Changing Character Setups in MMO's

Furin_Durinu

I've been wondering about a certain matter for quite a while now, and it's bugging me a lot when playing mmo's...

I've played quite a few different mmo's (not a whole lot but a few), and something that bothers me greatly is that there is very little room for players to try different things. I often find myself looking through skills of different classes, making up potentially great combinations and ideas to deal with various pve and pvp encounters. However, to see if they work and to put them to use I'll need to level new characters all the way to the nececary level again, because my current characters can't be modified to use the different skillset either due to gear difficulties or simply because the skills system doesn't support it. The same goes for the other group members I'd need to try them out.

So why is that? Is it because most people don't want to try out different things? They like to show how well advanced they are in a certain area, so versatility is punished? So far, the only game I ever played where you could really try different things out in pvp at least, was Guild Wars. Now I've done pretty much everything there is to be done in Guild Wars, and I'm looking for other games that have anything like it's system that allows for real testing of different and new ideas, but can't find any.

This confuses me, am I the only one who likes to mess around with builds, and not have to spend weeks to just try one thing?

twstdstrange

Yes, I'm the same way. Truth be told I'm something of an altaholic because I don't like to play the same thing for too long.

Perhaps devs want to get more mileage out of the game so they push you into rerolling something new to level, since using just one character for everything would limit your playtime considerably rather than just trying a different build on your main.

I'm the kind of player who likes to associate himself with one name, one character, so a game like FFXI where I can be one character and change my class when I want to is quite nice. FFXI, of course, shows its age nowadays though.

just2duh

 There are some games that give you stat/skill resets on each character, one called Soul of the Ultimate Nation to be exact.

 With all the choices you have for stat/skill/gear building in that game it pretty much demands them, you'll get 5 for free right off the bat and they can be used anytime up until lv70, after that they can't be used though.

 Just goto it's forums and read up on some of the builds posted in the Character Discussion section to give you some idea, pretty much endless build choices for each class, it all depends on what you want to gain from them.

komarr

There are games out there that let you experiment.  A good example is Asheron's Call.  It's over a decade old and the graphics are very dated.  However it's also 100% skill based, no classes, no talent trees, nothing.  You can make a character that's all melee, all ranged, all magic, and any and every combination you can think of.  However some of those combinations will work about as well as Verne Troyer trying to wrestle Andre the Giant. 

There are two issues (at least) working against experimentation. 

People like their roles.  I'm the tank, I'm the healer, I'm the DPS, etc.  And those people are only interested in the class/build/skill combo that is the absoluite best for their role.

Casual gamers.  Companies want to attract them so they make games that hold their hands and lead them through the game without playing a build that may not work well or even forcing the sheep....err....players to over tax themselves by actually thinking about how to make their character.

BMoor

This is the very reason why I still like Sotnw /  GE / Sword2.  In it, people usually play a team of 3 characters instead of a single one like all the other MMOs.  How your team is set up at a given time means that you will have different skill sets, attributes, and abilities.  With many dozens of different characters to choose from to form your team, there are many different ways to deal with PvE and PvP situations.  Some of the more inventive and hardcore players intentionally choose underrated characters to form odd teams that beat out the more conventional setups in PvP.

Axehilt

I'm not really disappointed in having to level alts unless the content is particularly repetitive (because it'll be the 2nd or 3rd (or more) times that you've done the same content.)  If content is fresh each time, I would be even more likely to roll alts than I already am.

Still, I think the ideal system is a little like FF11 (which I never played much) where you're able to switch classes freely and level those classes on the same character.  Basically I want a character system where there's a nice mix of permanent decisions, but where I can also switch playstyles.

I think I'd probably like it if WOW had half the classes, but each class had twice as many specs which were essentially those other playstyles that the removed classes had.  And since they'd be classes (and you can dual-spec) you'd be more capable of switchin between two playstyles you really like.  But heck, even WOW's method of doing things is fine imo.  It was plenty fun and while the game didn't have enough content to keep things interesting after the 3rd or 4th alt (I made more than that, but it wasn't too interesting) it nevertheless had enough so that the 2nd and 3rd playthrough were each interesting.

BMoor

Now that I think of it, how about Mabinogi.  As far as I know, it doesn't have classes and it's all about skill development.  Not only that but an important part of the game is reincarnating your character where you only keep your skills and appearance.  It didn't appeal to me to play it long term but perhaps it might appeal to you.