How to Character Creation Without Tears
Not Financial Advice

There has been much digital ink spilled over the years by players discussing their foibles about their first character, or first characters, and their missteps or misunderstandings with skills and character development along the way. To a certain extent this will always happen because of the games design, which intentionally obfuscates game systems and generally wants players to learn about them through in-character efforts rather than reading manuals OOC.

I don't really agree with the level of the casual obfuscation that still exists, but I cannot really change that dramatically. However I do think more OOC guidance is permissable under the rules than what maybe is commonly done. I also think it is considered taboo by some players to advise new players about subjective good-or-bad in game systems, lest we drag players away from their creative desires towards what is 'optimal'. I agree with this thinking to a point, but I think that at a minimum players should be able to leave character and down the line not feel like the whole process was a waste of their time.

So to that purpose, this is my advice. Although I like to consider myself very well informed about game systems and gameplay and roleplay within Sindome, it is ultimately subjective and you will be taking my word in my cases that what I'm writing isn't misleading. Trust, but verify. You almost never have to take anything on faith, every character has the means available to them to verify through testing whether someone's claims about a skill are true, it just requires a lot of using it to determine. Some players will look down on you for being too meta-analytical about mechanics, but fuck 'em; you will know sub-stats weights and they won't.

Part 1: Welcome to Sindome, Your Stats Are Garbage

Sindome's stats (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Agility, Intelligence, Charisma, Luck) look superficially like Fallout and might give a similar impression to that game's design when allocating your initial few points across them. Players might think, well I want to be smart so I'll raise INT five times, and be average in strength so I'll raise it three. Well don't stress about what stats matter to your build here because this assignment couldn't be more of an irrelevant drop in the bucket! At BEST, by hobbling everything else, you might leave character character creation with N in a single stat which is terrible for gameplay purposes.

For most intents and purposes all your stats will be starting at zero (EDIT by Slither: This is not true. No stats start at zero. It's impossible to have a 0 in a stat. It is better to assume your stats are starting low compared to the heights you can reach) when you leave character creation. However this will not be a problem for you if you plan around it, ie. you will not be investing in skills when you first begin to play, but rather your stats (Edit by Slither: Investing in Stats out of the gate is one way to go, there is nothing wrong with investing in Skills though. Almost every 'roll' in the game is a combination or stats AND skills). Although you will start bad in everything you will progress very quickly if you spend UE on relevant stats, the biggest issue players have with feeling like they're not able to see any gains with their skills is because they start spending on stats too far late into their playing life.

This might seem like a rough beginning but it's actually good in disguise, there is nothing to do wrong here because nothing you do at this step will really matter. The only exception to this is players who pump enough points into INT will gain a some extra (though poor) facility in a second language to start. If you intend to learn a second language early on, you should stack INT in character creation until it tells you you've qualified for a bonus language. The amount of UE this represents is quite small but it is a slight benefit if you were doing it anyway.

Part 2: All Stats Are Important To You, Yes Even That One

Not only are there no bad choices to make about investing your initial points in stats in character creation, there are no wrong choices for how to spend UE in stats when you begin playing so don't stress you might put too much in one or the other to begin. You will need literally dozens or hundreds of raises in everything. All of them have considerable virtues to all new players, no matter what their archetypes are, and raising everything at least a bit to start would probably make everyone's lives a whole lot easier than trying to minmax boost something.

All stats have hidden sub-stats, but because they are assigned relatively close to 50-50 split as you spend UE on the parent stat, their existence is not relevant to you as a new player except that you might notice slight improvement when you stat up sometimes and not others (this is because what sub-stat gets raised each time you spend UE is a coin flip). For this reason I will just discuss the parent stats here:

* Strength: Not a brawny character? Doesn't matter. Turns out a huge part of the game is just carrying stuff around. Basically everyone who isn't a beefy musclehead neglects this early but it will just flat out make your daily life easier in a million jobs if you can just pick a few things up and carry them a bit further.

* Perception: A common stat for players to not understand even far into their lifespans. Everyone knows it's important, though sometimes they're not exactly sure why. I cannot tell you why this stat is so important to new characters because the systems it is relevant towards are, as far as I know, not explicitly documented anywhere but please believe me this is extremely relevant to new characters and the things that happen to them hanging out in bars and roleplaying with one another. CHA wrongly gets assumed to be the 'RP stat', but it isn't, PCP is. Invest in it and watch game annoyances disappear with your special eyes. (EDIT by Slither: Perception, among many other things, forms the basis for how many people you can 'watch' at one time. You only need to watch characters that are not explicitly addressing you. 'Help speaking' for more information)

* Intelligence: INT is rarely neglected by new players because anyone who needs it takes it because it's the only mental stat and its usage is fairly obvious. If you keep it at Q forever trying to minmax a combat character it will catch up with you.

