EQ Never

tad10

tad10

Elisha Dushku
5,534
601
Mr Creed_sl said:
Every character can learn anything he wants, no class restrictions apply.
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bleh. I like class/race choices to matter.

Mudflation is fairly limited as far as character power is concerned. Sure there are expansions and new content or balancing changes the status quo, but you never come back after 2 years and your character become worthless because he's 20 levels and 2 expansions behind and could replace all his stuff in the AH. Generally you can come back, read up on the changes and refit your ship a bit to match then go right back to doing what you did before if you want. EVE's skill system is well suited for a long term game.
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This is okay if limited by class/race.

I'm fine with a hybrid system of some sort, but you still needs levels.
 
Grim1

Grim1

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
4,918
6,929
Mr Creed_sl said:
Every character can learn anything he wants, no class restrictions apply. You have different ship and weapon types and you can train skills for all of those if you want, But: Maxing them all would take years, if you also consider non-combat skills it would take many years. The thing is you dont have to do that.

Trying ships or playstyles out, deciding what you like and focusing your favorite doesnt take nearly as long (depending on ship/weapons it's days to fly it, weeks to fly it well, and months to master it). Once you have the skills for your ship type of choice you are just as capable in it as a 5+ year veteran. The older players advantage is in having more choice in what to fly because he mastered more ships and/or other gameplay aspects (economy, exploration). Again you can be proficient enough in each gameplay aspect by dedicating a couple of weeks, master it in a couple of months.

Skill training is passive and mostly a function of time, though some ingame assets can speed it up a bit. So you arent gimped in between while learning something new, you can fly the ship you are proficient with until you considering the new skills sufficient for the next one you want to try out. Also, its not simply a bigger is better situation with ships, it depends on what you want to do. I had 2 characters in EVE that attained a sizable amount of skill points (15 mill and 35mill iirc, might be off) and neither of them could even fly a battleship because I didnt care for it. While most players focus on combat you could dedicate all your training to "crafting" or trading if you want. There are of course specific ships for that too.

Mudflation is fairly limited as far as character power is concerned. Sure there are expansions and new content or balancing changes the status quo, but you never come back after 2 years and your character become worthless because he's 20 levels and 2 expansions behind and could replace all his stuff in the AH. Generally you can come back, read up on the changes and refit your ship a bit to match then go right back to doing what you did before if you want. EVE's skill system is well suited for a long term game.
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What EvE does so well is to negate the long term player's experience. Someone who has had a sub since day one may have experience in a bunch of different ship types but you can only fly one at a time. It is the multiple skill path scenario but without the cumulative rewards.

Which could be transferred to a fantasy mmo easily by just making any one skill path in a tree the only one usable at time (or two, three, whatever the devs decide). I don't like offline leveling so much, so I would make it an experience bar. But other leveling means are valid too.

One way an mmo could do it is to use Rift's soul tree but without the classes. Give everyone access to any soul but make them put xp into any one path to get the benefits. That way a character can potentially be any soul type but can only be one at a time. There is a benefit to being the max in any one soul but it isn't prohibitive to get to, and once acquired you can work on another path. Or just stop leveling in that path if you don't like it, and move to another one.
 
tad10

tad10

Elisha Dushku
5,534
601
Grim1_sl said:
Give everyone access to any soul but make them put xp into any one path to get the benefits. That way a character can potentially be any soul type but can only be one at a time.
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Ugh. I don't like the be all you can be meme. Class choice should matter.
 
Oblio

Oblio

Utah
<Gold Donor>
11,864
25,917
tad10_sl said:
bleh. I like class/race choices to matter.
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That was the beauty of SWG, you were limited to one character per server so your social actions mattered. If you were dick then everyone knew that and you got banned from the best vendors. If you played a Commando and started to get bored with it then you could drop those skills and level up anything else you wanted, all the while keeping your social contacts without having to tell everyone whose alt you were etc.
 
Grim1

Grim1

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
4,918
6,929
tad10_sl said:
Ugh. I don't like the be all you can be meme. Class choice should matter.
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You misunderstand. You can only chose one path at a time and even if you have xp in multiple paths it doesn't give you overwhelming power over everyone else. Old EQ actually did a very small variation of that with limit to only 8 spells that could be used at any one time. Mudflation, class imbalance, levels, expansions, etc.., killed that but they did have a minor variation on the same theme.

This is just a logical extension of that.

The point is to give everyone a reasonable chance at contribution without killing the long term vet's sense of superiority.What EvE vets have is choice. Newbs are stuck with their first or second path.

I like class/race choices to matter too. But that can be done within this system with minor changes and still have a more horizontal xp curve.
 
