PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: zanzibar on October 28, 2008, 04:58:17 am
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I was just thinking. How would the game be different if you could create your character with any starting stats that you wish? There would be limitations on it, but there would be no levelling once you got started. How would it change things?
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UTM spoke about something similar enough to this before, I think.
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Yes, his opinion is that we should be able to enter the game as the characters we wish to roleplay, instead of working and grinding for too long just so that we can start playing the game.
It's more complicated than that though, because a rule about "typical" MMOs is that the grind is the game. So what happens if we eliminate the grind?
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Eliminate the grind, people will farm for tria to buy the best equipment
Also, if every character is born equal, with a set area of abilities maxed out, then it'd mean that peasants and guards are able to fight evenly. Some characters being much stronger or weaker then others is a necessary part of any game.
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I can imagine this happening with settings-approved characters. Else you're just flipping on god mode.
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@Gravemind:Thats if people choosing to play as peasants chose the stats of a hero. I'm sure whats meant is that people don't become uniform but get to choose what their stats are.
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Let's put in some limitations then. You'll have a certain number of "skill points" to allocate as you choose. You won't be the best at everything, but you can be the best at a few things, depending on how you make your character. And there will be nothing forcing you to use all your points.
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Everything would have to change. Grind would still be needed, but with a different direction. The game would have to shift from a complete Something Gained setup that it is to incorporate a harder to do but far more innovative Something Gained/Something Lost system.
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Ah, interesting! So when you use a skill, you get better at it. When you neglect a skill, you get worse at it. Slowly, over time. So your character will evolve over time based on how you behave, but there's a zero sum gain. I like it!
It wouldn't work with the current system of progression points and trainers. Progression points would have to be taken out of the game. Training would simply speed the process up, but it would never be the main focus.
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Somewhat. Not so much skills as environment. Skills could drop some with disuse, but I would not make it extreme.
In a complete SG system, you grind mobs for one reason: Gain Skill and Loot.
In a complete SL system, you grind mobs to keep them from destroying your cities, skill and loot is besides the point.
In a SG/SL hybrid, you grind mobs to gain skill and loot as well as grind mobs to keep their numbers down so they don't burn your cities to the ground, invade your mines and make your roads unsafe. You just gradually do this over an area, making the inner part 'safe' for new people who want to start with a low character, and outer warzone areas that need highly skilled fighters to defend at all times (based on how many players are online). If the mobs are not constantly pushed back, the 'safe' circle shrinks as the mobs push in and easy resources become less available.
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So instead of having the occassional invasion orchestrated by
drey game masters, there would be a constant threat of invasion, developed procedurally from the actions of players in game...
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I tend to like that idea... At least the overall concept of more mobs and it not being safe unless we, the players, push back the rising flow of monsters.
I'm still iffy on the stats/skills concept here though. I'd just have to see how it all worked out. Outside of it taking forever to gain levels beyond... um... 5 in some skills, the current system simply needs to be tweaked.... IMHO.
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mooney's original thread about the concept of current discussion is located in the wish list area of the forums, if you wanted to go re-read it. :)
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To concur, remember that earlier thread about how we can combine the RP playerbase and the power leveling playerbase? The reason that exists is because PS, like any MMO, is full of people who want nothing more then to be as powerful as possible. I seriously doubt more then.... five... people out of our current playerbase would actually choose to play a weaker character rather then maxing the best PVP skills.
Remember how some people suddenly discovered that the brown way's summon stone spell was the most kick ass ranged damage possible (which bugs me, brown way is concerned with defense mostly. Red way is supposed to be the one that deals the most damage, shortly followed by dark way because it uses pure 'death' power) so suddenly, every slapknut was aiming to be a brown way master, until 90% of the PVPers on the server have level 100 brown way.
I rest my case.
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Remember how some people suddenly discovered that the brown way's summon stone spell was the most kick ass ranged damage possible (which bugs me, brown way is concerned with defense mostly. Red way is supposed to be the one that deals the most damage, shortly followed by dark way because it uses pure 'death' power) so suddenly, every slapknut was aiming to be a brown way master, until 90% of the PVPers on the server have level 100 brown way.
