In my opinion:

Skill = Dueling in UO when both mages typically have the same HP and Mana and skill and Armor.  It's how they time their spells and select the spells and interrupt that makes the win.

It's simple. You really want skill based combat then get rid of levels for one. A starting "level" character gets a stab into the back of the neck of a "level" 80 character. What should happen? The "level" 80 character bites the big one because that's what really happens when someone takes a stab to the back of the neck. Case in point, the last time I checked, my 'ol First Sergeant was a tough and mean SOB but it sure as hell didn't make him bullet proof or any more resistant to a grenade landing at his feet than Private Snuffy. But that's not likely to happen in an MMORPG any time soon. Player Character level trumps Player Skill.

Two, get rid of "magical gear". I see someone mentioned that even in FPS games, players will gravitate to the more powerful weapons. This is true to the extent that the inclination is to get the most powerful weapon they can have given the tactical situation at hand (and their play style, I tend to run and gun but I know plenty of friends who are more comfortable sniping). Where the corollary with MMORPGs breaks down is anyone can kill anyone else even sticking with the basic starting weapons.  A bullet to the head is a bullet to the head whether it comes from a stock  AEK Vintovka or an M416 sloted with a red dot. And no. When my old unit in West Germany (really putting a date stamp on this reference) transitioned from the M16A1 to the M16A2 (before the introduction of the SS109 rounds) I didn't magically get a bonus to my accuracy stats...

In MMORPGS, gear levels, like player character levels.....well you know the deal. A chest piece or helmet should provide protection and damage mitigation (to a point), not somehow add to your agility of all things. But can a player character of any game, armed with only a stock weapon and armored with only stock gear seriously take on another player character equiped with even average "stat" of comparable level? Nah.... 

And let's not even go into te whole "class" thing and "balance"....

You want to see what skill based melee combat is like? Give Mount and Blade a whirl. Now if they had THOSE combat mechanics in a MMORPG...

Defining skill in games is easy:

Skill is the ability to execute on solid decision-making.

Decisions are any decision in the game, from the strategic decision to spec Restoration to tactical decisions like deciding to use Ability A over Ability B (in a given moment of combat) or deciding your reticle needs to be higher to score a kill in a FPS.

Executing those decisions is the physical act of making those decisions a reality.  Much of the time this isn't difficult (press 1 instead of 2 and your character will use Ability A) but in some cases it's a true physical challenge (as in sports; or the FPS player needing to move his mouse exactly 1mm higher to get that headshot.)

I already am satisfied, Asheron's Call has always had skill added in. You have to move your character around to dodge missiles and magic bolts among other skillful acts.

You basically described a sphereserver UO shard.  The best players could run around on a llama with a kilt and bandana on and take on 5-6 people with insane gear all at once.  The combat was extremely skill based(not just character skill).  Not to mention the macro/grind time to max was what.... 2 or 3 days?

Originally posted by ntstlkr

It's simple. You really want skill based combat then get rid of levels for one. A starting "level" character gets a stab into the back of the neck of a "level" 80 character. What should happen? The "level" 80 character bites the big one because that's what really happens when someone takes a stab to the back of the neck. Case in point, the last time I checked, my 'ol First Sergeant was a tough and mean SOB but it sure as hell didn't make him bullet proof or any more resistant to a grenade landing at his feet than Private Snuffy. But that's not likely to happen in an MMORPG any time soon. Player Character level trumps Player Skill.

Two, get rid of "magical gear". I see someone mentioned that even in FPS games, players will gravitate to the more powerful weapons. This is true to the extent that the inclination is to get the most powerful weapon they can have given the tactical situation at hand (and their play style, I tend to run and gun but I know plenty of friends who are more comfortable sniping). Where the corollary with MMORPGs breaks down is anyone can kill anyone else even sticking with the basic starting weapons.  A bullet to the head is a bullet to the head whether it comes from a stock  AEK Vintovka or an M416 sloted with a red dot. And no. When my old unit in West Germany (really putting a date stamp on this reference) transitioned from the M16A1 to the M16A2 (before the introduction of the SS109 rounds) I didn't magically get a bonus to my accuracy stats...

