It seems that most MMORPGs follow a similar pattern in character creation and advancement: pick what class you want to be, follow that career until you're bored, then make a new character or scrap the skills and start anew.

So you eventually end up with a lot of hardcore players with an army of alts. Is that really necissary?

In my opinion, having alternate characters doesn't really make the game more enjoyable... since I have to start from level 1 again, make up another original name for my toon, and repeat all that content over again to get up to that level. Players can have a few alts in pretty much any MMORPG, and chances are, they'll get bored of the same class and want to try another one before the reach their peak. If they're just going to have a lot of alts anyway...

Why not combine all those alts into one?

I'm not suggesting an uber undefeatable Rogue / Knight / Warlock / Sorcerer / Whatever, but would it be bad to allow the player to have all those classes available to him, just only being able to use one at a time while out on the field? Say, the player can change classes at some kind of a portal or cloning facility (and only there) and whenever they die and revive at the death node.

The player has access to all the classes, and each class has a hierarchy of unlockable skills. Each time the player levels, he can choose which skill to learn and from which class, any class. This way, he can play as a rogue or stealth character, level up, and invest his points into another class.

Basically this entire system is meant to remove "altitis" and the "LFG syndrome". Players have one character that they can play all classes with, and if a group needs a certain class, the player can switch with convenience.

Discuss and criticize at will.

You can do this in Final Fantasy XI. You can change Jobs whenever you are near a Moogle.

The game of which you speak is known as Final Fantasy XI.

In all seriousness though, it’s a good idea, and it works to some extent.  The only real beef I had with it is that it your bank space goes to hell faster than you can say “Moogle”.

I don’t really see much of a difference between a system like this and a system using alts, it makes no real difference to me either way.  I’m actually kind of surprised more games haven’t used a system like FFXI, or maybe they have and I just don’t know about it…meh.

Well yes, you can change classes in many games, but from my experience, you lose that progress and must begin anew with your newly chosen class. I am completely unfamiliar with FFXI, so forgive me... but does it save your progress in those "jobs"? Say you switch from one class to another, can you switch back and forth and keep your progress?

SWG had a skill system where you could take as many class combinations as you wanted, but when you reached the skill capacity, you had to unlearn some of them to learn others. Skills you've unlearned have their progress wiped... wasting a lot of time if you ever wanted to go back to it.

The main difference between multiple alts and a solitary "everything" character is that you don't have to start from level 1 again when you change classes, and it removes the need for waiting around for specific classes in groups, since everyone can do everything (just not all at one time) and can change conveniently without the fear of losing progress. During extended PvP matches, for example, it would be very convenient to be able to change your class from a maximum level sorcerer to a level 80 cleric. Classes serve a more tactical advantage in such occasions and there is no alt-switching involved.

In Final Fantasy XI, you could, in concept, get every class in the game to level 75 (though it takes almost a year to reach the level cap).

The thing that is important to note about this game is you cannot change your class while doing something; you have to be in a set of very specific locations (i.e. your house).  It’s not like you can be in combat and “Oh shit our tank died, TANK MODE ON!” and puff you’re a tank.  You need to plan out what you are going to be before you go off into the field.

Fury has a unique approach to this and allows you to create a set of equipment and skills and save it in an avatar and you can switch out  say if you all of a sudden need a healer switch to your healer avatar quickly and go along your way. Of course acquiring the gear and the skills for each avatar is time consuming much like FFXI, but more and more games now are doing away with restarting.

Tabula Rasa also has a modified approach to this allowing for every time you make an archtype choice you can save your character state as a clone and at some point go back and level from that point in a different direction. Think of it like a family tree, you start out at the trunk and each time you have a choice of progression a split would occur with the option to create a new character at any of the splits. This of course like FFXI means you would have to level each one seperately, however unlike FFXI they would be different characters.

And then theres the skill-based game option like UO where you can modify your skill levels at any time and going from a swordsman to a mace fighter to a mage and back to a swordsman is possible... with time. But with this approach skills are lost while others are gained and is like a reroll.

A really poor idea, for starters you need to move to a skill based system but if all can learn all you have just removed the need for multiplayer and created the ultimate solo game.

If you want to play all abilities or the equivalent of a class(and for a better definition the classes are groups of skills and you can charechterise and give the sets of skills name like cleric/mud swab or warrior).

Now apply a similar tack to that of UO where skills degrade through use to 50% of their max capability but can be increased beyond the 50% to 90% ish in n evening. This gives you the flexibility you need now the twist is all skills have equal and opposite so they play off so being a fighter mage will cause mage skills to decrease as warrior ones increase its all about balance and opposites e.g..

life/death , warrior/mage ,ranged/stealth close up and you can go on and on.

The skill opposites sit within a globe of a compass, the other axis Z is made up of life and death i should post a picture of this if i'm not explaining it in this text.

