without that skill

 

[Another Fen]

I have used it sometimes in the past for passive skills (show up in the menu and allow for the conditional branch option "has actor learned skill x") and to manually deactivate skills (replace skill with a replica that looks identical in the menu but is never usable).

Admittedly those scenarios where rather rare though.

 

[Magnus0808]

I agree with @Another Fen that it can be used as a passive skil. It should also be noted just because the occasion is set to never doesn't actually mean that it can never be used since you can still used it through 'Force Action' like this:

Spoiler: Image

This might be a silly example but I am sure that it has its useful moments.
You could also use it as a lock picking skill and check if the actor has learned it to be able to lock pick some door.

 

[Trihan]

As Magnus said, it can be used with force action still, so you can use that occasion setting for skills that will occur at some point in battle events but shouldn't be usable by the player. You can also use it to differentiate enemy skills from player ones visually, so you can see more easily which ones can and can't be used by the player.

 

[Tiamat-86]

another way it can be used is target checking in later gameplay.
with plugins you can use states for this making it so state isnt removed from recover all events,
but with no plugins you could use 1 of these never cast skills since the skill could only be removed through eventing.
an example could be if you have 4 actors and 4 elemental crystals you collect through the game,
get the wind crystal but need to pick who specifically will carry it because it get bound to them (eventing learn never castable "wind holder" skill). later you could end up fighting a boss and when the fight is over the crystal reacts to some kinda energy released, this would then run another event checking which actor learned the wind holder skill and finally learn some usable wind magic.
(personally i wouldnt do it this way even if had no plugins because then would just always have this annoying greyed out skill you can never use and no way to hide it(different plugins could hide it though), i would just tolerate having to deal with even more event conditional checks later on checking different variables for each crystal where the variables would be the actor ID its bound to)

 

[Trihan]

another way it can be used is target checking in later gameplay.
with plugins you can use states for this making it so state isnt removed from recover all events,
but with no plugins you could use 1 of these never cast skills since the skill could only be removed through eventing.
an example could be if you have 4 actors and 4 elemental crystals you collect through the game,
get the wind crystal but need to pick who specifically will carry it because it get bound to them (eventing learn never castable "wind holder" skill). later you could end up fighting a boss and when the fight is over the crystal reacts to some kinda energy released, this would then run another event checking which actor learned the wind holder skill and finally learn some usable wind magic.
(personally i wouldnt do it this way even if had no plugins because then would just always have this annoying greyed out skill you can never use and no way to hide it(different plugins could hide it though), i would just tolerate having to deal with even more event conditional checks later on checking different variables for each crystal where the variables would be the actor ID its bound to)

You could assign the skill to a type the actor doesn't have a battle command for.

 

[hosercanadian]

I use this in my current game for some skills which apply passive states, increasing counter chance or attributes for example.

I am using multiple plugins including a skill learn system and equipping skills. So while the skill cannot be used, I want the player to be able to view it and see what it does.

Outside of that specific context, not much use for a never used skill.

 

[48Tentacles]

I agree with @Another Fen that it can be used as a passive skil. It should also be noted just because the occasion is set to never doesn't actually mean that it can never be used since you can still used it through 'Force Action' like this:

Spoiler: Image

View attachment 181339

This might be a silly example but I am sure that it has its useful moments.
You could also use it as a lock picking skill and check if the actor has learned it to be able to lock pick some door.

Niiiice. I can see some utilities with this with the event page in battles!

As Magnus said, it can be used with force action still, so you can use that occasion setting for skills that will occur at some point in battle events but shouldn't be usable by the player. You can also use it to differentiate enemy skills from player ones visually, so you can see more easily which ones can and can't be used by the player.

Are you saying that skills with the "Never" occasion can be used by the enemy if you assign these skills to the enemy?

 

[Trihan]

Niiiice. I can see some utilities with this with the event page in battles!

Are you saying that skills with the "Never" occasion can be used by the enemy if you assign these skills to the enemy?

Yeah, the setting only affects when the player can use them. It doesn't have any bearing on whether an enemy can use it if it's one of their assigned skills.

 

[Aesica]

Like others, I use "Never" for passive abilities that I intend for the player to see, but never actually use. Things like this that are useful for explaining a particular character's class mechanics to the player in an easy-to-understand way:

Spoiler

 

[DoubleX]

With these replies, it turns out that it's not a stupid question at all

 

[CleanWater]

I would use it for Passive Skills as well, although my current project don't touch this kind of mechanic.

 

[bgillisp]

I used it for my Auto Skills in my last game. I had a troop event that invoked x skill if y actor had learned it before the battle started, but I didn't want them to use it again in battle or outside of battle.

Most of the auto skills were small early battle benefits for the first 1 - 5 turns depending on how powerful it was. Some were like +50% EVA for this character on turn 1 (useful for evasive characters), +10% Max HP for the entire battle, and so on.