* Endurance: This is an incredibly unsexy stat that doesn't have flashy skills tied to it but you do not want to have bad stamina because you might actually be great at something and it just seems like it's terrible, or you're terrible, because you're becoming exhausted instantly. Is you character job going to be doing anything that involves manual work? You need some of this. Taking hours or days to recover from a bad run in or hard day? Yeah it's because you left END at Q.

* Agility: Agility is tied to a few checks that are highly relevant to new characters and which are also, critically, easy to tell if you're passing or failing them, so this stat is usually not something that get neglected. It is good, but I would say players tunnel vision it too hard, take other stuff also.

* Charisma: Half of the players are taking too much of it, the other half are not taking enough. It governs Appearance which gives you appearance shortdescs for being pretty and is therefore incredibly popular. This stat is actually important for everyone by virtue of its little-known sub-stat Charm, which is very relevant to new character activities and jobs, but if you're putting every free point here so you can be the prettiest of all princesses, then you're building towards heartbreak (Edit by Slither: There is nothing wrong with devoting a lot to charisma, especially for specific archetypes).

* Luck: Luck is important later but not right out of character creation. Due to how it works you sort of already need to be decent at one thing for it to function meaningfully. There are exceptions to this but if you knew what they were, you wouldn't need this guide! That said even if you accidentally put 120 UE in here straight out of the gate for some reason, you'd still be fine in the long run.

Part 3: Okay Let's Discuss Skills, or; Stop Taking Artistry

Skills is where everyone runs into problems. Unlike stats you don't get an inconsequential amount of UE to spend on skills in character creation, you actually get a decent chunk to spend on your skills, and you can actually spend it wrong in the sense that you won't be achieving your desired archetype even if the skill sounds like it might be relevant. Skills do not function like in roleplaying games where they represent different facets of broader abilities (ie. rolling multiple skills towards one outcome). Skills are almost always siloed from one another, one type of thing generally rolls one skill and the other skill that sounds maybe kind of similar and maybe relevant is not checked. There is a small number of skill checks in the game that roll multiple skill additively, and a slightly longer list which roll multiple skills in and either-or way, but new players should assume each thing they can do has one skill that governs it.

For this reason you do not want to take a skill just because it sounds like it could be relevant to something else. The great likelihood is it isn't and you'll have a skill that does something that may be unrelated to your desired archetype entirely.

In fact, it's better to not have a skill at all until you're sure exactly (or at least generally) what it does, where it is relevant, and how it gets used. Of course, you have to assign some UE to skills in character creation before you've even had a chance to learn that, so what are you to do? For most new players it's one of three things: They spread points across a bunch of different tech skills based on whatever sounds relevant, they grab a bunch of weapon skills to be a fighter, or they take artistry. I will offer my thoughts on what I think the new player experiences might be with different skills, or that I have noticed has been people's past experiences with them here. This type of guidance has been frowned on or prohibited in the past, but I feel that it all falls within the rules as far as discussion of specific mechanics and represents only my subjective experience that would be just as safely be voiced in OOC discussions on the topic of any skill. Do note: My advice here does not apply if you feel comfortable simply having skills as an expression of your roleplaying archetype and are unbothered whether you are making skill rolls when you start playing that use them. If you just want to roleplay as a person with a given skill, then take whatever you want and go forth and be without a care because comparison is the thief of joy. For everyone else:

* Artistry: It's not the default social skill, it's the anti-social skill. Artistry is a super broad and powerful skill and probably the most popular individual skill, but it's a huge development trap and time sink for people who don't actually love it, which is almost everyone. This skill has burned out more players than any other game mechanic and if you take a little because 'why not' it has a way of warping your whole character trajectory around it to better turn you into a bodysuit-producing TailorBot. Using this skill effectively means spending your time sitting in notepad writing descriptions instead of actually playing, and while some players will thrive doing it you should never just take it because it seemed like nothing else really fit your character archetype. If your character is very specifically intentionally starting as a tailor or painter or performer by design then sure take artistry, but new players should be very cautious about this skill otherwise, because other players wanting you to do it for them is not the same thing as you having fun.

* Aero Tech: This is a fairly deep gameplay system but an extremely expensive and advanced one to venture into as a new player, your character archetype should be really centered around aeronautics/astronautics in a total and inviolate way if you're taking it out of character creation. Almost always will be taken in concert with Piloting, and almost always the far harder choice versus Auto Tech unless you are prepared for a very deep-end new player experience.

