Synopsis: Eliminate classes, and make the success of actions dependent on player skill, character skill and various ambient conditions. The influence of the ambient conditions tends to channel characters along class lines without the use of a straightjacket. Damage generation is removed from magic, turning magic into a means of altering the ambient conditions that influence all actions.
Daedren's recent article "My Kingdom for Different Archetypes" got me thinking about how I'd like to see the general notion of classes tackled. I started to reply to his article, then decided that I wanted to go on a bit. Ergo, article-o. Most of what you'll read has been suggested by many people through the years. This just happens to be my twist on the overall package.
There are no formal classes. Players can use their characters to do anything that the game has implemented. However, you'll find that certain combinations of activities simply cannot exist for what I hope will seem thoroughly practical reasons.
Character success in any action is a consequence of player skill, ambient conditions and character skill (the PAC). A weak character cannot do strong things. A player who cannot solve puzzles handicaps his character's success in puzzle-related actions. The presence of a wall means that a character must walk around.
I'm not overly-concerned with the relative impact of player skill, character skill and ambient conditions on the outcome of an attempted action. Their balance is critical to the resulting system, but for now just keep in mind that all three can play a role. I particularly want to stress the influence of ambient conditions.
Characters use physical weapons when they want to do harm. From daggers to longbows to clubs, the PAC will influence the outcome of whatever aggressive action the player is attempting. A crosswind or even nearby combat may alter a bowshot. Uneven terrain may unbalance a swordsman's stroke.
Characters can attempt all sorts of activities that traditionally involve a specific class. Stealth is the quintessential example. If a character wants to sneak, it sneaks. Its success, as always, is dependent on the PAC. It is the combination of those factors that causes players to decide how much effort they want to put into making their character able to move in a stealthy fashion. Don't wear noisy armor. Don't carry a lit torch at night. Don't wear bright red clothes in the middle of a crowd of blue.
Climbing is another example of a standard activity. There need be no "climber" class. Simply establish that the PAC influences the attempts at climbing, and let players decide how important climbing is to them so that they can configure their character accordingly.
When a character is not well-configured for a given activity, it may be a simple task to reconfigure. Climbing while carrying a heavy pack may be completely impractical. But leaving the pack behind may be acceptable. This is part of the value of having ambient conditions play a role.
This brings us to magic. I completely divorce magic from damage. As I stated, weapons are for damage. Magic is for fooling with ambient conditions. Magic is something that anyone can do, subject to the usual limits of the PAC.
If a pack is too heavy for a climber, the climber can leave the pack behind or have someone who can use magic make it lighter. In combat, a mage can make the ground slippery or create magical barriers. A mage might even be able to alter a character's skills in the tradition of buffs and so forth.
We could argue that many things that a mage can do could easily result in injury or death to an enemy. However, because I want people to stick to traditional medieval weapons to do damage, magic is artificially unable to do direct damage. A mage might be able to levitate an object or heat it up, but the mage cannot do the same to a beating heart to directly kill someone. It negates the role of conventional weapons in the world.
Remember that the effectiveness of magic is influenced by ambient conditions. As a result, magic may be more or less powerful depending on circumstances. Perhaps there are lines of force in the world. Perhaps pools of magic. Perhaps temperature influences all magic. Classically, perhaps the presence of certain substances (e.g. metal) interferes with magic. Perhaps even the time of day can influence certain magical activities. Anything could, really. Influences might vary between characters.
So magic is about influencing ambient conditions, and ambient conditions influence magic. That means that one mage can magically affect the conditions that impact another mage's magic. This can lead to magical combat where two or more mages are struggling to control some kind of ambient condition. One group wants an area hot while another group wants it cold. They can duke it out magically.
But one character in the struggle might decide to pick up a club and go beat some heads in on the other side. Characters are referred to as mages when they spend most of their time doing magic. But they're perfectly capable of climbing, sneaking and swinging a sword. Perhaps not as capably as other players and characters per the PAC, but they can do the basics.
