Hello everyone,
I did a quick scan just on the word skills and didn't really see much... so I hope we haven't had this specific discussion before.
I'm wondering how we all feel about leveling skills while we level our avatars. For example, say as a melee you can use one and two hand blunt weapons, slashing weapons, and piercing weapons. In EQ (and other games) you would level each of those skills slowly over time by using the skill. Use a one hand blunt, raise your one hand blunt skill. Sometimes this could take considerable amounts of time before you were actually adequate at the skill.
Some of today's games have done away with this sort of thing. Pick up a one hand blunt and use it. No fuss, no muss, you are an expert with it.
I'm wondering what you all think of skill leveling as a thing to do in an MMO.
For me, I'm not really for the idea, and not really against the idea - because sometimes leveling the ability is something that just happens as you play - and sometimes leveling a skill is a seemingly lengthy, all too often boring intentional activity. As an example, in EQ Monks got FD somewhere in the upper teens - and they wanted to be able to use it... so I'm sure more than a few monks sat in town for a while doing nothing but pressing their FD button, waiting for it to reset, and pressing it again.
Anyway, what are your thoughts?
This is how it is in Pantheon. Yes, it is kind of a lost art in games these days and I for one am glad Pantheon is bringing it back. The big things that come to my mind first:
1. It's important to balance twinking by making it so that even if you equip a very powerful weapon as a low level character, you might not be skilled enough in that weapon type to use it to its fullest effect.
2. It balances power leveling. You may be able to sit and get PLed, but you're gonna be pretty much useless at those higher levels unless you put in the effort to level up your skills yourself.
3. It is also important for making it feel like you can always accomplish something in a relatively short play session, like an hour or two. Even if you don't level up your character, you at least have some confirmation that your character is better at 1H Slashing (for example) than it was when you first started playing. It may be minor, but at least it wasn't a waste of time. Your brain lives for that sort of progress, so giving that kind of feedback is crucial for making sure players continue to want to play.
Also see:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2942/skill-advancement
I love the idea. I remember in the first year of EQ, when I was around 45th level, I'd get groups in Lower Guk when there were level 50 enchanters looking for groups, simply because my defense skill was maxxed out. When I got agro, the cleric didn't have to spend his entire bar of mana in a mad frenzy of heals to keep me alive. They appreciated that. I would get comments that I'm much easier to keep alive than any other enchanter on the server. That's because all of the other enchanters had such a low defense they would die in 2 or 3 hits from the high level frogloks.
It's another form of progression, and people who are willing to spend the time progressing their skills will do better than those that don't. I'm not sure if it should be like Vanguard was or not. I did like Vanguard's system, but I know some people didn't. Where you had a maximum number of skill points that could be spent in certain skill areas, and once you spent that many you'd have to lower some skills to raise other skills in same group (such as weapon types).
Wandidar said:Hello everyone,
I did a quick scan just on the word skills and didn't really see much... so I hope we haven't had this specific discussion before.
I'm wondering how we all feel about leveling skills while we level our avatars. For example, say as a melee you can use one and two hand blunt weapons, slashing weapons, and piercing weapons. In EQ (and other games) you would level each of those skills slowly over time by using the skill. Use a one hand blunt, raise your one hand blunt skill. Sometimes this could take considerable amounts of time before you were actually adequate at the skill.
Some of today's games have done away with this sort of thing. Pick up a one hand blunt and use it. No fuss, no muss, you are an expert with it.
I'm wondering what you all think of skill leveling as a thing to do in an MMO.
For me, I'm not really for the idea, and not really against the idea - because sometimes leveling the ability is something that just happens as you play - and sometimes leveling a skill is a seemingly lengthy, all too often boring intentional activity. As an example, in EQ Monks got FD somewhere in the upper teens - and they wanted to be able to use it... so I'm sure more than a few monks sat in town for a while doing nothing but pressing their FD button, waiting for it to reset, and pressing it again.
Anyway, what are your thoughts?
like the idea, but i hope leveling up some skills would level faster, like FD, bard singing, plus instruments some of these thing took days to master, granted that isn't entirely a bad thing but at the same time there isn't much of a need for it to be that lenghty, but at the same time i dont want it to feel liek the skill up process shouldn't even exsist, like the leveling of 1hb and all that was at a really good pace,so if we can stay at a pace like that i would feel okay with that.
