Skill judgement?

[Vengeance]

I am ok with having an anonymous or hidden mode, but I just think people need the ability to see who they are dealing with when they form groups.

I also agree that there are better ways to present this information than just a big row of numbers, but the information is necessary, imo.

I also agree with the posts about reputation, but that is counter to one of the main goals of MMORPGs, which is to get people to play together, meet people and make friends online.  We want people to play with a broad variety of people--not just with the same people they always fight with because those are the ones they can trust.

Character progression is one thing that makes these games fun, but Single Player RPGs have that too.  What makes these games unique are the interactions with others, and I\'m afraid if we don\'t allow people to verify claims made by others, we will end up with lots of 3-person groups that don\'t know anyone else but themselves....  might as well play NWN if you want that...

- Venge

[Shanky]

People gain independent views on the people they work with as they level in the game, when i played EQ, if i didnt know some one, it didnt mean i wouldnt group with them, but if someone i knew to be a horrid player came along, i knew i would not waste my time in a group with them, and though i did prefer to play with people i knew well, it did not stop me from meeting new people, all the way from level 1 to level 59,

[paxx]

Ok, speaking on a preference? ?If I was given 50 million dollars to develop a MMORPG as I wished? other then the setting being a Hodge-podgy Sci-Fi setting and a billion other things, that are not Planeshift cause I?m a freak. When it came to Character Conning?all you would get would be your general feel of how the person carries themselves?the closer they are to you in expertise?the better you can judge their level, the further away?the broader range they could be. And there would be skills in impersonation.

Now as far as my thoughts on Planeshift?this is a player knowledge Vs. Character Knowledge issue, what do we want other players to know about others and such. There are good reasons to allow people to know who they are grouping with, at the same time if they group with a moron that is there own fault, and if they want to dual?knowing your opponents abilities is a powerful advantage.  If one player (Power Gamer Type) Duals another player (casual gamer type) and upon conning  character  A (power gamers character) sees character  B (casual Gamers character)  ?has attained at least 43rd circle in Blue Way, 103rd focus of Dodging, 92nd Circle of the Crystal Way, and 98th discipline of unarmed combat.
From experience of hundreds and hundreds of hours of gaming and reading websites on game stats the Power Gamer has a huge advantage as he has a better understanding of what he is getting into and what character B will most likely do.

Mean while the Casual Player has no real good idea of what to make out of Shield skill 150, magic?s all over 40 and under 60, staff skill 75.

And here lies the issue, while in real life both characters would be able to size each other up and get some ideas from that (be them right or wrong) here the characters get nothing the Players get the information, and the information means more to the person who plays more and thus allows him to make a better judgment on his chances of winning this outcome.

If we had a less informative system?that didn?t select stats to show, but did a number of calculations and arrived at the EQ type conning system?we would have to make the even area very broad. Or we could have 30 questions?offensive magic Vs. Magic Defenses, Offensive Melee Vs Defensive Melee?and that should give the player a concept of where he stands?but I really don?t think we should give away peoples skill levels, simply telling the player to heal them with their most powerful heal will answer the ?how good are you at healing?? question.

I?m really torn on this, so many options and no right answers.    

[Lenric]

Originally posted by Kada-El
Why should it be necessary to immediately know a persons skill level by the simple click of a mouse? If you picked a fight in the street the only way you would have a clue about their skill is by assumptions made on their physical appearance, or their reputation as someone not to mess with. There is far more danger and excitement involved in not knowing exactly what a player\'s attributes are, especially when it comes to arena player Vs player fights.

Fear and respect of a player should come through reputation. I like Tomaseth\'s suggestion of titles possibly earned at high levels or for certain quests or achievements. You could always bluff your enemy that you are far more talented with a weapon than you actually are and scare them into backing down, but that would be part of the fun

If you are concerned about people saying they are a high level in order to get into a guild, why not provide the facility for guild houses to maybe having something like a proving ground, where potential recruits would have to run some kind of gauntlet. Maybe a cellar dungeon where they must prove their worth by killing the beasts within. Perhaps the guild master could be given the ability to set the difficultly of the trial (or the level/type of monsters), thereby controlling the level of people in the guild. Hmm maybe I should put that on the wish list, I think it would add a lot to guild life.

Nuff said, its lame whenever people know peoples levels instead of fighting the run or just log out completely...Ive senn what happens in different games when everyone can see your level.It makes for power gaming.And even if your the best around it dont matter cause nobody will fight you.Having levels on monsters and on players is just gay it should of never been introduced into any roleplaying game.If you ever played table top games did your DM or GM ever tell you the lvl of the certain monster...I dont think so...and if he did he or she didnt know what the hell they were doing and should of been playing not Dming.
In short you add levels for everyone to see and the creative roleplay goes right out the window...and thats the truth.


Len

[Seravajan]

Another idea is a sort of consider skill connected with the skill groups you want to check on the other guy.
An example of a skill group will be all one handed weapon skills or all skills related to fire magic.
This reflects that you can consider someone with similar skills much better than someone with skills you don\'t have any or only few knowledges.
For example: You are a mighty swordmaster looking for another melee type of character. You will then get to consider that guy much better than if you consider a healer type of character because your skills in healing are low. The grade is not a clear number but more like a basic description.  The result of a consider would be looking like this: One handed melee: good, Healing magic: unknown, Fire Magic: unknown and so one.
It is still possible that you get a guy not fitting for your task.

Seravajan

[Heron]

I think it\'s important that we know each others skill levels from the time we see anyone, especially in areas where we can fight each other.

A few people said that we could judge peoples skill by what they were wearing, this is not really the best solution because a level 99 fighter could wear full bronze armour just to fool somebody, and when the battle begins, you will die pretty quickly if your not near his level.

I do agree with having a Green, White, Yellow, Red indicator as the persons name indicating their level compared to yours but also in brackets next to their name should be their level, ie.

Pancake Man (Level 5)

Just having their names in red isn\'t enough, I know in previous RPGs I enjoy dueling people who are in red but only say 10 levels higher than me because if I use a bit of magic and I train purely attack instead of defence I am able to defeat them with a bit of luck, but if they were 30 levels higher than me, then ofcourse I wouldn\'t stand much of a chance. So if you saw someone who was red you would want to know what level they were before you engaged.


Another suggestion someone pointed out that it shouldn\'t be told what level someone is, we should fight them and find out. Well once alot of people reach a higher level combat and we walk around all the \"newbie\" areas of the game and some new people who just got their brand new bronze sword and want to try it out accidently attack a level 100 because they couldn\'t see what level he was, is a bit unfair for the newbie and would be a common scam trick.


Great ideas though everyone, after all the better RPG is one that is a bit different to the rest in its own unique way

[Aruneko]

Well, first, there are no levels.  It\'s hard to determine what color it is because of that.

Second, since both players must agree to PvP, then it is the newbie\'s fault if he goes and attacks someone powerful.  Newbies (in game) should know that they shouldn\'t duel people until they are of decent skill, or are very good at running.