SKILL VS LEVELING IN MMOs

I personally think the way Oblivion handles it's leveling/skill set is a very good way. Not that it's an MMO but anyways. The more you focus on certain skills the better certain areas will improve when you level up. Makes perfect sense to me that way. If I can't choose a hybrid system like that though I'd prefer skills. Improve what you use most in the game and ignore the things you don't use as much. Only becomes a problem if you decide to change up your style half way through the game (I do this all the time) and you're lacking horribly in the area you wish to accell.

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Original post by CornyKorn21 Only becomes a problem if you decide to change up your style half way through the game (I do this all the time) and you're lacking horribly in the area you wish to accell.

That isn't really much of a problem. In class based games you would have to create a new character. At least in a skill based game, changes like that are an option.

Since you said mmo and not mmorpg, then Planetside ftw. Nearly completely skill based. The level is just an incentive to keep playing and allow for more specialization.

One tends to not see this kind of thing in an mmorpg where PVE action is prevalent. I mean if PVP fighting was the same at every level, but PVE fighting was different then maybe. However the varying spells for each level drastically changes the final outcome of a level 5 fighting a level 25.

Also tstrimp brought up a good point about classes. If an mmorpg was based on skill and not level the class system would make it painful to balance to everyone's liking. I mean just look at planetside. It has 3 factions and it took 3 years before everything was balanced enough for players to agree that PVP was rock paper scissor without the use of skill.

Classes are good in mmorpgs. They encourage players to band together in groups such that each player's class strengths complement the other player's class weaknesses.

With a purely skill based progression system you run the risk of having a world full of generic jack of all trades characters who just run about killing everything solo.

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Original post by tstrimp Quote: Original post by CornyKorn21 Only becomes a problem if you decide to change up your style half way through the game (I do this all the time) and you're lacking horribly in the area you wish to accell. That isn't really much of a problem. In class based games you would have to create a new character. At least in a skill based game, changes like that are an option.

touche

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Original post by Sandman Classes are good in mmorpgs. They encourage players to band together in groups such that each player's class strengths complement the other player's class weaknesses. With a purely skill based progression system you run the risk of having a world full of generic jack of all trades characters who just run about killing everything solo.

That's where the gameplay mechanics come in. If the player isn't allowed to be a jack of all trades it forces specialization. The more choices the more specialization generally. Granted the choices have to coincide with how players want to play. Like if there's a general skill/spell tree that players can choose. The starting branches might have healing/offensive/defensive abilities and then branch off and reconnect with one another. Then if stats/armor/weapons are geared toward different play styles then players will specialize.

You seem to suggest that if the game is skill based then players all of a sudden don't need each other. Why would this be true? The incentive of having 2+ people around has the advantage. If you've played Vanguard on the PVP server you'd know this to be true. Running around by yourself is a surefire way to get PVPed.

Best way I know of to add skill to a game is to give the player many more options than can be made in a single time. Most mmorpg games do not do this. The fights are generally predictable and players know what spells/abilities to use and in most cases already know the outcome of the fight.

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Original post by Sandman Classes are good in mmorpgs. They encourage players to band together in groups such that each player's class strengths complement the other player's class weaknesses. With a purely skill based progression system you run the risk of having a world full of generic jack of all trades characters who just run about killing everything solo.

That's if you can create such characters. In the real world, one cannot be an expert at everything. A jack of all trades is, perforce, a master of none.

Suppose you have a skill system where skill is increased by use. A way to look at this is to suppose that skills atrophy if not used. If you run around hitting things with swords for a month, you'll become very skilled at hitting things with swords. If you then run around throwing fireballs at things for a month, you'll become very skilled at throwing fireballs at things, but lose your skill with swords. Naturally, a group of adventurers with a mix of people who are highly skilled in specialized areas would, except in strange situations, be more effective than a lone adventurer with merely average skill in all areas.

Consider an alternate skill system where you increase skill by training. For every point you add to a skill, you must take half a point away from another skill. Alternatively, each time you train you automatically lose a point in every skill before adding the points you've earned: if people don't get enough points at each level to replenish what they lose they'll be forced to specialize.

But none of that may even be necessary. If there are 20 skills but only 10 skill points to spend per level (with, say, a maximum of 2 points per skill per level), then a party of four 20th level jack of all trades can only have 10 points in each skill, whilst a party of four 20th level specialists could, between them, have 40 points in every skill.