Naturally, any character can affect the ambient conditions that influence magic. If metal interferes with magic, a heavily-armored warrior who runs near a mage might mess up the spell being cast - or that is being maintained. That might produce comical results as the unthinking warrior in the group walks near the mage who is actively lightening the group's climbing rogue. The magic is interfered with and the rogue falls. The warrior's act was completely accidental. Probably.
I like the idea of this system because it permits players to play around with the systems, to experiment and explore in order to create a variety of effects. It also returns damage to the hands of those wielding physical weapons, causing battles to return to the employment of relatively standard tactics. Magic will have a definite impact, but not in the sense that it does in current MMOs.
One last tidbit that I'd throw in is that magic's ability to influence ambient conditions should be applied universally (and modestly). That is, if the ground is slippery, it is slippery for everyone. If a magical barrier is placed to block attacking enemies, that magical barrier will also block friendly characters. By making magic into something that alters conditions, we end up with an essentially medieval environment - with modest variations.
User Comments
Sounds like a blast. Magic would be sooo much more fun and require so much more preparation. So you want to shoot a fireball? Levitate a rock and heat it up till its molten and send it flying!
Sorry, there are no fireballs in the magic system. The system explicitly attempts to put damage-dealing back in the hands of the mundane fighters. To do damage at a distance, use a bow. To start a fire from a distance, use a burning arrow. Or just throw a torch.
Magic is intended to alter the way the normal systems work, not supplant them. So magic might be used to make sure the arrow stays burning. Or to light it in the first place. Or to make it a more accurate shot. But not to start the fire at the destination.
If the mundane means doesn't exist, then magic has nothing to alter. My "magical barrier" example should be revised to include some conventional barrier. Perhaps a door or even just a piece of cloth. A character uses magic to make that door or cloth particularly tough. For as long as the character can maintain the spell.
Compare taking the effort of having to reach back into your quiver, take an arrow, notch it, pull back the bow, aim, and let it fly. Now think about magic in modern MMOs; make fire appear in your hands and cause mass chaos. I agree with this concept of magic 100%. Fire, on its own, would not be able to go very far. But use magic on a physical object and it will be much more effective. However this is a difficult concept for most people to grasp I think; they want to cast giant fireballs and call down meteors from the heavens.
Ascension08: "However this is a difficult concept for most people to grasp I think; they want to cast giant fireballs and call down meteors from the heavens."
Perhaps in time they'll tire of fireballs and meteor showers and ask for something a little more intricate. I suspect the industry has a long way to go before tackling something like this.
One question, you are suggesting that characters still have skills and stats right? Just no classes?
Anyway, I like all of your ideas here. This would be a much better system than what we have now. Would be much more open and strategic.
Gear, the environment, and terrain really should have a big effect on game play. I've always liked the idea of a system where, for example, anyone can where heavy armor. The draw backs being that, well, it's heavy. Your agility will be decreased, your speed will be decreased, and your casting ability will be reduced.
This type of system really opens things up and gives you many more viable options for character builds. In theory, you could have a tank that doesn't wear armor and the lack of defense might balanced by the increase in mobility.
Another possibility, is building a character that can take advantage of different environments and terrain. He may not be the best fighter, but he'd make a hell of a scout.
I'm also with you 100% on the mage idea. I always liked the "traditional" mage type, that was much more of a utility caster, rather than a "glass cannon". There are very few of these in MMO's and I tend to gravitate towards them when they exist. Although, you could still give them some offensive ability. They could just be on long timers or very draining or very difficult to prepare, etc.
A nice write up, but such a complicated physics/metaphysics system would be a nightmare in terms of using up hardware resources. Perhaps in a decade or so, when the hardware gets there, this could be a possibility.
Tatum: "One question, you are suggesting that characters still have skills and stats right? Just no classes?"