* All Weapons Skills (Brawling, Martial Arts, Melee, Short Blade, Long Blade, Pistol, Sub-Machine Gun, Rifle): Players tend to all or nothing with weapon skills in character creation. Either they're playing combat characters and they max their investment in one skill, or they're playing non-combat characters and ignore these. Taking a combat skill on your first character and just raising hell for a few days or weeks is a classic, and even somewhat official, way of learning about the game and combat systems. If you're a brand new player and are thinking more along the lines of taking combat skills defensively to avoid combat then you're probably better served by taking mobility oriented skills like Disguise or Driving because you'll end up learning more about the game in your time. As a new player, if you take combat skills you should be using them actively because you need to be learning about the skills you take on your first character, or you'll never know how to build your next character. Only take ONE of these and if you want to start mugging people/fighting around the world on day 1 then skip the firearms (Edit by Slither: Firearms are illegal in the city and expensive/hard to come by).

* Auto Tech: Mechanics are always a popular cyberpunk character archetype but I would describe this archetype as tough on brand new first-time characters because it wants for a lot of game knowledge, social connections, and money. Find someone to apprentice under, or don't be afraid to circle back to this archetype 4 months or 6 months into your character lifespan as it will be easier then. If you want to play a general tech-y type character this may be a breadth requirement to have an actual job, but you won't have to take it in character creation for that purpose.

* Bio Tech: Unless your dream character archetype is being a biotechnicist or bio-researcher, or mad scientist, you probably want Medical instead to start out. Not a part of general medicine in the game so you can skip it playing a traditional medic or doctor. This is probably the second most niche skill in the game, but has jobs directly associated with it so it's better than many others as a result.

* Chemistry: A popular, strong and very well documented skill that would be a disappointment for most new players coming out of the gate with it. A very mid/late-game item production skill catered towards characters with resources, play a chemist if you really want to be a chemist, but being a doctor who becomes a chemist several months or years into their career will be much more first character friendly. However it's exceptionally well documented in help files, better than any other advanced skill. (Edit by Slither: There are opportunities for entry level chemists in the game, if you seek them out.)

* Computer Skills (Cracking, Systems, Programming): These skills come with an in-game disclaimer that their coded support is limited because their intended playing field, Grid 3.0, never fully materialized. Systems has actually received some modest gameplay inclusions recently, but the other two are pretty barebones on mechanics. You can however get a job as Decker in the game which puts it way ahead of some other tech skills in practical advantages to the daily new player experience, just expect for mainly a roleplaying focused experience and corporate jobs. Systems would be a common inclusion for techy generalists but you will, as with the other tech skills, want for an in-game mentor ASAP so you understand the exact purview and limits of its uses.

* Disguise: Disguise is seemingly a niche concept that is actually ubiquitous in Sindome due to idiosyncratic existence of items like ponchos. Strange as it may be to someone unfamiliar with the game, disguise is actually good for (almost) everyone and is often the easier, new-player-friendly choice versus something advanced like Stealth. Works well both with a small amount of investment as well as having some interesting mechanics with significant investment. Tricky to work into a character history but almost never a choice anyone is going to regret having on their character sheet. If you're trying for a sneaky archetype you may actually prefer this over Stealth just when you're starting out, but they do work together so taking both isn't wrong either.

* Dodge: Dodge is a powerful skill and a fixture on veteran skill sheets but it's hard to learn about as a new player without actively pursuing a lot of combat all the time, and doesn't do anything on its own per se so while it might be min-maxy to take it, there may be things you'll have more fun with on your first character and learn more about the game by using.

* Driving: Driving is the actual roleplaying-enabling skill that people think Artistry is. No one other skill opens more doors, enables more roleplay, or helps with more jobs than Driving does. Fun, deep, useful, good for literally everyone and makes you build your character in a way that is good for every other physical archetype. Also very easy to write into many different types of character archetypes and character histories. In my opinion the best skill in the game.

* Electro Tech: One of the many techy skills that are niche in isolation. It will dearly want for an in-game mentor ASAP because just knowing what it even does will not at all be obvious to a new player (or even a somewhat experienced player). Somewhat limited gameplay taken by itself so it's almost always paired with other (even many) different additional technical skills that altogether yield enough gameplay to make them worth their while. Some players will just throw some UE in here to represent their character's techy ability in a generic roleplaying way and that is probably the correct way of representing that until they have the game knowledge to make more specific choices.