In MMORPGS, gear levels, like player character levels.....well you know the deal. A chest piece or helmet should provide protection and damage mitigation (to a point), not somehow add to your agility of all things. But can a player character of any game, armed with only a stock weapon and armored with only stock gear seriously take on another player character equiped with even average "stat" of comparable level? Nah.... 

And let's not even go into te whole "class" thing and "balance"....

You want to see what skill based melee combat is like? Give Mount and Blade a whirl. Now if they had THOSE combat mechanics in a MMORPG...

What you say is really the truth. Gear grind has to go and levels should only matter in what "skills" you have or what weapon types you can not in how much health/mitigation you have. A level 1 should have a chance to kill a level 80 in a skill based game

One thing I know: I'd be much more satisfied with imagination and intelligence taking an important part in gameplay rather than nimble fingers.

Originally posted by BioNut

I have been playing MMOs for a long time (Aceron's Call was my first) and I have never really been satisfied by the gameplay.  Well, why play them you ask? To be honest, I play them mostly to relax and have have some nice casual multiplayer with friends. I also play them for story and roleplaying purposes. But this said I would really like an MMO to come out that is not for casual gamers but for hardcore gamers.

 

But wait, wait!!!??!!! WoW has plenty Hardcore gamerzzz doesn't it?

Short answer= No, mmo hardcore people are NOT hardcore gamers. That thought is laughable.

Long answer= Hardcore gamers are people who enjoy games that require skill, not time commitment. (think street fighter, Call of Duty, japanese top down shooters).

This is really the crux of my issue with MMOs. They require absolutely no skill at all. I mean, there isnt a single open world MMO thats PvP or PvE  doesn't boil down to who has better gear, higher levels, better traits, etc.

I want to see a guy tank the biggest boss in the game wearing nothing at all because he is just that FREAKING good. I wanna see an underdog win because he has a flawless fight against a better geared character. I want to get ganked by three other people and end up killing them all because I am just that freaking good. I want skill to matter and gear to be a bonus.

That way players can truely become legendary not for being "first to" but for being epic. For fighting against all odds and winning. Until then MMOs will continue to be casual "side attractions" and stuck in the stone ages they find themselves in now.

I will keep playing though. Its nice to have some carebear games to play too. :)

 

Before the flaming starts this is a thought piece, I am primarily a twitch gamer, and I wonder how many like minded people are out there like me.

 

I generally agree with all that you said, but ... time = skill ... you can't be good in street fighter or fps game from the get go (unless you've played simirial games so you already have 'time' invested into your 'skill'). Imagine a newbie guitar player and a guitar master right next to each other. They use the same weapon, the guitar. Should a newbie play at the same skill as a master or be just a little worse? No, he didn't play for 20 constant years 8 hours straight mastering his art, and no matter how skilled the newbie is, he can't achive this level of skill without time investment!

What my point is, in current mmos time = gear + skill

We lack games where gear is very small and skill is much bigger, that's why I'm waitng on this new generation of action mmos like Tera, maybe they'll change things a bit!

Yawn. Someone else who thinks "skill" means "the reflexes of a mayfly on speed". ("I don't want to grind gear!" tends to translate to "I have serious ADD and just want to mash the attack button until my thumb breaks!")

Roleplaying games are about your CHARACTER, not you. Skill in an RPG should be in making choices as to WHAT your character does, or attempts to do -- whether or not the character succeeds should be up to the character's abilities. (Said abilities being, in turn, a consequence of the choices you made as you developed the character.)

I am not sure what the OP would want as an MMORPG. If "player skill" (twitch) is all that matters, what, exactly, do you DO that's any different from playing an FPS map? You can't quest for better gear, because "skill" is all that matters and you just mash buttons until you've developed enough "skill". You can't have real roles or character differentiation, because, again, "skill" is what matters so you can't have a "fighter" who can take more melee damage than a "wizard" because if the wizard is "skilled" enough, he can duck/weave/dodge all attacks. It seems that what the OP really wants is a massive online FPS, and I'm pretty sure there's plenty out there -- if not, there will be soon, as the up-and-coming generation tends to lack even the patience required for the easiest modern MMO.

