04 Feb, 2010, Tonitrus wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
I've been thinking about character customization and "build" altering since I read this quote in the level restrictions on items thread:

KaVir said:
[equipment] can add a whole new element to character customisation (assuming you don't make the mistake of having a "best" set of eq). It can add strategic options by allowing players to more easily adjust and adapt their character builds (rearranging equipment on the fly is usually easier to justify thematically than rearranging skills on the fly).

I'm not too fond of the prevalence of magic items and the dominant role of equipment in MUDs. This is not to say I don't think equipment should be important, only that it should not necessarily be necessary to compete. For the most part, this isn't too difficult of a design issue. However, with respect to character customization, there is very little that beats the effectiveness of simply swapping out a set of equipment for a different set more suitable to the task at hand. While it's always easier to change your clothes than resituate to a particular task, I don't think this should be the only way to reconfigure your character for a task. The question, then, is: How do you justify/approach characters reconfiguring themselves (via skills) to particular tasks?

My idea for a skill system involved players forgetting skills they don't use often, a little at a time. The game tracked their maximum level, so they could more easily regain the bits they'd forgotten if they wanted, but they'd basically get "rusty" with things they didn't use. The reason for this is that I didn't want to encumber people with "points spent" on skills they didn't use, and to allow them to swap out their skill sets even if they weren't "advancing". Don't like a skill? Don't use it. When you get the points back, buy something else. I was even thinking of having a "forget" command (name to be determined) to allow players to specify skills they really didn't want, so the "forgetting" code would strip them even faster (perhaps even lower a rank instantly). This system does allow and encourage slowly altering a character's build, but is not well-suited for sudden shifts.

After reading the above quote, I began to wonder if a faster system would be needed, and, if so, how to go about it. Perhaps a limited number of skills could be "warmed up", meaning a certain amount of times per day, you could give yourself a set of bonuses (maybe coupled with penalties) to whatever tasks you expected to complete for the day. This would give you a limited ability to focus on particular tasks. Maybe skills could offer multiple abilities, which are selectable but mutually exclusive. Maybe players could have passive and active skills/feats, and periodically alter which are active/passive.

I'm not sure at this point what the rationale/justification for any of this would be, but gameplay-wise, it might allow some of the flexibility of equipment swapping. Unfortunately, I'm not too fond of the ideas I've come up with for a "faster system", and I am hoping someone else can suggest something better, as well as have those familiar with more skill-focused systems comment on the issue.

I suppose a follow-up question would be: Even if such a system is possible/feasible, is this an issue best left to equipment? I.e., is this an advantage that should be limited to equipment? If skills don't require "repair", perhaps quick adaptation should be left in the realm of equipment to balance things out.
04 Feb, 2010, Kline wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
This sounds a lot like Ultima Online. I think you were capped to about 700 or 800 total skill points, with there being maybe 30 or 40 skills in total – 100(%) being the max in any given skill.

This meant you could either be highly specialized (7 skills at 100% each, given a 700 cap) or more of a generalist. As you raised one skill through use, others automatically atrophied and lowered to maintain your points within the cap. You could also 'lock' skills that you didn't wish to atrophy automatically, and mark others to atrophy at a quicker rate. So if you spent the time investment to get your 'Magic' to 100 (this took weeks-months IRL) you would lock it and have a remaining 600 cap to play with among all your other abilities.

Don't like a game change/your current play style? Unlock some skills, train a different way, and throw on some new gear.
04 Feb, 2010, Kjwah wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
Kline said:
This sounds a lot like Ultima Online. I think you were capped to about 700 or 800 total skill points, with there being maybe 30 or 40 skills in total – 100(%) being the max in any given skill.


Don't forget the 125 scrolls(It was 125, right?). And I have to agree, when I was reading it was reminding me of UO. lol

UO is actually where I am drawing a lot of ideas for the skill system in my new project.

The only problem with the system is people WILL bot to get their skills up. Sure, they may get caught and banned but people are still going to abuse the system. :(

I'll have to go over some of the stuff I've written down and come back to here to give some of the ideas I've come up with. What I was originally planning to do here but seeing as how I can't find my pad or my text files atm I'll have to come back. :p
04 Feb, 2010, Kline wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
Bot; maybe. Only if the gains are monotonous and simplistic enough to warrant it. I remember all the 3rd party UO utils that were legal to use. UO had some formula where skill gains decreased exponentially after about 5 points per day OR remaining within X radius of a few tiles for too long.

