No skill limitation

[shadowroush]

messed up my numbers hehe can you spot the mistake in last post

so if level 7 was 15,000 exp and level 8 was 18,000 exp
then 18000/15000 =1.2
and level 9 = 20000*1.2*2.5 or 60,000
level 10 = 60000*1.2*2.5 or 180,000
level 11 = 180000*1.2*2.5 or 540,000

[Pegasus]

Well with \"no\" skill caps this could end up like the-game-that-shall-not-be-named ... where a few players play all day to get to a (very) high level and reach \"god\" status and everyone wants them to craft the best weapons available etc.

Best thing would be if skills dont affect the possibilities that much. For instance everyone can wield an axe but if you got a high level in that skill you would just be a lot more efficient in using it. Or everyone can craft a sword but you will end up with a poor quality if your skill level is too low.

[RussianVodka]

I thought thats how it already was

[Armenelos]

Aren\'t skill limitations set so that nobody can be perfect, that each race has a pro and a con for picking them? So that makes you really think deep of why you want this race. This makes sure no one gets everything. It doesn\'t matter that your getting it slower, your still going to get it. But if they put the caps in then you have to think, Why did I pick this guy? What are his strong points? What are his weaknesses? How can I make each work for me? etc

[Thardin]

Originally posted by Armenelos
Aren\'t skill limitations set so that nobody can be perfect, that each race has a pro and a con for picking them? So that makes you really think deep of why you want this race. This makes sure no one gets everything. It doesn\'t matter that your getting it slower, your still going to get it. But if they put the caps in then you have to think, Why did I pick this guy? What are his strong points? What are his weaknesses? How can I make each work for me? etc

Exactly.

I had another idea:
If you want to become let\'s say a magician. You advance some levels in magic, but because you just advance magic, your maxinum level in fighting goes down.
Obvious don\'t you think? If you study all day you have less time to hang around in the gym. But if you hang around in the gym all day, you have less time to study and might never reach your full potential intelligence/knowledge etc.

[Ikarsik]

why does the word rank have to mean level lol

with the kran they can only learn eighth rank magic. To get to eighth rank magic you may have to get to level 500 magic skill. like a level 8 spell of the dark way would need 500 skill points in the dark magic skill. there could only be 10 spell levels or only 9 which dosn\'t really limit the kran in magic that much but it makes being a pure kran caster kind of silly.

there could be a spell which required rank 1 magic which you start off with. Lets call it er... flame. Now this spell is very weak. There is an upgrade to this spell on magic rank 2 called fire.

ok. now as you increase the amount of skill points in that magic way the effectiveness of the spells becomes greater. They fizzle less also.

So flame will do the same amount of damage as fire. but fire will be able to strike multiple targets.

You could also have say.. an upgrade called inferno on magic rank 3. To get to magic rank 3 lets say you need 50 skill points in this magic way. now inferno could do the same thing as fire but with double damage. Now you could keep going on like this or just start a new line of spells with Role Playin style names e.g. bolleros blast. again these names only add to the Role Playing experience and are not needed.

Now with weapons you could just have weapon groups like a rusty dagger is a rank 1 piercing weapon and a dagger is rank 2, a tarnished is rank 3 etc.

The skill points for a weapon type could make you more accurate each skill point or skill points could work as modifiers for other skills like if you had dual wield skill and you were using two daggers your piercing weapons skill points would modify the final out come of the dual wield, defining the probability of a hit for each dagger.

with crafting i guess like armor making rank1 you can make rank 1 armour and rank 2 you can make rank 2 etc.

same with armor repairing except you are just repairing not making.

also same with building,farming,food making,brewing, herbalism etc.

