Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

I think both sides of the argument should agree that the skill vs class debate is just one of many many decisions that go into designing the entire game. Encounters, gameplay, itemization, crafting etc all are interdependent. To boldly state that "skills are better than classes" is just a juvenile position to take.

Draegan said:

I don"t want to read a 100 page design doc. How do you set up skills so you don"t gravitate to a certain subset? What kind of encounters can you design around not being good at fireball or swinging a club? Are we still talking about an MMORPG at this point?

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There are tons of different things aside from actually fighting that can be incorporated. What if the only way to get to the boss was for a highly skilled climber to attach ropes for others to get there. Or a highly skilled swimmer has to go in and drain something to get in....or a sneak has to let you in...what about a highly skilling linguist being able to answer a question from a mob...and on and on before you even get to a main encounter or started fighting.

The fact that most of the games have devolved into the simplicity of swinging a club or nuking the shite out of everything doesn"t mean there aren"t tons of alternate solutions out there. If being skilled in something other than blowing the crap out of everything was important then people besides the roleplayers would do it.

The games are currently designed to make everything explode...thats the game. If you change the content then a change in the characters is viable.

That"s shit you do in a pen and paper game. MMO Games haven"t "devolved" from that, they haven"t even evolved to it in the first place.

But even if we had those in games, why couldn"t they be done in a class based system? Maybe you can pick a secondary skill to focus on.. like climbing or swimming. Clearly any adventurer would have rudimentary skills at it but you could choose to focus on one to improve it. A rogue may be an excetpional climber while a mage, through the aid of spells, could be a great swimmer.

But in the end, how do you incorporate compelling and meaningful gameplay that warrants longterm focus on these abilities? It"s basically just a variation of a locked door that you need someone to pick to advance.

Gaereth said:

There are tons of different things aside from actually fighting that can be incorporated. What if the only way to get to the boss was for a highly skilled climber to attach ropes for others to get there. Or a highly skilled swimmer has to go in and drain something to get in....or a sneak has to let you in...what about a highly skilling linguist being able to answer a question from a mob...and on and on before you even get to a main encounter or started fighting.

The fact that most of the games have devolved into the simplicity of swinging a club or nuking the shite out of everything doesn"t mean there aren"t tons of alternate solutions out there. If being skilled in something other than blowing the crap out of everything was important then people besides the roleplayers would do it.

The games are currently designed to make everything explode...thats the game. If you change the content then a change in the characters is viable.

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All those ideas seem pretty boring. I want to build up and spend time on my character so he can swim better or climb better? Naaah.

Drtyrm said:

I think both sides of the argument should agree that the skill vs class debate is just one of many many decisions that go into designing the entire game.

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You are correct. However, character mechanics are the single most important and far reaching aspect of an MMORPG?s design and in many ways dictates everything else. Simply because it is through the character that the customer experiences the game and interacts with it. Which is, the WHOLE POINT of an MMOROG.

Drtyrm said:

Encounters, gameplay, itemization, crafting etc all are interdependent. To boldly state that "skills are better than classes" is just a juvenile position to take.

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I will refer you to my Oxen and Plow analogy here? One being better then the other is purely dependant on what you hope to achieve with it. The same is true for class vs. skill based character mechanics.

...

Now back to writing my reply to Draegan.

Draegan said:

I don"t want to read a 100 page design doc. How do you set up skills so you don"t gravitate to a certain subset? What kind of encounters can you design around not being good at fireball or swinging a club? Are we still talking about an MMORPG at this point?

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IF, hypothetically, 38 studios has decided to go with a skill-based system but the content is still designed around the main archetypes (tanking, healing, CCing, dpsing (melee/magic)) + what I also consider main archs -- but a lot of people think of as secondary characteristics (buffing/debuffing/Pet) then you are going to see the skill system essentially devolve into a class system. You"re going to get min/max tank builds, healer builds, etc.

I would however, knowing no more than the odd post on this thread by the gang at 38 studios, bet good money that they"re using a class system based on the standard archs. But with some sort of hybrid skill system (a la WoW talent trees) on top of whatever their base classes are.

Now long ago, and in a different thread, I discussed a skill system that wasn"t based on the archetypes. It was, instead a ripoff of MTG mechanics as applied to an MMO setting (actually it was MTG the MMO but whatever).

