Concept

I would like to first differentiate 2 things about skills: Player Skills and Character Skills. Player skills are those inherent within the player, which allows him to extract the potential of the game character he is playing. Wherever Character skills are given to the character that is being played, to define itself from other game characters.

A good game that requires player skills are in my opinion, the Metal Gear Solid series.

However, character skills is what I'm referring to for this area.

First off, I find that requiring a player to choose a class before he even get to play or familiarize with the game will result that he would restart again, because his preconceptions about the class were not attainable. Also, he may also restart again, due to the belief that another class is superior than others. Or simply, he wants to try other classes. Regardless of the reasons, the only players that remains playing are those which the game had clicked with them. In these cases, the number of players are substantially narrowed.

In the upcoming skill sets that I'm going to put up later, it would be riding on the general trend of open-based skills, though mine may differ a lot.

The concept I had in mind is that there would be a total of nine grand sets. Within the grand set, there would be a number of smaller sets. Cutting across those smaller sets, are 7 tiers.

Imagine a black background, with 6 lines cutting across from left to right. The lowest tier is larger than most, signifying the numerous basic skills. Upon learning the basic skills, one may move up the tier, all the way to Tier 7. From here, upon meeting certain conditions, one may proceed to the next grand set, symbolize through a purple background. And the cycle repeats.

Within the black grand set, the skills dotting everywhere are actually affiliated with a certain class ie. Mage or Knight. The skills that are learnt would define the player into those classes, however, since it is not forbidden to learn anything else, one could possibly come up with an Eldritch Knight (Battle Mage). With so many known classes out there, players are allowed to pick and choose their skills, allowing them the opportunity to mould their dream character.

The grand sets signifies a mindset. For example, people could never imagine that a sword could slice through concrete, because it has been tried and proven. However, if someone who has advanced far enough, he may have acquired the ability to slice concrete. I want to signify that through the grand sets.

As with any game, there will always be a group of people who would scrutinize the skills, to come up with the best superior character.

In order to prevent the players from churning out generic characters, I would introduce Birth Skill. This skill is chosen during the creation of their character. The player would be given the range of components that makes up a skill (eg. 100% more damage, Area of Effect, Slow etc). He can select, choose and combine however he likes. Following that, he may name the skill he created. This way, numerous unique skills would appear in a game, allowing the game to be very exciting, because there are more to see with every new player.

Coming to the technical part, how do one learn skills and how are skills treated? A brief recap to attributes, a player may gain attribute points through battle experience, training or participation in production skills. Some of those points are given immediately upon completion, while general points are given for some. Those general points gained are used to learn skills. This would result in an opportunity cost for players, to choose between attribute points and skills.

Here, skills do not have multiple levels to signify mastery. Instead, a scaling is used. Using a story line to illustrate, assuming that the skill Dagger Throw is learned. The player is able to unleash that skill as it is, competently. However, as he uses the skill more often, he latently improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the skill, delivering quality throws. After some time, he mastered it, dealing exceptional skill level.

In technical terms, it boils down to experience points, skill wise. He is given 50 points upon learning it, which decays at 1 point per 3 hours, returning him the general point used upon expiring. If he likes the skill, he would gain 1 experience point per use, where it would no longer decay upon 100 exp points. From here on out, all characters in the game who have this skill, would have their exp points scaled. With the top 1% achieving the Titan title, with the corresponding bonuses to the skill, while the rest are divided according to certain range ( eg. 45% - 55%. 55% - 60% etc), achieving specified title with their bonuses. The bonuses for the best titles would be able to outdo competent skills of 2 tiers above, thus giving players the incentive to train. On an unrelated note, an opponent, although would be notified of the skill being used at him, who never know the strength of their opponents until they receive a blow from it.

Finally, to encourage distinct characters, upon reaching the next tier, all skills of the previous tier could no longer be learned. However, depending on the skill chosen to learn in the new tier, and based on the majority of the skills learnt below, same types of skills (eg. Sword / Physical) in the lower tier would gain experience faster. Also, other types of related skills (eg. Sword / ? or ? / Physical) can still be learned, if haven't, but would require significantly more points. And unrelated skills can no longer be gained.

This would not create a fixed route for players, because the skill sets would be a complex web of pre-requisites. Many ways would open to branch out to other class areas. With the conditions that a skill can be learnt as long as the majority of pre-requisites are met, and also that a player can backtrack to learn the pre-requisites, it is possible for a person at Tier 5 to go back all the way to learn skills at Tier 1.

This concept could be very difficult to implement in reality. But with time and effort, it can be done.