12 replies to this topic

[Helladen]

How should skills be done on a game, for a MORPG/MMORPG?

I'm not sure if I should limit the player to two per character or have them able to do all of them but have different ways to master them. Also, I've been tossing around an idea of a freelance class that can do all skills where the others can't do skills or can only do two (gather/craft). The freelance class can also influence the party such as increase loot, help in puzzles, and those types of things too. I'd also like to ask if that type of class would be worth implementing into the game? It seems kind of a unique approach and for many games I've seen people who only like to skill.

Can someone help me choose something most people feel comfortable about? I'm doing a poll on my site and the results aren't going as well as expected, so I'm kind of lost where to go next with these ideas.

[Tom Sloper]

If you're asking a technical question, this is the place. But if you want game design ideas, best to post in Game Design.

Since you mentioned "classes," I'm not sure if you're talking programming or design.

[Arukas]

What are you calling a skill? Like crafting items skills or combat skills? Or you just talking about any ol'skill in general regardless of its use?

[Helladen]

Skills such as crafting and gathering, I've played games for a long time but I'm struggling on this design topic.

I apologize if this is the wrong area to discuss it.

[Arukas]

Well, that's what I thought you meant. Now, I have another question for you. Will crafting be the driving force in your game like Terraria? or would it be a time sink? (most MMO in my opinion)

Also, my understanding this is a beginer forum, and the info suggest you use this forum before migrating on over. However, what the definition of beginer is, I don't know.

[Helladen]

Yes I agree, I am relatively new here and I assumed it was for people who were new that had questions.

Skills will be the driving force for the economy of course, players can gather or craft items that they can sell to others players. So skills need to be diverse so that everyone has a share in the market. Of course, there will be other ways to influence the economy the best way to describe it is how Runescape does their economy. Skills and drops are both key components to the game's economy.

[Arukas]

Well here is my two cents:

-The freelance really has no place then.

-Since the skills are a driving force, you'll need esstenail restrict them esstential to one type of crafting. Giving a single character too many skills will cause problems. You are going to want them to work with other crafters.

-Simpliest way, one skill and have that skill include everything they need.

[jbadams]

I think For Beginners was a valid and understandable choice, but I'm going to move you to our Game Design forum, as I believe you'll probably receive more/better feedback there for this particular question.

You also mentioned that you're running some sort of poll on your own site -- perhaps you could share a link for anyone who might be willing to participate or interested in the results?

[jbadams]

Do you want to encourage players to work together? If so, it would make sense to limit the amount of skills a player has access to, or perhaps to only allow so many skills of a certain type -- a player could learn 1 crafting skill, 1 combat skill, etc. -- although it should be noted that some players are likely to get around this by creating multiple characters.

On the other hand, if you're happy for players to be self-reliant you may be better off allowing them to train as many skills as they are willing to put time into; this allows players to more easily explore the different options available (rather than doing this via multiple characters), and is less restrictive in terms of what a lone player will be able to achieve.


I'm not sure about the idea of the free-lancer class -- what disadvantages balance out having access to all skills? If there aren't some serious potential draw-backs to playing as a freelancer then (almost) all players will choose that option. In my opinion you're probably better of going one way or the other rather than limiting most classes but then providing one without the limit.

[Helladen]

Thank you guys for your help.

I thought this too, I just seen some unexpected results of what my members voted. I don't have a giant community so these results aren't exactly sufficient either though.
http://arteix.com/fo..._4245#entry4245

I understand all the different possibilities, I just can't decide.

I'm also trying to encourage players to purchase things they need from other players through an auction house or something similar, so yes it isn't about freely doing everything yourself. I believe limiting it to two skills may be the best approach, with a little diversity in skills such as having three different ways to master a skill. This will allow players to further specialize in skills to add depth to the economy. Anyone think this too, or am I just crazy?

[Edtharan]

Game economies are tricky. It is easy to trivialise the role of players as you try to avoid massive inflation or collapse.

If you want a player driven economy, the best way is to avoid having item drops and instead have the raw materials from from enemies )or be able to be collected near by). Then allow the players the ability to craft any and all items in the game.

What you also want to do is to have the quality of the items dependent on the character's skill and choices of the player. This could be though higher or lower quality materials for crafting and even allowing the player to change the stats of the items (within limits) by trading one stat for another.

As an example:
A player wants to make a sword.

They can gather iron ore and smelt that into steel. But the quality (or perhaps amount) of iron ore is based on their gathering skill and the quality of the steel is based on their smelting skill.

The quality of the steel and the characters forging(sword) skill then sets the base value of the stats of sword.

Lastly, given these base values, the character has the option to tweak the sword stats a bit. So they might drop the damage value to increase the attack rate, or they might drop the durability to increase the damage. Or any such modifications. This could also be extended to the gathering of raw materials. The player can set their gathering for speed, amount or for quality, thus giving the players more control over the end results.

You could then allow players to combine skills to make the more powerful items. And, if the skills needed for certain items could not be learned by a single character this will encourage players to co-operate to forge the more powerful items.

Using these ideas, you can encourage social interactions (players working together), and you can develop a better player economy. Also, by having the player's skills and choices affect the stats of items, this give players who make good choices and put in the time to develop their skills more valuable to the community, but by having lower quality items easer to get (as more people will have lower skills), they cater for new characters.

[n00b0dy]

you can copy what elona did.
you can have all skills in the game, but using skills lowers the skill xp rate.
You can spend hard to find coins to increase their xp rate.

if you didnt improve minining it would cap to level 20 since it gained only 0.3% xp.
if you put all your xp into singing it would have 200% xp gain rate which allowed you to go to level 200 singing.

[Helladen]

I decided to go with what Edtharan said. I already thought this was the best way in my opinion to do them, but what he said helped me decide.