hannibal
Distinguished
What if the game were designed so that 'levels' and 'skills' were more like stats, simply reflecting your actual abilities at the game (giving you "feed-back"). For example, when shooting a bow, the game would record your hit %, it could take into account many factors like how far away the enemy is and how strong they are, if you were moving during the shot, etc... Thus your 'skill' with the bow would simply reflect how good of a shot you are. As you progress through the game you will naturally get better with practice and your skill will advance, allowing you to survive more difficult encounters, to advance your skill farther.
The same could apply to shooting out spells. I love the spell system in Oblivion, because you actually have to AIM your fireball. This added so much more challenge and excitement to the fight for a spellcaster. Furthermore, magic could require more then just a mouse click, maybe harder spells could be boosted with a synchronized mouse movement and keyboard combination.
I apologize if this leveling system already exists in some game, but I have never encountered it (and would love to play it if it does exist).
The old Dungeon master had skill based system. When you hit something your hit skill increases and so on. Many % based games are allso skill based RQ for example.
I like skill based system better, because it allow customization. If you sneak a lot, you are better sneaker, and can became an assasin type of character. If you do a lot of fighting you become more "tank" type character, so no need for leveling, no need for classes.
So what classes are good for. A class can be basics for starting character. In your youth you have maybe trained some skills more than others. So if your father was a fisherman, you can have good harpoon throving skill, and good fishing skill etc... at the beginnig of the game, but after that you can do what ever you like!
I would like this kind of freedom a lot. LOTRO traits are a little move to this direction, but not enough.
There should be very good thinking about starting skills. It's guite stupid if you cannot hit with club without training. You are not master, but I know that if I pick up baseball batt, it can be dangerous even in my hands. But if I try to fight with that against skilled figthter I would be quite dead very soon...
The one thing that is missing though? The dungeon master...a good DM was a boon to RPG players. Making it hard but not impossible, ultra easy or capricious, but best of all UNPREDICTABLE. Anything could happen, because there was a human imagination at work.
This is what we really need!
Big multiplayer world where we have DW:s for playing groups. Maybe they are only in some adventure area, bay they run campaings for individual groups inside huge multiplayer environment.
I am sure that that kind of personal servise would cost more, like going to barber, or any other personal service.
It's very good for adult players, who has the money, but not a time for long time playing. They pay for good DM triven MMOrpg session with good characters, real interaction and so on. When we now pay 15$ / mont for MMOrpg, it would cost something like 60$ / hour / playing group of 4-8. Expensive, yes, but you would ged really good playing experience instead of general scripted adventures.
Yes, games with, "i block your attack from the left side corner of my back, with jumping in the air and holding my but with my shieldhand" are needed. For some of us. But not for most of the people in MMOrpg.
I agree with this. I like Oblivion fight, but there is nothing wrong with "rolling" the dice thing either. When rollign we need a lot of different animations, something like Role monster (read Role Master) kritical hit tables. When you managed to roll really well, you get special kill / hurt animation based on you weapon.
What we also need is some tactication. If you are in higher ground, you get bonus, if you are partially covered, you get defence bonus, if you are in shadows, you can get surprice bonus etc. A good flag based bonus system can add a lot to "dice rolling" combat, if the bonuses are big enough and people try to put themself to a posiotion that gives them advantage!