That grind from 95-100% in Magic? Yeah. You were on a boat, floating randomly in the ocean with a buddy – both of your bags full of reagents so you could keep casting and hope for a gain. Stuff like that is what made people bot it in UO; it was all 100% repetition of the same actions with a little movement mixed in to make sure you could still gain.

Now maybe if you provide different avenues to gain skills: practical use, reading a book, observing a fight, daydreaming (ever had a solution to a problem just come to you when you were least thinking about it?), "magic" (ancient scrolls, divine intervention)…The possibilities are fairly limitless. You just need to make the gains received from a diversified play style outweigh what a person could achieve by botting in place and spamming commands.
04 Feb, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
Tonitrus said:
I'm not too fond of the prevalence of magic items and the dominant role of equipment in MUDs. This is not to say I don't think equipment should be important, only that it should not necessarily be necessary to compete.

I think it's important to take a step back and look past the cosmetics, to consider what we're really discussing. What is an "item"? What is a "skill"?

Supposing I have a "ring of might" which grants the wearer a 10% damage bonus, and an "enhanced damage" skill which also grants a 10% damage bonus. What is the difference between the source of these two bonuses?

Is it the fact that skills are usually more granular? If so, what if I have skills that are boolean (eg my talent system)? What if I have equipment that gains power the more it's used?

Is it the fact that you usually have to hunt mobs for equipment? If so, what if I have necromatic skills that require you to steal knowledge by killing various mobs? What if I have a crafting system that allows you to create whatever items you want?

Is it the fact that skills are usually persistent? If so, what if you've got a cyberpunk mud where skills can be freely downloaded or erased? What if the same mud has "cybernetic implant" equipment that cannot be removed?

How exactly do you want your abilities to work? It doesn't matter at this point whether your abilities are represented by stats, skills, talents, equipment, divine powers, magical tattoos, cybernetic implants, genetic mutations, memory chips, supernatural symbiotes, bioengineered drugs, or whatever else. Those are just cosmetics - thematic justifications for your abilities - and you can worry about those later on. The first step is to decide how the mechanics should work.

You've said you want your abilities to be easily rearranged. How easily? Is there a price? Are there restrictions? Can all abilities be rearranged?

Where do abilities come from? Can you learn them through trial and error? Can players teach abilities to each other (or exchange abilities)? Can you invent your own abilities? Do you need to earn abilities from defeating opponents or completing quests? Are different abilities gained in different ways?

How are abilities improved? Do they increase naturally while you're online (or offline)? Do they increase with use? Are they increased by spending another resource such as exp or gold? Do they increase at all? Are different abilities increased in different ways?



As an aside, I've seen various proposals for skill (and stat) decay before, but it's not a concept that really appeals to me. I guess it doesn't help that most proposals I've seen are clearly developer-oriented "cool toys" that don't seem to consider the players' perspective, but even more moderate approaches strike me as rather unenjoyable - it's just not fun to watch your hard-earned progress slowly trickling away.
04 Feb, 2010, Kline wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Can you invent your own abilities?


This reminded me of Daggerfall. I'm not sure if TES:Arena had a similar system, but in Daggerfall you could do just this with magic. Go to the magic school/guild and it had an interface to pick your types of elemental damage, a damage range, visuals, casting range, duration, AOE affects…etc. The more amazing your spell was the more it cost. It was fun to find the balance between useful and excessive, particularly when dealing with monsters that may be immune to one or more elements.
04 Feb, 2010, Tonitrus wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
I think it's important to take a step back and look past the cosmetics, to consider what we're really discussing. What is an "item"? What is a "skill"?

I'd say that, in general, an item is an external object that grants a power, which can be bought, sold, or stolen, whereas a skill as an intrinsic power that runs off of the character's knowledge/supernatural abilities/whatever, and generally cannot be bought, sold, or stolen. I say in general because the lines can get really blurred at times. For example, cursed items, permanent tattoos, skills that make people forget other skills, the ability to teach others a skill (which is more of a sharing, I guess).

KaVir said:
Supposing I have a "ring of might" which grants the wearer a 10% damage bonus, and an "enhanced damage" skill which also grants a 10% damage bonus. What is the difference between the source of these two bonuses?

I'm not sure if you consider thematic issues cosmetic or not. Mechanically (all other things being equal), there's very little difference. They would have different bonus "types", however, which might determine what other abilities can interact with them and so on.

KaVir said:
Is it the fact that skills are usually more granular? If so, what if I have skills that are boolean (eg my talent system)? What if I have equipment that gains power the more it's used?

I'm having a terrible issue with boolean skills at the moment, so I can't answer that. I can say that, in my experience as a player, I'm vastly more fond of items that progress with me. DarkBlades come to mind, also I had a sort of soul-reaver weapon as a Necromancer on another mud that would gain stats as I got kills with it (but was deathrot, so if I died, I lost it).