Items: can be used to break balance and negate the negative effects of oppose skills. examples of opposite skill types

gods: can give baseline bonuses to make more powerful specialists

skills have: levels and ranks, more options

Now you have a baseline for every skill and this is where leveling comes in every time you level you can open up new skill trees , you also get points to increase base skills which allow you to be a stronger fighter mage because of a higher baseline.

So leveling can be unlimited untill the point where a baseline of all skills can increase to max 75% so the equal and opposite play means an all round stronger charachter. primary secondary and tertiary skills can be maxed to 85/95/100 %.

Skill based with baseline increases as you level, unlimited levels to allow specialisation or better alll rounder.

But the catch is after say level 100 a specialist can take on a lev 200 and win on a good day.

will it ever happen i don't know... but i have a 90%  written design i wrote about 5 years ago for a very dynamic system cant give all my secrets away here but i think this would work. Another benefit here is no requirement to balance PvP as all self aligns.

Your idea is sort of confusing (perhaps thats intentional), but from what I get it would resemble a Radar chart.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_chart

with the area of the enclosed part remaining constant?

I may have to give FFXI a go to see how it works.

I'm glad to know that there are some current and upcoming MMORPGs with similar systems, because the more samples that are out there, the easier it will be to pinpoint flaws and repair them.

Originally posted by Meltdown

Your idea is sort of confusing (perhaps thats intentional), but from what I get it would resemble a Radar chart.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_chart

with the area of the enclosed part remaining constant?

I don't really want to extract straight from document but,  radar is a good concept and gives the picture. alignments and skill types are mapped out within what is essentially a compass, so for example north = Mage , south =Warrior, west= cleric, east=thief. so skills mapped around the area sw would maybe a paladin, if the z axis negative is in place then the point  furtherst from center of sphere/compas would be death so skill within the quarter of circle that is sw nearest x would be a death knight, z positive standard paladin. Skills would be mapped into the globe for equal and opposites, a similar alignment globe would exist also with associated abilities. Items will directly effect baseline equal and opposites to allow for severe specialists or for multi class charachters. Gods /Kingdoms/Guilds would also have a similar sphere.

 This would create a multitude of skill combinations which play against each other allowing specialists to win fights against muych higher level players, the higher level players would have more experience on their side allowing for a higher baseline of skills (posibility to creep into the (80-100% efficient in a skill).

As you level skills will drop a percentage to allow for growth, any skill once trained above 50% will not degrade below that but above that and lack of use they will skill will degrade below 50% through leveling.

I have an extract on items and abilities I will add if this is starting to make any sense.

This is more structured but discuses the above(full doc is 20 pages plus but this should give a feel):-

1. All items degrading over time with a durability that eventually mean the item will need to be replaced. Rare/legendary items repairable at great cost.
2. Large number of lootable items and relevant treasure tables
3. Skill based leveling system with large scope for the ammount of permanent charachter improvements on leveling. Which results in extended longevity for players who want a fun endurting gaming experience. And for the power levelers a weakened shell of a charachter that will find it difficult to operate at high levels.
4. Equal and opposite alignment system for skill abilities which lends itself to generating what could be deemed a "class" e.g. warrrior weapon skill (+50 combat hit) <==> (-40 Spell Success -10  mana) 
5. Item abilies (to counter class skills) e.g. Sword of the Mage (Conjure Stabalise +10 Mana +40 Spell Success
6. a combination of 4& 5 results in no need for Class balancing players balance themselves skill abilities/ Item abilities and others (I can think of at least 4 or 5 other categories here)
7. All abilities degrade to 50% of maximum potential over a period of time this will mean that a charachters abilities are representative of the playstyle(these only degrade when in game...
   • (These can be easily increased to 75% in a mater of half hour and degrade in sync witrh this
   • (Over 75% they increase slowly buy only degrade 3% oiver 24 hour period)
   • (Only 10 skills can be mainained over 75%)
8. Alignment abilities: Action based mental state Good/Evil awarded by powers (Godlike)
9. Faction/Reputation abilities: Regional/Continental/Cities gained through service in the form of Insignia/medals

This is an outline for a system of equal and opposites based around 8 Classes (as per a compass)/ this generates unlimited flexibility in charachter creation when leveling you get the opportunity to move base abilities towards the 75% mark) ,levels are gained over time which give attr4ibute bonuses which will allow for baseline equal and oppositess to be less negative and allow for more multi-classing e.g. over time pump points into baseline warrior sphere to allow Warrior/Mage char to use weapons for example) ,skill points can be retrained at great cost to yet again allow flexibility.

This will generate longevity, a great variety of items that can counter primary abilities to lead towards playable opposite abilities.

Item positives and negatives will stop use of overpowered items as low lev chars abilitiesll will be in the negatives when an attempt to use

All abilities % use will be based on the player level so all skills will be recalculated as you levele and these will then have to be worked back to 50% for new abilities to be made available

Similar to that chart but imagine in a globe with z axis to encompass life and death...