I liked leveling skills, as Bazgrim said, it's that little confirmation of progress in the early levels that you're improving.
In EQ1, you raised your skill by a max of 5 per level (by spending earned points or usage during adventuring), so you weren't master(100) anything until level 20, and most skills went beyond 100. IIRC some went to 250? grandmaster?
I, too, prefer the eq approach where you level skills individually and independently of character level, based on usage over time. As for caps, I feel that those should be based on class when appropriate.
I am ok with a mutually exclusive specialization system for weapon skills but I want it to be a conscious choice. So for example if I max my 1h sword and 1h blunt skills, I should get the option presented to me to pick one to specialize in. Choosing to do this shouldn't hurt the other, but I might only be able to pick one of them. The type and number of specializations available should be based on class. For example a ranger might be able to specialize in various ranged weapons while a warrior would not. I am not saying such a system must be in pantheon, but if there is some sort of skill specialization I would prefer that it works this way.
I will add that I am also not a fan of talent tree approaches because to me those encourage FOTM and cookie cutter builds. Any sort of specialization system should be much more individual and personal, so that it helps drive diversity in both equipment and style.
You have become better at guessing the content of a thread by its title (2).
As to skills...I like EQs way...for the most part. Initially you had to return to your (NPC) guildmaster to buy a skillpoint for new skills before you were able to raise it. In today's EQ, you just gain that first skillpoint automatically once you reach the correct level. I think the first way is better, but even better would be to get your first few skill points as part of a quest. That goes for all skills btw. I think "buying" skill points is a bit cheesy, but if they are gained as reward for a quest...I'd prefer that.
For melee classes I would like if weapon skills like 1hb, 1hs were "linked" to the basic offense skill. IMO it makes no sense that a player fights for dozens of levels, and becomes a "master of offense" yet has not the slightest clue how to wield a weapon he didn't train in. I don't expect to automatically master all weapons, but it would be great if for example, weapon skills could be linked to offense in a relation like 1:4 (when you have 100 offense, you can use all weapon skills at least with 25 skill, even if you didn't train them). That would make learning skills less of a hassle if you didn't get weapons for all your skills early on.
Nephele said:I, too, prefer the eq approach where you level skills individually and independently of character level, based on usage over time. As for caps, I feel that those should be based on class when appropriate.
One of the things I like about the system is that you can see the relative difference in the abillity of one class when compared to another regarding a specific skill. For example, maybe one class caps defense at 95 while another caps it at 114 and yet another caps it at 200. So it not only lets you experience your relative growth in a skill, it lets you see how your class performs that skill relative to other classes.
Yep, I'd be disappointed if it was not like EQ's system, I thought it worked great. Not only weapon skills, but each school of magic you had to keep skilled up if you wanted to use that new spell you just got when getting to a certain level. You were allowed to specialize in one school if I remember right, letting it skill up a bit more after the others remained at cap.
Who didn't enjoy seeing those message scroll past? Mini-accomplishments are great and really help you bond with your character. Beyond just leveling, this is another way of watching your character progres from a quite useless and weak thing to a skilled and dangerous adventurer. Nothing wrong with that.
Personally I think it would be great if weapon skills didn't have a hard cap, just a point where it got significantly harder to raise the skill. That way it could still improve if you were dedicated enough to the skill to do it mindlessly at max level for very minor dps increase.
As with all things there are plusses and minuses and implementation is critical. I agree in theory that improvement through using skills rather than just by gaining levels is great but I remember in The Elder Scrolls games (single player not the MMO) you could maximize skills just by standing in one place and using a skill over and over and over. I am not sure that accomplishes anything other than adding an element of tedium. Whacking a helpless enemy 20 levels below you isn't all that different. Nor is jumping 20 feet to hurt yourself, casting a few cures and repeating.
Wizarmy said:The joys of "You have become better at swimming(1)"
It's the little things that make a great game greater :)
TFW you broke your keyboard because you jammed stuff between the W and the A/D to swim in circles while you quick run AFK to level that bad boy up.
If I remember correctly, in EQ and Vanguard skills could only be increased by using them on something that was within a certain level range of you. There were exceptions to this, such as swimming and spellcasting abilities (since buffs could increase them as well).
