Class Systems Suck, Skill Systems Swallow
Ubiq of Zen of Design sparked the most recent debate about class systems vs. skill systems while I was in Germany. He argues that class systems are better than skill systems for a number of reasons, and I agree with most of them. Lum the Mad also nodded his head in agreement to Ubiq, followed a short while later by my main man Moorgard, who is also a fan of classes for the most part.
I am still one of the few MMO developers who is convinced that skill-based games are better. Read up on most of my opinions in an article I wrote a few months back called Artificial Restrictions: Classes. What it comes down to is that I don’t like being restricted to defining a class for my character. I prefer for the actions of my character to dictate what my character is best at, and don’t feel any developer is capable of determining that for me (as a player).
I’m one of those players that has altitis–I continually reroll characters because I’m never quite happy with one, and it ends up taking me ages to get maxed out. I have a theory: Players with altitis need skill-based games. They are the fans of choices and enemies of conformity who just can’t handle being restricted to one class.
I must point out (before I get steamrolled by people who know the difficulties of making skill-based games) that I wouldn’t create a skill-based system quite in the traditional sense. No Morrowind or Oblivion because, as Ubiq pointed out, those are the most unbalanced skill systems of all time (which is probably a good reason why they’ve never made an MMO out of Elder Scrolls, because you’d lose that unique flavor that IS Elder Scrolls).
Instead, I would make a skill-based system that has built-in checks and balances. Mechanical ways that make it so you don’t want to make a tank-mage, because you’re going to be limiting your character in both departments by doing so. Methods to determine what “class” a character is by its stat and skill make-up similar to UO, just a bit more telling and less user-exploitable.
I have some tricks up my sleeve that I think are different enough from the norm that I shouldn’t post them here, so I won’t. Every game design is worth a dime, but methods to solve age-old problems are worth a million. If you fire me an email and I trust you implicitly, I may discuss some of the ways I feel a skill-based game can exist without being harder to balance than a class-based game (easier to balance than a class-based game, in my opinion). Anyway, read up on the following posts if you’re interested in the topic:
- Classes (plus, If Quoting History, You Should Know It) (Ubiq)
- Ubiq’s a Classy Guy (Lum)
- Like School in Summertime (Moorgard)
- Artificial Restrictions: Classes (Blackguard)
- Stay Classy (j, probablynot)
- MMORPG Classes (steve, Sierra Kilo)
- Do Classes Suck? (Raph)
Form your own opinion about class vs. skill systems, and see if you can come up with some solutions of your own about how to either a) make skill-based systems less horrible to balance or b) make class-based systems give the player more control. Those are the two worst aspects of each, in my opinion.
Isn’t the real problem with balancing classes really about how to achieve an optimal and fair model of advancement for players? That is, how you unlock the “next” skill or a “better” skill than an other player rather keeping all players equal in power and performance (to level) all the time? I’m not trying to be smart or put the cart in front of the horse. It seems to me that with an advancement model that is 100% combat based the problem is not balancing skills or specials between each other, it’s really about how to figure how players can unlock those skills (i.e. levelling). Am I looking at this wrong? It may be a too complicated point of view and it’s more realistic to look at a skill-to-skill method. I know it’s the same problem, just asking about a different approach to it. Thanks.
While I never played UO in live (it was seriously broken at launch and I was protesting), I really respected what they did and what AC did with their skill-based systems. I always felt like I was MY character. I wasn’t being canned into what the developers felt I should play. I could do what I want and what made UO even more special was that I could step back and change things if I didn’t like it.