My preferences run towards no levels, no classes, no skills, no stats, very little gear. An FPS character. I'm not looking for an MMO shooter. It's an MMO where the tasks remain medieval fantasy except that the success of those tasks depends on modest player skill, a little bit on gear, and a lot on interaction with other players.
Any game could involve ambient conditions in the systems and also structure magic such that it causes changes to those ambient conditions. It could include levels, skills, stats and even classes.
Tatum: "Another possibility, is building a character that can take advantage of different environments and terrain. He may not be the best fighter, but he'd make a hell of a scout."
This is why I'm not a fan of classes, skills and stats. I don't want to build a scout and then have to constantly be trying to find scout-compatible tasks. I have a character and if I want to do something with it, I equip for it and do it. If I can't get the equpment, then I do the best I can with what I can get.
Tatum: "They could just be on long timers or very draining or very difficult to prepare, etc."
Consider that everything that a character can do should be available all the time - subject to ambient conditions. I'm not a fan of twitchy systems, but game systems that operate by letting a warrior use a certain attack when an opponent dodges or blocks is the sort of thing that I advocate. That's an ambient condition.
Having characters that auto-pilot that sort of thing would work for me, but I know that the more serious combat enthusiasts want to do that twitch stuff.
Hrothmund: "such a complicated physics/metaphysics system would be a nightmare in terms of using up hardware resources"
There's no physics system involved here, though that would be the ultimate expression of the idea. Start small. Do what can be done today. As I said above, some games already have the occasional ambient condition here or there.
It's less an issue of hardware than it is of software and the mindset of the industry. They are focused on the hype of the day, which is graphics and physics. I'm as impressed as much as anyone, but it's not gameplay. With the focus there, the software engineering skills are spent there.
Consider that if this system were the priority of a game, then something could be done. It may not end up looking much like current games, but it would be a game that had some pretty interesting gameplay. To me, that's far more important than the graphics and the physics.
I see what you're saying and I'd agree, to an extent. Personally, Id love to see an MMO with no classes, no levels, and a zero progression system. However, I still feel like you need some amount of stats and skills. If everyone can do anything with just a simple change of gear, then there really isn't any variety. Not to mention, even FPS are moving more towards character "builds", it seems.
"This is why I'm not a fan of classes, skills and stats. I don't want to build a scout and then have to constantly be trying to find scout-compatible tasks. I have a character and if I want to do something with it, I equip for it and do it. If I can't get the equpment, then I do the best I can with what I can get."
I understand what you're saying there, but I think you could avoid that with a more complex skill system. Give players enough skill points to make a character that isn't one so dimensional.
Tatum: "If everyone can do anything with just a simple change of gear, then there really isn't any variety."
I agree. Equipment change is very much like a class change, and we certainly don't want players pushing a button to switch between their scout gear and their tank gear.
There are a couple solutions that I can think of.
1. Characters only carry one set of gear. They are strictly limited on what they can carry. They get their gear from NPCs on loan. If they want to change gear, they return what they have, get different gear from another NPC and get into a different activity in the game world. It would be like reclassing by visiting the appropriate NPC, except that having gear focused on one activity doesn't mean that other activities are impossible to perform. The character simply isn't optimally geared for them.
Player characters could loan gear to each other, but remember that in order to change gear, a player has to return what they got from an NPC. So they'd be short-term loans. Losing gear would be bad, so the systems would probably make it impossible to permanently lose it. Naturally, there could be all sorts of structure imposed here. For example, unless a character has appropriate faction with an NPC group, it cannot borrow equipment and so forth. I wouldn't go that route because I don't want players grinding for faction but it's a possibility. Perhaps grinding for vanity items, but not for functional items. So grind for the Pretty Sword, but not for the Basic Sword. They both do the same thing, but the Pretty Sword looks better.
Perhaps vanity items are opportunities to take the small bits of booty that a character collects and put them to use. Power players would have the best looking characters, but their characters wouldn't be any more effective than anyone else's. Only their experience with the player skill systems would do that.
