I am against Time-based skill advancement like the one you have described. This is because I don't believe the player would be engaged at all with the skill (depends how it’s designed, of course). The skill would automatically have less value to the player than the player who uses the skill to improve it. The player has to do other things while it is leveling meaning the skill you are leveling can’t be too crucial to the situations the player participates in, skills, in a way, become supplementary instead of necessary. Even if a lot of the skills are optional in advancing, they should feel necessary (I need this to get this, to use this, to play this). Hopefully the core of your game doesn’t depend on waiting.

There are only two advantages (that I could think of) to the time-based skill advancement: Christmas Presents, and Multitasking.

Because training a skill becomes passive, you'll either forget about it and be surprised by the faithful day you skill increases or look forward to the exact day/hour/minute that skill increases. The former would be fun, no doubt in my mind, the latter, however, depends on how long the waits are as their skill increases. Too long and it could become frustrating and boring if you need to level a crucial skill. Too short, and while it would be more exciting, the player might progress too quickly for the situations they will take part in. Also finding items that give you time-based Exp just seem pointless. If I'm a player... "I want it now...wtf?"

I feel multitasking is fun. If I can train this skill, while doing something else, I would feel like I’m progressing as fast as I can, I’m efficient, I’ve understood that the skill I’m training might be needed for another task I’ve put aside for this one instead and I’ll go back after I’ve benefited from the current task and the training while I was completing it.
The other methods are fine in my opinion.




I think a good idea would be progression of not only the character but the advancement system itself. It could be just “use Skill X to increase Skill X” then evolve into “use Skill X to increase Skill X, as well as gain points to allocate into those skills for extra benefits they should be getting anyway and extra choices they didn’t know they had”. It could (maybe) even evolve into the time based system once they reach some kind of “end game”. It would be fun to come back after a while of finishing the game to kick even harder ass (in not only combat) then you did before.

In the end, my suggestion would be an evolving system that does not rely on any time-based mechanics. To keep the player engaged, to keep advancing fresh, and keeping the player feeling like they are mastering the game and its systems.

I agree with you, Mario, that a pure time based skill system would be either boring or just broken.

What I have against usual XP leveling systems is that they tend to be a lot of grinding. I could loose the advancement of skills from the game completely and let everyone build and use everything from the start, only filtered by their knowledge of the game world and playing skills - the world is vast and there could be a lot of hidden items ready to be discovered and used.

I like it and think it could be a lot of fun for the explorer types but that would, im my opinion, completely cut off the archiever types.
I would ideally like to have a system that tracks advancement of character without giving the player the need to grind and thats probably why I liked the time-based skill system in a way, but its faulty as hell and has a lot of shortcomings.

Perhaps I should choose something along the lines of Archievents in FPS games: Have an archievement diary that keeps track of all the monsters the player has slain and also all the cool stuff player has found, made, used.

If you put the player in different situations that allows the use of these skills in different/challenging ways, you won't have a problem with the gameplay feeling like a grind. The grind (at least for me) comes from when I already understand and have mastered the gameplay to the full extent that the game allows me to at the given moment but it still wants me to continue using those skills in the same manner as before. This is because we have to make sure the game is a certain amount of hours (Of course this isn't good design practice in my opinion but its true, some people assume quality when a game asserts having tons of hours of gameplay).

If I'm having fun using the skill in the given situations that challenge my understanding of that skill, then leveling up that skill is a huge plus that could (and probably should if possible) open up new situations and applications of that skill.

I like the idea of allowing the use of everything from the start but you should make sure to present the information in a way that won't overwhelm the player. I don't enjoy games that give a huge list of stats, abilities, and situations and then tell me "Go." You can present pacing that essentially accomplishes what a leveling system would and I think that has a lot of potential.

You won't have a problem cutting off achiever types if what they can build and use is a significant...well...achievement. The system should allow the items and skills to matter and be a sign of status like the way leveling up would be.