Undoubtably Skill systems are the most difficult to balance, class-based systems are the easy way out for the developer who doesn’t want to spend time to make a game right. And ultimately yes, many players will end up the same, off of some sort of ideal “best” that some forums mongers have come up with for some odd reason. But isn’t that their CHOICE? Isn’t that the point? I mean in class-based systems, everyone starts out the same, why is the biggest point class-based people argue that people end up the same? This happens in both systems, yet even if 95% of the population uses the same skills (as what happened in the horribly imbalanced AC), the thing that a skill-based system still has on the class-based system is that the player chose that, and it empowered the player in a way the class-based system doesn’t have the ability to do. Ultimately this gives the player a much larger connection to their character than their class-based counterparts. I still feel closer connected to my axe,melee d,magic d spec’d AC char than any class-based char I’ve hade since, or previously to.Yes it was essentially a modern day guardian in a lot of ways, but it was very unique in that game and I felt I could do a lot other people couldn’t with it. (didn’t die once until level 35… and by 85 died only a handful of times… unheard of in that game).
To this day one of the main things that kept me out of World of Warcraft was that I HATED the classes, they were all lame. I may have stuck with it longer (even though I abhored the easiness of it, i had a lot of friends there) had they had a playstyle that I enjoyed or allowed me to create a playstyle I enjoyed. But they didn’t. Heck with it’s, what 16?, classes, I don’t feel particularly happy with EQ2. I feel shoehorned into certain archetypes because that is what other players expect…in skill-based there may be a skill or two everyone needs, but at least the rest is up to you….
It seems to me that with an advancement model that is 100% combat based the problem is not balancing skills or specials between each other, it?s really about how to figure how players can unlock those skills (i.e. levelling).
Maybe we shouldn’t be allowing progression of skills then, you chose your skills at character creation, or re-allocate them by earning a respec. Then advance through a combination of new gear and gaining slots for your skills and gear that allow you to upgrade them, but only a small amount, always with tradeoffs and with a finite amount of improvement. (similar to slotting systems used in CoH and some other games)
This means that you then just need to balance a set number of skills per character and not worry about who has the most skills.
Obviously a system without the leveling treadmill would need some other gameplay element that would keep people about but that’s another story.
[...] I was away, of course, but i am sure that plenty of people have expected me to jump in on the never-ending debate on class-based systems. So I thought I should, but with brevity. [...]
What about a system like Dungeon Siege?
[...] The topic of “Class vs Skill Systems” is a very very very very very very very very popular topic right now. [...]
I think that people view skill systems in the wrong light. There is actually less of a balancing requirement for skill systems because meritocracy reigns within the player environment. We need to remember that equality is not the same as equal opportunity. We should strive for equal opportunity, not equality.
We’ve struggled with the class versus skill debate for awhile now.
What other systems are available? Are there other approaches to character development? Where’s the innovation?
Character advancement…
Well, it seems that Damion Schubert has rekindled the age-old fires of Classes vs. Skill-based character systems. I doubt that they were ever extinguished, but there’s a fury of articles coming up discussing it. Nerfbat and WorldIV trackback…
Class-Based Systems Suck, Skill-Based Systems Swallow
Hey, another developer out here believes in the relative superiority of skill-based systems! As I posted in response to Raph’s entry, it’s about emergent gameplay. Skill-based systems are harder to balance because there is more opportunity for unexpected (that is, emergent) gameplay. Class-based systems are easier to balance because they restrict this thing many developers claim to be one of the most interesting aspects of our games.
Not to say that all games should be skill-based, but I think the current domination of class-based gameplay is a bit sad.
[...] My friend Blackguard has a new post up on Skill based character progression, versus class based progression.? It has some decent points and is stirring up some debate (Note: Blackguard wrote his piece in response to a similar piece by Ubiq on Zen of Design). [...]
To be honest I think the issue of balancing is overstated. Any system no matter how much time you invest in it as a developer will have flaws that can be exploited and will bring benefits to a certain playstyle.
Balancing seems a matter of impossibility since as Moorgard stated it’s more a matter of player perception than anything else.
If I as a player see a warrior rip through dozens of monsters in an instant I would be tempted to create a warrior myself disregarding the fact that said warrior may only be able to slice very slowly through other types of opponents.
Looking back at the days of diablo 2 and the constant skill balancing changes with every patch I find that I am still at my best in a non-warrior ranged attack class. Why? Because it suits my specific playstyle best. A warrior could be fairly powerful but still utterly useless in my hands.