KaVir said:
Is it the fact that you usually have to hunt mobs for equipment? If so, what if I have necromatic skills that require you to steal knowledge by killing various mobs? What if I have a crafting system that allows you to create whatever items you want?

This is more of an issue for me. I don't like "retracing my steps". If I've got a helmet, I don't like going to look for better helmets. As soon as I find one, I'll just have to get another one, after all. If the necromantic skills you're referring to worked similar to a normal equipment system, I don't think I'd like it very much either. It would, however, be much less of an issue thematically. As for crafting systems, I love crafting systems. I can modify my equipment as I go, improving it as I do, and I only have to replace an item if I screw it up. I'm answering these questions as a player, by the way. As a designer, I'd like to support as many different styles of play as I can, including normal equipment style play (although I do have some thematic issues with that that will have to be addressed).

KaVir said:
Is it the fact that skills are usually persistent? If so, what if you've got a cyberpunk mud where skills can be freely downloaded or erased? What if the same mud has "cybernetic implant" equipment that cannot be removed?

I don't know how I'd like a cyberpunk system like you mentioned, but the way talents/powers work in God Wars II is pretty great. It'd be very hard for me to justify that sort of thing thematically, though.

KaVir said:
How exactly do you want your abilities to work? It doesn't matter at this point whether your abilities are represented by stats, skills, talents, equipment, divine powers, magical tattoos, cybernetic implants, genetic mutations, memory chips, supernatural symbiotes, bioengineered drugs, or whatever else. Those are just cosmetics - thematic justifications for your abilities - and you can worry about those later on. The first step is to decide how the mechanics should work.

I'm not sure what you're asking here. In general terms, I want a system whereby character advancement/customization can occur even if no sort of character "leveling" occurs, where the gaining of new abilities (via items, skills, or anything else) is generally associated with a gold cost (for being trained/purchasing equipment/equipment maintanence/etc). In situations where gold doesn't make sense, some other currency will be used. These abilities will have various ways of limiting themselves so that character customization can occur without constant power inflation. The various types of abilities will have different bonuses and drawbacks, and each type of character should have a few types of abilities that mesh well with that type. I can discuss how I've approached this in terms of equipment, skills, and certain other powers if you'd like specifics, but in discussing all character abilities gained through whatever means, it's very difficult to be specific.

KaVir said:
You've said you want your abilities to be easily rearranged. How easily? Is there a price? Are there restrictions? Can all abilities be rearranged?

I intend to implement a lot of racial/classish things via your backgrounds/talent system, so I can safely say that they can't all be rearranged. As far as how easily, I think it should be pretty easy to rearrange any ability if you have an alternate. How quickly will probably depend on the type of ability. Acquiring new abilities will have a price associated with it. Reactivating abilities you already possess should generally not have a cost, unless perhaps you'd like to speed up the shift.

KaVir said:
Where do abilities come from? Can you learn them through trial and error? Can players teach abilities to each other (or exchange abilities)? Can you invent your own abilities? Do you need to earn abilities from defeating opponents or completing quests? Are different abilities gained in different ways?

Different typed abilities would have different power sources, and thus possess different means of acquiring them. Learning abilities through trial and error would be great, except that I can't think of a way that this wouldn't result in people just posting how to learn each on webpages, unless I made the system prone to grinding, which I'm not in favor of. Players can teach one another abilities, and trade certain types of abilities (equipment-based abilities). Certain abilities may be difficult to find, and may require some sort of quest or difficult task to unlock. As far as inventing abilities, it'd be nice, but I haven't come up with a system for that, yet. I suppose it could be worked up to be similar to item crafting, but there are messages associated with skills/etc, and I don't much like the idea of giving players the ability to define that text.

KaVir said:
How are abilities improved? Do they increase naturally while you're online (or offline)? Do they increase with use? Are they increased by spending another resource such as exp or gold? Do they increase at all? Are different abilities increased in different ways?

Different abilities increase in different ways, some may not increase at all. With respect to intrinsic abilities, they'd mostly increase via spending gold to train them. I'd be tempted to have them also increase during use, but I fear this would lead to botting. Intrinsic abilities can also be relearned without cost, via some sort of timed command. At this point, I don't intend for this to work while offline, but I'm not wholly opposed to the idea.

KaVir said:
As an aside, I've seen various proposals for skill (and stat) decay before, but it's not a concept that really appeals to me. I guess it doesn't help that most proposals I've seen are clearly developer-oriented "cool toys" that don't seem to consider the players' perspective, but even more moderate approaches strike me as rather unenjoyable - it's just not fun to watch your hard-earned progress slowly trickling away.