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Classes are good in mmorpgs. They encourage players to band together in groups such that each player's class strengths complement the other player's class weaknesses. With a purely skill based progression system you run the risk of having a world full of generic jack of all trades characters who just run about killing everything solo.

This can be handled by limiting the players overall potential through inventory. If a player were to run around like say, the Doom guy with a hundred guns and a bazillion rounds of ammo in his magic backpack then you'd have a abit of a problem on your hands. But by forcing the player to be able to carry only one or two weapons (ala Halo), along with a very limited inventory of items (such as that extra clip of ammo, or the pair of lockpicks), then the player would have to choose carefully and work his playstyle around his loadout limitations. He could still end up being a master of all trades, but its kind of hard to do 12 different things amazingly when you can only carry the proper gear to do 2.

You can certainly force players to specialize, but then aren't you just doing the same thing as classes but with less transparency?

Grythok's suggestion is interesting; you could be a 'jack of all trades' but you for any given mission you still have to pick your role when you choose your equipment loadout.

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Original post by Sandman You can certainly force players to specialize, but then aren't you just doing the same thing as classes but with less transparency? Grythok's suggestion is interesting; you could be a 'jack of all trades' but you for any given mission you still have to pick your role when you choose your equipment loadout.

Look at the bigger picture. Take planetside for instance. At one moment you are specialized in destroying heavily armored things then after a few days you change your specialization slowly. This is much like if you slowly changed your class to another. Not to mention take planetside again, when you get all of your stuff ready and you head out you specialize your skills even more. Carrying a rocket launcher instead of a big gun or more armor. Or you use less armor since the vehicle you use doesn't allow a certain armor type. This is an FPS, but the idea can be used in an MMORPG.

What I'm trying to say is that with classes you force the player into one play style. If they suddenly want to change then they are forced to create a new character with another specialized class.

As for skill this also changes the gameplay. I mean at one moment being specialized in say healing is bad and at another it's a good thing. For a person stuck with a class they are forced to do the best with what they have. Sounds like bad game design to me personally, but some people like that.

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Original post by Sandman Classes are good in mmorpgs. They encourage players to band together in groups such that each player's class strengths complement the other player's class weaknesses. With a purely skill based progression system you run the risk of having a world full of generic jack of all trades characters who just run about killing everything solo.

Of course you could then have a skill cap (total of all skill points) to limit that. A similar cap could be placed on the players stats to keep them from being maxed out in all attributes. Add a system which has the max points in any one skill get harder to achieve as they reach maximum. Locking skills to prevent slippage of costly points when doing easy fain skills (constant use of skills with low points being easy to gain and take points from other skills once the cap was reached). Ultima Online did all that (and then they started adding items that added skill points and/or higher maximum caps and other ways to circumvent the cap system).

Wouldn't the main problem with having the ability of changing, is getting it to be fair? I mean, yeah, if you hack on stuff with a sword for awhile you'll get better with it at some point... Then threw you fireballs and you'll get good at it, but at the same time, you wouldn't completely forgot how to use a sword. So after a shorter-than-the-first-time period wouldn't you be able to swing a sword just the same? But then after that short period of time, you wouldn't completely forget how to throw fireballs either, so therefor after awhile you could throw fireballs and swing a sword pretty well...

I'm a proponent of skill based systems or mix it with templates where you cannot be good at all things.


I see many gamers ask 'why cant I just infinetly level?'? Well skill based makes it so you can always level + always enjoy teaming. no barriers between us. I love skill based coop RPGs like crackdown 360 for this reason!

Skill based is natural for MMOs because the character progression never ends. but - their issue is 'botting'. If you respawn the mobs in an area people will setup bots and skill up their characters. Then again even level based MMORPG has botting so nevermind that much. Lineage is known for botting

guess might be ways to detect bots I dunno how those are written


You can also go time based progression (like EVE).

Really I think if you can do it I'd say skill based. I'd love to play a skil based MMO. thinking of looking into working on one at some point (MMORPG)

You can have a sort of atrophy where you cant be good at all things or go EVE-Online route where it impossible to acquire all skills or go template based. Theres many ways to stop being a 'god at everything'.

and if flavor of the month happens somehow well good for you! That will keep the buggers busy!

edit- cleaned up post a bit

[Edited by - vajuras on July 18, 2007 8:12:15 PM]

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Original post by Sandman You can certainly force players to specialize, but then aren't you just doing the same thing as classes but with less transparency?