Sure the average powergamer will gravitate towards the most ‘gimpy’ character build available. But lets face it, not everybody is an end-game oriented powergamer and as a result character diversity is guaranteed amongst casual gamers. After all a casual gamer will choose a character that suits his/her own playstyle and play it a few hours a day rather than farming xp to maximize character potential like most powergamers do (in which case the most gimpy character is preferred).
Surely we can agree that maximizing choices is good for powergamers as well as casual gamers since it allows them to ‘train’ according to their desires.
But an infinite set of choices is like a forest full of trees, you can’t see the forest anymore with all the trees in the way. If you don’t know what to pick you invariably end up re-rolling over and over again till you come across a character build that suits your needs as a powergamer. The casual gamer will be so overwhelmed by choices that he will invariably pick things that he’ll come to regret (or be frustrated with all the choices without knowing what is useful).
This is where class skills seem to have their greatest strength. They effectively limit a player to picking certain ‘trees’ allowing them to concentrate on a smaller area and thus maximizing their potential within the forest.
But where does this leave us in the skill vs. class debate? In my opinion right smack dab in the middle. Both maximizing choices without giving direction (skill based system) as well as limiting choices and providing direction (class based system) eventually result in a specialized player base thus resulting in the loss of ‘the other half’ of players favoring the other playstyle.
But who’s to say they can’t be combined? Why can’t we create a fully skill based system and provide players with direction to create specific builds and promote these builds?
Appropriate quests, lore and activities can be easily combined to give a feeling of a ‘paladin’ without limiting his/her skills to chivalry based class-skills.
From my experience I’ve noticed that a lot of casual gamers that start playing a game are very much inclined to follow the lore/advice that is given to them.
On a smaller scale I have experimented with player behaviour by providing appropriate quests in a UO emulator. Whilst this did not count for everyone it was striking to note that a set of ‘fun’ quests that would allow players to become a decent ranger in a skill based system actually resulted in a greater amount of rangers within the virtual world even though the tank-mage was far superior at the time (due to balancing issues).
In conclusion: I think both class and skill systems have their merits and drawbacks and both can be implemented succesfully. I do however have to note that when it comes to making good games it’s not so much the choice of skill or class based but everything else that makes or breaks the game.
I have always been a fan of either system. I really like the concept of growing a character in my own way, however I please?(ex: Morrowind/Oblivion). But with that, I also think that those kind of systems are better suited to non-MMO?s till such time as someone comes up with a perfect system for them. Honestly, I don?t even see it possible tho?when people are given too many choices they all pick the same thing. When they are restricted they pick many different things. Oblivion was a lot closer to having a good working skill system than UO or AC tho, something I didn?t really see until I compared my character?s stats and abilities with all my friend?s
Overall tho, I am pretty much committed to the thought that class based systems are a lot better for MMO?s in general. It leaves a diversity that is distinct, and very evenly spread. You don?t see 90% of the population being the same exact class, where as in a skill system if you had given a certain path of skills and traits that you choose a ?class? name, you?d have almost everyone being the same exact class, or having something that derives or is based off that same exact class.
I play EQ2 now, there is 24 classes and that leaves it pretty open to do anything that u would want to do, the only thing is that once you have made your choice, you aren?t going to be changing much. The neat thing that sets it apart from other MMO?s that use the class system tho, is there are lots of ways to set yourself apart from others, even of the same class. The best example is comparing AA lines or Master2 choices. My Paladin has his M2 heal, and his AA heals maxed out, while another may have M2 AE Taunt, and Hate % AAs, or another might have his HPs maxed or defense, or even the far stray DPSing Paladin. It leaves it pretty open, and with the addition of Augments in the near future, I see things becoming even more diverse.