* Explosives: Is listed with other weapons skills in the help files but is not a weapon skill in the same sense as long blades or rifles; explosives are not weapons that make regular attacks when engaged in combat but are rather single-use consumables used to augment combat or set up traps. This is a niche hybrid production/item use skill that requires a fair amount of game knowledge (difficult to learn game knowledge at that) and you probably don't want to take it if you're imagining using it like a grenade hotkey in an FPS. If you want to play a terrorist or mad bomber though this is what you're after.

* Forensics: Forensics is a counter-intuitive skill when it comes to new players because it's kind of famously thin on coded mechanics, and not powerful, but characters who take it and make it a major part of their characters pretty much always get wrapped up in fun (for murdery values of fun) going's on and plots and drama. As long as you're not hoping for fingerprint analysis mechanics or coded DNA sequencing, being known as a medical pathologist or forensic investigator will provide roleplaying hooks that will be rare otherwise. If you take this be prepared to say 'Yes' to every sketchy late-night request from someone to ID wounds on a corpse and see where those plots take you, otherwise it's a waste.

* Heavy Weapons: Heavy Weapons is listed with other combat skills in the skills listings, but is not the same as the other weapons in that it governs attacks make with vehicle-mounted weapons and not weapons you're holding in your hands to attack characters with in the typical way (Edit by Slither: This is technically not true, there are heavy weapons you can hold in your hand, but they are exceedingly rare). This would be one of the most cutting-edge newly developed skills to take and so the knowledge base among players for it is very low. It would almost always be better to develop a driver or pilot first and take this skill later in their development, and any new player trying to make this work out of character creation should really be prepared for a lot of blank looks and bad public info when they try to find out more about it.

* Medical: Extremely common first time player choice. New player tend to imagine being a medic will like being a support healer in other roleplaying games but that is actually not how the skills or archetype really ends up working in practice, however it is still very new player friendly because there are lots of medical oriented jobs that can be had day 1, and medicine will get players into the fray of ganger gameplay and put them out on the streets learning the way everyone should be learning. Do however note: There's no Geneva Convention in Sindome, if your character complains that someone is immoral for harming medical personnel you will get laughed at. If you treat it like an in-the-trenches archetype that is a parallel role to gang play, and not a shield to protect your character from harm, you will have a good time.

* Munitions: Munitions is the arms and armouring skill, one that has a lot of functionality on paper but suffers a bit in practice because characters just flat out don't kill each other that often. There are one or three munitions focused jobs but I would almost always strongly recommend taking Munitions along with several other technical skills to create a sufficient gameplay base for enjoyment.

* Piloting: Piloting is my favourite game system by a wide margin but is the most new player unfriendly system in the whole game. No other skill has so many difficult, inflexible skill checks to make, and it wants for deep game knowledge comparable to the most advanced skills. Even with extreme minmaxing out of character creation, you will not have the stats required to safely fly AVs without smashing into buildings, vehicles and innocent on-lookers with some frequency. However there are really two tried-and-tested ways of learning the piloting system as a player: One is training into piloting on a character that has a few months of physical-oriented UE allocation and learning slowly and cautiously, the other is playing a crash happy disasterpiece who wracks up a record setting passenger bodycount and then rerolls into a more cautious professional pilot with player-side experience once their character's career is torched forever. Doing this will be a big time investment either way though, so there are no shortcuts: Either your first character or second character will need a few weeks (that is pushing it though, probably more like months) of character building to get to a place where you're not stressed out every second and can pass the skill checks enough to get by. Generally this is not an archetype good for new players and Driving is a better and vastly easier starting point, but if you want to fly, then fly high Icarus.

* Rigging: Rigging is piloting robots remotely, and for the majority of new player experiences it will be FeliBots or cat robots. It is a skill that was recently overhauled and is currently in an unfinished state with only three robots released out of an original planned seven, but for the purposes of the new player experience is super cool and will teach you a ton about the game. It's also cheaper to get into that most other techy skillsets, although it scales to being outrageously expensive in the latest stages. Has a couple of perks with special hardware that makes it pretty useful to a wide variety of archetypes even if they don't want to focus on it. Also has several jobs connected to it, making it one of the best supported tech-y skill sets. Be prepared to do a lot of tinkering and shock yourself many times while you learn how the systems work. If it's ever finished as planned, it would be the best tech skill set by a huge margin.

* Thievery: Does what it says on the tin. One of the most complex skill checks to make successfully but much like forensics will force your character to get into the thick of things and therefore is great for new players despite its difficulty. But if you do take this as a new player out of character creation you should be prepared to steal from absolutely everyone, all the time, it's very much a test to destruction skill for first-timers and you'll have more fun as a first time experience if you're just going for it rather than trying to get away with thefts. Do note: This skill is NOT required to just mug people for their stuff. My advice would not to try to become good at this and combat at the same time, you will end up being mediocre at both for months. Do one and then the other if you want both.

