Hey, I am going to post a synopsis of some features I would like to use to make an mmo. I am wondering what other people think of these ideas before I get into the meet and potatoes of a Design Bible.
Combat System
The combat system will be more based on decisions made a second in advance, much like a rock paper scissors game. Here are the different aspects to this complex system.
Combat Stances
You can piece together your own attack chain and this composes a Stance. You can store a certain number of stances based on level.
Attack Chains
When forming an attack chain, your next move is determined by where your weapon ends. Like if a move swings from the upper right and ends in the lower left. The next move must begin in the lower left. To add to this, the amount of attacks you can chain are dependent on how good they are. For example, you can chain 3 fast, strong, and sturdy attacks; or you can chain 10 slow, weak, and easy to deflect attacks. The reason for this plays into the next part Blocking and Dodging.
Blocking and Dodging
When you block or dodge you specify the direction you want to block or dodge by moving your mouse in that direction. If you goofed up and block in the wrong direction, their attack hits you. However, if you block it delays their next attack and gives you an opening. But if their attack is sturdy enough, they could potentially not suffer this penalty. This adds a dynamic where if the person uses a small attack chain, it becomes easy to predict and avoid.
Movement
All movement when you begin to engage in combat is turn based. When you want to move in a direction, you hope in that direction much like in Kendo or Fencing. If you are a certain distance from the enemy they will have a hard time reaching you with attacks if their weapon is small, whereas a bigger weapon may yield an advantage.
Piecing it all together.
When you get into a fight, you don't just swing your weapon automatically and spam skills as soon as they are available. You lock into combat with an opponent and it turns into 1 on 1. You can choose to switch stances, move, block/dodge, attack, or do nothing. This action is selected while the previous animation is executing. This way you can read what your opponent is doing and hopefully react in time for the next move. It also helps with bandwidth and net-coding a twitch based game into an mmo. I think this adds a realism to fighting that hasn't been done in many games.
The Skill System
Unlike other mmos, in this one you don't just buy a skill from an NPC Trainer. You quest, research, discover, and train them. Simply put, there are no NPC skill merchants. When you start you automatically have 5 attack moves then progress in learning more moves and adding them to your repetoire. However, there is one restricting factor. The more moves you learn in a certain discipline, the more restricted you become to learn skills from other disciplines. For instance, as you progress with melee attacks, your magic attacks start to close off from being learned starting at the top. When you start to gain more advanced skills, sub-disciplines within that discipline start to become closed from learning.
Move Level
Attack moves are defined by different difficulty levels. Represented by stars. It would be too complicated to explain more at this time.
Magic Moves
Unlike melee, when you chain magic skills you are actually drawing a shape like a pentagram through a median. When you are done drawing it, you let out a magic skill. Obviously, you are more likely to draw a smaller chain spell, but it will be less devastating.
Melee Moves
These ones you can chain, in combination. In this case shorter chains are more powerful, but easier to avoid after it first goes off.
Skill Creation System
Beyond basic skills, skills can be created through use of schools. In this game there are 2 types of guilds. 1 is like the basic mmo, the other is a school. Schools are guilds that have the ability to create their own moves. The School Leader can put research into developing different moves by selecting its weapon, animation, where it will start and end, how much strength it will have, its speed, and its sturdiness. Obviously more powerful moves take time to research and money. As a school progresses they gain more points to distribute among these attributes.
The Story System
The main thing I want the players to feel is accomplished and they are creating their own unique story. To do this here are a few elements I wish to create into the mmo to help progress story.
The Rival System
When you make a character, the game generates a rival for you. The rival will be of the same raced, and will appear as bosses within instances. However, they will appear only the first time you do the instance. On particular interesting aspect is that you go into instances with a party. The rivals of all your characters will also be in the instance in their own party. Also they will have a story attached with them on why they are there. Also if you skipped an instance, then go back, the rival won't be there. Instead they will have a story generated that tells of this when you don't go through certain instances, or some instances over others.
Revamp to the Quest System
Every quest has an accomplishment and chain linked to it. You won't go out on a quest to kill 60 boars and return it for 60 silver pieces. If there is such a quest, it will be apart of a chain with its own scripted story and unique boss at the end to defeat and puzzles or objectives to complete along the way that alter that final boss fight. Obviously there will be fewer quests, but I think the player will appreciate quality quests over quantity.
Other Stuff
That was the jest of the main features I want to use to make the game and would appreciate peoples response to it. I hope it wasn't too unclear or long. If you would like to give input on some of the things I am brainstorming about with this game here is a little more.
The Triplets
This is one of the races I wish to add to the game. Basically they are a race always born in 3s. When you make a character, there are 2 more duplicates of that character created. The 2 characters come with a unique AI that the player can program to do actions beyond the default AI. The player can also choose to skill up each of the triplets in their own unique way, then combine their attacks with the AI. However, they are also weaker then the typical character and must be geared individually.
The Theme
I want to make this game Steam Punk since I always found it interesting. Guns and all. However, the guns are primitive and have weaknesses attached with using them. It will also give a reason for unique environments like floating cities, huge towers, and lots of iron work. The story yet to come.
The Underworld System
When you die in this game, you don't respawn or run back to your corpse. You go to the underworld. From here you fight your way out to come back to the world of the living through several paths. The more challenging the path, the lower the exp death penalty. Also you gain exp and items while in the underworld, but only 75% of the rates in the living world. Since when you are in the underworld you can't die. There will also be special Death Type items only purchasable in the underworld.
