Don't you feel like gaining new level and paying x gold to trainer is boring, unrealistic and it's taking easy way out in game development? It may be enough if we are talking about epic skills - finding a trainer may be challanging enough, but what about the rest? Don't you think that there should be additional requirements when learning something? So eg. "mastering" lower level ability (using it x times), passing a trial (eg defeating mobs in trainer arena, solving a puzzle or a riddle), eg. for learning summoning spells we would need to defeat corresponding boss and bring special drop to the trainer. Or perhaps at the beginning we'd have to perform some actions "manually" (like "painting" spell sign with our wand (cursor) in the air followed by verbal formula) to learn the ability and then it would become automatic process.
Brad said many times that ""many of the more rare and exotic spells and abilities are found not at the local trainer but from a wise sage hiding in the depths of a dungeon or at the top of a remote tower." But I agree it would be fun if there were more PROCESSES for learning the spells, not just reading a scroll. Even though I'd rather get the scroll from some ancient mystic at the bottom of a dungeon instead of from "ye old magic shoppe" in Thronefast.
I might be wrong, but wasn't there a process in Vanguard - for at least one class - where you had to fight a mob that USED that spell against you. After you had been hit with it enough times, you got a perception cue (or whatever) telling you that you had learned it. That was a nice twist on the process.
There is a fine line between "interesting" and tedious, also.
When I hit level 5 I do not especially want to need to find a group or a raid and spend days trying to get my primary level 5 ability. During which time I am very weak for my level because I do not have the ability.
Even more so I do not want to find a rock to jump off to injure myself so that I can cure myself so that using my cure 1,000 times gives me a skill point in healing. Any reference to how Elder Scrolls worked is entirely deliberate.
I agree that it is nice to throw something out of the ordinary in - my only point is that as in most things balance is needed.
I think to do this right you'd have to look at each different class and what makes sense for that class, as well as the ability in question. I do think sometimes it's cool to simulate someone actually "learning" the ability, and not just give them the new button to press right away or have it work reliably right away, but it's not the sort of thing you can do universally across all classes and all abilities.
I really liked the learned abilities in Vanguard. You had to fight specific mobs for such a period of time before you would learn their ability. It would trigger and anounce it to you that you were learning it as you went. Then after about the third time you would learn the ability for good. I thought it was a neat way to do abilities. Also programmers and developers can put them all over the maps so people explore the areas to learn the abilities. Some of your more powerful abilities need a good group to obtain and the regular ones can be done solo or something to that effect.
I think that is a lot more practical than spending all your cash on abilities. I hated being broke because I bought abilities that I thought my character should either develop naturally or obtain through experience and killing mobs.
Would love to see abilities 'learned' by going through some kind of 'quest' that is, essentially, coaching on the uses of the ability and a 'test' at the end. For immersion more than to 'handhold' players.
It's one thing where the sandbox technique of just handing stuff to you and letting you work it out is weird and unimmersive. Like a mages' guild would just sell you a Fireball skill scroll, grin, pat you on the bum, say "have fun!" and send you on your way.
If the new mages didn't manage to burn down the guild, the locals would do it when they get fed up with new mages 'testing' new spells the second they step out of the guild building! ;^)
Since we are on a topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLB6rP3KHcc
It fits more with a skill based game than a class based game but I have always liked the concept of exploration + experimentation to unlock new abilities. Prime abilities could be gained through memorizing a scroll or being taught by an instructor but that is really just the beginning.
Elemental Blast could in theory be the base spell for each of the elements.
1) Each element has a damage range plus a secondary effect innate to that element
2) Initial Elemental Blast is a short range, single target, projectile (in other words chance to miss).
3) As you get stronger in your elemental blast you can trade damage for different form changes.
i. Shape
ii. Initial point
iii. Secondary effects
4) Your gear and build tree will have options to help improve the efficiency of each of the different changes on an individual element basis with some general abilities as well.
Weapon skills can almost be broken down into the same structure with some differences based on being able to use different materials for common weapons. You would need to get pretty deep into the math but the relative DPS could be moderately balanced using differences in chance to hit, chance to crit, critical damage multipliers, rounds in combat due to the benefits of ranged attack range.
Healing is fairly easy to work in there as well under many of the same concepts. In a free form skill tree nearly everyone will pick up a tiny amount of healing ability for use out of combat but in combat are great deal of your build would need to be dedicated to healing throughput and efficiency in order to be an actual healer.
Where this system gets really challenging is with crowd control abilities and the relative defenses to everything including CC. It’s a giant bowl of spaghetti to untangle.
I am personally working on a system based on force with directional magnitude, moment of inertia, physical material properties (density, hardness, shear strength, ductility, yield strength) and creating basically electricity models of all elemental energy (conductance, capacitance, resistance). I am not certain than any game engine can current handle the directional magnitude portion of what I want to do and I REALLY do not want to get into game engine writing.
To give you an idea: An archer shooting a target in full plate.
The different inputs:
1) Distance from Archer to target (has the arrow entered ballistic flight which will be a function of distance and draw weight of the bow vs arrow mass)
2) Draw weight of bow (effective spring constant)
3) Was the bow drawn to full power (trade off of range, damage, stamina burn, arrow mass, rate of fire)
4) Mass of the arrow
5) Aerodynamics of the arrow different configurations will have different masses and optimal maximum ranges (really more of a crafting sub process but also piercing vs slashing vs bludgeoning vs alchemical tip)
6) Area of striking (different tips will distribute the force over a different area)
7) Shear strength of the armor (basically how much pressure per unit area that the armor can resist before yielding when at 100% durability, fallen durability will decrease this value proportionally)
So the first half of the engine is determining the pressure of the attack and the area of said attack. The second function is the defensive resistance against said attack in the form of direct mitigation of the damage. Elemental blasts would follow a lot of the same functions with global resistances effecting AoE damage and local resistances effecting targeted strikes (much easier to overwhelm a single areas resistance than basically flooding a targets global resistance).
Long story short developing abilities through use requires a very systematic approach to power design and it tends to kill the fun for a lot of people. Quests and thresholds might be a more palatable and compatible with Pantheon way of having abilities develop over time and play rather than just unlocked at specific levels.
I remember getting the spell Cull in Vanguard as a Dread Knight. I only remember this spell because there was a quest involved to get it. Certian drops from certian mobs, all that. And it had upgrades, Cull 2, 3. Just the way it was aquired was so different from anything I had seen before it that it will always stick in my mind. Want more of that.
Love the idea, but also suspect it time consuming to put together for very many abilities for what are there 12 classes. Honestly I would like to see the first version of most abilities attached to a quest, or a mini game one had to beat in order to learn the ability.
But I'm not real sure I would want to wait for it.
There would always be the option of releasing the game with bought spells, and then add the challenges with an expansion, but that would likely irritate some people.
If there already working something like this, or if this was there plan all along (I can hope) I'm all for it.
I get it. I think I understand what the OP is saying and in addition, as generally as I can put it, I would like to see suprise overcome envy.
By that I mean, in my travels and adventuring I would like to come across a sensei in a dark dungeon or steep mountain cliff that happens to impart to me the secret of the Wuxi finger hold (ski-dooch!)- suprise!. However if I know someone that has that move and I don't, I don't want it to be a recipe for me to go to the same dungron to find the same sensei to get the same move- envy. Rather I would like the moves I have discovered to be different but just as co-enviable.
I may not have the wuxi finger hold that she found on the steep cliffs, but I do have the dragons claw swipe that I found through the waterfalls, however I will not be able to find the wuxi finger hold if I went to the same cliffs- that journey would be a different suprise for me.