Assume that each MTG card is a distinct aquireable skill or item. E.g Fireball or Summon Goblin are distinct skills. You"re limited to a "deck" (really just skill slots) of 60 abilities whose reuse timers and availability depend on how many you pack into your deck. Unlike current MMOs you"d only have say 7 or so cards (aka abilities) available at any time -- so you better build your deck correctly.

There is no tank per se, or healer per se -- you may have quested and had the some sort of taunt card drop off a mob that you"ve added to your deck -- but in no sense does that one card (or four if you"ve hit the boss multiple times) make you a tank. Similiarly you may have a heal spell that a mob dropped but again that one spell doesn"t make you a healer.

Like the card game -- everyone is pretty much DPS -- whether direct, dots, pets or melee (not in the CCG but would have to be in the MMO) with some crowd control (some of the blue/white spells). This wouldn"t be everyone"s cup of tea and I have a hard time visualizing the raid game where almost everyone is DPS and the rest are CC-- but hey we"re just talking whether a fantasy MMO w/ a skill system could exist in theory without there always being set specs. Not whether anyone would ever play such a game.

Since skills are aquired through encounters. Cardboard specs aren"t possible because a high end raiders skill selection is going to be a lot different from Mr. Casual. But assuming the game holds true to the CCG -- good builds should be available even to players who only have "common" non-raid mob dropped skills. (Reality is that Mr. Casual wouldn"t give a shit that he could build a decent deck out of commons. He would instead bitch and play something else because "why play a game where I never get the chance to get a Black Lotus" -- but so it goes)

This of course has nothing to do with 38 studios -- but D"s asked the question if it was possible to do it w/n an MMO.

Twobit Whore said:

That"s shit you do in a pen and paper game. MMO Games haven"t "devolved" from that, they haven"t even evolved to it in the first place.

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Well, I say devolved because RPG"s have always had these elements...until you hit the MMOrpg"s.

And yes, you can have those extra skills in a class system. I was just pointing out in a couple of ways (if you can"t see dozens and dozens of ways to do different things you aren"t very imaginative) that content will dictate where the masses allocate their skill points. If you make a game where the only thing that matters is hack n slash then people will invariably put all their points into maximizing it. Skills only matter if there is content for those skills.

That is why in UO and other games people generally moved towards whatever gave them the most bang for the buck. Its a one dimensional play environment that leads people to find the best hammer for the job. If the play environment requires multiple tools then people will create those tools but if you keep making it so the hammer is the best thing no matter what then it doesn"t really matter what else you do.

Of course its boring if the only thing like that in a game is traps or hidden crap rogues could find. But start adding more and more things to the equation, traps, puzzles, obstacles, etc, etc, etc...and thats just the non-combat crap. You can add a myriad of combat stuff as well so in the end you have this varied, multi-dimensional character that reflects what you want to see.

wouldnt what you end up with is waiting for uber DPS build to log on his swimmer alt to open the path?

Gaereth said:

Of course its boring if the only thing like that in a game is traps or hidden crap rogues could find. But start adding more and more things to the equation, traps, puzzles, obstacles, etc, etc, etc...and thats just the non-combat crap. You can add a myriad of combat stuff as well so in the end you have this varied, multi-dimensional character that reflects what you want to see.

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The issue isn"t concieving the ideas, it"s implementing them. This is simply a case of dreaming of things that can"t be done given the current technology and resource limitations. It"s all nice to theorize and whatnot, but it really is moot if it isn"t practical. I mean, any of us can sit here and dream of the perfect game that would require a holodeck to run.. but what would the point of that be?

Twobit Whore said:

The issue isn"t concieving the ideas, it"s implementing them. This is simply a case of dreaming of things that can"t be done given the current technology and resource limitations. It"s all nice to theorize and whatnot, but it really is moot if it isn"t practical. I mean, any of us can sit here and dream of the perfect game that would require a holodeck to run.. but what would the point of that be?

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Of course, that is the challenge.

hmmm...so traps and puzzles and secret things aren"t possible with todays technology??

I find that rather difficult to believe.

Gaereth said:

hmmm...so traps and puzzles and secret things aren"t possible with todays technology??

I find that rather difficult to believe.

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On the scale that you are thinking of, I don"t think they are. Basic traps and puzzles and secret things are obviously feasible, they are done all the time. Making them "meaningful" such as you would need to devote a significant portion of your character progression to it is much different.

Then you have to answer the question of "is it fun?". Would being a swimmer/climber in a fantasy PvE world be fun to many people? Enough to make it worthwhile to spend the time and money on creating it? I doubt it.

