EVE online is given as an inspiration for Pathfinder Online. One thing I think you should directly take from them is their skill system.
Eve skill is very broad (a gazillion different skills) but very shallow ( only five levels from novice to master). It also accrete with time IRL (x hours/days to wait until next level)
I think it goes very well with a PVP oriented game. An older player is not inherently better, he is more versatile. This tends to level the playing field though an older player will continue to have an edge over a younger player.
It is very different from other game where level differences are huge. There is now way a level 40 can take on a level 60, which in my opinion will deter many people from PVP if you have to grind until you are maxed level wise.
The earning of skill level is also very good for keeping semi-active players involved. One thing I would change though I that I would go for a middle-ground. Your character should gain a set number of baseline xp per hour but should you decide to "grind xp" you would win additional xp.
Hence a player who put in the time will level faster but a player who does not will still see his character improve which will open new content to him an thus keep him in the game.
Goblin Squad Member
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We have had this discussion a great deal on these forums and although I do like Eve's system and feel it should be learned from, it is built to reflect a sci-fi setting than that of a fantasy setting.
The range of ones acquisition of skill in Eve is governed by nothing but time, yet it is plausible that a good commander of a ship may be skilled in a wide range of skills offered in Eve; flying different ships, using different weapon systems, repairing etc etc.
In a fantasy setting however, things become much simpler and thus far more difficult. It becomes less probably in a fantasy setting that a warrior skilled in the use of full plate armour, sword and shield, can throw down his armour and launch a fireball at it's unsuspecting prey before picking up a bow and shooting his enemny in the back with an expertly placed arrow and then whipping out a staff to heal himself with a spell. If you do not curb the depth of knowledge of any single player, or remove access to some skills should others be taken, player roles which are and always will be a staple of the setting will simply evaporate..
Pilots have a wealth of transferable skills. Warrior and mages? less so.
That's why I am suggesting a hybrid system by which you gain skill points over time (a la EVE) plus additional skill points when you kill mobs/complete quests ( a la WOW)
I do not think such a system has been discussed before ( if not, my mistake)
Any direct mechanical advantage that a player gets simply for having had their account longer than another player is ridiculous, especially if the newer player will never have the chance to be on equal footing.
Combine this with a non-consensual PvP sandbox game and you will have a disaster.
Moro, this is offset by a limited number of skill rank within a skill. I would say only 5 ranks from novice to master. For example, once you reach the uppermost rank of "master" with a sword then this is it.
Contrary to what you say, a new player will ultimately be on equal footing. It is the whole point of the system. It will only take the said new player some time which he can choose to shorten by actively completing quests.
In my opinion, it beats having to level out to the max before you can even contemplate having a fighting chance in PVP. The alternative is to set a system under which you can only PVP with people roughly of your level. The drawback to this system is that it de facto limit the number of People you can PVP with.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Any direct mechanical advantage that a player gets simply for having had their account longer than another player is ridiculous, especially if the newer player will never have the chance to be on equal footing.
Combine this with a non-consensual PvP sandbox game and you will have a disaster.
Well, Eve is a non-Consensual PVP game.. and has the Skills over time.. is far form a disaster.
Ask the Goonswarm about how 100 Million skill point players die every time to groups low skill point players. Swarm tactics. An Entire Allaince of Vetrean players on eve were defeated, and disbanded by players with less than 10 million SP.
In a fantasy setting however, things become much simpler and thus far more difficult. It becomes less probably in a fantasy setting that a warrior skilled in the use of full plate armour, sword and shield, can throw down his armour and launch a fireball at it's unsuspecting prey before picking up a bow and shooting his enemny in the back with an expertly placed arrow and then whipping out a staff to heal himself with a spell. If you do not curb the depth of knowledge of any single player, or remove access to some skills should others be taken, player roles which are and always will be a staple of the setting will simply evaporate..
1 way to get around this... You can't change armors and equipment while engaged in combat, and changing Equipment takes time... Stripping off that Ful-plate armor is gonna take 60 seconds of being vunerable and exposed... and limit the use of some skills while weilding diffrent equipment.
Like in Eve, Thou i have 5 ranks tons of Combat Skills, they are almost useless when i'm in a Logistics ship (healer).
Moro, this is offset by a limited number of skill rank within a skill. I would say only 5 ranks from novice to master. For example, once you reach the uppermost rank of "master" with a sword then this is it.
Contrary to what you say, a new player will ultimately be on equal footing. It is the whole point of the system. It will only take the said new player some time which he can choose to shorten by actively completing quests.
In my opinion, it beats having to level out to the max before you can even contemplate having a fighting chance in PVP. The alternative is to set a system under which you can only PVP with people roughly of your level. The drawback to this system is that it de facto limit the number of People you can PVP with.
You still need to put in the time to level your skills to max in order to be on roughly equal footing in PvP, and while you are doing that the person that has been around longer than yourself, while not necessarily being a better player than you, has moved on and is gaining the upper hand in a different area.
So no, until the two players in question have maxxed out all of their skills, they will not be on equal footing at all.
What makes this any different than leveling to max class level and then gaining equal gear? Any way you work it, the newer player is at a disadvantage. The only difference is that the disadvantage becomes obsolete faster with more effort put in on the part of the new player in a typical WoW or Rift setting.
I am very curious as to how PFO plans to eliminate the new player/established player gap.
You still need to put in the time to level your skills to max in order to be on roughly equal footing in PvP, and while you are doing that the person that has been around longer than yourself, while not necessarily being a better player than you, has moved on and is gaining the upper hand in a different area.
