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Will we ever see a mmo without XP or skillpoints?
metalhead980
Member Posts: 2,658
I personally wanna see a mmo where the developer completely takes the xp/skill point mechanic out of the game.
I was playing GW last night and even though the game has level (20) you can hit cap in like a day. After you do this you can still progress your character by hunting for skills on boss mobs stuff.
I know GW has xp im just saying playing GW has me convinced that a game like this could work.
Everyone would log in and never have to do repetitive shit for xp, we would all start with basic spells/abilities that would let us atleast function in both pve and pvp.
The devs could put in quest lines for skills, maybe have them drop off bosses and even have them as rewards for exploration.
I don;t see why this couldn't be done. A completely natural feeling game, no logging in and having to set a goal of Xp or Sp that session. you would get to do what you want to do.
Log in grab some crafted gear and start adventuring.
I don't know about you but a game like that would have me quitting almost every other mmo i play currently.
I'm getting so tired of the raising of levels and skills I just want to have a great adventure without needing to farm xp/sp first.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
Comments
But really all this is doing is replacing uber-leet gear for skill runs.. isnt it?
I think GW is unique in this regard. Its not about getting the best loot or making your character the best it can be. Its about coming up with interesting synergies (spelling?) between classes, and literally inventing skill and class combos that will blow away everybody's mind, including the devs. then they will come and nerf, just so players can come up with something new.
The famous pvp fotm builds that keep eating the ones that came before them is a great example. IWAY teams, ranger spike teams, elementalist spike teams, etc. its a wonder to see that there is always a bigger fish ready to eat the previous one. and its all the players' doing.
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
U.O, Darkfall, Mortal & lot more
All sandbox games have skillpoints that basically work exactly the same as XP in tp games.
Even eve has a SP system its just a time based system but its still there.
XP and skill points are the same thing.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
Not if you make the core abilities/spells that a character starts with enough for them to actually function.
Skills obtained in the game could give a character flexibility but not be required.
GW does this pretty good also in GW you can get skills off boss mobs solo so its a casual thing too.
honestly I just want to get away from that feeling. you know that feeling you have when you first start a mmo and you know millions of xp or sp is required to even have access to the meat of a game.
When I log into these games it always feels like i've done it all before.
It would be nice to log into a mmo and have that relaxed feeling you know kind of like the feeling of a max level player that doesn't need to stress getting that next level to play with his friends.
it's hard for me to explain.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
I want a mmo with real time combat ( and not some disguised turn based combat) with no skills. you press X and you swing, cast or shoot. Take combat away from skills and make it environment based. make traps, dig holes, drop rocks on the mobs, use guerilla tactics. Mob too hard to go toe to toe with? no problem. lure it someplace where you will have the higher ground, or a terrain advantage, or even the strength of numbers.
Imagine this. You see a lizard 10 times your size. what sane person would walk up to it and bash it with a club? no. go into the woods, dig a hole in the ground, cover it with foliage. aggro the mob, run like hell, lure it into the hole. once its there, its yours to kill. maybe actually make mobs be able to out run you depending on their type. make me crawl, roll and zig zag through the trees if I have to, just make combat more exciting than standing in front of something and use the "2" key.
humanoid mobs. you run into a camp full of orcs. instead of going in cutting everything in half, why not make a poison, stealthing into their camp and pouring it into their cauldron? (cmon theres always a cauldron in orc camps, its a rule or something). then loot the ones who fell for it.
Imagine the gameplay of something like "Shadow of the Colossus" in a mmorpg. thats what I would love to see basically.
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
Well, it is not easy to make a MMO like that.
Of course you could just make the game based on gear instead of experience, the only difference would however be that you could go from low to high directly. But it would still be very close.
Systems like GW is at endgame are really hard to pull off (I do however have my great green bow, that one took a lot of work to get and I change it with a gold longbow often since it is vampiric and doesn't fire as long for pulling. But it does make great damage). almost no high end gear and no true character development after a little play, I think only Jeff Strain can pull that off
The thing is that if you stay the same character all the time you are not really playing a MMO but a FPS instead. So some kind of improvement should you have, if it is gear, skills, all your values or something that has to do with plot doesn't matter.
One interesting idea would be that your character stays the same but he gets more and more modern gear and access to more zones as you play. Say that you start at the bronze age and when you get into the next tier you start at the iron age and so on, until you finally start getting black powder arms and so on, making older armors useless. That system would work with no xp and still be fun and interesting.
C9 , Manibogi Heroes (i think), Dragonica (yea....), DDO.
Not all released but C9 seems pretty AWESOME. Just wait, lot of companies are doing game like this
Good post. I have been also hoping something would be released that takes a little more thinking outside the box when it comes to combat.
Those are nice ideas. Heck, I loved to see a MMO that you controlled the combat in with a Wii controller instead of a mouse.
