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Which game has best custom char. (not looks)
kable
Member Posts: 134
I was just wondering which game you all think currently has the best character customization as well, which upcoming mmo's are promising high customization on characters. This is not including esthetics, but rather character abilities skills powers or spells that will be viable builds. I know games that have skill systems have more potential this ...but more often then not everyone builds the same cookie cutter build that ends up defeating the purpose
Comments
I read an interesting analysis of this by a poster called Flatfingers over at the Hero's Journey forum. Normally I wouldn't quote another gamer as a source of information, but the breakdown really did seem very astute. Here's the link: https://www.play.net/forums/messages.asp?forum=104&category=3&topic=3
(The poster is STEWARTB20 near the top. The forums are a bit of a pain to navigate, but that's where the original is.)
Here's the repost:
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Flatfingers wrote:
<<whichever class combinations offer the most destruction for the least effort will be discovered in approximately 0.03 seconds by the min-max experts ("d00d whats the uberest template?") and about ten seconds after that will become the most popular class combinations by far.
Simu-Josh wrote:
<<How does a class-less system prevent this? You just change "class combinations" to "skill combinations" and it reads exactly the same.
Josh, I wouldn't claim that a class-free system just in and of itself is enough to discourage minmaxing. I can see how it might have looked like I was claiming that, though -- thanks for giving me the chance to clarify.
To start with, let me spell something out: I think the flatter the curve describing the number of characters with similar skills, the more fun the game is likely to be. So the point of all this isn't "discourage minmaxing" -- it's to encourage maximum diversity of character abilities.
If there are any game-y features in your virtual world, you're going to get minmaxers. There'll always be people whose entertainment comes from finding the saddle points in any equation, and then deriving as much gain from that knowledge as possible as quickly as possible. These are clever people by themselves, and they're even more effective when they work together to divide and conquer a set of data. And they'll do their thing regardless of whether power in your game comes from class-derived abilities or skill-derived abilities. But there's a still a difference in how this peak-seeking behavior can be addressed between games with classes and standalone-skill games.
A pure class system (every skill in a class is unique to that class) is actually more boring to minmaxers than a multi-classing or standalone-skill system. With a pure class system you can only compare one full class against another for power; it's an all-or-nothing deal. If you only offer a few classes, many players will take the one "best" class. That can make your game world look cookie-cutter pretty quickly -- the curve has just one very sharp peak.
The curve flattens slightly if you offer many pure classes, since -- assuming you've tried to power-balance the classes that have similar roles -- there'll be less agreement about which is the "best" class. Even if there's some argument about which class is the best, however, there'll still be a lot of clustering around the top two or three contenders for best class. Now the curve looks more like the classic bell curve as the "best" classes cluster around one favored game role. (Another aspect of the many-class approach is that you'll have to spend a lot of time generating the many distinct classes available, which doesn't seem to be something many developers want to do.)
A multi-classing system is a little more interesting to minmaxers because now they can mix and match dissimilar skills; they can combine skills from systems that were never thoroughly tested together (because no one ever imagined that anyone could be interested in such a combination). In this case, what can happen is that certain combinations will show "spikes" in power (until whatever allows the spike gets nerfed), but those spikes will show up in several different combinations. The result is that you again have just two or three "best" combinations of classes, but there's less clustering around a particular gameplay role than was the case in a many-class system -- the curve just appears to have several random spikes of the number of people taking certain multi-class combinations.
And then there's the the standalone-skill approach. This one has the same "problem" as the multi-classing system, only in spades -- there are likely to be more oddball combinations of skills that the QA folks or beta testers didn't think to try... but the minmaxers will. So there are likely to be more spikes as there'll be more combinations seen as having special benefits -- but from the point of view of trying to maximize the diversity of character abilities, that's actually a Good Thing. Each spike will be a little lower since there are more of them available. The result is that the standalone-skill model produces the flattest curve of characters with similar skill sets. There are still spikes, but because it's harder to tell which complete set of skills produces the overall "best" (most powerful) character, there are more spikes and fewer players per spike -- i.e., a flatter curve.