Also, I believe in EQ the max was either 5 + 5*level (with caps on some skills before level 50) for skills that were for the class, and 4 + 4*level for skills that weren't mainstays of the class. For example, melee skills would be 5 + 5*level for warriors, paladins, rogues, rangers, etc, but they would be 4 + 4*level for enchanters, magicians, etc.
As far as progression is concerned, in Vanguard (after a patch early on in the game) you got a skill up for skills with almost every usage. So when you levelled you maxxed out a skill in a matter of seconds. It would be nice if the chances of getting a skill up were basically set up so that an average person would max out a skill about a third of the way through a level. This means as a fighter if you regularly use a sword, for example, you would max it out 1/3 of the way through the level, allowing you to max out 3 weapons easily.
Where the problem of this system comes in is the fact that some skills require you to do have some tedium to skill up. Skills such as swimming and safe fall. Abilities that you wouldn't use regularly enough on standard adventuring to get the skills up high. Swimming in circles in a pool is annoying, as is falling off a small cliff over and over again. Unfortunately I can't think of a way around this without trivializing the skill up. I guess swimming isn't that important, if you need swimming to do something, it will eventually go up, but safe fall is a different story.
I guess the only way around it is to do what EQ did, and allow you to pay to increase your skills. As I recall, in EQ you got a certain number of points you could just spend to increase a skill at a trainer, but after a certain point in the skill it actually cost money to train as well. This would allow people to go back to a skill they never increased at higher levels and get it caught up, at least some if not all the way.
Seeing the flavor text of "you have become better at x" really doesn't matter to me. The more important factor is having the leveling progression where reaching level 20 where you get your new skill is a big deal and matters.
Feign Death in Everquest, for example, was nice to have, but practically useless until you spent a significant amount of time training it or were pre-warned to save training sessions with your GM ahead of time. This type of frustration is just counterproductive. Closing the gap having the skill being semi-useful at acquiring it instead of completely useless would go a long way yet still reward the practice and training you do in the game world by bettering the skill.
Skill progression could simply be level based or skill points. Skill points make sense from the game experience side of it that your dps class that might not have spent much time off tanking would not be as good at defense as someone who is constantly doing these tasks. Maybe a fair compromise is to have a level based baseline for skills like defense (80 out of 200 at level 40), but someone who is actually practicing it has a noticeable difference with a maximized skill score.
I would like to see a couple of subsets (sub not main) where any training points you got from your trainer would be synergistic but not the same as skill points gained through adventure. I like the idea of at least having a trainer initially get you started and from there you can level up with usage while adventuring. So the only way to get started would be to visit a trainer and the only way to max out would be through use.
But I would also like to see a subset which can only be modified strictly through a trainer to make choosing the use of those training points a thoughtful endeavour. Not so much at lower levels but at medium to higher levels. Perhaps once having experienced the world there would be a subset that isn't so devastatingly unbalacing but also provide an advantage in a specific area - you have experienced the world and you know what you want. You would know that you consume food and water and maybe there is a training point only that slows down your consumption rate of food and water. Maybe it is an environmental boost such that a training point spent in cold (for example) would allow for the wearing of rings with a "cold environment factor." Two points spent may allow for earrings. Stuff like that. Unless jewellery can be a game-changing aspect in which case I don't like my idea. But if jewellery can be an augmentation aspect and not game changing then a choice to make at higher levels could potentially mean that you choose your augmentation for your character for the rest of their life and it may be different than other characters given their choices.
Another thing that I haven't seen mentioned before when talking about this type of skill up is it allows for a wider variety of equipment. In EQ and many other games, you get gear with +Strength, +Stamina, +Intelligence, etc. While this would probably remain the norm, it would also allow for extra stats. Imagine killing a mob and looting "Gloves of Dueling" which give the wearer +10 Rapier, +10 Dodge and +10 Parry. Basically items could not only be giving stat bonuses, but skill bonuses as well.
This could allow for a greater variety of gear, and "Best in Slot" may depend more on your role at higher levels than your class. For example, monks who do a lot of raid pulling would likely want gear that gives +Defense, +Dodge, +Parry, +Riposte, +Feign Death, etc. While if you're a monk in a raiding guild and you don't pull a lot you may prefer gear that gives +Hand to Hand, +Double Attack, etc. Of course, you may want to keep a spare set of pulling gear just in case :)