Does an MMORPG need skill/level growth?

mrcalhou

I will concede that players like to see that their character is getting more powerful as they play, and most people like the feeling of getting that level or that skill up, but is it necessary to make an MMO? I don't really think it is. Most MMOs have item advancement already, so I personally don't feel that it is needed to have an additional system of advancment in the form of character levels.

I would like to see an MMO that relied on items as the means of determining a character's strengths and weaknesses. I realize that this is encroahing on the realms of the FPS/Arena style games, but I don't actaully see it as such. I believe that if a developer makes a persistent world, with character advancement being determined by the items a player owns and has access to obtaining, then that would be a good foundation for a new game.

The skin and bones of my idea for a game is thus: Character advancement being determined by a player's overall wealth, a mixture of PvP and PvE areas where the obtainable rewards would be relative to the risk of playing in that area, full-loot PvP in PvP areas, relatively large amounts of equipment decay, a relatively large and varied equipment pool where items have pros and cons and where no one item overshadows every other item in its respective category, structures that could be created, owned, and destroyed by players, and a deep and robust crafting system that relies on strategic player input as opposed to click and wait crafting of most games.

Useable skills could be based on the items that you are equipped with.

I base this idea on having played Eve Online, indie sandboxes, single-player open-world games, and, believe it or not, tower defense games.

Edit: Something that Aethaeryn made me remember that I forgot to mention is that regardless of the form advancement takes, players need to have options with how they want to accomplish their goals. In this regards, content would also have to be varied to break up the monotony of just killing mobs all day or stareing at a harvesting node.

Aethaeryn

You are certainly right that they do need advancement.  The problem with trying anything new is that people freak out.  MO made it easy to gain skills so you aren't "grinding".  People then wonder what to do and say there is no content (which there isn't a lot of there).  People then leave out of "boredom".

Your idea might work if you could keep people feeling like they have invested in their character, so they keep logging in.  Would you need some type of decay?  Would the casual gamer feel like they could never catch up ala darkfall?  An interesting idea and I would love to try it out if you have a few million to pour into development

 

What I like the most is that it would be player skill and tactics over stats for the win.

pierth

Originally posted by mrcalhou

I will concede that players like to see that their character is getting more powerful as they play, and most people like the feeling of getting that level or that skill up, but is it necessary to make an MMO? I don't really think it is. Most MMOs have item advancement already, so I personally don't feel that it is needed to have an additional system of advancment in the form of character levels.

I would like to see an MMO that relied on items as the means of determining a character's strengths and weaknesses. I realize that this is encroahing on the realms of the FPS/Arena style games, but I don't actaully see it as such. I believe that if a developer makes a persistent world, with character advancement being determined by the items a player owns and has access to obtaining, then that would be a good foundation for a new game.

The skin and bones of my idea for a game is thus: Character advancement being determined by a player's overall wealth, a mixture of PvP and PvE areas where the obtainable rewards would be relative to the risk of playing in that area, full-loot PvP in PvP areas, relatively large amounts of equipment decay, a relatively large and varied equipment pool where items have pros and cons and where no one item overshadows every other item in its respective category, structures that could be created, owned, and destroyed by players, and a deep and robust crafting system that relies on strategic player input as opposed to click and wait crafting of most games.

Useable skills could be based on the items that you are equipped with.

I base this idea on having played Eve Online, indie sandboxes, single-player open-world games, and, believe it or not, tower defense games.

One problem I have with mostly item-based progression is that especially with expansions the available items jump so ridiculously in relative power that it makes almost all previous content moot. Are the items gained primarily through crafting? Are there any items available via drops- if so are they on par, better, or worse than their crafted counterparts? If there are items via drops, how do you choose what quality of weapon drops from solo-able content versus group content, or other methods of play without alienating your playerbase?

Quizzical

To answer the original question:  no.  Puzzle Pirates worked just fine without it.

But leveling by the gear you have rather than by innate experience levels is just leveling by a different name.  Full loot PVP just means it's leveling with a severe death penalty.  It would be a little different, I guess, but not as different as you might think.  Indeed, it would be full loot PVP that makes the big difference, not leveling by items rather than by experience.

mrcalhou

Originally posted by pierth

Originally posted by mrcalhou

Wall-o-text

One problem I have with mostly item-based progression is that especially with expansions the available items jump so ridiculously in relative power that it makes almost all previous content moot. Are the items gained primarily through crafting? Are there any items available via drops- if so are they on par, better, or worse than their crafted counterparts? If there are items via drops, how do you choose what quality of weapon drops from solo-able content versus group content, or other methods of play without alienating your playerbase?

I don't believe that your first sentence would be a problem if the items are balanced with respect to one another like I mentioned in my post.

 

I should have mentioned that I believe that equipment should be crafted by players and that resources to craft would be realistic mob drops, along with many different types of harvestible resources.

Recon48

It sounds like you're describing the following:

1.  Buy a Darkfall or Mortal Online account with a character thats max skills/level(s).

2.  Change character's  name.

3.  Learn to play game/character.

 

I'm not trying to troll the post but without any character or skill advancement in an MMO, it just sounds like buying a max level account off eBay or wherever and learning to play it.  Advancing a character's level/skills is a staple of MMORPGs.  Its one of the carrots at the end of the stick. Limiting a game to gear & accumulation only seems to me like it would reduce the number of carrots in place for a player to pursue and reduce the investment value or 'connection' to a character.