Correct. That is the advantage the older player get. I think this is right that old player should have some advantage (other than their greater experience of the game) than complete beginner. Otherwise, players would loose all the motivation and satisfaction of levelling up their character
So no, until the two players in question have maxxed out all of their skills, they will not be on equal footing at all.
Not entirely true. For a given set of equipment (which has its advantages and disadvantages) a new player can rapidly (but not immediately) become as proficient as an experienced player. However, should the experienced player become in the meatime proficient with another set of equipment then that is another matter. The trick here is to make sure that some combination of equipment are better in some situation and much less so in other. Hence having access to the right tool becomes key and by right tool that does not necessarily mean an expensive one. For example, Chain mail was mightily useful until the invention of the crossbow which could puncture
I am very curious as to how PFO plans to eliminate the new player/established player gap.
me too. I do not think that there is an ideal system but what I've seen in EVE is to my mind one of the better (if not best) systems.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think with some thought put into it, one would find that indeed a virtually identical approach with hundreds of skills could be developed and fit the fantasy genre ....The time to skill means players that wish to become very proficient at something cannot take a jack of all trades approach. Sure, as in EvE, after a long time playing I could develop specific melee skills along with casting skills or whatever. But I think that is a good thing where over time you build in flexibility to your character. The control of what I can do in any particular combat does not need to be controlled simply by the whole set of skills I know, but rather, can be controlled by other mechanics. For example, I cannot instantly change my role in combat no more than can I can instantly jump from my ranged DPS battleship to a logistics...
I can never agree that a veteran player should, on a single character, wield a smithy hammer and craft the best gear, wield a sword and slay the hardest dragon, wield a staff and cast the greatest spell, wield a saw and build a house, wield a pen and write Shakespeare - regardless of time played.
Do this across separate characters. You achieve the same goal and it rules out the possibility that the most established player can have an unfair advantage over a lesser established player. Veterans may have a crafter character, a warrior/mage character, a politician and roleplay character etc. It's logical and it allows people to develop different player characters than forever chasing the 'single god character'.
Games like Eve dissuade the casual gamer from playing more than one character as they cannot progress simultaneously in their race to god status. This is disastrous in my eyes to a roleplaying game in a fantasy setting. To successfully run 2 different playstyles in Eve (as far as I am aware), you must run and pay for 2 seperate accounts so that they can progress at the same time as only one character on an account may 'skill up' at a time. That, in my mind, is ridiculous and severely limiting.
Han Solo may very well be mutli-talened. D&D and Pathfinder exists around a world with logical boundaries. Spread your expertise across characters to fit the mould and limitations of Golarion. Leave the god characters in the future where they belong, or in Darkfall where it has contributed to the death of the game.
The number of skill point to reach the next skill rank in EVE scale with the skill level. Levelling from rank 4 to 5 can take months of real time to gain a few % more. Knowing you can only train one skill at a time, it gives you a pretty good incentive to specialise.
Furthermore, some skills require other skills before becoming accessible, hence a further incentive to specialise.
No one in EVE after 8 year is a master of all trades
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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A few thoughts, it seems like there will be Classes, and while it won't be using the Pathfinder RPG mechanics it is still reasonable to in a Fantasy MMO RPG (as drawn from the Pen and Papers) to have a Cap/Max to a class' ability.
Now that Cap could be a mobile as EVEs with Skill Points accumulated with time to keep from imposed and then expanded Caps, as WoW and others do, There would be a master "Total Skill Points" accumulated in the game over time which is the "Cap" for everyone. Now speaking from my EVE experience, unless you were a relentless perfectionist, no one in EVE was ever at that Cap. You lost skill points every time you slotted an implant, every time you missed switching to a new skill to train, and so on. Even the oldest and best players were technically behind on the master total.
This opens the idea of using Quests/Adventuring/Etc to help fill that gap. If you are hard core enough to grind for "Skill Points" why shouldn't a new player or even an old player who goofed on timing be able to catch back up to the cap. This creates an incentive for newer player's to be more active, especially those that want to really get into the game. The game is still Capped. Casual players who were on first don't have to grind as much, new players who grind to the top can now chill like they were "old school" and people who are new and casual can just float along with the spot of grinding to speed up what they like.
There's something else to consider from the City of Heroes MMO. Which is logging off in Career locations, such as in the Hospital, a Shop, Police Station. etc. When logged off in those locations you earned points toward a career badge... which itself had little to no use in game other then as cool name tag. Extend that a bit to actually Skill Point accumulation rates. Log off in a "Profession" site and get a slight bonus to Skill Point increase to those areas. Still not faster then grinding to the top or being an original, but a possibility. This could help a tad with the Time Zone issue of 1 world sever. I'll extend my thoughts on Time Zone thread.
Now Free to Play vs Pay to Play. If you Pay to Play allow Skill Points to auto accumulate, that is feature you are playing for. If you are Free to Play you have to grind to the cap. If one wants to just cruise on free skill points over time let them pay. This is also a Toon grower trap so people who are just auto growing a Toon on a separate account for grey/black market resale (it happens in EVE) is having to pay Goblinworks and thus still contributing to the game... with money rather then interaction and activity.
At the end of it all there is a defined "Max" so even the most dedicated grinder can't grind past it. Grinding just gets them caught up as in any other MMO.
Take some, leave some, hope this gives some thoughts of interest.