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None combat skills in MMORPGs
Loke666
Member EpicPosts: 21,441
I thought a discussion about none combat skills in MMOs could be rather interesting.
A none combat skill is any skill that can be used outside of combat, some of those skills can however be used in combat as well like Stealth for example.
Those skills first showed in Dungeons and dragond when it left the Chainmail rules and turned into a rolplaying game. In fact are they pretty essential for roleplaying. The first ones were the thieves skills, lockpicking, stealth, detect and disarm traps and so on.
Other games evolved those skills for everything to haggle with vendors for a better price to be able to influence NPCs and other players.
Most MMOs tend to have a rather limited amount of none combat skills though even if some had more than others. AoC for example had climbing to reach certain areas and a few others. The earliest MMOs tended to have a few put in for roleplaying as well as the crafting skills modern games have as well.
I personally like skills like that, it means you can customize your character a bit more and add a few bonuses for groups who have some who can lockpick a few bonus chests in a dungeon or negotiate rewards or vendor prices. Some skills could even offer up hidden quests or let you buy stuff from fences or even mobs that otherwise would be hostile.
To me it adds up a new dimension in games we rarely see in MMOs, what do you guys think? Are none combat skills beides crafting and stealth fun or just a waste of resources? And what if any combat skills should a MMORPG have?
Comments
The potential fun on a per-feature basis is proportional to the effort spent making them fun. The available time to spend making things fun is proportional to how many other things you have to work on.
A game can do a few things awesome, or a bunch of things not-so-awesome. I don't think there's a hard rule for the right way to do things, as Skyrim does a lot of things crappily, yet people seem to love it. My personal preferences are for focused games that do a few things awesomely, but I might be in the minority here in this case.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Most of the skills in Uncharted Waters Online can't be used in combat.
I like having stuff to do other than combat. But the game has to be built around it. Most non-combat activities in most MMORPGs are stuff to make you better at combat, not an end in itself. For example, people craft gear or consumables to make them better at combat.
Two things on this subject:
1) in my main game (runescape). Combat skills are actually often used outside of combat as if they were non combat skills. Having something like a high strength, range or magic opens up a lot of adventuring. You need strength to move boulders out of the way. Ranged to grapple certain things. magic to affect some instruments, devices, and machines. Like wise many non combat skills have found limited combative use. Like using your mining skill and a pick axe to bust through the shell of a boss so that you can do damage to it with your weapon.
There are currently 27 skills 18 of them are non combative. a few of them are 50:50 (like summoning, which allows you to call out familiars. There are as many for combat as there are for things like carrying your items or boosting a non combat skill temporarily).
2) Second life has seen a lot of what could be best termed as MORPG (taking away the massive part as they are built on sims or sim sets and even the largest ones are not that big). There was a dark steam punk one I tried once where the devs build a role play skill engine. It was really interesting for me. Here is a for instance of how my character (an evil super scientist) once used it:
He was walking along some abandoned tracks and saw a rail spike stick up out of tie. He decided to try and remove it (this could with some modification make for a nasty projectile or be part of a gruesome trap). Now in order for my character to do this he had to type "sca-str- *sighting a rail spike that seems loose he reaches down bending at the knees, taking the exposed part in his grip and over lapping his other hand to strengthen the grip. He pulls hard to try and dislodge it*"
So the sca-str- are call to roll against scavenging and strength skill levels. and the *___* comes out in a different chat color (then something one would just say) indication it is something he is emoting. Any one around only see's the emote part of it in chat. a second later the system returns the results of the roll...in that case I got a bad roll and it read out in public chat as "fails horribly, injured" so my response to this is to emote "under such strain his frail grip slips and the hand holding the spike directly is cut wide open by the the mushrooming from it having been hammered into the ground long ago. He falls back into a seated position clutching his injured hand close to his chest. As blood gushes from his hands he cries out looking about frantically* "Help!"
At which point a medic found my character, botched helping my, and my character lost his hand (which is easy enough to visually depict in second life with a few minutes of character modding off scene).
I thought this system was really clever. Part skill based, part roleplay, part rng. It made dynamic happenings a thing. Unfortunately like many MORPG in second life their sim ran into money issues and shut down.
I'm all for adding non-combat skills which involve and add fun gameplay. Lockpicking is fine as long as you can also break the lock with either strength or magic. Stealth can be problematic, especially if its the type where you are invisible in broad daylight.
Traps are hard to do right. They have to be randomized yet you don't want the group of players to walk around with a minesweepers in their hands all the time.