Im not sure what would happen with artists. maybe on higher ranks their paintings could be imbued or maybe they can only draw certain features on lower level but can draw more on higher ranks.

with musicians their melodies would have different effects i guess

cartographers would maybe only be able to draw in outlines of cities or just like outlines of mountains and rivers. Then at higher ranks they could draw smaller things like individual tress or individual houses and mountains and even underground maps, underwater maps. Higher skill points would make your drawings clearer.

with lockpicking i guess their could be harder locks. each rank you  can unlock a different type of lock. maybe you could also add some magic in a the highest ranks to help unlock enchanted locks. also the higher the skill points the less chance of failing.

with stuff like climing you could have it like you can climb ladders on rank 1 trees on rank 2 etc right up to flat marble supports maybe (very impossible). the higher the skill points the less energy it takes and the faster you are.

with body development maybe at higher ranks you can absorb like heat and cold attacks or like first you asorb impact then slash then pierce.

with swimming it would just be skill points.

i think that is all

oh ya and skill points would be infinite but like you would put in algorithms to take effect at certain levels to slow people down or take the effectiveness down as the level got hiher

( took so long to type =() )

[Icefalcon]

Well your idea on Magic is good I think, but I dont like the weapon part. I think you should be able to use whatever weapon you want, but the skill you have affects the damage done by the weapon.

[Ikarsik]

Ok i dont think you would have skill doing damage. The strength does the damage. But skill would be used as a modifier for damage because what good is strength if you cant use it properly?

If you didnt like the weapons part then..hmm.. you could have something like Everquest where there was a bonus that you got for being a certain level. There could be a weapon does 20 dmg 19 dly. Anyone could use that. You get the most out of it from having the required skill. but there could also be a stat bonus that required you to be lvl 45. The stat bonus could be a save versus fire or a spell effect etc. But you still need to have weapon dmg and dly. Those are the basis for RPG weapons. You could just have the damage of the weapon as a modifier for the final damage

[Waylander]

I think the best ideas so far would be Thardin\'s and Ikarsik (except the weapons part)...I agree there should be no cap (except maybe for dwarves j/k )but amybe we could just make higher lvl change less so that you would have to be 1,500 magic lvl in order to truly decimate a 1,000 magic lvl dude

[Icefalcon]

Originally posted by Ikarsik
Ok i dont think you would have skill doing damage. The strength does the damage. But skill would be used as a modifier for damage because what good is strength if you cant use it properly?

Well if you have a high skill level in daggers, then you should be able to do more damage with daggers that with a low skill lv. But I guess damage shouldnt be everything, your skill should improve speed and maybe recovery as well.

[Ikarsik]

Yes for lighter weps it would depend more on skill prob but as weps get heavier you would need to have more strength. What is wrong with my weapon part lol.

weapon skill would work as a modifier for both damage and speed. Also parrying if you could parry.

also like the stealing thing like having more knowledge of how to steal gives you more knowledge of how to prevent it.

so like you could have knowing better how to wield a dagger lets you know how to better defend against a dagger. This could act as a save versus dagger which could be combined with your defense and armor rating to form up a nice defense formula formalu

defense would probably be calculated with agility and something or maybe it would just be your agility but probably another formula involved to make the game more exciting

so like the base formula would involve like

damage = (weapon skill + speed) times half your strength

speed would kinda be the same but like probably less.

you would either have weapon speed or weapon delay. probably weapon delay

[WSIMike]

Hmm.. Infinite skill levels?

That seems like it\'d become sorta pointless aftera  while...

I mean.. taking weapon skills for example, I would figure that as your skills go up, you\'d be able to fight harder and harder creatures. With an infinite skill level system.. exactly how strong will enemies become? Will their power be dynamic and determined by the skill level of who\'s attacking them on the fly? Or, are the content creators going to have alot of work cut out for them as they continuously create new creatures to give the extremely highly powerful folks a challenge worth their time? Or will there be the same creature models being given higher and higher statistics (which will become boring; it\'s a common complaint in other such games).

There\'s a climbing skill I saw mentioned.. exactly how *good* of a climber can one become, exactly? How difficult can a climb actually become?

It seems to me that having no definitive limits sorta leaves the things that make the skill levels important way open-ended.

Here\'s something I was thinking about...

How about a branching skill system?

Say you want your character to become a blade fighter of some kind.

Maybe you\'ll start off weaning your skills on a dagger. It\'s small and weak, but hey.. when you first start out - so are you and so are the creatures you\'re likely to be fighting.