Geaux said:

wouldnt what you end up with is waiting for uber DPS build to log on his swimmer alt to open the path?

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Only if that was the only way in. But what if it just cut off 30 minutes and got you to some cool nifty place you can"t otherwise access...would it be worth bringing Jimmy the Swimnerd??

Lets take any of the dungeons in TBC and take a look. Very linear, you progress in pretty much a straight line from beginning to end. What if you threw in some secret crap, its all instances so lets make it random locations and obstacles, etc, etc. You could still enter, follow the trail and do the content in the nice missionary way. But if you happened to have others with you that can find these things you get something different.

Its about options.

Gaereth said:

Its about options.

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But in effect you are actually removing options. Instead of needing a healer you now need a swimming healer so you can hit up the named that people in the group want to farm. You have just gone from recruiting a broad single role to a specific combination of roles limiting the number of people that can join your group.

Or what if you actually needed a dedicated swimmer. Would every dungeon have an underwater path that needed one? That would get pretty old quick. Hell, may as well just make a new class.. "Olympic Swimmer", because he is going to be wanted in every group. If it was only certain dungeons that needed it, what is the dedicated swimmer supposed to do about the rest of the content?

Twobit Whore said:

Then you have to answer the question of "is it fun?". Would being a swimmer/climber in a fantasy PvE world be fun to many people? Enough to make it worthwhile to spend the time and money on creating it? I doubt it.

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Hell yeah it"s fun. The last six months I played WoW I spent almost my entire time exploring its backside (top of Un"Goro, old Silithus, Hyjal & CoT pre-TBC the weird shit in Deadmines). One of the four types of gamers is Explorer -- so I know I"m not alone (and wasn"t alone on those journeys). Be humble and admit you"re wrong on this one.

What you did was exploit to do things you weren"t supposed to do. That is what is fun. You didn"t answer the question.. is it worth the money, manhours and resources involved to incorporate that into a whole realm of gameplay? Not just for you, but on an investment-return scale.

How many people play Vanguard to run around the vast landscape and just look at shit? If that is so fun, then why don"t more people do it? That part of the game at least worked, right?

You"re right, all future developers should just make dungeons as linear as possible like TBC because while it may be boring, it sure is convenient. No, you don"t remove options by making a dungeon non linear. The swimming example is stupid unless swimming is under a much broader archetype such as, gasp, aerobics and is critical to stealth play.

Digits said:

You"re right, all future developers should just make dungeons as linear as possible like TBC because while it may be boring, it sure is convenient. No, you don"t remove options by making a dungeon non linear. The swimming example is stupid unless swimming is under a much broader archetype such as, gasp, aerobics and is critical to stealth play.

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Holy shit, that"s what I said. You could make it a secondary skill that is part of a defined class and accomplish the same thing. Which has NOTHING to do with class-based vs. skill-based being better.

But then again, the discussion was how do you make it so that a skill-based system promotes diverse skillsets instead of turning into a FOTM quasi-class based system. So you make swimming a primary focus of a character so that you couldn"t just be a warrior type with a swimming skill, but then you have just made "Swimmer" a class.

Congrats on limiting your development of content to include something to make that classs viable in more than one dungeon.. or making it viable in very limited places which means no one will do it, no one will use that content and all that work was for naught.

If you put a single obstacle that needed to be bypassed, that was the same, in everything dungeon then...well...hmm...sounds like tanks currently...but I digress.

If a dungeon had water, a wall to climb, an incription to decipher, or something secret to give up....and you didn"t know what was going to show up...what would you do then??

What if these things are kinda random in these magical worlds you are playing in...what if your group is heading to a hunting spot and someone detects something of their specialty??

Maybe nothing special happens and all and you just fight....but maybe something does.

And farming static content is a whole other discussion. It always seems silly that Bob the Sword "Doom dropper stands in the same spot day after day.

The only way you can move away from the standard min/max group/class makeup thats prevalent in today"s MMOs you need to implement dynamic content. I don"t think todays technology can create GOOD, on par with WOW encounters, content that changes each time you confront it so it"s always new.

This is not the same thing as random spawns or random abilities. This would require a very indepth AI. You can have zero scripts involved. This forces you to bring hybrids into your groups so you have some bend in the capabilities of your party. However when you know what you"re up against, you will always have min/maxers.