--Flatfingers
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As far as games currently out with the most customization, I think it has to be Saga of Ryzom, hands down. I haven't played the game for quite awhile (not since a month or two after the infamous "Patch 1"), but it had an unbelievable skill system. Not only did you pick your skills, you could customize them. For example, you could by a prospecting skill which would detect resources within a certain distance; you could add to that a stanza that increased the distance, a stanza that searched for a specific mineral, and quite a few other things. Of course, you have to achieve parity with your skills, too, so you'd need to add some "disadvantages" to counterbalance your "advantages," such as an increase cost of Focus. Every skill in the game was customizable like this, from melee to magic, from crafting to surveying.
I could go on and tell you all the reasons that caused me to leave the game, but I have no idea if those issues are still even around. From what I understand, there are some other issues that have cropped up, but the game does have a free trial; if nothing else, it wouldn't cost you more than the time it took to download to give the thing a try. I'm sure the game is full of "uber templates," but that's the fault of the players, not the game. I seriously doubt you'll find more customization in any game anywhere right now.
the game Project Entropia has 100% customization.
your character starts as a blank slate. every behavior you engage in results in gaining related skills. shoot your handgun - gain handgun and aim skill. shoot your rifle - gain rifle and aim skill. use an axe to kill - gain melee and strength. drop a bomb to look for minerals and gain mining and perception. Craft a gun and gain engineering and technology skill. ETC.
the reason these skills are 'important' is that in theory high skills make you use X item more efficiently. so, let's say a gun does 10-30 damage. if your skills are very low you wil mostly do 10 damage and if your skill are very high you will mostly do 30 damage (it is actually a variable damage rate with the mean and range being related to your skill level.)
the benefits of this type of system is that any character can engage in any behavior. they just might not be efficient in that behavior. if you have spent your entire life using a rifle and tomorrow you picked up a handgun for the first time you probably won't be very efficient at it. this is also the case in Project Entropia.
in other games where you have 2nd or 3rd characters (maybe your magic guy and your priest guy) in PE there is no need for this. You only need 1 character because that character can do everything.
also, some of these skills unlock hidden skills. so perhaps a high skill level in agility and melee will unlock martial arts. a high skill level in aim and rifle will unlock markmenship.
I personally prefer this system. However, I think PE is a game that caters to very wealthy people. I only wish that system was used in another MMORPG.
Good comments. I agree that Th Saga of Ryzom has the best customisation so far. You only need one character (unless you want 1 for every race) and you can do anything and everything.
It's great in a sense, but it also leads to the tendancy to make all your characters the same. If everyone can be a everything then they don't really need anyone else to team with... Need armor? No I can do it myself... It gets a bit boring I find If I'm making one character of each race to find they can do all the same skills, with the same proficiency. It just seems harder to make them more distinct. The temptation is just too great for me, and many others not to do everything. I wanna be Master of all! =D
So i ask...Is this level of customisation such a great thing? I feel good as the system is in that game, it'd have been good if the races were a bit more unique. The only thing I see different between them, after trying them all is the appearance and their histories...
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Good responses, what i think would be ideal for individuality in either class or skills systems would be limited choices in specialization. Different builds would be more viable in differnet situations thus making it more balanced. An example would be, as a mage you can choose to specialize in single target damage or aoes, this way one mage would be better at fighting very large groups of low or equal lvl mobs while the other would be good at taking down a high lvl tough boss. Or perhaps different spells or abilities do extra damage on some mobs(ex undead) yet are resisted by others. This way everyone is the star ina certain situation.
So far from the games ive played Coh/v is the only game that really made me feel like an individual ( and not because of the costume design). I can be on a team with my defender along with 3 other defenders and we can all play COMPETElY different from one an other with different roles and all viable indif situations.