Form your own opinion about class vs. skill systems, and see if you can come up with some solutions of your own about how to either a) make skill-based systems less horrible to balance or b) make class-based systems give the player more control. Those are the two worst aspects of each, in my opinion.
a.) This one’s tough.
b.) Multiclassing, of course ^_^
IMHO, my favorite setup for characters is (and probably will continue to be for a long time if not indefinitely) Neverwinter Nights-style. Not quite D&D, as they made a few logical changes for computer gaming. However, it opens a few problems:
1.) Heavy min/max-ing is possible. It’s possible to build some pretty strong characters if you know the rules left, right, upside down, and all around. If you avoid PvP or use EQ2′s system of seperate effects on players than on NPCs, balancing is a lot easier… to make a balanced MMO of it though, you’d probably have to do a few potentially annoying things like: restricting certain abilities from being able to be used in combination, forcing X levels of each class with multiclassing (so you don’t have that one level in some class just for an ability or to unload skill points), force use of all skill points at the point of level-up, etc.
2.) Newbies make craptacular characters, often end up with totally gimped characters, and it can take a while before they can build a good character. Therefore, there should be the option of pre-built characters, but going further than NWN’s packages and actually doing the entire character setup (sans things like appearance) and, if desired, controlling level-ups. This not only gives options for people who don’t want to end up with horrible characters (without having to resort to taking other players’ setups from forums and such), but also allows players to just pick a class and jump into the game, giving the option of flexibility to those who want it.
3.) Too many options, in some cases. You could easily end up with an absolutely daunting amount of classes, races, etc, which could really screw up new players. This, however, would also be mostly fixed by giving pre-created character setups.
4.) Potential for FOTM setups. However, with a lot of options out there, you probably won’t run into this as much… but it depends on a lot of factors (including how willing people are to reveal their builds).
5.) Non-player balancing. You’ll have to have all kinds of varying degrees of difficulty allowing for all kinds of character setups; perhaps a way of keeping track of how players do in general that would scale the difficulty of things? That’d be a though thing to do, though.
6.) Strength of items. This applies to all MMOs, but has a lot of effect in a D&D-style game world. In a world where items cause big effects on your character, your actual character choices have less meaning. However, with items that do almost nothing extra, your choices might mean a bit TOO much, and you won’t be able to fix drawbacks nearly as easily, which could be frustrating finding out at lv40 that you should’ve shifted your stats by 4 points or something that would’ve made a huge difference. Ideally you’d have low to moderate levels of magical enhancements; then again, I just *hate* itemcentricity.
Obviously there’s a lot more to it, but it’s a topic loaded with possibilities and whatnot.
[...] How did I miss this? There’s been a flare up of the Class vs. Skill debate recently. You can track it across multiple blogs: Nerfbat, Zen of Design, Broken Toys, Moorgard, Nerfbat, Probably Not, Sierra Kilo, Raph Koster, World IV. [...]
never quite happy with one, and it ends up taking me ages to get maxed out. I have a theory: Players with altitis need skill-based games. They are the fans of choices and enemies of conformity who just can’t handle being restricted to one class. Link « Hide it
[...] Posts I agree with: Nerfbat, Moorgard, Nerbat (again), Sierra Kilo, World IV. [...]
Has anyone considered the possibilities in adopting a progression system like Dark Cloud/Dark Cloud 2, where the abilities of the character himself progress little if at all, and all major progression is done by leveling up your items and synthesizing new abilities to them?
It would require some very fine-tuned balancing, to be sure, but if done right could simultaneously provide a new alternative to class systems while eliminating a lot of the tedium and ancillary issues associated with grinding for uber lewt.
[...] Last week, grouchy gnome over at nerfbat had a lot of great things to say about the ?class vs skill? debate in game (particularly RPG) design. While I can (and have) ranted VOLUMES on the topic (often exceeding the capacity of comment fields), I found myself sidetracked by one of his more offhand comments. [...]
[...] Now, I’m new enough to the debate to not know whether something has been discussed to death so badly that it isn’t even mentioned anymore. I had alot of reading to do… Luckily, Ryan Shwayder over in Nerfbat provided a good starting point earlier last week. [...]
Lutte des classes Analyse [IMG ]Système de classes vs. Système de compétences. Dans les jeux de rôles, le débat fait rage, et alimente le buzz sur Internet. Il appert qu’une grande majorité de développeurs prône le système de classes, tandis que les joueurs plébiscitent les compétences. Le schéma politique qui en résulte est plutôt original. Une droite conservatrice, d
Obviously a system without the leveling treadmill would need some other gameplay element that would keep people about but that?s another story.