* Secure Tech: A twin thematic skill to Electro Tech it shares all the same caveats for the new player purposes, in that you will want a mentor for it ASAP and it will generally be taken with a swath of other tech skills so you have enough to do. Also if you take both Secure Tech and Electro Tech you can be left with the interesting problem of not being able to tell which of the two you're actually rolling for when doing things, and actually end up speccing deeper into the wrong one, so again, find a mentor. This is one of the more expensive and challenging skills to build a character career around for various reasons, so if you're taking a whole bunch of tech skills and are picking a 'main' one arbitrarily between them to spend deeply on, there are probably easier choices with easier job prospects.

* Stealth: A roleplaying game fixture, Stealth in Sindome is a bit of a wolf in sheep's clothing for new players. In many games this is an easy way to avoid dangers early on, and players might expect a Fallout/Skyrim-esque mild advantage from some sneaking only to discover bad or mediocre sneaking is way, way worse that just normal movement because it will appear hostile to many players and NPCs. This skill has been entirely tuned around late game conflicts and so may take many new players by surprise at how shockingly hard and various the skill checks to do it are. You can absolutely primary this as a sneaky-oriented character straight out of character creation, or take it as a mobility-oriented skill instead of Disguise, but be prepared to load a huge amount of stat UE to support it before it performs similarly to Disguise in practical daily value.

* Trading: Trading is a relatively narrow skill in terms of every day early gameplay, but one that ends up having a ton of thematic and mechanical breadth and gets used in a lot more places than is first obvious, once characters progress to their later development running leased businesses and becoming fixers. Despite the medieval MUD sounding name it gets treated as a general financial/business expertise skill for the purposes of jobs and plots and NPC interactions. Good for a lot of different archetypes and at a lot of different skill levels, and one of the few skills that directly benefits non-archetypal corporate roles. Having a decent amount of trading skill and support stats can have your character tapped for plots and business opportunities they wouldn't otherwise, but this stuff may not require a super deep investment so seek out a mentor before spending hundreds of UE towards it.

From these choices you must leave character with a minimum of two skills, both of which will be required to be part of your character history. For this reason even when skills are not 'ideal' for gameplay purposes they may still be necessary for archetypal ones. For a lot of skills, maxing the allotment you are allowed to take on a single primary skill can be the correct choice because this amount is kind of roughly the amount needed to be sort of decent at it once your stats catch up. Even if your intent is to take a broad range of skills, as a techy generalist for example, it's usually advisable to choose one to max out or close to it (it will not allow you to spend all your allotment on a single skill, only 2/3 or so of the available UE), so that you leave character creation with at least one that is going to be semi-functional. This is generally the priority for choosing that skill to max out that I would advise, but again this is very subjective and only my opinion on how to leave with something most functional:

1) Where you want to play a combat archetype and get into fights right away, take one weapon skill that isn't a firearm and max it, and put your secondary UE into anything archetypal, and if your archetype is just 'good at fite' then put it in Dodge.

2) Where a skill is crucial to your archetype and history, spend to the max on that skill, and if necessary the remaining on archetype related secondaries. If you max one archetype skill feel free to put just a few points in history-important skills here to represent your character, since you know you have one functional skill to fall back on even if you have too little for the others to work right away.

3) Where you want to play a tech generalist, pick one of ones that sounds best from my descriptions above, max it, and then pick up a daily mobility-related skill (driving, disguise, stealth) with your secondaries with plans to develop your generalist skills once your stats improve. If you take seven different tech skills evenly spent on out of character creation recognize that none of them might end up doing anything until significantly improved.

4) Where there isn't one crucial skill relating to your archetype, and you don't want to be a generalist but you do want to take Driving, then max Driving and take something archetype-related the remainder.

5) Where there are no skills that seem archetype related, and nothing mechanically seems appealing to you as a player including Driving, max Dodge and take Driving anyway as your secondary.

Part 4: Welcome to Withmore, Don't Forget Your Stats Are Still Garbage

You finish character creation and you're into the game, you're filling out your @nakeds and getting some clothes, making connections with characters. Oh hey maybe I should take a little of this other skill, I see someone else using it at it looks useful right? NO. Raise your stats. Your stats are holding you back now regardless of what you try to do, raising basically all of them a little bit should be your priority. Once you have a baseline level of only somewhat terrible stats after a few weeks, broadening your skills will be easier and actually effective, but do not fall into the trap of putting it off chasing this or that side track. You are condemning yourself to a purgatory of bar RP doing that. Especially if you've got any stats below Q, raise them first to Q at least because because having horrifically low stats in some areas can brutally punish you in unexpected, undocumented ways.