Amen to that, and thank god i'm one of the other 10%. level 1 brown way! w00t!.... anywho, i don't think too much grinding is required for the current leveling system. training costs can get a little high, but the actual time required isn't bad. With enough money, proggression points, and the proper swords it would only take me about an hour to get a new char to lvl 20 swords. Maybe an hour and a half at the most.
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With enough money, proggression points, and the proper swords
This is a pretty big hump for most (99.89%) players, you realize. The grind being mentioned isn't just getting the skill bar to be all green, it's everything-- Money and PP aren't in unlimited supply for anyone, so they can't be ignored in this issue.
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With enough money, proggression points, and the proper swords
Not so easy when trying to level non-combat skills..........
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Remember how some people suddenly discovered that the brown way's summon stone spell was the most kick ass ranged damage possible (which bugs me, brown way is concerned with defense mostly. Red way is supposed to be the one that deals the most damage, shortly followed by dark way because it uses pure 'death' power) so suddenly, every slapknut was aiming to be a brown way master, until 90% of the PVPers on the server have level 100 brown way.
Amen to that, and thank god i'm one of the other 10%. level 1 brown way! w00t!.... anywho, i don't think too much grinding is required for the current leveling system. training costs can get a little high, but the actual time required isn't bad. With enough money, proggression points, and the proper swords it would only take me about an hour to get a new char to lvl 20 swords. Maybe an hour and a half at the most.
Level 20 swords is nothing though. And if you're trying to level something that isn't a combat skill, you're sol.
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I think entering in the game with the possibility to max stats&skills isn't a bad idea, but it needs some limits.
I agree with the idea of skills which drops with disuse or to apply this to settings-approved chars.
A nice thing could be the possibility to move the gained pps to others char, so when creating a character you can move them directly increasing the skill without the pratical training,maybe increasing the pps needed (so you pay also the pratical training).
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One thing you could do is have a certain number of points to assign for an account with no more than 60% for any one character on the account. Then you could have an xp modifier such that the more points spent on a character the slower advancement would go. This would allow for a range of starting levels. If you start a combat character low it could advance fairly fast and if your crafter started high he could do more right away. I certainly prefer the set your stats rather than game the creation system to get the best you can. That puts new/casual users at a big disadvantage and they will likely start with sub-standard characters, not preferable to me.
Some kind of hybrid system would allow for more customization while throwing out as little as possible.
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One thing you could do is have a certain number of points to assign for an account with no more than 60% for any one character on the account. Then you could have an xp modifier such that the more points spent on a character the slower advancement would go. This would allow for a range of starting levels. If you start a combat character low it could advance fairly fast and if your crafter started high he could do more right away. I certainly prefer the set your stats rather than game the creation system to get the best you can. That puts new/casual users at a big disadvantage and they will likely start with sub-standard characters, not preferable to me.
Some kind of hybrid system would allow for more customization while throwing out as little as possible.
Doing it by account means people would simply make new accounts for new characters.
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You are correct, sir! They do that already, I have 6 or 7 myself -- some were created to test an account creation problem; some time ago others were created to test the tutorial previous to that; some for other reasons. 90% of the time I play only the one character although I mostly don't get in much anymore. However having the reduced rate of advancement for characters with more than their share of starting points would tend to discourage that.
Anyway it is just an idea. :)
Personally I do not mind too much a gamable system for base stats but do not like it for starting skills. I much prefer a system of points allocation for both.
Pardon me for I fear I have strayed from your topic.
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Pardon me for I fear I have strayed from your topic.
No worries.
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Ive been playing Guildwars for a long time, and you start that game with level 1 and you got max level (level 20) in about 2-3 days. You can change your attributes anytime you want (in an outpost/town only tho) and it works perfectly. If you want to pvp only there even an opportunity to make a new pvp character which is lvl 20, has max armor and weapons, so every1 is equal. this game sold over 5 million copies (WoW 11 million) so its very attractive for many gamers.