From now on I will be posting some of my idea and concepts on game design.
Since I do not know if these design would work or not (due to that I am but a student working on a game design major), so any comments are welcome.
So the topic for today is ... Detail view of skill-based system in my head.
Details on skill system:
Level/Rank:
This is similar, but not that much, in compare to the old level system (level 1 – XX). This system is only for those who like to know how far they are in their progression of skills and jobs, not an actual indicator for your combat level and whatnot. I would rather call it a ranking system. It shows you where you are ranked by the standard of the game world. (i.e. a Amateur Swordsman is the lowest rank of a swordsman, thus is excluded from certain quest and jobs from the in-game guilds. And beyond Expert Swordsman is the ranking for Master Skill Ranks. These will indicate what kind of quests/jobs they can or cannot take.) This is by no mean that if you are a Bronze Swordsman that you’ll never be able to beat a Golden Swordsman, for player skill is equally important when it comes to PvP. But it does mean that you need to be prepared before enter into combat.
Here’s the broken down list of each level/rank.
Amateur
Novice
Apprentice
Advance
Expert
**** (From this point forwards are the melee “MASTER” skill level title ranks)
Bronze
Silver
Golden
Diamond
Platinum
Within each level/rank, there are 10 minor levels with 3 ranks (Low, Mid, High). This will work into PvP and PvE (quest/mission/job) system.
Weapon Specialization
This is an important idea in this game. In order to show in detail for players to know how to play their character, we’ll focus on weapon specializations.
Bare-hand: fist/palm/finger, (claw)blade-claw/tri-claw/dual-claw
Swords/Blade/Axe/Dagger: Strength(heavy 2h, heavy 1h)/Normal(2h, 1h)/Speed(lite 2h, lite 1h)
Pike/Stave/Blade/Hammer/Axe: Strength(heavy)/
Bow/Arrow: Strength(heavy)/
These are to give melee some more customization and ways to specialize and choose the way their character plays. This will help in balance and have less complains who is the FOTM, since each has their function.
Magic Specialization
Same as Weapon, the Magic users will have to given some specializations.
Energy/Chi
Who says that melee can’t have range attack? (not just throw weapon or such). If you have read any Eastern-influenced online novels (of course it’s in Chinese), or even watch some anime such as Dragonball and Saint Seiya, you’ll see that even the fighters/warriors have some sort of energy and use it to do long range attack. I think it will bring some interesting idea into MMO if we can define such energy.
In Chinese the general term is Chi (?, ??/??). These are the inner energy of which everyone has, and they can use it to support them in combat. What if this energy/chi can be one of the skills?
So if we use the upper chart, then for each chart, we get 100 point per chart, and I’m thinking of adding 5 pts cost to push through to next level/rank, so that’s 150 per chart. And melee, magic, and non-combat are all the same. Chi/Energy would fall under melee for chart, but it is in its separate system in skill points. By this standard, we can make it so that it’s not until Expert that you can have a long range chi/energy attack.
The preset skill points are 450, which means you can maximum have 3 masters, depends how you use it.
