Interview: Daniel Erickson on Crew Skills
http://darthhater.com/2010/11/12/daniel ... ew-skills/The crafting system in Star Wars: The Old Republic we call Crew Skills is something we worked on literally for years trying to solve some of the big puzzles. There are a lot of us who are big crafting fans, including myself, but we really wanted to make sure we preserved some of the core concepts around SWTOR such as you play a hero of Star Wars. You are doing big, heroic, and exciting things. You are not sewing. You are not making shoes. You are not hanging out trying to get some thread together.
We went through a lot of versions of how we work with this, and one of the things we kept coming back to was companion characters. One of the issues with companion characters in past BioWare games has always been that you have a limited set of who you can bring in your party at one time. For most people, they pick the couple of companions they really like, and everybody else ends up back on the ship. These came together into a great kind of synergy for us and became the Crew Skills system, which is a combination of wanting crafting, but we don't want to make your character mundane and we need something for your crew to be doing. So alright, we have a perfect match.
The Crew Skills system is three sections. Gathering is going out and grabbing stuff from the environment and your typical harvesting skills, but with a Star Wars flavor. You're doing bio analysis, actually scanning things, getting DNA sequencing from things, etc. One of the interesting things when we talk about missions is that there are also missions for gathering. I can gather in three ways: I can be right there physically, and I can see something and pick it up. Or I can say, "Hey Vette -- you pick that up and I'm going to do something else" while I keep fighting.
One thing that is really fun is when you're in a combat area that is pretty dangerous, and you're able to distract someone. Let's say there is someone in the area that you couldn't normally kill; you could throw yourself into combat and fight with them to keep them off your companion character while they harvest something you wouldn't normally be able to get... and then run!
And the third way of gathering is... actually, every gathering skill comes with a mission skill for gathering. Let's say I don't have Vette and I have someone else with me; I can actually call back to my ship and say, "Hey Vette! Why don't you go find me some of this material? I don't care where you get it -- just go." So that is gathering. The second part of the Crew Skills is crafting and that is really the traditional crafting system. You have a crafting table which is on your ship. Up to five of your companions can work on it at once. You say to yourself, "I have all the components I need. I now want to make something. But I'm not going to make it -- my companions are going to make it."
Each of your companions has different bonuses to all the Crew Skills, so some of the companions are better at different things and your Affection Rating with them can actually adjust that as well. I look through my stuff and say, "Today I'm taking Companion Number One with me. So Companion Number Two, you're going to work on this thing."
All of the Crew Skills have different timing for them. I'll talk about that more when we talk about Missions because it is important to remember this is not something that you are going to click, wait ten seconds, and then click again. We're not sitting around spamming anything. You're going to make a big item... you're going to do something... it is going to take hours. But you're not impacted by this -- you're going off to do something else. Your companion character though is now hooked up with this.
The third part is the mission system, and this is where it really gets different for us. The mission system is the ability to take several different Crew Skills, and we talked about a couple of them, so I'm going to talk about those but there are a bunch of them and each of them does something different. The two we talked about today were Diplomacy and Treasure Hunting. And this is the ability to say, "I have Diplomacy. I'm going to open up my menu. I'm going to look through my Diplomacy skills." Each one of them is a different story or idea
We're going to say I'm Dark side... what Diplomacy does is get you Light side and Dark side points. It is spreading your influence out in the greater galaxy by your people. I'm playing Dark side, I'm playing an Inquisitor; in my mind I'm already the Emperor. I'm going to take my companion characters and sort of spread my wrath. I find a Diplomacy mission... I look through them... that is a Light side one. I don't want that. Ah, here we go. There is a minor governor of a smaller system that is refusing to capitulate to the Empire. I'm going to call Kim Vaal. I'm going to say, "Hey Dashade, why don't you go, um... convince him?"
I'm going to look at how much time it takes, and the great thing with missions is that they can go from five minutes to about 23 hours depending on what they are doing. And you are kind of taking a risk because you don't know... obviously, the more time it takes, the bigger possible reward. But every mission you do has variables on the rewards, and the ability to basically crit on the reward. You might get something incredibly amazing and there is sort of a scale of it. So I'm going to send him off.
Treasure Hunting is a different one, and unsurprisingly, is about loot. Vette is a treasure hunter when we meet her and she has a bonus for it. I'm a Sith Warrior and I want stuff. I'm going to send her out... but I'm going to need her in about ten minutes because I'm about to go run a group with my friends, but they aren't online and I'm waiting around. So I'm going to say, "Hey Vette, go see what kind of loot you can get for me in five minutes. Alright, scoot!" Because at least we're doing something. It gives you an ability to one, keep all of your companion characters going; and two, have something to do.
The big hits are you don't have to be at the ship to do it -- they're back on the ship. You don't have to be online to do it. Even if you are busy and you can't come in for a few days, it is going to make sense to log in for five minutes, go through your stuff, put everyone on 23 hour missions or 23 hour crafting pieces, and then sending them out. And for people who are traditionally not crafters and not excited about that stuff, the mission system still gives them something they can do. They can take all mission skills instead, and that doesn't involve quite the complexity and discipline that maybe traditional crafting would.