I'd love an MMO that really required skill -- something that used the turn based, tactical, combat modeled perhaps on the old "Gold Box" D&D games, but with cool modern graphics and a lot more choices, options, and decision points. I'd call a "perfect" MMO one which combined the ship-fitting, constantly tweaking and adjusting and rebalancing aspect of EVE ("If I upgrade the CPU, I can install this module, but then I can't mount this laser, but this other laser does slightly more damage but at a shorter range and...") with a turn based, or at least slower paced, combat system, something which owed more to chess and M:TG (not in specific details, but in the sense of strategy, tactics, thought, and planning, together with a little luck, being the key to victory). I'm aware of the technical problems of mixing turn-based combat with a free-moving open world, but I'm sure it can be done if someone thought about it a bit. Well, more than a bit, it's not simple, but it's likely not insoluble.

And, please.. defining "Hardcore" as being a twitch gamer??? Give me an effin' break, you kids do not know what "hardcore" is. Sitting in front of your plasma screen mashing buttons is not hardcore. Playing Wizardry I on your Apple II where if your party died in the dungeon, it was DEAD FORVER -- not saved and respawned, but wiped out, finito, dead, gone, finished, 20, 30, 40 or more hours of playtime down the tubes, begin again, sucks to be you. THAT is hardcore, and I think today's whiny little twitch brats would just slit their wrists if a game did that to them. (And good bloody riddance.)

Or tell me you've won Nethack or ADOM without cheating. Or played "Advanced Squad Leader" (a counter-and-hex wargame). Or saw your Black Lotus show up as the ante in MTG. Then I'll consider you hardcore. Until then, you're a wannabe whose "skills" could be replicated by a sufficiently well trained chimp.

PS:Yeah, it was possible to rescue a lost party in Wizardry... but only by getting another party so powerful you could go to where the first party died, with empty slots in the party so as to be able to load up the corpses... IF you found the bodies.. and by that point, you'd just stick with the "new" party. Oh, did I mention that if you got a dead character out and had him raised, there was a chance he'd turn to ash? And while you could spend a lot of money to try a more powerful spell to raise him from ash, there was a chance THAT would fail and he'd be dead forever? Yeah. You kids are SO frackin' hardcore. Feh. Now get off of my lawn!

Originally posted by BioNut

But wait, wait!!!??!!! WoW has plenty Hardcore gamerzzz doesn't it?

Short answer= No, mmo hardcore people are NOT hardcore gamers. That thought is laughable.

Long answer= Hardcore gamers are people who enjoy games that require skill, not time commitment. (think street fighter, Call of Duty, japanese top down shooters).

 

I disagree with that assumption. But I agree mmo's based on skill are more interesting. However tactics, teamwork and communication are also important. I like games where teamwork can beat skilled players who don't work together  (i'm not talking about zerging) or even hard to beat mobs.

Originally posted by orangerascal

Originally posted by Rabenwolf

I cannot see Starcraft falling into that category since it isnt twitch based. It does require user input, and it is real time, but it features many different challenges found in the traditional MMO.

 

Starcraft is about as 'twitchy' as they come. It's not a coincidence that the best players in the world have APM's that hit 400+. (That's actions per minute for those not in the know). You know what 400 APM's are, its 6-7 mouseclicks/keystrokes per second. SC pro's go through a regiment that trains their eye-to-hand coordination to move that quickly. In korea you can hire coaches that improve this aspect of gameplay and these coaches are highly sought after.

Most newbies think starcraft is just a strategy game. It's not. Yes, there are stategic elements to starcraft like using the best units to counter your oppoenents units, but even the worst counter units can stand a chance if your micro-management is very good. Also starcraft's strategy is very limited as everyone has a pretty good idea of the best units to counter other units. Thus the game ends with whomever is the better twitch player.

-------------------------------

As for 'skills',  'skills' come in a variety of packages including

- group synergy

- situation awareness

- game knowledge

- twitch reflexes

- command experience

 

Look at any professional team like spain's football team. Each player including coaches will have great expertise in one or more of the following aforementioned attributes.