Abefroman

Abefroman

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
12,597
11,941
Ugg. I hate racial and trade skill bonuses. After I pick the class I want to play the choice of professions and race are going to be dictated by what is best for that class.
 
tad10

tad10

Elisha Dushku
5,534
601
Abefroman_sl said:
Ugg. I hate racial and trade skill bonuses. After I pick the class I want to play the choice of professions and race are going to be dictated by what is best for that class.
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Ugh. I also hate crap like halfling paladins pummelling some Diety or the other. Halflings don't belong in metal armor.
 
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Tol_sl

shitlord
759
0
Personally I love the idea of multiple classes, playing one at a time. I HATE having to make half a dozen alts and switch between them.
 
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Kedwyn

Silver Squire
3,915
80
Single character that can multi class is good for community. Bad for role players or people that like alts.

The Eve system works well. The ONLY thing I don't like about it is it being time based for leveling. Like I said in another post I don't mind casuals getting some offline welfare to keep them caught up. What I do mind is someone that plays an hour a month could never be caught skill wise even if play 10 hours a day. Not being able to ever catch people at it for a long time is a huge mental barrier to entry. Especially in a game that is so PVP orientated and balance swings could mean months of acquiring new skills.

Skill based games offer different challenges than level based ones. Macro / unattended skilling is usually a big problem because developers are to lazy to properly combat that without penalizing legit playing.

Personally I'd like to see it tried a bit more. Archage has a slightly different hybrid of the two which might work well. TESO as well although to a lesser extent since class skills are a permanent decision. EQN, well we'll get more about that in August.
 
Randin

Randin

Trakanon Raider
1,933
892
I suppose the fantasy equivalent of EVE's switching ships to use different skill sets would be to allow the player to learn any ability, but tie those abilities heavily to your equipment (which would probably also require some system to prevent players from swapping out gear on the fly). Skills from the warrior tree requiring heavy armor or melee weapons, mage skills requiring a spellbook equipped, and maybe a wand or staff, and so on. That would also allow multiclassing, but keeps it limited, as you have a finite number of equipment slots you can use.
 
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Devnull_sl

shitlord
94
0
Randin_sl said:
I suppose the fantasy equivalent of EVE's switching ships to use different skill sets would be to allow the player to learn any ability, but tie those abilities heavily to your equipment
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I'd like to see something very similar to Path of Exile's skill and gear system.
 
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etchazz

Trakanon Raider
2,707
1,056
a story for those of you clamoring for faster leveling: 2 bulls were grazing at the bottom of a hill; a young, impetuous bull, and an older, wiser bull. the young bull says to the older one "hey, there's a herd of heifers at the top of the hill, grazing. why don't we run up there as fast as we can and we'll each fuck one of them?" the older, wiser bull looked to the younger one and replied "why don't we walk up there and fuck them all?"
 
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gogojira_sl

shitlord
2,202
3
I like dedicated roles and thought the hotswap shit and Rift was utter garbage, but based on what little is being thrown out there, it definitely sounds like the class system is going to lean more flexible than rigid.
 
tad10

tad10

Elisha Dushku
5,534
601
gogojira_sl said:
I like dedicated roles and thought the hotswap shit and Rift was utter garbage, but based on what little is being thrown out there, it definitely sounds like the class system is going to lean more flexible than rigid.
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Yep. Sucks because dedicated roles promote emergent gameplay. You have to learn to master a class' abilities instead of fucking around with the FOTM skill build.
 
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gogojira_sl

shitlord
2,202
3
I don't even know what that is, honestly. Unlike a lot of people here, despite putting in way too many hours into MMOs (well, mostly EQ) it was always more about the journey for me and less about learning all the different intricacies of the mechanics driving the game. The basis for my reasoning would be simple: with a clearly defined role the player learns that class to the best of its ability and becomes familiar and even attached to his class -- a sense of ownership, I suppose. The idea of class specific weapons, right down to nature themed swords for rangers and fiery blades for paladins; it's just my preference.

In a case like Rift, you are whatever the new hot shit tells you to be. You're told that you can be anything, but the reality is that you fine tune whatever is laying waste to the opponents. You also have an obligation to, even if at a base level you go rogue, learn how to heal and tank and DPS. I guess that's good for people solely focused on one game (and with time in the day to do so), but I simply don't have the time to. Hell, I fully own up to the fact that people wouldn't want to rely on me for healing or tanking. I've got a busy life and it wouldn't be the craziest thing for me to get pulled off the computer for a few minutes at any given time.

I accept imperfections in balance and it can make things interesting if you're not absolutely scraping the bottom of the barrel. At the very least, you've got some diversity in the crowd.
 
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