Celestin

I want a MMO where player-skill plays at least a role just as important as character progression. The way pretty much any MMO is designed is almost entirely based on what you've accomplished. Stats versus Stats, not Player versus Player, so to speak. This mindset should never play a role in winning or losing in any game at all, because this is purely illogical. You're saying that it's logical to be stronger than someone else if that person had spent more time on a game. I'm saying that spending time on repetitive monotonous tasks should never be the main reason for someone to get strong in a game, therefore only those being strong who can afford taking that time from their real life and invest it into getting a stronger character than someone who can't, while the process itself (grinding) is made of epic fail gameplay-wise (but this is what you spend the most time with). Or are you telling me that I shouldn't play MMOs if I can't spend more than six hours a day? That'd be even more illogical and would just prove my point.
Also, you got to differ grinding in offline games or private servers from grinding on official servers, purely because of the time you have to invest to stay competitive.

About the design standpoint I'd like to quote this.
And seriously, I don't get your point. Why does it stink? If you had to unlock a map before you could enter a new area with stronger enemies, wouldn't that solve your problem? Actually, that was just an example. There are endless possibilites to solve abusing. And actually, it makes alot sense to me, because unlocking more complex and stronger monsters, not necessarily stat wise, but certainly player-skill wise harder to handle is by far the greater accomplishment. I've unlocked myself another greater challenge, in other words, fun. Just being rewarded with a digital item that makes me get advantages, hence making the game easier is what stinks of poor design.
Games are supposed to get harder the more you move forward, not just being able to do 2500 damage instead of 25 and having 10000 HP instead of 100.

In fact, I have no problem with levels as character progression at all. That kind of character progression is what always made RPGs. You have a character and make that character stronger. The problem lies in the exorbitant difference of potential. Why does a level 100 character have to have 50 times more attackpower and defence than the level 1 character? Why can't it be two or three times (I'm only talking about PvP here)?
If you've known about Monster Hunter, then why are you still suggesting fighting and FPS games? I've said that I told you that I like the majority of idea's the genre has, I just don't agree with those two things implementation. Dude, I've never said that you have to entirely make it based on player-skill. Naturally, a few level 5 characters shouldn't be able to beat a level 100 mob for insane EXP. But there's many possiblities to prevent that, such as adding resistance to certain mob types through gathering the armor you need in PvE or simply by you having to unlock those monsters first by beating less powerful one's, so neither the skill-based system is lost, nor the progression necessity. Someone who knows about Monster Hunter (although it hasn't done it perfectly) should at least have an idea of those possiblities. That's so easy to think up, I seriously don't understand your repugnance at all.

Saying that because of such a weak argument MMOs aren't competitive games is total aburdism. Gaming stays gaming, which means you succeed or you fail. As soon as other people are involved that succeeding and winning principle turns into competition. You may or may not say that you play games to be competitive, but in fact, there is no other reasonable reason to play a multiplayer game.
I have nothing against someone beating me up if he has spent more time on the thing he did. That's just natural. But I want to be beaten up by someone, because I myself couldn't react fast enough to his move, not because he critted me more often due to having completed stupid simple tasks all day.


MMORPGs aren't mainly about mathcraft, drop that thought. The top priority to be good in a MMORPGs is based purely on the time you invest into grinding, hence simple, stupid but of course long tasks even my nine year old cousin could do just as good as me. That mathcraft you're talking about has practically no influence on me losing to you if you've spent more time on grinding than I did. And please stop suggesting fighter games or whatever. I'm already playing those and played them for longer than MMORPGs. I've already told you which essential parts about MMORPGs I like and dislike, so there's no reason to suggest anything for you anymore.

By the way - did you take a look at Monster Hunter?

You're saying that it isn't player skill, because you're memorizing a pattern. I'm saying that memorizing a pattern is a part of skill and I'm also saying that if you make action combat, you can built in all the possibilites you like, such as the monster doing different attacks in different situations, not just one for each. For example, the wyvern doesn't necessarily have to do a tail swing when you attack it from behind, it could by a chance also do a bodycheck, therefore you'd have to react as soon as you see a sign of it doing the bodycheck instead of the tail swing. You can implement way more of those possibilites to make things more skill-dependant. Although this is only talking about PvE situations, which is nothing like PvP, where you just can't win by simply memorizing a pattern anyway, so that argument is already totally irrelevant about one feature of the game.
I'll put it this way. Why the crap should someone who has killed 10.000 more ****ing weak wolves than me by right clicking and spaming fireballs be totally superior? I don't get that logic. It's like saying that simply smashing a single button over and over in a fighter game would be more efficient than learning actual moves, memorizing combos and how enemies react in terms of getting better. I think we both agree on this just being stupid if it was the case.

I'm sorry, but I just can't get excited over critting the uber wyvern boss at the end and winning the fight because of it. That's just luck. But if I got behind the wyvern boss in time, evading it's tail swing move by pressing the right buttons in the right situation in 3D view (you could only do crits from behind) and my buddy managed to make him fall due to dealing enough damage to it's legs while evading the tail swing himself and we won because of this, now that'd be exciting. Because I've done it myself, not some cheap computer generated lucky strike.
Also, I have no clue how you can say that something like this is legitimate for a gamer or even that this is just how it is and that it can't be changed. That makes me think that we have different thoughts about what gamers are.

I really don't know how you can ignore the fact that pretty much any MMO out there is ridiculously easy to handle, management-wise though. Sure, your system might change a bit of this and make it more difficult and player skill dependant from that aspect, but I've yet to see a MMORPG that actually is as difficult and actually, I've yet to meet someone who's unable to manage switching skill pallettes. Although I can just talk for myself and I have never had a problem to master any MMORPGs gameplay-systems after a few days. That being said, my point about MMORPGs not depending on player-skill, but much more on time investment may not be of interest for you, as you might not think very competitive. But I for one play MMORPGs to play together and against others, therefore this aspect is the most important one for me. I just can't stand if someone who's player-skill wise worse than me beats me up in a few seconds, just because he or his bot increased his stats for longer or I am getting bored, because no one is able to beat up my 1337 uber character, since the dice-system combat makes it almost impossible for the user to change the outcome of battle by themselves.

Check my new Blog.

But to make this clear - this idea is not meant for mass PvP fights. So the game I'd be trying to create would probably not provide those, unless I'd find a way to somehow implement them.
There's much more about this and I'm probably going to pull it all together in a system. And maybe I'm even going to talk to some company about it. But maybe I'm putting too much hope into this too soon. ^^

Sorry for posting so much, although it's not even nearly as much as I could. =P

Oh and actually, I find you rather sympathetic (I hope this is the right term).