I don't think so, for three reasons:

1. If you begin to specialize in a particular field but later decide you don't like that field, it's not too late to specialize in a different field instead. In a class-based game, if you can't switch classes then you have to redo your character if you want to change roles. If you can switch classes this reason might not apply, depending upon how class switching works.

2. Depending upon how fine-grained skills are, you can specialize in whatever fields you like. Most games won't have a specific class for fighters with powerful fire magic and pick-pocketing, but a purely skill-based system would allow a character to set himself up that way.

3. You're not actually forcing players to specialize. Players that want to go it alone will be better off not specializing. They'll just have to accept that a lone adventurer can't beat challenges as tough as a party of specialists can: but that doesn't prevent them from facing challenges and having fun whilst doing so. (Unless you want to force players to join a party. But the kind of player that has to be forced to join a party probably isn't the kind of player that his partymates would actually want in their party.)

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Original post by Sirisian For a person stuck with a class they are forced to do the best with what they have. Sounds like bad game design to me personally, but some people like that.

I strongly disagree with that. Doing the best with what you have is a fundamental part of what makes games fun, in my opinion. It forces you to develop creative and interesting strategies to cope with problems you aren't optimized to deal with.

You can't play chess with fifteen queens. You have to make do with the pieces you have. Even more so as you lose pieces throughout the game. That's an important part of what makes chess interesting.

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Original post by Nathan Baum I don't think so, for three reasons: 1. If you begin to specialize in a particular field but later decide you don't like that field, it's not too late to specialize in a different field instead. In a class-based game, if you can't switch classes then you have to redo your character if you want to change roles. If you can switch classes this reason might not apply, depending upon how class switching works.

Strictly speaking, this is potentially just as big a problem for skill based systems as for class systems. It all depends on how they are implemented. For that reason, I don't this point really counts.

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2. Depending upon how fine-grained skills are, you can specialize in whatever fields you like. Most games won't have a specific class for fighters with powerful fire magic and pick-pocketing, but a purely skill-based system would allow a character to set himself up that way.

Again, much depends on how classes are implemented, but I suppose this is a somewhat reasonable point. However, bear in mind that a properly designed class will always be useful, having a set of abilities that are synergistic. Throwing fireballs is not terribly synergistic with melee combat, unless you're OK with being stabbed in the face whilst casting, and then incinerating yourself when your spell finally goes off. It doesn't even work that well with ranged combat, since you can't shoot a bow and launch a fireball at the same time. Those two skill sets are exclusive rather than synergistic, which makes them a sucky combination.

A class system can cut out all the silly combinations that don't work well together, reducing the player's chances of inadvertently gimping himself to the point of uselessness, and reducing the likelihood of the player saying "oops my character sucks, time to rebuild".

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Original post by Sandman Quote: Original post by Sirisian For a person stuck with a class they are forced to do the best with what they have. Sounds like bad game design to me personally, but some people like that. I strongly disagree with that. Doing the best with what you have is a fundamental part of what makes games fun, in my opinion. It forces you to develop creative and interesting strategies to cope with problems you aren't optimized to deal with. You can't play chess with fifteen queens. You have to make do with the pieces you have. Even more so as you lose pieces throughout the game. That's an important part of what makes chess interesting. Quote: Original post by Nathan Baum I don't think so, for three reasons: 1. If you begin to specialize in a particular field but later decide you don't like that field, it's not too late to specialize in a different field instead. In a class-based game, if you can't switch classes then you have to redo your character if you want to change roles. If you can switch classes this reason might not apply, depending upon how class switching works. Strictly speaking, this is potentially just as big a problem for skill based systems as for class systems. It all depends on how they are implemented. For that reason, I don't this point really counts. Quote: 2. Depending upon how fine-grained skills are, you can specialize in whatever fields you like. Most games won't have a specific class for fighters with powerful fire magic and pick-pocketing, but a purely skill-based system would allow a character to set himself up that way. Again, much depends on how classes are implemented, but I suppose this is a somewhat reasonable point. However, bear in mind that a properly designed class will always be useful, having a set of abilities that are synergistic. Throwing fireballs is not terribly synergistic with melee combat, unless you're OK with being stabbed in the face whilst casting, and then incinerating yourself when your spell finally goes off. It doesn't even work that well with ranged combat, since you can't shoot a bow and launch a fireball at the same time. Those two skill sets are exclusive rather than synergistic, which makes them a sucky combination. A class system can cut out all the silly combinations that don't work well together, reducing the player's chances of inadvertently gimping himself to the point of uselessness, and reducing the likelihood of the player saying "oops my character sucks, time to rebuild".