If you have very specific skills that you learn will require particular stat investments (like pumping INT for example) then it's okay to leave other stats in the Below Average (Q-N) range for a little while, but in general your overall life and game experience will be much improved just by across the board raising everything into the Average range before embarking on any focused stat pumping. You want your character to be at least average, don't you? There are many, many mechanics in the game that will hurt you for having something catastrophically low, and yet new players fall into this trap constantly of focusing on one thing to try to get good at it as fast as possible. Sindome's combat will typically roll like seven to nine different sub-stats. You need a lot of stats.

Unfortunately this is about as specific as I can be and this could in the worst light already be considered too close to in-character information, but I feel that the resources available to new players are just not adequate and veteran players like myself are just too heavily advantaged by the game for more information not to be made available. Everything I have described here is comparable in detail or even lacking in detail to the discussions I've had with players and staff regarding skills in Town Halls and troubleshooting and guided discussions, and I believe all the opinions I've shared her are fair game within the letter of the rules. I hope the vague and subjective options I've included here can be helpful with players starting on their first character creation, and help them have a positive experience with it in retrospect.

(Edited by Slither at 7:06 am on 5/23/2024)

If it's full fluency that must be new because it was Tourist level for years with a bonus language from maxing INT, which is a perk but not great. As of like six months ago it was still Tourist so I'm surprised to hear differently.

Oh interesting that is actually something I didn't know, and there being ranks to the bonus language unlocks makes a lot of sense, I just assumed the bonus language was binary and didn't investigate it further. It's definitely fair game for discussion since it's actually documented in the help files, they just never mention the gradient.

That's definitely very useful because bilingualism is pretty pricey in development terms otherwise, though I agree with your cautions about dropping stats to U that is going to require immediate and urgent raising, but it would be less than the time they'd have spent learning the language so a significant net gain for archetypes that demand it.

Yep. You can actually start at any of the language gradients depending on how high your intelligence is raised. If memory serves, you are actually awarded 'language credits'. Up to three of them. You can then spend them on languages. All three on one or splitting them up.

Also, You don't actually have to spend every single stat point on INT but it's pretty darned close to it. I've simply never wanted to test things enough to see where the exact trigger point was for the first credit, second credit and third credit.

But as you said, it can be a time saver overall if being bilingual is very important to a character concept. So many have asked for this in Town Halls and board posts, not knowing that it's already possible. I've even tried to explain it several times but most seem to end up doing as you did with similar results.

This seemed the perfect place to try and spread awareness as not being able to start with two languages seems to have been a pain point for a lot of players.

Forewarning: Strong opinions ahead, all crew brace for impact.

Secure Tech and Electro Tech are unbelievably complex and robust skills that historically nobody has given enough of a shit about and simply skillsofted for both IC and OOC reasons. It's one of the most heavily coded systems in the game I know of

Outside perhaps mechanics now that vehicle combat and the vehicle overhaul is done, it's probably the most complex system in the game. It's not an exaggeration to say that it's a system that can take actual months of time IRL to learn. I've been doing it off and on for years and I'm still regularly learning new things about it.

@0x1mm I've been thinking of making this post for years and have done so several times, but wound up deleting it because I didn't want to step on any toes. Thank you for doing this.

@Slither

I think, given the fact that a number of disgruntled former staffers have dumped the game's code on social media in numerous places, as well as exposing hard numbers on websites dedicated to 'ruining' the game, maybe we could have a conversation about this continued legacy of obfuscating even the most simple game mechanics. The genie's out of the bottle for a lot of players. Especially considering that numbers are coming back up and a lot of those people who were exposed to game code are back in the game now. We're sort of continuing to foster a toxic environment where the 'good' players get to know how the game works in precise detail while the rest of the playerbase is stuck trying to figure out what stat their weapon uses, or deliberately gatekept out of success.

I don't think that optimized characters are great for the game or great for roleplaying, but I'm also of the mind that fair and balanced systems where people are able to access the rules of the game make for a better and healthier role playing environment. Us spending 10 hours explaining to someone IC how to pick their nose isn't good RP. It leads to burnout when players invariably perm, reroll or quit. We have knowledge transfer issues and the expectation that players explain the tens of thousands of little minutiae facts about the game to new players is a major hurdle to growing the game and retaining players over the mid-long term. I don't know if SD would ever truly pull the curtain back, but there's been a notable anti-OOC information trend in recent years.

