Illarion.org

I propose a system in which you can select a limited amount of traits from a huge pool of possible traits for your character. The idea is that you can shape your character in a truly unique way. An rpg should always be about choices as well.
The list of possible traits should be really, really long and include all kinds of different traits. The more the better. The greater the diversity, the better. We don't need to worry that all traits are "useful". Every trait could be useful if it fits your character. We just need to watch out that a trait is not too strong (e.g. 30% chance to deald 500% damage would be rather bad), but otherwise there are no limits.

Some example for traits:
Master smith: This grants you access to some special smithing recipes.
Supreme attribute: +1 in an attribute of your choice
Supreme skill: +5 in a skill of your choice
Wand waver: +1 for wand magic range
Living wall: You loose some attack power, but you can take more damage for that.
Arrow hail: Small chance to shoot a multitude of arrows at once.
Lucky charm: Small chance to find a hidden object here and there.
Wilful hair: Every other day, your hair changes its colour on its own.
Free teleporters: For some odd reasons, the magical teleporters do not charge you any money.

The question is, how do you gain points to spend on traits and how do spend them? To me, the best way is that you gain traits by playing the game. So every X hours of play time you get a trait point. There is a maximum of how many traits one can have. If that maixmum is reached no addtional trait points can be obtained. To spend the trait points, you simply have to rest (i.e. use a bed). Since there is an maximum, we don't need to worry about people idling just to get the points faster. Who cares?
My vision is that we have so many traits that you can create very different types of characters with them. Maybe you select traits that make you a great tank? Or the best smith the world has every seen. Or maybe you love plants and select all that help you grow them, finding rare herbs etc. Or maybe you tak all the odd traits and become a source of entertainment for all around you. It's your choice.

What do you think about this? Can you come up with more traits? Be creative!

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Ich schlage ein System vor, in dem man aus einem großen Pool an möglichen Eigenschaften ein paar wenige für seinen Charakter aussuchen kann. Die Idee dahinter ist, dass man seinen Charakter auf eine wirllich einmlaige Art formen kann. Ein RPG sollte immer auch über Entscheidungen sein.
Die Liste an möglichen Eigenschaften sollte sehr, sehr lang sein und alle möglichen Eigenschaften beinhalten. Je mehr, desto besser. Je vielseitiger, desto besser. Wir brauchen uns nich darum zu sorgen, dass auc halle "nützlich" sind. Jede Eigenschaft, die zu einem Charakter passt, ist nützlich. Man muss nur darauf achten, dass deie Eigenschaften nicht zu stark sind (z.B. 30% Chance 500% mehr Schaden zu machen wäre ziemlich schlecht), sonst gibt es keine Grenzen.

Einige Beispiele:
Meisterschmied: Zugang zu besonderen Schmiederezepten.
Herausragendes Attribut: +1 auf ein Attribut deiner Wahl
Herausragende Fähigkeit: +1 auf einen Skill deiner Wahl
Stabfuchtler: +1 auf die Reichweite von Zauberstäben
Lebende Wand: Du verlierst Angriffssträke, kannst aber mehr einstecken
Pfeilhagel: Kleine Chance, dass man mehrere Pfeile aufeinmal abschießt
Glücksbringer: Kleine Chance hier und da verborgene Dinge zu finden
Eigenwilliges Haar: Alle paar Tag ändert dein Haar von selbst seine Farbe
Gratisteleporter: Aus seltsamen Gründen musst du bei Teleportern nichts zahlen

Eine Frage ist, wie man Punkte zum Ausgeben für Eigenschaften erlagt und wie man sie dannn ausgibt. Mir scheint der beste Weg zu sein, dass man sie einafch druchs Spielen bekommt. Alle X Stunden Spielzeit gibt es einen Eigenschaftspunkt. Es gibt ein Maximum an Eigenschaften, die man haben kann. Danach erlangt man keine Punke mehr. Um die Punkte auszugeben, muss man nur ruhen (also ein Bett benutzen). Da es ein Maximum gibt, brauchen wir uns auch keine Sorgen um Leute zu machen, die ideln, nur um schneller die Punkte zu bekommen. Was solls?
Nir schwebt vor, dass es so viele Eigenschaften gibt, dass man ganz verschiedene Charaktertypen damit machen kann. Vielleicht will man einen super Tank werden? Oder der beste Schmied, den die Welt je sah. Vielleicht liebt man auch Pflanzen und nimmt alle Eigenschaften die was mit diesen zutun hat. Oder man nimmt viele der seltsamen Eigenschaften und wird zu einem Quell der Freude für alle um einen. Es ist eure Entscheidung.

Was denkt ihr darüber? Habt ihr tolle Idee für Eigenschaften? Seid kreativ!

