Just a Game

I've always wanted to make a game using the 2nd option.

The reason why I never really pulled it off is because that type of game is very hard to balance, and also because you actually WOULD see a lot of people with the same skill set since after about a month or so, the players would all find one very viable build and stick with it. In other words, if 3 mage skills, 6 warrior skills, and a heal was very effective, you'd have over half the player base using 3 mage skills, 6 warrior skills, and a heal. That defeats the entire purpose of that system.

The first option is always best since it forces each player to have clear strengths and weaknesses ( or at least it should ). The closest thing we have now to the 2nd option is GW2, and that's why that game had underwhelming PvP. Everyone was a jack-of-all-trades in that game. They could have ranged weapons, melee weapons, and a heal all at the same time and that ruined the entire point of team-based PvP because you didn't have to rely on your Ranger to do ranged DPS, or your Cleric to heal you. Everyone just did it themselves and there was little build variation between one player and the next despite the fact that there were TONS of different possibilities.

You can give your players 100 different skills to choose from - that doesn't mean they're going to use all 100. They're going to find the 20 best skills out of that 100 and stick to those the entire time. A similar thing happens in League of Legends. If you watch the championships and pay attention to how many champions are actually utilized, you'll see that only a small percentage of the entire champion pool gets used. Instead what they do is play whatever is broken the most in the current meta and ban the other broken champions - meanwhile the other 60% of the pool is largely ignored for the duration of the tournament.

Then you're still defeating the purpose. The main benefit of the second option is that it allows players to have the freedom to have any type of skill set they want and not be restricted by classes, correct? But then you just mentioned people will have to dump most if not all their points into intelligence in order to heal effectively, so in reality you still have classes, you're just calling them "skill points" instead. You're going to end up with the same result - a game where people can only fulfill one role effectively. If a player invests 90 points into strength, which will be mandatory if he wants to be a tank, he'd be wasting his time investing 10 points into intelligence since his heal would recover a measly 30 health, so why even give the player that option? No one's ever going to use it because its not beneficial in any way.

The whole point of this is to let players have any type of build they want, but you plan to design the game in such a way that anyone who does that will have a crappy character, so why implement such a system?

Utility might work. For example, if a warrior wants to also be able to fill a support/heal role, give them a skill tree that emphasizes granting nearby enemies lifesteal or absorbing a percentage of the damage they take. That way they can still excel at doing some form of supporting while still fulfilling their role as a tank. Otherwise, with the current proposed system, if they try to go tank with a few points in healing, they're going to be good at tanking and awful at healing.

This is the route GW2 took but I think it could've been executed a lot better. One of the issues with GW2s trees is what I mentioned earlier - there's a lack of balance. There's far more reason to use certain traits than others, so you end up with, for example, a lot of Thieves running nearly the exact same build and abilities. For instance, Elementalists in that game can use dual daggers, and while it can be pulled off as long as you're mechanically skilled, in reality it's far better to just run a standard staff build rather than engaging people in close range. If you're a melee enthusiast, you're far better off just running a Thief or Warrior.

Basically what I'm trying to save you from is work that doesn't need to be done. Hours of your time will be wasted if you try to implement all these things, and then when the game is done, nobody uses that particular class/traits/build path/ whatever because they aren't optimal. Everything in the game should have clear strengths and weaknesses, and while it sounds really good on paper to have people running around being able to wield a giant sword in one hand, a bow in the other, and be able to cast healing magic all at the same time, it's a pain in the ass to design a game such as that in a way where everything is equally viable.

Dota 2 has been around for over a decade, and even that game still has its balance problems so just imagine how many you're going to run into with option 2. You're going to be trying to keep up with hundreds of different build possibilities and it's just going to fall apart. This is why most games just use the class system with some sort of rock-paper-scissors mechanics thrown in. It's easier to define what people can and can't do and more convenient to balance. Imagine if League of Legends just said "Screw it, we're going to remove the idea of champions and just let you mix and match any abilities you want from all the champions in the game so you can make your own characters." All hell would break loose.

Trying to remove classes and restrictions is kind of like trying to remove grinding. As much as we'd like to remove them, they have to exist in some form or fashion otherwise the game just won't work out. Solutions exist, but there's pros and cons to everything and while you may be solving one problem you'll just run into a second, possibly even bigger issue.

I voted Classes, in my opinion is still the best around and a Classic to how RPG's are done. I like the Idea that if you want to do a dungeon or fight a boss you will need at least 1 Tank, 1 Healer and 1-2 Damage Dealers. But this is just the basic concept, you can make it more complex so that people can mix stuff up and make their kinda class in that Class type. The Simplest way I know is like this You give Players a Number of Stat Points per Level their Strenght, Health etc dont go up they always stay they same, only way to increase them is to use those points.This way A player that choses a Tank Class can deside if he wants to go Full on Tank Boosting his HP or maybe a more hybrid tank a little bit of heath a little bit of damage and a little bit of healing.

Kevin208 wrote:

Yeah, that's how I planned on making it work with the second option, stats determining what limits you and what the possibilities are with those allocated points, except the stats won't dictate whether you HAVE to stay within that class's boundaries or not.

Best mmorpg system I found for classes is the one that Final Fantasy 14 has, you have 1 Character and on that character you can level up all Classes, all Crafting classes, all Gahering Classes all advance Job Classes. All you had to do is Change your weapon of the Class you wanted to be simple as that, very well done and easy to work with.

keep up with the good work kevin