I mean, we can't even have the Code of Justice or Drugs on the wiki anymore? How is a new player supposed to know that they're following the OOC and IC rules of the game if we can't even tell them that drugs are legal and that assaulting a judge is a clone death penalty? This is fundamentally anti-RP, and a major step backwards. For a while we got away from that "FOIC is the answer to every question people have" culture because it was toxic and shitty, but now we're right back to doing it again, only actually worse because we're taking away things like the OOC wiki and the OOC news feeds that get people interested, invested and wanting to play and learn about the game. We're disempowering players who want to learn about the game and become better RPers and putting that burden of information on the players who would probably rather be doing their myriad plots and character development things. That's objectively not a good thing.

I'm sorry if this comes across as overly harsh or critical, but I really do think that there have been some pretty big and regrettable backslides in the OOC culture of the game in recent years. It's my belief that if players had more time available to be RPing their own interests instead of trying to learn IC details from people or spending many hours teaching others, we'd have more things going on in the world. Maybe I'm naive in thinking that, I don't know.

We'll have to agree to disagree, 0x1mm.

S-T has directly contested skill checks and that's been a major problem in the past. It also has gear that has some seriously tough skillchecks.

E-T has some of the hardest skill checks of any coded items in the game that I'm personally aware of.

Some of the 'dumb' common, run of the mill stuff is as you say, but both skills have fiendishly difficult skill checks that require stats that I'd be willing to bet most characters in the game can't pass even if they wanted to. It's also possible it was changed and not mentioned anywhere, so I'm totally willing to accept that I could be wrong about that. I haven't heard or read a peep about such things, though.

I disagree with people building up electrotech and securetech as these super complex skills. The SYSTEMS might have been updated to be cooler but like someone else said, anyone can use them. The skills are just for installing bullshit. You're just the guy who drills the holes and bolts the shit to the floor/wall/roof. Maybe you supplement that with deep knowledge about how the systems work but if anyone is expecting a deep and complex SKILL dependent system they'll be sorely disappointed in my humble opinion.

Alright we'll just have to agree to disagree here but keep in mind I'm really referring to the brand new player experience here, it's not intended a guide for what is strong for experienced players because that would really be getting into the weeds.

I do agree there are powerful items connected to these skills but in my opinion their relevance to the new player or new character experience is pretty close to zero, and a player coming out with character creation with a focus on Electro Tech who is expecting a lot of gameplay power to be at their fingertips is going to be disillusioned, again, in my opinion.

The sentiment that we purposely obfuscate systems is outdated IMO. We've shown over the past decade a desire to remove the barriers for new players and make knowledge freely available, preferably ICly but via help files and BGBB where needed.

And in the end there is not much that cannot be communicated ICly. And we have long lasting ways to put knowledge into the game both ICly and OOCly.

If you feel that there is information that should be in player or character hands and is not easily accessible or is obfuscated in a way you do not agree with, there are multiple options open to you. These are all things that players have done before, and that I encourage. Please keep in mind that mystery and discovery are part of the game and we don't want that to go away completely. The joy of figuring out a new system or how to do something can be great.

IC:
- Write up an IC guide and post in on the grid free for everyone to have
- do the same but post it on a node for everyone, bonus if you sorta hide it and give certain people access (knowing the secret will get out in a fun way)
- same but you print it on an enote, bonus if you sell it or hire others to sell it or find a store to stock it, or sell copies to NPCs that handle jobs / job training for those roles (bartenders, mechanics etc)
- write it up and find someone to publish it as a book, same bonus as above
- write it up for your corp or syndicate who have data vaults and put it there for all future players in that faction
- be a mentor for new characters who are seeking these roles
- become an immy greeter and help out training like that, perhaps using what you learn to write some of the guides mentioned above or below
- write graffiti that points people towards resources you think will be useful to them

OOC:

- all players have the ability to submit edits to help files or propose new ones. Take a crack at editing and submitting changes for areas of the codebase that you think need more clarity
- request to be a wiki editor and edit and submit wiki articles that cover the IC overviews of the general knowledge areas that you think are lacking
- if your character isn't in the role anymore but you have subject matter expertise, xhelp and volunteer to write one of the guides you think is needed OOCly with the understanding that the admin will release it ICly if it meets our standards
- be active on game-help and use the questions that get asked as fodder for help file and wiki updates to codify your knowledge

Doing these things will help the game a bunch. Personally I would prefer people to spend time working on these things ICly over OOCly where possible because that generates roleplay.

– S

(Edited by Slither at 10:01 pm on 5/23/2024)

I don't think the respec process should be made more flexible, more accessible maybe with more automation involved but there should still be a GM involved who has the final say. While I don't like how the skillsoft system functions you can soft for things you otherwise wouldn't be able to do and I feel like more flexibility would render skillsofts obsolete, but that's really the least of my concerns.