Deutsch hinzugefügt // German added

Maybe if something is "too strong" compared to other traits (not like the 30% chance of 500% dmg, thats not just too strong but a bad idea as well), then there could be "tiered" traits. Like each tier costing 1 point, and needing to be obtained in order (tier 2 requiring tier 1 etc). So that people won't only choose the "strong" or "optimized" once unless they want to fully invest in their character being for example a smith. While others may want to invest in many tier 1 traits for diversity while not being the "best" at anything. Example below just to show what I mean without taking into consideration factors like balance.
EG:
Tier 1 smithing: add 5 levels to smithing. Cost: 1 trait point
Tier 2 smithing: increased chance of creating perfect items Cost: 1 trait point and requires Tier 1 smithing
Tier 3 smithing: Adds additional items to the smithing recipes Cost: 1 trait point and requires Tier 2 smithing

Or:
Tier 1 smithing: add 1 level to smithing. Cost: 1 trait point.
Tier 2 smithing: add 3 levels to smithing. Cost: 1 trait point and requires tier 1.
Tier 3 smithing: add 5 levels to smithing. Cost 1 trait point and requires tier 2.

I love traits. And I don't think I'd mind having them in Illarion.

For how getting them: I'd propose active days, with a day being considered active if a reasonable amount of text is written in proximity to other characters... if that is a technical possibility.
The required amount could be put in some somewhat flattened exponential formula, similar to the one for skill gain. This way getting the first points would come easy and the last ones remain something to work towards.

Quick Ideas:
Passive Income: get some money at beginning of the month
Good Eater: increased bonus from food, decreases food duration
Pacifist: malus to combat actions, increase to damage resistance and movement if wounded
Berserk: increases damage dealt the more wounded the character is
Threatening/Timid Aura: NPC enemies attack the character first/last
Magic Shield: 75% of damage taken is applied to the characters mana (... if there is any left) in stead of health

To be completely honest i dont like this idea ... i truly LOVE IT!

It give players the possibility to completely customize their Character to their liking as well improve them. I also quite like Brightims Idea about Tiers.

The only thing i quite dislike is that the Traitpoints could be obtained through onlinetime. I guess it would make players idle more and that would be a rather bad thing.

How about obtaining these Traitpoints through quests? Like finishing a Fighting related Quest gives you trait points for Fighting skills, and Craftbased quests give you Traitpoints for Craftrelated skills?

Maybe another Idea could be to gain some Traits through Devotion to your chosen God? For example Malachin grants a Bonus in Battle, Irmorom for crafting, Tanora for the Fight against Mages, Oldra to farming and cooking, and so on.

me luv!

Using active online time to gain trait points is a fair approach. Illarion is a class free game but with such traits - perks - we can keep a class free game but allow specialisation beyond attribute selection. For possible perks, see e.g.:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_4_perks

One thing I worry about is the effort for implementation if we go for a very high amount of perks. I'd like to keep the young gods out of this, even though it is a good idea to make the perks god dependent; priest magic will offer some kind of temporary perks so both approaches would overlap.

I understand the perks shall be permanent? So no re-distribution of points? Very good. To make things simple, I suggest to have e.g. five groups (elder gods?) that stand for five basic classes. Within one group, perks all are somewhat similar concerning coding. One could freely chose perks from all groups, of course. To require perk 1 to be able to chose perk 2 (skill tree style) is an option.

Estralis Seborian wrote: No re-distribution of points?

IMO it should be possible to re-distribute it at least once, but make it far more costly or difficult than with the stat trainers way of re-distributing stat points. This to allow new players who may pick traits at random a second chance, or characters that are played for years to be allowed to change and not remain static (once a smith always a smith, seems like it might be detrimental if a player gets bored of playing his or her character as a smith after years of play and want to swap it up a bit for some variety).

Trait points that aren't directly geared toward being religious I don't think should be related to the gods, since we'll have a priest/templar/devotion system we shouldn't be forcing other types of chars to have to 'be religious' to get traits which make them unique. Being unique doesn't mean religion

However I like the proposed idea of doing quests for them, maybe make tier progression similar to rank progression with all quests progress points to get the next trait in which the player can then choose indiscriminately from the list of available traits (unless certain traits would be barred from certain races or creeds).

One thing I notice that this game lacks in comparison to many other mmorpgs is the emphasis on quests. Seems like quests are literally just there when you're bored and no one else is around for interaction, or at least that's how I perceive it's treated. I heard about some of the very dangerous/long quest chains have cool item rewards but I haven't gotten so far myself. Quest rewards aren't the greatest imo and don't really motivate me to do them except for town rank. I think adding trait progression to quests would add that little bit of motivation to complete some of these non town based quests.

Estralis Seborian wrote:One thing I worry about is the effort for implementation if we go for a very high amount of perks.

We don't need to make the all at once. Also, I would also under the premise simple things first. Some simple traits for fighters, some simple traits for crafters, etc. We can add the more elaborate ones with time (well, most of the time. I will certainly find some peaks so cool that I want to have them as soon as possible evne if they are not the most simple ones).

@Caine's idea trait points as quest rewards: This would add to much work. Also, we might realize that we have far to less quests for some trait types, e.g. magic related.