2. Player skill influences which activities players will be interested in. Some activities simply aren't structured in ways that they enjoy. This is the general idea behind classes. Each class works a certain way. I won't play a rogue, shaman or priest in World of Warcraft because I don't enjoy the way the classes operate. If skill systems are structured in different ways, then players will polarize into using the skills that they enjoy.
Consider that melee might have a simple and effective starting approach, and progressively more challenging moves that don't really change a fighter's effectivenss but it sure looks good. Scouting may require patience and the preference to solo. Archery might require finesse and a preference to stay clear of the frenzy of melee. Magic may require inventiveness and a willingness to support others. Crafting may require puzzle-solving skills and tenacity. And so forth. Players of a given personality will gravitate to specific game systems.
One important design element is to ensure that whatever it is that the player is doing is enjoyable unto itself. If the only way to get a reward that a player wants is to do something that they don't enjoy, then they will complain that they are being 'forced' to do something . Because they are after the reward.
The restructuring that I'm after is to remove the extrinsic reward as the motivation and rely on the intrinsic reward of the activity to motivate players. I assume that involving player skill is the way to do that. It's what makes games enjoyable to those who play them, from Tetris to Basketball to Cards to Monopoly.
Reminds me a small bit like EVE Online whereas you change Class by visiting your hangar and switch roles dynamically. When I want to scout/recon I get into my recon ship. When I want to fly a big heavy tank I get into my Battleship, and so forth
I am assuming Magic has been reduced in this concept because MAgic defeats Tactical Transparency. In a way, Magic is unbalancing the way it is implemented now. I am assuming this is why Magic has utility uses. Or perhaps you would do things this way to place more emphasis on the Mundane
I might handle minor details differently myself (not because your ideas are bad in any identifiable area but due to preferences like for instance I'd let players store their gear in their Bank / Guild-House like we do in EVE). But I like the concept a lot. It's pretty much what I've been talking about. We can get Tactical Transparency through Equipment and gain all the benefits of Classes without the straight jackets that hard defined Traditional MMORPG Classes propose
I'm on my last leg in EVE Online I suspect. If for some reason I ever quit this MMO I think I'm done. Because only a rare few bloggers like you and a handful of Developers (like CCP) see things my way
I wonder how you would handle stats and skills here. You did mention some players would excel in certain areas more then others. Are you intentionally being a little vague here to leave it up to the reader's imagination? Challenging the little designer in us to think up our own implementations?
Good writeup here too
vajuras: "Reminds me a small bit like EVE Online"
Yes, a ship change is an equipment change is a change of skills. Eve Online also permits reconfiguring a ship quickly, which changes the specifics of its role in operations. Would that that interface was a bit more interesting to work with.
vajuras: "I am assuming Magic has been reduced in this concept because MAgic defeats Tactical Transparency."
The purpose of magic being transformed like this is so that it doesn't step on the toes of other systems. Designers constantly grant mages capabilities that are a fundamental part of other systems when in fact mages should be a completely different breed of cat.
vajuras: "I wonder how you would handle stats and skills here. You did mention some players would excel in certain areas more then others."
I leave the door open for stats and skills, but if I were implementing a game, I'd either leave them out or let players reconfigure them easily. Not immediately, but easily.
The reason that players will excel in certain areas is because I want player skill to come into the games. I assume that each skill system would place demands on player skills that are consistent with the system. That is, sword fighting would involve one type of skill, archery would involve another and so on.
An example that has been kicked around for years is making lockpicking a puzzle game. Players who are good at puzzles would enhance their character's lockpicking skills. In a game where equipment determines skills, only those players who chose to carry lockpicks would be able to even see the puzzles.
And that brings up the issue of equipment control again. If all it takes to pick locks is player skill and lockpicks, then everyone would carry the small implements on the off chance that they'd need to pick a lock. That might be acceptable, but it's nice to have some means of restricting it.
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