But tactics should be a lot more important in MMOs. In large scale PvP today no-one use any kind of formation or tactics that would work whatsoever in a real battle. That what was won the battles of old, not cool gear.
Those are f2p? i'm so out of touch with the f2p mmo scene. I'll check those out soon.
Also I read GW2 might be a game similar to what I want.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
I have to mention modern warfare 2 in here even though its not an mmo. The system they have in place where you get more attachments to your guns for completing specific achievements is kind of like the gw skill system as well. The levels in that game are pretty arbitrary but they allow minor things like equipping an extra attachment on your gun etc. The bonuses help, but when I started out in the game I had no problem helping in team deathmatches even if there were much higher people on the other team.
I'd love to see a similar system in an mmo in the future.
yeah thats the kind of feature I want in a MMO. Where a new player can still contribute and not feel like a total gimp but at the same time has tons of stuff to achieve in game so the game is technically still a mmo.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
That will work only if someone with the money of Activision or EA will try it and let the devs finish the damn game. If an indy dev would try that, it will be way too buggy...I mean, these days, MMO players are very unforgiving. They don't give time to a MMO to grow, first impressions are usually the only impressions and something less than "perfection" would basically mark that MMO as "dead".
I have two MMOs of you that already exist and don't use XP or skillpoints: PlayStation Home and Second Life (I think Second Life doesn't have exp or sp ... I have never played it). Both fill the definition of an MMO . The goal in both are obviously not to hack and slash your way to shiny pixels, it is about interaction and community, but still both are MMOs.
No you can get rid of all system of progression.
Most players like
- to know if and how much they are progressing
- to have a goal (end game/being the most powerful)
- to get a feeeling of being rewarded for their investment (in time and money), by getting new spells or skill points as they advance in the game.
- to get a feeling of customising thier progression with how they spent the skill points and with which spell they chose. Even if they follow the supposedly "ultimate" template, they have the opportunity to deviate from it at any point.
Otherwise, you basically get an interactive chat room, where you can dress up your avatar.
Even if you say: but then they have access to all gears without level limitation, you then can add any stats on the gears, they are decorative. If you add stats, the most powerful (or at the least the most powerful for a given template) will soon be known and everyone will end up looking the same.
Basically, you end up with a very, very static world where nothing changes, at least nothing changes by the actions of the players. The devs can add all they want new maps or new items, this is basically just like looking at artwork from the inside. Once you've looked, you can just get out.
If you push the idea to itslimit, there might be something interesting in having people be able to actually add their own creations, it would be like an interactive, cyber art galleries, where you can get immediate feedback on your creatins.
But not everyone has that kind of skill and once you've commented on the art, well, you don't have much to do... Maybe as an added feature to a MMO, but otherwise, I think it would only cater to a niche audience.
Does Planetside have XP or SP?
I absolutely 100% agree. Levels in mmos simply serve to split and isolate the players from each other. Everyone should be able to play an mmo together no matter how long they have been in the game. Instead though we end up with content that is restricted to all the various different level ranges. Remove the levels and open all the content to everyone. Give us the freedom to do what we want, when we want and with whoever we want to do it with.
The other problem with levels in mmos is that it encourages games developers to make extremely repetitive low quality games where quantity is more important than quality. Players have become brainwashed into thinking that the only way to enjoy an MMO is if their characters are constantly becoming more powerful. They enjoy the addiction of following a treadmill and will endure the most insanely boring and repetitive gameplay to fuel that addiction. Would anyone actually bother playing through most of the content in these terrible games if they knew that there was little to gain personally from doing so? I doubt it very much. How many people would pay money to play WoW or any other mmo like it if they knew that the repetitive killing of mobs was achieving nothing? Would they do it purely for fun?
If the level/xp/sp grinding is removed from mmos then it encourages games developers to make good games that are actually interesting to play......games that rely on quality gameplay to keep people hooked rather than level grinding. It would encourage games developers to give us virtual worlds that we can influence and change and THAT would be the reason why we play, NOT for selfish personal character progression but instead for the pleasure of ROLEPLAYING a character in a world where our actions actually matter to each other.
Here are two scenarios.......
NPC says: Go and kill 100 wolves and bring me their pelts. Why? Because it will give you 250xp towards your next level and you will also gain a piece of gear to make you more powerful. It will also lead onto the next quest which will give you more rewards. Ok but will killing those wolves effect the world or the other players in any way? No it wont mean anything and it wont effect anyone else at all. It will only matter to you. Everyone else in the world is irrelevant. This adventure is aimed at YOU and no-one else. Killing those wolves (or anything else for that matter) will make you more powerful and allow you to go to other places to kill tougher things. But I dont want to kill wolves! My character likes them! Well....tough shit. Thats the quest. Take it or leave it. This is a game where you have to be a mass murderer to become a super powerful mass murderer. We dont care what you have planned for your character or what you would like to be doing. What did you think this was? A roleplaying game?