On grouping the traits: I am not sure if that is needed. I imagine that we will have a lot of difficulties with some traits to sort them properly. Though, this question can be addressed when we have a first list of traits we want to have ingame.

In general, the points should be only spent one. No redistribution. Yet, I would see that as a rather strong guideline and not an absolute prohibition. Maybe some costs should be involved, or you would have to eplain a GM why you want to do that.

The game is ever changing, there might be new traits coming, old ones going and systems changing face. In addition to that, people do mistakes.
I'd very much like an automated way to redistribute such perks, be it a complete reset to the beginning of the characters perk-journey.

Q-wert wrote:be it a complete reset to the beginning of the characters perk-journey.

That sounds actually quite acceptable.

Jupiter wrote:We don't need to make the all at once. Also, I would also under the premise simple things first. Some simple traits for fighters, some simple traits for crafters, etc. We can add the more elaborate ones with time (well, most of the time. I will certainly find some peaks so cool that I want to have them as soon as possible evne if they are not the most simple ones).

In general, the points should be only spent one. No redistribution. Yet, I would see that as a rather strong guideline and not an absolute prohibition. Maybe some costs should be involved, or you would have to eplain a GM why you want to do that.

I just want to point out, if redistribution is not allowed, it would be rather unfair for everyone playing their current chars because they would have to pick from a limited list until the rest came out, by which they'd have to make a new char to have full advantage of the full list of traits. Maybe one has to pay 100 gold for a resdistribution that can only be done once an rl quarter (three months)?

Jupiter wrote:

Q-wert wrote:be it a complete reset to the beginning of the characters perk-journey.

That sounds actually quite acceptable.

I like this idea too, like prestige in Call of duty, or making a skill legendary in skyrim (minus the extra perk points).

Jupiter wrote: On grouping the traits: I am not sure if that is needed. I imagine that we will have a lot of difficulties with some traits to sort them properly. Though, this question can be addressed when we have a first list of traits we want to have ingame.

I think a general grouping like

Crafting traits (related to crafting and gathering skills)
Magic traits (related to magic skills)
Fighting traits (related to fighting skills)
General traits (Anything not directly related to a skill, such as a boost to health points)

Would make sense, if we get a list to choose from that is, as to not make it this really long uncategorized trait list.

Additionally, I'd suggest to get this "started", we first start with introducing the way to get the trait points, the way to use them, something like 5 traits per category of existing skills in game (gathering, crafting, magic, alchemy, general traits, fighting) for a total of 30 traits as a "start", introduce a way to re-distribute them at a cost, and also give it a low cap for now (like 2 traits per character) and then later on raise the cap when we have more traits. This way, we would have the foundation to work on for a trait system, without needing ALL the traits at once, and we get to see it in game sooner.

Q-wert wrote:I'd propose active days, with a day being considered active if a reasonable amount of text is written in proximity to other characters... if that is a technical possibility.

Comparing it to other characters is bot possible. We just don't have access to these information.
Also, we have no entry point such as "characterTalks(character)". So only some hack like using an LTE every few seconds to check if something new was said by the character would be possible. That's it not really useful. So I don't think we can do that properly-

Q-wert wrote:The required amount could be put in some somewhat flattened exponential formula, similar to the one for skill gain. This way getting the first points would come easy and the last ones remain something to work towards.

This I like.

Ich mag die Idee von zuzätzlichen Fähigkeiten/Eigenschaften, die man während des Spiels erlangen kann.
Ich danke man kann dann seinen Char noch besser spezialisieren ohne die Freiheit zu verliert, dass zu spielen, was man will.
Zwecks zurücksetzen, solang nichts verändert wird (und grundsätzlich bin ich dafür, das mit der Spielentwicklung auch neue hinzukommen) entweder über einen NPC für viel Gold (man sollte es nicht ständig umändern) oder über ein aufwendigeres Quest.

Wie erlanget man Punkte?
- Spielzeit, Onlinzeit, alter des Accounts(bonus für ganz alter Chars), erster Char
- Errungenschaften wie zB Noobie überlebt, 100 #i, die ersten 100 Abenteuersteine, die erste Fähigkeit auf 100
- Von GM vergeben an Chars die sich besonders für das Spiel bemühen, wie zB viele Quests veranstalten, Aufgaben/Ämter übernehmen, in GM Quests Rollen übernehmen etc
wobei ich ebenfalls für eine Obergrenze bin, je nachdem wie viele man schließlich zum auswählen hat.

Einteilen in Allgemein, Handwerker, Kämpfer, Magier, Alchemist/Druide, Priester
vielleicht braucht man auch Vorraussetzungen um einige zu erwerben, also wenn es Stufen gibt, muss natürlich erst die geringste erworben werden,
oder man muss Mager/Alchemist/Prister sein
oder eine Mindesthöhe in einer Fertigkeit/Attribut etc

Ich mach mir noch ein paar Gedacken über mögliche Eigenschaften.