After you reach.. say level 10 (arbitrary number for example\'s sake) skill with a dagger - you now have the ability to branch off one of two ways.. Either you can move on to training with a \"Great Dagger\" or something like that - sort of defining dagger fighting as your chosen specialty (swift, fast and very deadly). Or... you can go off and move on to a short-sword.

Which ever path you choose (and you can always switch from one to the other because you\'ve essentially \"unlocked\" both by reaching level 10 with a dagger), you have to go another 20 levels in that skill..

So.. you get to level 20 \"Great Dagger\" - well, maybe now you earn a \"title\" as, say \"Dagger Specialist\" and learn \"Dual-Wield\" (twice as deadly!) as your next skill to build.

Or, you chose the short-sword at level 10.. After 20 levels of training the short sword, you become, say, a \"long-blade specialist\" and now can move on to a long-sword... and then on to a great-sword after training longsword for 40 levels, etc.

Perhaps there\'s some kind of trial at each \"title level\" point that is required to pass before you can graduate to the next stage...

After maybe 100 total skill levels, you\'ve attained a \"Master\" title for whatever your chosen weapon is. Maybe something even more grandiose and fantasy-sounding \"Legendary Swordsman\" or \"Legendary Blademaster\".  At this point, you can either choose to train another skill - or maybe there\'s some Master Quest you would go on to retrieve - or earn - a sword worthy of your skills and title.

Also, say each time you reach a \"title level\", your damage output will increase to some degree over what it was when you graduated. So.. if you\'re level 10 as a dagger fighter and you\'re putting out 20HP per strike on average.. well, as a new Great Dagger trainee, perhaps you\'ll put out an average of 25HP per strike, etc.

I believe something like this would provide absolute, measurable and meaningful goals for a player to strive for, rather than some vague notion of \"get as high as possible\" that carries no real definable or meaningful benefit other than getting as high as possible.

Anyway.. that\'s what I\'d been considering, explained off the top of my head.. :-)

Take care,
Mike

[Ikarsik]

nice idea mike. please dont be offended by any criticism you recieve from me because i am a kind of single minded person =P

i dont think branching was in the mind of the ps devs making this game

there is like a dagger skill or something which you can train in and a sword skill or whatever in which you train too

also to gain a  skill point it requires a certain amount of experience.

so like we have experience which gives skill points and skill points which give rank lol how good is that?

so lets say to gain a skill point the amount of experience required is equal to the number of skill points you already have squared. ok so lol it gets harder to get a skill point each level.

so like that might take a bit long and you would use a much better formula of course to do this but can you see what i mean? and like you could have monsters giving more experience the higher level they are. or... you could have it like the experience is skill point squared then divided by 2 or something and monsters could then have less experience attached to them so the game uses less memory and takes up less space.

so thats how you could like stop people from getting to high

[Toadhead]

NO LIMITATIONS!!

This is an RP game, RP Games must work like this:

(Almost) Every time you play you\'ll be better, you get more items/money and you will raise levels/skills

If there\'s a skill or level limit this would realy suck, after some time you can\'t be better :\'(

[WSIMike]

Originally posted by Toadhead
NO LIMITATIONS!!

This is an RP game, RP Games must work like this:

(Almost) Every time you play you\'ll be better, you get more items/money and you will raise levels/skills

If there\'s a skill or level limit this would realy suck, after some time you can\'t be better :\'(

Well.. I don\'t know if RP games *must* work like that.. It\'s certainly an option.

My only concern is, when you leave something so open-ended, after a while, you\'re bound to have people with a skill level of some obscenely high number getting bored because there\'s only so many new and unique encounters the devs can provide.  Basically, if you\'re going to have an unlimited skill level system, to keep it challenging at all levels, you\'d have to also have challenges of unlimited difficulty to keep those players entertained... I\'m not sure the devs want to spend that much time creating brand-new content indefinitely.

I\'m sure there\'s some middle-ground somewhere, but just making it blue-sky like that is likely going to introduce its own set of problems down the road.