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The Dilemma of Level vs. Skill In MMOs
Karen Hertzberg writes "Since MMORPGs became a mainstream medium, players have debated the two primary methods of advancement. Which is better? Is it the level-based system that is so dominant in today's MMORPGs, or the lesser-used skill-based system? This has been a strong subject of debate on many forums, blogs, and gaming sites for as long as the genre has existed. Ten Ton Hammer's Cody 'Micajah' Bye investigates the two concepts and gathers input from some of the brightest minds in the gaming industry about their thoughts on the two systems of advancement."
Relatedly, I've seen a growing trend of players saying that such games don't really take much skill at all. The standard argument is that it just boils down to "knowing how to move" or "knowing when to hit your buttons." In the MMO community, people often make references to FPS or RTS games, saying they have a higher skill cap. However, the same complaints also come from within those communities, with comments like "you just need to know the map," or "it's all about a good build order." At what point does intimate knowledge of a game's mechanics make a player skilled?
From the article itself:
"To ensure that we're being absolutely crystal clear, this article isn't focused on the discussion concerning the differences between the pure RPG leveling system versus "player skill-based" games. That's a completely different conversation altogether, and - unfortunately - some of our paneled public and developers thought that was where the discussion was leading, and thus some answers from particular teams won't be printable...at least in this article."
Just a quip about it. The editor is thinking about 'Skill as in I twitch faster or know the map', whereby rather I believe they are referring to a Skill Point mechanic instead of a Leveling Up mechanic... that is, I have a "46.5% skill in Swordmanship" instead of "I'm a level 20 Swordsman". Usually a Level based mechanic has some aspects of a Skill Based system as well (but usually it's relegated to Crafting in online games like WoW or DAoC); but to me the main difference was rather looked at as a "Class Based System" vs a "Skill Based System", which has been a debate in gaming long before computers came to the genre with things like "DnD" being a CBS and "Star Frontiers" being a Skill based system. Personally, I generally perfer a Skill based system for a variety of small reasons.
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
The article is talking about skill-based character progression systems in RPGs (e.g., Elder Scrolls), not player skill in the general sense. There's a goddamn paragraph on the first page that clarifies this, but apparently that wasn't enough.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Not to mention that skills only enable you to use some kind of new equipment, it does very little as to how, where and when to use it. In fact, being a highly skilled pilot has more to do with real skill than anything the game provides, i.e.: the new Tech 3 class of ships, they are awesome, quite expensive in terms of money and skillbook requirements, but they don't make you invincible, a good skilled Tech 1 cruiser pilot could kill you if you are not careful, using equipment worth only less than 1% of the cost of your t3 cruiser.
Actually, I think the problem is that the summary makes a hash of it. The "advancement through skill" from the quoted part, is not the same meaning of "skill" that the following submitter rant uses.
The "skill" in the "skill-based vs level-based MMO" debate, is not about the [b]player's[/b] skills, but about the [b]character's[/b] skills. _Major_ difference.
A "skill-based MMO" (or MUD) does _not_ mean you have to learn to circle-strafe or be a cyber-athlete or anything. They can be just as mindless affairs as WoW. (And I'm actually not saying that as a bad thing: I actually like WoW.) They just mean it has no levels, but they have a bunch of skill numbers and you spend your xp directly on the skills and stats.
Heck, you could even make a turn-based skill-based games if you wanted to, and in fact some have actually been made.
A good example of a skill-based system is Vampire: Bloodlines. It doesn't have levels at all. You get some xp and you spend it directly on raising your strenght, or your dexterity, or your melee skill, or your lockpicking skill. Having more experience doesn't automatically make you tougher at some point. You could buy only social abilities for a long while for example, and be an elder vampire that can't fight worth Jack, but could probably convince the Pope and Arafat to get married to each other. Or instead you could be the toughest kung-fu master but unable to talk even your best friend into seeing things your way. Or learn a lot of spells right from the start. Or anything in between.
A good example of a level-based game are most old D&D games. You inherently have a to-hit modifier or access to spells based on your level. Inherently being higher level makes you better.
And Fallout 3 is actually a hybrid rather than just level-based. At its heart, what matters are your character skills, not your level. The level just gives you points to put in your skills.
Or if you want an example based on WoW, imagine a game that plays exactly like WoW, but has no levels. Instead of your sword skill automatically raising its cap by 5 points each time you level up, you don't level up, but spend xp to buy more sword skill. Or instead of getting a new spell every 2 levels, you have no levels, but buy spells with xp. You don't get +1 this stat, and +2 that stat, etc, when you level up, you buy stat increases with xp.
That would also mean that all restrictions on equipment have to be skill based instead of level based. In a skill-based game you don't have some sword that requires minimum level 39, you have a sword that requires, say, minimum 195 sword skill. If you want to use it, you dump your xp into sword skill. If you want to be a mage, you dump your xp into spell skills instead and don't get to use that sword too soon.
That's really what a skill-based MMO would look like.
But other than that, the game would still play exactly like WoW. You wouldn't need any more player skill to go do the Lakeshire quests in that setup, than you need in the real level-based WoW.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
" Except, get this, wait for it...., you don't die at 100%. In fact there's no set limit you die at. The game just decides it's your time to die. Sometimes their damage is at 150% or higher"
The problem is you haven't played smash brothers, smash brothers is in fact a skill based game. The more damage you take the easier it is to ring you out, the idea is to take the least damage as possible because the more damage you take using special moves at higher damage percentages will ring you out instantly for a win.
You just have to learn which moves will ring out and smash people out of the screen at high percentages.
The damage system is actually innovative in that you *do* increase your risk of dying by people who actually attempted to understand the game.
Ironically your complaint that your son didn't try to figure it out himself, when you didn't try to figure out smash brothers system is itself a bit humorous. :)