Mordiceius' Gaming Blog Flying Away on a Wing and a Prayer

Building My Dream MMO Part 4 – Leveling and Skills

This is part three of my "Dream MMO" series. If you have not read the previous parts, please read "Premise and Setting," "Factions and Races," and "Classes".

I want to start by saying in Dawn of Steam we would eliminate levels. I hate them. They are a barrier that splits friends apart. They only serve to invalidate previous content. Why was it that the horribly evil and powerful mage in the Wizard Tower was level 20 and this cave rat was level 30? When you have level systems, they usually only get expanded via expansions even furthering the gap between new players and old players.

The Dawn of Steam system would be a hybrid of Ultima Online and Guild Wars with some custom elements. Like Ultima Online, there would be no levels, it would be more about just working to build your skills up. And if you look at Guild Wars, level 1-19 are basically throw-away and the real game and story take place at level 20. So why not just eliminate that level 1-19 gameplay?

Through questing, killing and PvP you would receive points. Let's just call them "Stored Knowledge" (or SK) points. SK points could be applied to various skills to progress them. They can't be transferred between characters but are refundable. There are two different SK pools: "General SK" (GSK) and "Skillbound SK" (SSK). GSK are basically experience points that can be applied to boost any of your skills. SSK are experience points that are only applied to a specific one of your skills but are more valuable than GSK. One GSK point would be equivalent to about two SSK points. Doing most quests would give you GSK for the most part. Profession or skill specific quest would give a split of GSK and SSK. Killing with specific weapons or crafting with your profession would give you mostly GSK.

The following examples are simply that, examples. The numbers aren't balanced and are just there for giving and basic framework to the process.

Let's say your armorsmithing skill is a 1. You want to take it to 20. You know that it would take either 20 Armorsmithing SSK or 40 GSK to get it to 20. The first thing you could do would be craft some breastplates that give you 2 armorsmithing SSK each. The second option would be going and finding some armorsmithing quests. This quests could vary from crafting some armor for an NPC, collecting armor from mobs in the world and returning it to a trainer for that trainer to study, or stealing new armor plans from an enemy military. All the quests would relate to your profession and give you 5 armorsmithing SSK and 5 GSK. Another option would be going and doing random quests in the world that just offer purely GSK for a reward. No matter what way you choose, you can be working on your profession without endless crafting. (Professions will be covered in further detail in another post).

Leveling your skills is less of a "gives you huge amounts of power" ladder and more of a "opens up more options and abilities to you" process.

For example: if your dagger skill is at 1, you may only be able to do a standard slash attack with it. If your dagger skill is at 50, you might be able to do special precise attack that has a higher chance to crit for lethal damage. If your dagger skill is at 100, you may be able to learn the ability to do a deadly backstab. Your standard attacks will be no more powerful at 1 than they are at 100, but you'll have more options for special attacks that do extra damage. Your standard attack's damage is based more off the weapon you use and less on your skill in the weapon, though leveling the skill may give some passive benefits such as increased chance to hit. More advanced weapons could require a higher level in that skill.

Having your alchemy at 1 may only allow you to make basic potions with basic ingredients. As you got your alchemy higher, you could start using more complex ingredients and making potions that have more effects, longer durations, etc.

With the GSK/SSK system, you could basically play the game whatever way you would like to play it and still be building your character. Don't like spending time crafting armor? Just quest a bunch and build up your armor skill. Don't like fighting a lot? Craft for quests and build up your weapon skills.

Not only that, but all the zones would be of equal difficulty. You wouldn't have to travel through each zone in order. Imagine instead of having to start at Tirisfal Glades, you could just go start in the Dragonblight.

One other thing is player health. Instead of an ever increasing health pool, there would be no hit points in the game. Your life is based on percentages. Everyone has 100% health. Where a monster may hit a person in light armor for 50%, they might hit the guy in heavy armor for only 10%.

That's all I can think of for this entry. It seems a little muddled rereading over it as the system just came as a stream of thought today. Feel free to post any questions you may have.

The next section I plan on writing will be "Combat and Quests".