I've seen more flexible respec systems in other MOOs and it invariably leads to characters becoming jack of all trades even if there's a wait time between going from one skill to another. Over time on Sindome a character's set of skills and stats becomes a part of their identity and switching it up with more ease takes away from data side of the game by diminishing the value of 'knowing' what someone is good at. It just wouldn't matter if you could just shift stats and skills beyond the rigid system that's in place for that right now.

It would also make it even less likely for players to retire their characters and roll new ones, which is already a problem right now. There's less reason to cyberpunk end or sunset if you can just keep trying new things on the same character.

In the end no character is going to be perfect and even the ones who appear optimized from the outside have weaknesses that are probably just not as obvious as others. You should have to live with those weaknesses and express them through roleplay instead of being able to magically undo them. Even the recent cryo judges have had major weaknesses despite their limited retraining from what I've seen.

Mmmm ..given the comment that I am doing things very wrong yesterday since I'm not levelling fast enough. Maybe there should be better communication in some places about the time frame or even just a blurb on how to achieve it?

All of this just makes my heart hurt.

At the end of the day, it's not fair to have to rely on people who are factually incorrect when relaying information. Is it like real life? Yes. Is it frustrating? Even more so. It is beyond difficult to reach out and get four different opinions about what should be done only to find that it was a waste of time.

For basic things, there should be something in the game that you can solidly help players grow forward. We're not looking for perfect or balanced characters - but growing. That's the point of RP. You move through things, you character advances or falls down or whatever -but it builds momentum.

@0x

There are characters at all stages of development who have an odd mix of skills, it depends on what route the player has chosen to go down. A typical respec will allow you to get rid of the ones you haven't used in a while as long as they're not integral to your character and I still think that this is enough.

I would personally hate if one of my character's enemies went away on a vacation a swordsman and came back a rifleman ready to shoot through the CR-X I put on specifically to fight them. It's one of the more extreme examples I could have used but that's intentional as I don't see why anyone would want to go into cryo learning unless it were for a major reassignment of stats/skills.

When a cryo judge has it done they're beholden to the faction they now belong to so in that case it's plot specific and it comes with a leash.

@QueenZombean

Sindome is primarily a social game and you can gauge where you're at by trying to do the thing that you're in the process of learning. You don't necessarily need to spend half a year working on something to get good at it either, as long as you find someone who can let you know what stats you need to invest in ICly you can usually be decent when you're a little above the curve for stat/skill investment.

On my current combat focused character I was fighting everyone I could (It may be better to just spar with people if you're newer) from week one and it was okay if I lost because those losses would inform me of where I was at in comparison to those people. For other skills checking your progress is different but might also be less risky because you're less likely to piss people off.

You can also find someone who's at least kinda experienced in the skill you're trying to learn and offer either chy or services for their time. Nobody can read your character's mind though, if you don't look for help it won't just appear in front of you. Most learning takes place IC.

It could maybe be added to help skills so newer players understand what they're getting themselves into. On help skills you can get a pretty good idea of the levels already though. In chargen you can get very close to the above average levels for stats and well into it for skills, which is where you wanna be to start being able to do most things. You're still gonna have to experiment IC to become familiar with the system relevant to your skill though.

There are also ways to augment your stats temporarily that can help you cheat your way into being able to do things a lot sooner.

It's common to lose your first few characters because you're not sure what you're doing yet but that also doesn't have to happen if you're willing to stick with them and shape them into being what you want. For a sense of scale, it takes 2.5 years to hit max UE on SD, but to be clear you also don't have to get all the way or even a quarter of the way there to be good at something.

When you've gotten the core of your character started and you're able to perform your primary skill properly things will get easier. Having a high stat will make it easier to pick up anything else related to it too.

It's also possible to make contacts and chy without any skills at all so you can do things while waiting around for UE, but that's more based in the social side of the game than the mechanical side.

I just meant whatever you choose to learn first or intend to mainly be doing on that specific character. You probably don't wanna spread your UE investment around until you're good at that specific thing because it'll end up taking a lot longer to be good at Ianything.

It's worth noting that the files are different because stats take 1 UE per point, while skills take 0.5 UE per point (until you hit the curves on both).

As such skill points are worth less, so they're valued lower than the stats.

Kinda obvious now as they're in separate help files but I just assumed they were the same when reading them. I just thought it was an error and I went with the proper list in the skill one since it was written out properly. *FACEPALM*

I don't think it's overthinking to want to be able to do something. To have a goal to not get your ass kicked or to be able to craft something or to work with something. Being useful so people want you around kinda thing.