Player decides to: Go and kill some animals for their pelts. Why? Because the pelts can be used to make clothes, armour, parts of weapons and furnishings for peoples homes. They can also be traded for money or other goods. Its also in keeping with what you think your character would want to do at the time (roleplaying). Ok but will killing those animals effect the world or the other players in any way? Yes of course it will. Kill too many of them and there will be less of them around in the area for a long time......which means less pelts for everyone else......which in turn means any players wishing to gather pelts will have to hunt elsewhere (at least until the nearby animal population returns to normal). Killing those animals wont make you a better person though......although it would gain you those pelts and any other bits and bobs you could scavenge from the animals dead bodies. In fact some people arent fond of poachers and may take a dislike to you for it. Some of the other players care about those animals and dont take kindly to you slaughtering them. Its up to you though. You can do whatever you like as long as you accept the potential consequences. This IS a roleplaying game afterall.
In the first example the players actions are irrelevant to the rest of the players. It doesnt matter what you do because you're playing your own personal copy of a game while everyone else plays their own personal copy of their game. No-one gives a crap about anyone else. Each player doesnt care about what they or anyone else is doing so long as it makes them more powerful. Its not about roleplaying a character. Its about chasing levels.
In the second example the players actions are relevant to the rest of the players. Its a virtual world (unlike the first example) and each players actions impact on each other and help to change the world. People care about what everyone else is doing around them because they simply have more time to care. People arent just running around with carrots dangling in front of their faces, ignoring each other as they perform silly errands for npcs to make progress in the only way they know how (levels). Instead they are setting their own goals and doing things that they want to do that fit in with the type of character they are trying to roleplay because this is......ya know.....a roleplaying game.
Every single player in the game is a potential adventuring companion and every one of them has their own skills and weaknesses which were decided at character creation. Sure you might pick up or develop extra skills or abilities along the way but the core character would always remain. Why wouldnt it?
You might meet someone early in your adventures who is an expert swordsman who likes to dress in fine good quality clothes, who is very nimble on their feet and finds heavy armour uncomfortable and awkward to wear. He is also a noble from the city nearby and has access to certain priveleges that others might not have such as an extra weekly income from his family, influence with certain npcs from the upper class and discount from the local merchants. He is a skilled horse rider and can also use a crossbow. You meet him on the road as you are making your way east to where you have heard that a village is having problems with a tribe of ogres. He isnt interested in the the village and its ogre problem as he has other matters to attend to but he agrees to travel with you part of the way. On your short journey together you get ambushed by bandits. You defeat them and a friendship is formed. Shortly afterwards you both part ways.
You dont hear from the noble for a long time. A month passes (real time.....you play the game occasionally when you have time) and then you bump into him again by chance. He now owns his own castle and has a small retinue of knights at his command (all players of course). He is still persueing his own goals in the game much like yourself. He is currently recruiting a small force to travel far to the north to deal with a dragon that is terrorising an area. Maybe you could join him......or maybe not. Its up to you. Its your choice. The thing is you can go on this adventure with the noble regardless of how much time he or you have spent in the game because you are both basicly still the same characters. He has gained more wealth, owns a castle, has perhaps picked up a magical sword and some other trinkets on his travels and has even gained a lot of new companions. He might have even learned some new skills which he didnt have before.....but he isnt vastly more powerful than he was when he began the game. Why would he be? Even if you didnt play the game for a year and then came back and met the noble again you would still be able to play the game with him.
I would love to play a game like that. Realisticly though I dont expect to see anything like it.......at least not for a long time anyway. The chances of getting all the right people together who have the technical skills to make such a virtual world AND also have the vision and insight to make such a game is pretty remote. Its much easier and safer for game companies to just carry on making online single player games with levels and optional grouping features and then tweak bits here and there. I can totally understand that as its just too much money to invest in something that may very well get rejected. They have already spent years conditioning people to accept levels, exp/skill points and personal character progression in general. Most people cant even understand the concept of a game without these things.
Epic Wall of Text strikes you for 270000000 damage and makes your eyes bleed.
Yes I'm sure we will see MMO without xp and skillpoints. But a MMORPG without them? No because IMO XP and Skillpoints and or Levels are part of what make up the RPG part of the MMORPG. Character progression is part of RPG's as well as playing an actual role. If you don't have that kind of progression then you just have a plain hack and slash action game.
The problem with games now days is its a stupid quest grind and the devs just make it boring while your are leveling. All the cool stuff is at endgame so everyone rushes through the grind to get to the fun. To me I can't handle all that shit I get so bored even before I get to the cool stuff. I remember games where It wasn't a race to max level and not many people were max. It was all about adventure, grouping up just to group up, and being more of a social game.