Right now there are a lot people who view the leveling treadmill as “paying dues” rather than as the game experience itself. At level cap is where the game really begins for those people, and the joy comes in the horizontal span of content, not in the vertical ladder needed just to access it.
So I’m working on this MMO PvP game called “Fury” which features skill based characters. Looking over the various points and comments I think we do address pretty much all of them. We do have a design system in place that makes sure your ultimate damage dealer isn’t also the ultimate healer. You only have one character but you can build and save 255 incarnations of that character so you can constantly tweak and modify that perfect build. You can even build lower powered incarnations so you can play with friends who are just starting.
Anyway, I could go on and on about it but you actually care you can read up on it via our official site http://www.unleashthefury.com, one of our fan sites http://www.fury-sanctuary.com, or my blog http://www.working-as-designed.blogspot.com. Share and enjoy.
Note that’s “fury” with one “r”.
As a long time player of EQ and now EQ2 I have posted a few rants on the limitations of Classes. Currently my brigand is spending AAs to become a better tank, since I duo with a Warden a lot. The class system can be made bearable for me.
I thought I had found the perfect game with DDO with their multi-classing and limited respec’ing. But the problem there was other players. They saw my Barbarian as a Tank, even though I played him as more of a rogue with a big sword. I was at a loss with groups because I couldn’t play the way THEY wanted me to.
My real problem with class systems is ~shudders~ realism. I know that is a touchy subject, but expertise is not determined by classes or levels in my experience. Different people are good at, or become good at different things and it’s hard to generalize those areas into classes.
My experience: ~sighs~ I am a soldier and have been one for some time, so I have a familiarity with combat-based skills. I have a friend that can make head shots at 100m with a pistol while I have trouble making a consistent groups at 25m with a rifle. Yet my qualification scores are always ‘Expert’ (38 out of 40) and he barely qualifies (26 out of 40). He’s big and tough. I am lightly built and have medical training. In a class system, he would be a tank and I would be a healer. Other members of my team are trained in demolitions, transportation and logistics, oh, and commo. But I am team leader, and used to be a platoon sergeant, and am on point and first in the stack. So what class or level am I? I have scouting skills, leadership skills. I know how to call for artillery and air strikes. Some of my favorite memories are directing the fire of machine gun crews from a support position. My mediocre marksmanship has been accurate when it counted.
Some discussion of tactical techniques may be needed here but there’s not enough space. Ther are times when I don 60 pounds of armor and go toe to toe. There are times when I wear the same weight in ammo, spare barrel and a tripod. There are times when we are only equipped with pistols and pepperspray (and stylin’ shirts!).
I see a distinct parallel between these teams and groups of adventurers. The comparison holds true on too many levels, but in a class based system there is no room for the flexibility one needs in the real world. I can scout, tank (though none of us taunt), heal, lead and nuke, depending on the mission. Heck, some missions require all at once!
Part of the problem is that we have players have developed certain expectations and game designers have catered to them. It would require something innovative, and therefore risky, to break this pattern. And even then, as in DDO, players may just enforce the old rules.
As I am getting long winded here, I will briefly describe what I’d like to see: skillsets. These would be based on classes, or more realistically, guilds. There would thieve’s guilds, warrior guilds, paladin guilds, priestly orders, academies of mages… My character would work on status with these different ‘class’ organizations to learn the skills they teach. The more status I have with them, the more access I have to their ‘Higher-level’ skills. I could have status with several of them, but as my status with the thieves increases, at a certain point, my status with the priests would decrease. Some classes wouldn’t let me have much status with others; some would be more tolerant. There might even be competing guilds of the same ‘class’. Some of the skills would be commonly taught and others would be quite rare and require epic quests. Do I need to point out that this would work for crafters as well?
Maybe this system already exists somewhere, in a game I haven’t seen yet.