If non-combat skills add stuff but don't involve any interesting decisions on the part of the player, I'm not in favor of them. The objective should not be to create additional chores, but more interesting gameplay. Although some posters on these forums might disagree, adding chores does not increase depth.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Good point. Non-combat skills in the EQ/WOW-style MMOs are usually only there to support combat as that's all the game is about. EVE and UO both have extensive lists of non-combat skills. UO's skill list as presented here at UOGuide is a good example of how only about half the skills are combat related.
Axehilt brings up a good point, as well. " The available time to spend making things fun is proportional to how many other things you have to work on. A game can do a few things awesome, or a bunch of things not-so-awesome." Player Housing immediately comes to mind.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
i c wut u did thar
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I would like to see more non combat skills in mmos. I don't think that they have to be real in depth. Just give them a lot of small benefit and then a small cost to them. Like you don't need to make a lock picking mini game to have a lock pick skill. Just have some doors locked, a skill that unlocks them and a reason to do so.
I would kind of like to see more mmos styled after Western RPGs where your different skills you have/don't have unlock new chunks of gameplay. Like new routes in a quest, new items or new areas. Most games would be afraid of this though. It gives teeth and impact to what most would call a side element.
It's fairly easy to see why such skills have been taken out of games.
Sometimes using non combat skills can give you the opportunity to do things in game that are unexpected and unwanted by the devs like kiting a mob from one side of a zone to another or levitating above a house and nuking people with spells who have no ranged attack.
Most people and developers seem to be very focused on balance. In older games most mage classes were intentionally more powerful in many ways due to their spells vs the melee classes that both needed equipment and had to fight all foes face to face (meaning they can't avoid taking damage).
It's more difficult to find groups as you need to fill specific niche roles. Most MMOs today want to make every class equal in ability to fill a group role so that you don't need a specific party formation to achieve optimal combat effectiveness.
I still feel EQ had the most to offer in terms of non combat abilities and freedom of choice. UO may have had more, but I don't recall that. EQ had a lot of different spells and there weren't any artificial limitations on using them except for your own imagination. Some you might use for fun and others to be more effective in combat in a way that the developers hadn't thought of originally. This isn't possible in a game today as the developers have the past to learn from. Even Vanilla WoW had very limited restrictions on what you could do with your abilities, items, and interacting with the world in general, but it was still far more restricted then games like UO and EQ. EQ2 had already implemented things like locking combat so that you couldn't assist someone unless they consented and making it so Spirit of the Wolf wouldn't work in combat.
Above all others, balance is what bugs me the most about mmos. It's too important and ends up crushing gameplay. In a game like say fallout 3/NV/4 you have different character options that lead to you playing and experiencing the game difficulty. The minefield mission plays out very differently if you have the explosive skill vs when you don't. It's really cool also a little unbalanced which isn't a problem when playing along or with your friends, but in a mmo a little bit of unfairness will get pried up and exploited to high heaven. So designers will hammer away any actual choice of diverse gameplay. It's annoying because a lot of games actually relay on the unbalance to make fun games.
Your example of a character choice that helps you with landmines comes at the exclusion of other traits that help you in different ways. That's an example of balance, not of imbalance. You can do x, so you couldn't do y.
Balance doesn't mean everyone is the same, it means every choice supports at least one viable playstyle.
That said, Bethesda's games typically have gaping holes in balance somewhere. For example your stealth can become so high in Skyrim that you can just shoot people with impunity with a bow, and they can walk right next to you and still be unable to see you. Breaks any challenge to the game's combat, and it's an example of why balance is important.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It is sometimes fun to find something in game that makes a certain class much better at something. Of course if someone can find a way to solo group content then people will whine that x class is unable to do the same. This applies to any sort of strength that might be exhibited by a certain class.
I enjoyed Skyrim a lot and my biggest grievance is not that certain trees are really powerful, but that certain trees are almost useless. The thief in particular seems quite weak since the game requires combat to complete and it's a single player game so you can't rely on someone else for that. The more powerful abilities are what makes the game a lot of fun at times. Especially if you are a min maxer who is trying for that ultimate powerful build. My friend always tells me he loved Morrowind because of how powerful Mages were at the end of the game. I loved Necromancers/Druids in EQ (because they could solo and do things other classes could not) and classes like the fighter/mage in D&D second edition Baldur's Gate 2 for raw power. Mages were always fun in old games because they had such a vast array of different spells. Thieves were also fun, but generally eclipsed by fighter/thieves due to design issues. Thieves have never really found their spot in video games other then a few games that specifically focus on thieves and stealing.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design