The op seems to be describing something that will never exist; a game where you enter without skill or levels, where everyone is always and forever equal for the most-part, and to have access to everything, but perhaps unique items occasionally dropping from mobs. Wait....i may be confusing myself.
No skill points in Puzzle Pirates. Rank advancement is achieved through improving actual player skill at each task - grinding won't really get you anywhere.
Actually, Puzzle Pirates leads me to believe that mechanics in an MMO only seems 'hardcore' or 'harsh' when they are presented as such. If presented as standard gameplay, it becomes more acceptable. I say that because the features of Puzzle Pirates would make the average MMO gamer cry in a corner if they read through them:
- PVP includes looting
- territory control and the ability to overthrow another armada(guild)'s island
- item decay... including your clothing
- you can be reduced to nothing but a stick to defend yourself
- player skill determines advancement. Not grinding, not character stats, not time invested.
- in major battles, you can lose your ship
- gambling (and with it, the ability to gamble away everything you own
)
- in certain battles, defeat could leave your character mained - a physical change to the look of your character
If BadAss Online was announced today, one would read that list and react the same way they do to MO and DF - be that reaction positive or negative. However, the game appeals to the same exact crowd that would normally run screaming off the planet at the mere sight of that feature list.
I think an XP-less MMO could work as long as the devs just do it and don't make a big thing about it. Once a dev pitches something radical or out of the ordinary as a feature, as history has shown, they immediately create a massive divide based onboth the dev presnetation and the player perception.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
OP - I think that idea could work very well.
I have always thought that it would be fun to have an MMO where leveling (by XP or skills) is not the focus. It could work much as you described. Instead of grinding for advancement, you go on long quest chains that eventually give you a new skill or item that allows you to do something new.
Like in the Zelda games where you get the power glove and are suddenly able to lift heavy rocks. Or the zip-line you can use to swing across long drops. Or maybe you learn some new combat moves or a way to climb or run across walls like in Prince of Persia or Assassin's Creed.
The point is, there are other ways to advance one's character than simply leveling up a long chain. The problem is that this would require developers to be much less lazy. They would have to think out creative ways of implementing new game mechanics and would have to create enough content to allow you to get there in a fun and engaging way. At the same time, they would have to make that content long enough that people continue paying their $15 a month.
The XP/skill grind currently gives them an artificial barrier to the end game that developers love to use to keep people paying and grinding without implementing more content. Unfortunately I don't think they will attempt something like this until we gamers stop playing the mindless grinder games and demand something new.
Ragnarok Online!
No its a joke this friggin game has 99 level + 50 job + rebirth + 99 other levels + 70 job + 3rd Job + 50 levels.
heh.
You could as well use a gear based progression system without skills and levels. Not that it would be that different from what we have today but it would work and still be a MMO.
And very static world? You didn't read my post earlier where I suggested that you progress in time starting in pre-history and moving yourself up to gunpowder weapons... Going from a bronze dagger to a colt army sure isn't static even if no current MMO uses the idea.
One thing is clear: Players needs to get some kind of reward for playing. That reward can be skills, levels, gear, feats or something totally different but a game where you have none of those wont be a MMO. But you can make a where the character doesn't get better, just the stuff he have on him.
It is not really that weird. MMOs today usually gives better gear, more attacks and skills and every level you get you will get more skills. If you only base it on gear you don't get the same problem with finding groups. You can also only base it on skills or levels, as long as the game is good it would work.
No achievement whatsoever do turn the game into a some kind of MMOFPS game and I don't think that would even be able to attract enough players, at least not with a monthly fee.
Since the OP said either OR,FFXIV will not have XP,but it will utilize skill points.No levels in the game,however they might use XP for Linkshell/Guild purposes[unsure as of yet].
I think there is no way we would want to remove skill points,what we do want is to make it closer to "SKILL".
What EVERY single game does is either add skill points per level witch is the weakest form going,and other games give skill points per use,witch again is not the mode we are looking for,however it does at least keep a player from having a maxed out skill without ever using it.
I guess if you looked at it in a realistic fashion,just as in real life,the more you use something ,you would become more skillful at using it,so it is not a total fail for design.I think the next step in gaming is to take away skill points for failure,after all rewarding failure is ridiculous to say the least.
The game needs to be complex in it's design ,so that using certain weapons that are too weak versus certain mobs,then you would lose skill points ,even though you may still be damaging the mob,it just makes you think [a bit] sorry WOW players.:D
Example your using dagger versus a hard shell mob,little damage and if used too long,the weapon is damaged and you lose skill points.Using a large bludgeon hammer versus a bird/flying mob,you may hit the VERY odd time,but mainly miss and hit the ground,damaging your weapon and again losing skill points.These were a couple examples but the entire game design can take it even further to make the term "SKILL"more useful.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.