What is useless to a Game Developer can be insanely fun to the player. In skill based games you'll see all kinds of crazy creativity. Right now in EVE I'm a combination of manufacter and fighter pilot. Sure, I might get my rear end handed to me in a fight but I'm happy because I invested time into what I really want to be

When players are forced along a treadmill you might end up with a character you don't really like. In City of Heroes, players all the time try to build their healer/tank/warrior how they want but they are still powers people expect them to include. So what happens people have to drop the powers they find really fun just to make their 'guild' happy so they can be productive on a team

Skill based squashes all that. You build the toon you really want to be. Non-combat professions become totally viable. In old school SWG-pre CU/NGE, you saw a ton of non-combat professions where players really built the avatar the really wanted to be rather then being forced into a linear treadmill dictated by the Game designer into cookie cutter roles we have seen in a lot of MMOs at this point.

All the MMOs are trying to innovate their class based systems but they all still end up with holy trinity- Warrior, Healer, and Mage. Sandbox / Skill based MMOs totally escape all that madness. We are not forced along some hardcoded chaarcter progression in a Sandbox like eVE. We can pursue the careers we really want to be. PRovides so much rich gameplay and experimentation


Classes still provide guidance. But we can provide Guidance as well by asking the Player what type they want to be and suggest skills they should pickup.

Classes make it easy too easy to turn away players. Its a sort of elitism we see. I know my friend that plays World of Warcraft poor guy he has to always respec his character to please his guild. I suppose some gamer's love the tight control Game Developers have over their characters but I've seen it too much for a game that is supposed to be infinite. Classes reach dead ends

Good points you have but I think if a developer really wants to stand out they should go more freeform it has really paiud off for EVE. But if you have a huge budget and a good Intellectual property I suppose you can borrow bits from World Of Warcraft and of course still be popular

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Original post by Sandman With a purely skill based progression system you run the risk of having a world full of generic jack of all trades characters who just run about killing everything solo.

One could point out that RL shows it doesn't really work this way. Take for example any regular armed force -- while there's certain common skills that each average soldier share with others, there's enough practical incentive there to make them specialize in very different things. And they certainly don't 'run about killing everything solo' either, simply because the only thing one can really kill solo is another lone guy of similar strength. Anything bigger, and you need to start grouping up to stand chance.

While its true that RL doesnt work that way, there is at least one important difference in RL to most games. Namely, in RL developing a skill is difficult enough that it requires a significant investment and skills learnt have no hard limit on how far you can develop it, and will atrophy if not practiced with some regularity.

This means that skilled specialists in RL will lose some of their skill in that area if they attempt to train themselves in additional skills. In most games, especially traditional RPGs, skills have a set limit that a skill can be raised to, and the skill does not decrease if it isnt used, so there is no penalty for attempting other skills after you master the first.


Thats not to say that RL cant be used as a guide on how to prevent "jack of all trades" characters, though. For example, instead of set limits on skills (eg, all skills stop at 60 skill points, or the like), use some form of logarithmic curve, where investing time in the skill will always have benefits, but with diminishing returns, so that specialists are rewarded without becoming grossly overpowered. Skill atrophy is another option... but unlikely to be too popular with gamers used to the current crop of RPGs.

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Original post by caffiene While its true that RL doesnt work that way, there is at least one important difference in RL to most games. Namely, in RL developing a skill is difficult enough that it requires a significant investment and skills learnt have no hard limit on how far you can develop it, and will atrophy if not practiced with some regularity. This means that skilled specialists in RL will lose some of their skill in that area if they attempt to train themselves in additional skills. In most games, especially traditional RPGs, skills have a set limit that a skill can be raised to, and the skill does not decrease if it isnt used, so there is no penalty for attempting other skills after you master the first.

Skill-based games that I've seen generally seem to go about it in slightly different way than RL, but ultimately to very similar effect -- there's overall cap on how many things you can teach single character.

Note even if there was no such cap and a character was allowed to eventually learn everything, it still doesn't make them capable of 'soloing everything' ... it just makes them more versatile. But there's still physical (so to speak) limits how much damage one person can do and withstand, and content that requires more than that in order to beat, would still require grouping. The only difference is that the player has more freedom who they group with, vs sitting there idle for long periods of time in hope a healer/tank/damage dealer interested in doing the same content happens to be online... but removal of that particular "feature" isn't bad thing in my eyes.