 You're oversimplifying what Starcraft is.  Starcraft, on some level outside of "professional" gaming, is about getting the cheapest units out the quickest possible to overrun your opponent before they start producing more.  Thus, it is about the zerg (not the race),

Originally posted by Lizard_SF

Yawn. Someone else who thinks "skill" means "the reflexes of a mayfly on speed". ("I don't want to grind gear!" tends to translate to "I have serious ADD and just want to mash the attack button until my thumb breaks!")

Roleplaying games are about your CHARACTER, not you. Skill in an RPG should be in making choices as to WHAT your character does, or attempts to do -- whether or not the character succeeds should be up to the character's abilities. (Said abilities being, in turn, a consequence of the choices you made as you developed the character.)

.....

 Yawn...and yet another so called gamer who assumes the only thing going on in more "twitch" skill based games is the constant mashing of the attack button....

Ahhhh, now I understand...You must be one of those guys standing around doing nothing particularly useful all the while MCOM A or B has been rigged with a charge and it needs to be defused, but you just stand there trading shots with some other knucklehead in the enemy back forty. Or maybe you're the medic who passes three casualties on by in his charge to get shot down himself five steps later. Or one of the guys who never looks at the minimap, only running straight to the enemy uncap all the while Suburbs has fallen and the Train Accident flag is going down....

Must be all the lights and noise freakin your little mind out so that when someone is actually shooting you or one of your teammates you get that deer-in-the-headlights syndrome thing right?  

Because your own "twitch" skills may be lacking is no reason to get upset that you can't shoot, move, and communicate with the youngsters any more. Because everyone knows there's no skill at all involved in looking at the minimap and seeing which objective is under attack and responding. Or on the other side seeing where the defenses are set up tight and finding another avenue of approach to get to the objective right? 

But you are right. It IS about your character and not about You.

The question to ask here is does Player Character Skill overide Player Skill? Should it? Does the game being a PVE or vP focused game make a difference in that determination?

Mount and Blade is completely skill based and yet has a healthy dose of both PVE and PvP elements. Can such a game be made into a MMO?

PS: Oh and yeah I remember playing Castle Wolfenstein in Computer Science (when those classes even existed) and all the rest of that happy horse####. So what? It took me just a little over a week to make one star in MW2 when it released. Probably another to finish it to five and get prestige unlock (which I have NOT done. WaW was enough of that for me). I play tabletop Traveler D20 every other month and plenty other games both online and off. Again so what? Any time someone has to "harcken back to te good old days"....should automatically get suspicions up. Noone has a lock on what hardcore or what constitutes "real" gamer skills. 

Originally posted by ntstlkr

 

Because your own "twitch" skills may be lacking is no reason to get upset that you can't shoot, move, and communicate with the youngsters any more. Because everyone knows there's no skill at all involved in looking at the minimap and seeing which objective is under attack and responding. Or on the other side seeing where the defenses are set up tight and finding another avenue of approach to get to the objective right? 

You might want to go read the OP's post. He wants to go zappity-zap-zap and solo "bosses" because he's just that amazing. This has nothing to do with the things you mentioned. He wants an MMO"RPG" which has, near as I can tell, no RPG elements -- just button mashing.

Team tactics, etc, are indeed a real test of skill. One reason I liked Warhammer was that the instanced maps and even the open PVP, if you were lucky enough to get vaguely balanced sides, really showed the difference between coordinated players who knew what they had to do for a team win and idiots running all over the place as if there was no goal but to charge the nearest enemy -- or large group of enemies,solo -- and die, over and over. The OP WANTS that to work. He wants "player skill" to mean he can rush into a huge group of enemies, PVE or PVP, and win every time. This is the antithesis of wanting a game which rewards strategy, planning, and tactics, even if *implementing* those tactics requires reflexes.

And, yup, my own "skills" do indeed suck, and I will never claim otherwise, and they did even when I was 13. Reflexes, not my thing. However, that's irrelevant to my argument.

