Should leveling be possible without combat?

[Cosmik]

This is a discussion I've seen come and go for a while now, but there are some really good new ideas here. I'll pass these onto the designers.

[_____________n0th1ng]

Cosmik, this is the thing that will make many move their finger away from the cancel button...people need more than just hunting/missions/chat for a good online game..just check any other online game and see what made it so great

[Niksa]

This is an idea that was used in some text-based games that I also play - giving xp for roleplay.

This has to be balanced well, though, and there are many different ways that it could be abused, so it really needs to be carefully examined.

Basically, for every emote that you do in a room with other people, you get an amount of xp. Says also give xp. Any OOC method of communication would not give xp. Plus, the longer you are in an area with people, you would gain more xp through each action - similar to team levels.

Obviously there would need to be policing. Active RP ARKs, who deal with l33t3rz and who can give XP bonuses and demotions for roleplayers. This would take a tremendous amount of work for FC, though, since they have an extreme amount of players. Automation without depending on human involvement is always prefered in this type of game. It works a lot better on text-based, small player base environments, it seems.

However, if ARKs could basically create missions and give a serious amount of xp, that would be a start. These missions could be anything from scavenger hunts, scouting parties, mob locators or even raiding parties. "Find me: 1 yellow booty shorts, 1 bronto burger, 2 different QL of monster parts.."

The problem with this, however, is that almost all the cities in Rubi-ka are the same. Omni-Trade has the same Miiir fashion store as Athen or Newland, and probably 98% of the items are randomly generated into each of these territories. Some of the neutral clothes are different, true, and some armor is omni only. Even so, this would make scavenger hunt missions really lame. Now, if you had to go to Borealis for yellow booty shorts, Omni-Trade for the Bronto burger... that would be interesting!

But yes, killing monsters over and over gets tedious. Variation is great, and roleplayers should be rewarded. Turn RK-1 into a hack n slash and make RK-2 a RP-only server. (Allow character migration between servers if they'd rather RP or HnS, one-time switch.) Have missions on the RP server more RP-oriented, and let the twinks have their own world. Far far away, in a distance server..

[__________Beautyfarm]

there just HAVE to be other ways to get xp and money ( not to mention FUN ) than by killing dumb mobs.

one way is to change mission designs, making it suitable for different (and profession related) playstyles, not only shoot and smash as it is now.
second is, get tradeskills working !! they'r already in the code, so why not making it work ?
this would imply three steps,
1st fix the already implemented kits/recipes, they'r almost all bugged
2nd add items to build theres actually a demand for. who wants to buy a blackened blaster rifle ??
3rd balance the buy parts/sell items prices. its annoying to try 20 kits/recipes to get one working...just to see the item wont sell to players cuz its crap and it sells to a vendor for about that much u bought one of the about 20 parts b4
shouldnt be too much work...

cant speak for the sneaky professions, cuz i dont play one. soldiers and enfs should be just fine with the way it is

[_______________Cyber]

im no programer and not Sure how hard this would be to do but here goes.
the problem is fairly simple really make 2 sets of Skills each with there own Ips one for combat one for RPing/ tradeskills.
...... whatever.
u do some trade skill u get trade skill Ip points...
u do combat u get combat IP points.. simple and everyones happy..
Hell no Trade person should EVER and i mean EVER be allowed to build combat Related Skill form sitting makeing stuff or doing Emotes... that just doesnt make any sence whatsoever and ANYONE that said it does ...well..we wont go there..
think about it for a min FC will actually have a way to help the trade skill people and still have a good reason to do combat.. same goes for the person out hunting powerlvling 24/7 he shouldnt be worth a **** at trade skills..
BUT under the current system a power lvler can hunt the 24/7 and 2 months later walk out of the woods able to make the best items and implants in the game .. and um hes never even picked up the damn tools or just done enough implants to keep him going..
(actually he doesnt even do that because he cant actually MAKE the ones he is useing..... witch isnt a bad thing .but the way it was done was bad..
he did it because of OEing and not because he lacked the skills to make his own......"this may actually have change slightly with 14.2 but it doesnt change my point in the matter.
witch if u think about it .......a person that spents all his time in the woods hunting/missions SHOULDNT be able to make trade SKILLs at all .. sorry about the rant but this really makes no sence to me at all the way the system is set up as it stands now..
please flame away or post your views on this matter..

Cyber

Ps... forgive my english isnt that great ..

[_____________Nalissa]

Well.. To me that's a trick question. In my opinion a modern game system shouldn't use levels in the first place. It's a flawed system from it's inception and was designed to minimize the complexity of a system (D&D) in the first place. We have computers so we really don't need a simple system we can fit on a peice of paper anymore. All the MMORPG's seem to have done to the base system is build off of it instead of abolish it. Just like windows 95 - a system build off of a crappy DOS base that still carried with it all the limitations of the original DOS even though those limitations were sooooo stupid for a modern system to still possess. THAT is how progress is happening in MMORPG's.

In reality an experienced warrior might be stronger than a new one - but not alot. He might be able to take a hit better than a new warrior - but not much harder. A lethal bullet will kill an experienced warrior just as dead as an inexperienced one. The only difference is that the experienced warrior has the SKILL to keep him OUT of situations where a bullet is going to enter his chest.

In this sense i believe that practicing a skill should make you better at that skill. You should not be able to gain strength from reading a book (unless it's a very heavy book), although you may increase your reading skills. This direct relationship between learning process and skill increase is difficult to keep track of on paper, but child's play for a program to handle.

In any case my answer to the stated question is NO. You shouldn't be able to become superman from weaving baskets. On the other hand, you should be able to increase your basket-weaving skill - but the AO system doesn't allow for that. And it really is too late to change. AO is not a true skill-based system - and never will be. Too much water under the bridge - never happen.

[____________Hitokage]

Don't know if this has allready been mentioned in this thread (too lzy to read through them all... besides, I should actually be working now ), but if so, and I'm sure it has:

- Lower the price on trade skill items to make the use of trade skills a viable way to earn xp. Got no beef with the amount of xp from it (though all up's would be appreciated anyways ), but it just costs too darn much.

Having helluva lot of fun making Emergency Treatment Kits (which I actually find useful despite the 30 sec lock on treatment skill). Just don't wanna go broke from it.

(Besides, it turns our chem/pharm buff into something usefull... now if we were only allowed to make poison... as seems to have been the intention once)