Character Uniquness and Dynamic Gameplay

Noother10

Has anyone else gotten sick of MMOs been full of same class, same ability, same or similar looking characters? Anyone bored with static gameplay and content in MMOs?

I've played MMOs for quite a long time, and a lot of them. It has progressively gotten harder for me to get into newer MMOs just because they end up boring me (latest been Rift). It isn't so much that I'm bored with MMOs as a genre, but more of how your character just doesn't seem unique and gameplay isn't replayable, with a lack of end game content that keeps players playing.

Upcoming MMOs like The Secret World could possibly change this somewhat, but why are MMOs sticking to the same generic formula? Hell I've thought up ideas that would at least for me, provide more dynamic gameplay and unique characters. Stuff like not having a set class, where instead you either pick a certain group of abilities (think fire, earth, water, blades, power, etc) or access to everything to mix and match. Having then combat where the abilities aren't just numbers, but the timing and which ability you use matters, like using water wall to block a fireball, but then at the same time a spear of rock goes straight through the water, something like rock paper scissors but on a much larger scale.

With abilities, instead of just putting points or upgrading a skill making it slightly better, what about letting us choose how we would like to upgrade the ability? Picture a Fireball for example, it starts off as a small ball of fire which moves at a decent speed. Upgrade choices could be speed (faster moving making it difficult to evade or use an ability to counter it), cast time (increase how quickly you can use it, means the opponent gets less time to try and counter it once s/he sees you casting it), size (making it larger would increase its AoE effect and make it harder to evade), heat (making it hotter means it will do more damage and greater chance of igniting someone or something), etc. Of course some of these will of course come with the downside of greater mana costs, or may even lengthen casting times or the speed it travels at. You could have a small swift fireball with only a few points in it, or go all out and use it as your main damage ability making it a giant fireball that has massive AoE and ignites everything. It may be the same spell but it would be different between players who can tweak it to their play style or the way their character is (roleplaying).

I'd love to see an MMO that does things differently, that lets us build our characters and abilities in a way that they are truly unique. Others may have the same abilities, but they are still different. Combat will never be straight forward then, you could come across two different opponents who use the same abilities, but fighting them is completely different and requires different stratergies on your part.

Does anyone else think like this about MMOs at the moment? Or are there other things you'd like to see that would spice up MMOs enough that you'd want to defintely play one that has that feature?

Evasia

Secret world seem different but im affraid they hold your hand your guided through small maps to waypoints and come in small quest hubs and get same old quest you have done so manytimes in other games.

Game seems very limited the least.

But with freedom of character build no classes or lvls maybe it can be intresting but ive feeling its core build for consoles and PC as after thought if thats case i wont play it.

Character uniqueness would be great and true dynamic gameplay also but many will whine they are confuse and seeking info or scream they want guidance and not a world they can't predict key elements most want is railroad, instance, quest hubs with familiar quest kill10x,  no risk and alot of fluff.

Its an inllusion these days to think we will get a unique and dynamic gameworlds majority are just not suited for this and so we won't get games like this as end result:(

romanator0

GW2 is doing something similar to this.

Each class has 2 unique trait lines where they allocate several traits that change things like the character's stats or slightly change their mechanic.

For example: Warriors get the two trait lines Power and Tactics.

But they also get trait lines for each of the weapon sets they have which they allocate weapon specific traits to. These traits can change the way skills work in a minor way or a very major way.

Firefall also seems to be doing something similar.

Each character is allowed to swap between each of the 4 battleframes and each battleframe has its own abilities. You can then add mods to the battleframes and change which abilities they are using.

The same goes for weapons too. Each weapon has a primary and secondary fire and adding mods to the weapons allow you to change the secondary fire for the weapons.

Noother10

I know I hold probably to much hope in TSW been something more that could change the industry, but I still would like to see if their classless and leveless system works, or if they've replaced them with something that is basically the same.

As for GW2, I don't know all that much about it, but it still isn't truly unique. Rift for example lets you have like 5 different soul setups within your chosen class area (Cleric, Warrior, Rogue, Mage). You have different traits/abilities under each of the 3 souls you can allocate to each setup, then spend points in each one. While this will lead to more diversity among player classes and players, you still end up witht he same abilities as others with the same kind of builds. If you build a tank, or a full out healer or ranged class, most people build the same way to min max. Very little variation will be between most players of each class.

What I'm talking about is while you may still have a limit on what type of abilities you have access to (fire magic, water, earth, wind, power, blades, illusion, etc), you aren't still set in a class, you can instead choose and pick from a large number of base abilities then evolve them as you like. For example, you start a game and become a fire type user. You then may have access to upto 80 different abilities, these include support, attack and defensive abilities, while some types of magic may be more specific to one aspect like fire to attack and ice to defense, or water to support for example, you can still build your character the way you want. A good thing is not to limit the number of abilities they can get either. So for example, as you grow stronger, not in levels but as you fight and learn, you earn points which can then be spent on either learning new abilities or evolving existing ones. You could go and pump all your points into a small core set of abilities making them extremely powerful, or spread out over a larger number of abilities which can provide you with the ability to adapt to situations as you have a larger array of abilities to pick from.

We can then have something more then a standard rock paper scissors type class setup. You could make an all rounder but still be weak against other types of magic/abilities, but be able to handle fighting someone who is your weakness, or if you focus fully in attack, you can handle those equal/neutral to you or weak to you easily, but can't handle those you're weak against. You choose the way you build your character, and that determines your weaknesses and advantages.

I'd also like the games to become more knowledge/skill based. For example, since abilities evolve and no same spell will likely be the same, you'd have to actually watch the enemy you're fighting and try and determine his skill set and how he has evolved his abilities. If you see him quickly fire off small fireballs, he may be a lighter but more rapid attacker, as opposed to someone else who is creating a giant fireball to throw at you, who'd be a slower attacker but much heavier. You can then determine how you'd use your own abilities against them. It will be different from seeing a magic/warrior/rogue/cleric based on their gear, instantly knowing what you will be up against. There are no suprises and becomes boring that you will know as soon as you see them that you will win or lose. I like the thought of not knowing about an opponents abilities until they start attacking you, then you have to adapt and defeat them.