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This is quite the outrageous idea, but it has merit. Oh yes it does.
It's a crazy idea, but if implemented in the future, the way people think of MUDs will change.
I'm talking about a limitation to the skills you can take into battle with you. Before you start screaming bloody murder and throwing rotten vegetables at me, hear me out.
With a system like this, one will have to think about which skills would best benifit a desired situation. 8 or 9 slots available for skills and spells would be ideal. (I'll later get into another idea that goes hand in hand with the limited skill system.)
Lets get into more detail on this, shall we. I'm trying to promote teamwork and teamplay. Rarely would you see anyone leveling in a group. It's just not worth it. Currently, leveling in a group requires no teamwork whatsoever. Just tag along and heal the tank. Let him do the hard work. It's not [b]fun[/b]. Plain and simple. Leveling sucks. In a group, by yourself, it doesn't matter. It's a grind you have to do before you can enjoy what the game has to offer.
Well, you're probably asking yourself, how do you have fun when starting the game? I'll explain! The best part of nearly any game you play (there are exceptions) is playing with others. It's nearly impossible to play with others due to level restrictions. First off, you don't wanna level with a high leveler if you're level 10 because you'll no virtually no exp. If you're big, you don't wanna level with a low leveler because they're worthless in a party.
This is where the "crazy" ideas comes in.
If skills and spells weren't tied to a player's level, then theoretically a newbie could be almost as useful in a fight as a 120. But there's only a problem. Hp, and Mana. Theroretically, you could, with all available buffs in a game including eq, lower a human's hitpoints down to say 400 hp and 200 mana. But there's another problem. Mobs have hp in the thousands. I even think in the millions. (Which make for long BORING fighting IMO. Not many things worse than sitting there fighting one mob for 10 minutes while casting heal every round.) Theoretically, you could lower the strongest type of a generic mob's hp to around 600, and have a boss type mob's hp to around 800 or 900. But there's yet another problem. The entire game would be in one group tackling things left and right. You could easily limit a group's number so they become close knit and literally depend on each other to survive.
Now paint a picture with a system like this. You're a newbie. Say level 15. You chose Warlock as your starting class. (Everyone know that if you choose anything but warrior for your first class, it's gonna be hell to level.) You're wandering around plith and you come up to 3 fairly high levelers discussing which skills they should bring into an area they want to go into. You also hear then arguing on who will be the one to take along clerical skills. This pips your ears and you ask them if they're looking for a Warlock. You explain to them that you just started, but you feel that you can still be useful. They discuss to themselves for a bit and then allow you, a newb, to join them in whatever quest.
You're deep in a dungeon, and so far your healing has successfully kept everyone healthy. They then tell you to be careful because in the next room is an Area Boss. After you give out a few buffs (You don't have that many skills yet so you don't have many skills to choose from :P) you enter the room. The mob goes STRAIGHT for your sweet ass, you frantically cast heal on yourself as much as possible until someone is finally able to divert the attention of the mob. Your health is really low, but you notice that your teammates hp is getting low as well. You're selfish so you heal yourself first, and then try to heal the teammate. But before the second heal goes off, he dies and you're down a player. All that's left is one player who brought attack spells and another who brought thief type skills. You curse yourself and then an idea pops in your head. You ask the thief to divert the mob's attention and use his evade skill long enough for you to ressurect the warrior. If the spell user attacks the mob, he'll probably attract unwanted attention on himself and lose another player.
They agree and the thief kicks, trips the mob, and then activates his evade skill. You begin casting ressurection on the fallen warrior. The warrior is up and you begin to heal him, but by this time, the thief's evade skill has burned out and he's taking heavy hits and his hp is going down. The spell caster see's this and attracts the mob's attention with a fireball to the face and kept the attention on him with a lightning bolt to the head. The warrior is finally ready. You've casted all the buffs you have in your arsenol and he joins the fray with a powerful bash, sending the mob on his ass. You heal the thief, and then you periodically heal the warrior. The boss falls over dead and everyone wipes the sweat from their brow. You feel hype even though you just began the game and yet were able to go on an adventure with seasoned players.
Please comment and add ideas of your own. I will when I remember other ideas I forgot at the moment :P
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Oh, another thing I should mention. I know how some people like to level alone. Areas should be generally group or solo. A group can't enter a solo area, nor can they group once in the area, and one person can enter a group area, but will most likely be slaughtered as in these areas, generally, more mobs would group in a fight against you and more would be aggro against you as well.
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Forgot about a veeeerry important detail :P
The weapon damage will have to be lowered to match the hp limits of characters. With higher level weapons having less focus on higher damage and more on a higher __minimum__ damage. Along with elemental properties or weapon type properties and so forth.
We need to steer clear from things being overly powerful. Every skill, every tactic should have an achellies heel of some sort. Sort of like a Rock
Another thing I wanna mention is that when a player multi's or remorts, he shouldn't have to relearn all the skills from his previous classes. What I want is leveling to NOT be the primary factor of playing this game. As you enter higher levels, there should be a point where level and equipment doesn't matter, it's what you do with the skills you have to choose from that counts. As you level up you grow stronger because A) You know more about the game B) You have more skills available to you and C) You know and expereince effective tactics in battle. Not becase A) You're a higher level than they are. B)You have better equipment and C)You have more skills.
I feel people can have more fun if they can involve anyone they want in nearly any activity avaible.
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Another damn thing I forgot to add.
With the skills, You can only assign them to your slots while in a town or city. So you'll have to think ahead and form a gameplan with your teammates. You can assign a mob for that. Simple enough :P
Another thing I should mention. I suggest the use of ingame hotkeys. You could assign skills to the numbers 1-9 so fighting isn't boiled down to who can type the fastest with the fewest mistakes.
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hehehe, I'm just full of stuff today.
With skills and levels, I suggest a system in which in each class you have 30 levels. Which each level, you could gain 1 practice point, or you can start with 10 practice points and after level 10, you can gain 1 practice point a level.
Now, with all the skills available in the class you can either distribute practice points to skills in tearm of usefullness or power, keep points all even, or have more skills than points so in the end everyone can have a slightly different character. It's all up to the peoples in charge of the game :P I'm partial to option three.
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Would just be easier to force everyone into a one or two class system.
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That's true, but do we really want a pwipe?
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The class system being discussed would certainly **not** require a pwipe.
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Personally I find leveling by myself boring. I enjoy being in a group and having fun. There needs to be more reasons to form groups. Keep up the suggestions.
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~~@Inimical:~~
> The class system being discussed would certainly **not** require a pwipe.
Are you suggesting we keep our levels and choose which class(es) we want? :P If so, I'll need to try out some alts to see which I prefer.
There were some questions about newbies against mobs using group tactics. You could use the Newbie Dungeon to teach them about several basic strageties they would encounter against mobs.
I'll list a few basic tactics or group formations that I consider basic.
Two warrior mobs together.
One warrior mob alone and a healer mob 1 or 2 rooms away. (This would bring in ideas on spells that you're able to use from a distance. You would also need echoes that let you know if something is being healed.)
Multiple archers blocking a path. The only way through it without suffering alot of damage or death is to find a way behind them and kill them that way.
A large group of warriors for some straight up action :P