(I'd love to see some more MMOs with a)harsh choices in character development and no easy respec/change... you make your picks, you live with 'em, and b)A harsh death penalty that doesn't overly punish one bad pull or one mistake, but which grows progressively worse the more times you die in a short period, to discourage people who just try to win by attrition or mindlessly attack because, who knows, they might get lucky.)

Sorry OP, but you are too far on the other end of the spectrum for the vast majority of people.

Yes, MMOS are lacking in a need for skill, but if a person can tank a boss naked, that is too far away from what I consider RPG elements. If it is possible for a person to solo things like that, the game looses a need for teamwork, and looses the need for an MMO aspect. Stick with your twitch games with crazy flashy moves. I doubt MMOs will ever have anything near what you are thinking.

Thread Summary:

I thinkz you iz all n00bz

every1 noez dat my kinda gamez iz better dan ur gamez cuz it take mad skillz to play MY kinda gamez

UR game iz jus 4 R Tardz and ijits

2 B a real game take shootemup skillz

The OP's post merely says that the succesful outcome of a fight, that emphasis should be upon the actions of the player in that fight and not the gear he has or what level his character is. A sentiment I can agree with but honestly don't know how you would integrate with contemporary RPG mechanics.  Even Mass Effect 2, which changed it's combat mechanics to a more "twitch" style system, has increasing levels of abilities (read as "magical" skills). So a game which should be relatively easy to translate into an MMO (well I figure...) and which has a level of twitch style combat will still have a level of RPG mechanics as well, which in turn will influence any potential combat between players... 

I would add that I do not agree with the OP that MMORPGs in their current or hell in any format at all, should be regarded as "carebear".  They are what they are and that's all. I don't, as you also observe, see too many of the so called "hardcore" pvp types crying out for Final Death and so forth.

My point in my post was to be wary of assuming that the only thing being exercised in twitch based combat games are the reflexes needed to push the attack button as fast as humanly possible.   

Search for Bloodline champions. Based on skill only, no gear, no level. I'm in the beta.

Originally posted by ntstlkr

My point in my post was to be wary of assuming that the only thing being exercised in twitch based combat games are the reflexes needed to push the attack button as fast as humanly possible.   

This is true.

However, if the OP desires the ability to beat any content (player or computer controlled) in an MMORPG single handedly, based on "skill", it's hard to see how he defines "skill" as anything other than button mashing, or, contrariwse, how the game he desires could be considered an MMORPG even under the very broad accepted definitions of the term. If gear or character abilities matter at all, then, given two equally skilled players, the better geared/specced/levelled whatever will win. If it doesn't matter at all, then what do you in the game besides just spawn and fight each other, and, if that's all you do, why not just play an FPS? Even if you focus on holding territory/claiming land/etc, you need to get some mechanical, in game benefit from doing so. (Something else we hardly ever see in MMORPGs is the use of terrain. How about attack bonuses if you have the high ground? How about forcing enemies into a narrow passage so they can only attack 1 by 1, with full collision so you can't just walk through your allies?)

For all the whining the allegedly "hardcore" do on these forums about how "carebear" instanced  and/or level-segregated PVP is, in an MMORPG, that's about the only way you'll actually see "skill" -- when all equipment, class/character abilities, etc, are within a tight enough band that teamwork, knowledge, and training actually come into play. (I'd say "zerging takes 0 skill", but I've been in groups that couldn't organize even "Everyone charge the big guy" and pull it off. Sigh.)

Originally posted by uquipu

On youtube, there are dozens of WoW pvp videos of people who are so good that they fight naked, eg, without equipment against fully geared opponents. And they win.
.
What is skill exactly? Is pushing a button at the right time a skill?

And you believe youtube hahaha.

You still dont understand OP as so many themeparkers will never understand what he means:P

Which MMO's don't take skill?

Correction, what P2P MMO's take skill, cus no F2P ones do.

Everything takes skill if you take it far enough. Just because you cry from exploiters does not mean they do not have skill, while victims always spam that. If you think it doesn't take skill to play the game you are, then stop playing, or get skill.