i do like the op idea and had definitly been this way

some direction
1) rewards player for trying hard, the more risk you took the greater rewards you would have,
fighting a dragon whith sword +2345 is VERY EASY you would have poor rewards
fighting a dragon with a knife is NEAR IMPOSSIBLE you would have an ultimate things!! this encourage true heroic action and would create a lot of competition between player (you know i have make the cave of the north with a litle wooden sword and get alive to the exit, wow!)
it would also add a risk calculation gameplay that would make the player think more of strategy

2) create different gameplay for each class of skill, this would automatically create class of player without actually coding it because player would tend to specialise themself into their favorite one

3) create a limit amount of skill storage, skill would be ideally like equip object, you can equip or desequip them, this force to choose carefully and to plane more in fct of he playing style, if you have a compatibility chart it would be more complicate but funny for the stragical customize freak (at least some powerful or useful object would be use this kind of limitation), this also lead to custom class
this also make player to team up to cover their lack or specialisation

4) create an ecosystem in an loop imbalance, if A is required to have B and B is required to have C and C is required to have A, this would create an endless dinamic flow, the number of ressource of course is less than really needed, the more A is wanted the B you would have, this create an imbalance that would ceate for an inflation of B when it will became more availaible, of course each are more easy to get with DIFFERENT skill, that the player would have to organze beetwwen them

5) type of equipement, equipment would have bias on the skill, create the challenge more easy and more hard according to compatibility, a rod would make magic casting easier, that a player who like magic but don''t have real ability to cast it would get a magic compatible equip, BUT this has a price, the price of other skill which became less good (try to attack a dragon with a rod without using magic !)
really good player would have a fighter for ex and would cast magic with NEAR IMPOSSIBLE magic gameplay
these player would be rare and respect, the thing is that they may fail ofthen because the challenge would be near impossible but NOT impossible, this would create a tension among player battle, because it''s more risky to try a skill that didn''t fit our set of equip

6) make magic not based on power but on strategic success, the paper scisor is the most simple, it also a kind of ecosystem of skill, this would make poker like tension between player, guessin which skill the other hold accoding to his equipment style, and the kind, bluff and lying would be a good skill too in the game
to have an equilibrate equip, you have to would get medium effective coverage but prepare to all action, or you would have a more specialize equip with great strong part and great weak part, by putting twice a skill in a slot you make it more powerful but you lost one slot

all of these has been thought to encourage team, strategy, different style of playing, and to evacuate all the MMO flaws
the design is built that the player''s interaction would generate automatically some imbalance in the universe that by trying to get other this imbalance the game is kept dinamic (inspired from chaos theory and economics dinamic) if there is enough item and a complex ecology , gameplay would be emergent and quest beetween player also

it''s actually the base of many of future game i''m making, (but i''m a one man show, it would be old snes style gaming, the luck is that i don''t have to hired artist, the most rare item for team dev )

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
be good
be evil
but do it WELL
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

How is raising your lockpicking skill by performing a million repations of a tumpler lock puzzle any less mindless then then picking a lock a millions times? It still breaks down to whoever spends the most time online will have the better character. Also many people don't want to be forced to play say a tile sliding puzzle whenever they want to cast a spell when what they wanted to play an rpg.


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Writer, Programer, Cook, I'm a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project: Ambitions Slave


[edited by - TechnoGoth on March 28, 2004 9:18:27 PM]

i also would not like having to rely on reflexes or anything else to play an RPG. one of the meters in Gladius (where you must push two buttons alternately really fast to try to get it to the red zone before time runs out) prevents me from using any skill or attack that uses that meter, because i just can''t do it. this annoys me to no end, because i have my character develop (with "job points") that skill just to find out that he can''t use it anyway!

sure, some games are great simply because they rely on human player skills, but that doesn''t mean it is appropriate for RPGs.

if the problem you are trying to solve is "time == 1337ness", perhaps a revamp of the entire design would be more appropriate. as it stands, you are suggesting that we replace the kiddies with too much time by people with excellent reflexes.

oh, to the OP: it kinda makes sense for strength, and maybe the dexterity-like abilities, but i''ve never heard of anyone becoming more intelligent by reading (although they do gain more knowledge, so maybe it can work). wisdom is a bitch though; that just takes time, and some people still never get it. i also liked the way Morrowind did it.