This was one of my concerns with the system when I wrote it up. My approach was to remember the maximum "rank" a person had in a skill, and not consider the skill loss as a loss of a skill so much as the skill becoming dormant. That is, if you originally had 5 ranks in magic, then stopped using magic for a long time, your ranks might be remembered as 0/5. You don't currently have access to a magical skill, but the game tracks that you had 5 ranks at one point. It might have cost you 5000 gold to learn magic up to that rank, but now you can train it back up via practicing. You decide you want to start using magic again, you might do something like "practice magic 10" to practice magic for 10 minutes, and your magic stat would raise by some amount (the time specification is to prevent people from having to type "practice" a bunch of times). This would tend to result in the loss of something else, unless you were "under quota", but after X amount of time, you could remax magic to 5 at no cost, except the time it took. You could also pay to have someone help you relearn it, if you were impatient. For me, as a player, I'm a bit less concerned with the idea of having to sometimes repractice skills I've neglected than I am with the idea of being permanently stuck with a skill I can't use. For example, on the mud I played as a Necromancer, it was possible to change my alignment to good (the immortals would take 5 of my 63 (yes, 63, I don't know why either) lives to do this, but it could be done). If I did get my alignment changed, however, virtually none of my spells would work. I'd be a completely crippled character. If the system had had some sort of multiclassing and skill/level decay, I could have slowly gotten levels freed up and put them into new classes. In all likelihood, it would have taken forever, but at least I wouldn't be stuck with a permanently crippled character. Another example would be D&D, gaining levels becomes increasingly rare, and in the meantime, your character's skills/abilities are locked. You can't really "forget" a class and gain another in its place.

Anyway, I designed this system to make things easier for the players and to allow character recalibration. Whether it actually will work as intended, I don't know.
04 Feb, 2010, elanthis wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
Mechanically (all other things being equal), there's very little difference.


There is a HUGE difference between skills and items in most games (not all, of course, and no I don't want to fucking hear about fringe alternative games that have nothing to do with statements explicitly about "most games"): skills are controlled progression and items can be found, earned, and traded without strict control. If your skill system says there's only one skill that gives +10STR, then the biggest STR bonus you can get from the skill system is +10, and the designer can control when that becomes available. With items, there might be 10 different items that give +10STR all in different types so they can stack, and (without level limits, power scaling, or so on) you can just trade them to get the best stacking.

This in turn is why some games go to the length of defining not only stacking types but also which item slots are allowed to have which types of bonuses. If only gauntlets are allowed to have STR bonuses, for example, then you can guarantee that no player can stack STR-bonus items. You could do the same by only taking the maximum bonus from all equipment, only allowing one item with a particular type of bonus to be equipped at a time, or so on, they all have the same end result of limiting stacking. There is still the problem of a newb getting his hands on gauntlets of STR +10,000,000, but we already had a thread on that topic very recently. :)

The gist of all that though is that any game that has bonuses on items has two totally separate mechanics for character progression: skills and equipment. They are linked in various ways in some games (level/skill limits/scaling on items), but generally not in a strict 1:1 fashion. This in part is another reason I really dislike equipment-based bonuses: I don't need or want two game system components that do the exact same damn thing.
04 Feb, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
elanthis said:
There is a HUGE difference between skills and items in most games

I think you've rather missed my point. Of course most games implement "skills" and "items" differently - there's little benefit in having two types of ability that work in exactly the same way. But those differences aren't an innate attribute of an ability being called a "skill" or an "item".

Because at the end of the day, when you look past the cosmetic fluff at the underlying mechanics, that's all that "skills" and "items" are - abilities that grant the character some benefit. We use cosmetics to hide that fact from the players of course, but we need to view things differently when we're designing games.

elanthis said:
The gist of all that though is that any game that has bonuses on items has two totally separate mechanics for character progression: skills and equipment. They are linked in various ways in some games (level/skill limits/scaling on items), but generally not in a strict 1:1 fashion. This in part is another reason I really dislike equipment-based bonuses: I don't need or want two game system components that do the exact same damn thing.

They are both abilities and usually work in parallel, but (to quote your own comment from earlier in the post) "There is a HUGE difference between skills and items in most games".

Of course removing one of the elements (skills or equipment) will simplify the game, just as removing both would simplify it even further. Or you could go the other direction and add even more types of ability. You could even make some of the abilities optional (for example allowing players to decide whether or not they want to use equipment). There is no "right" or "wrong" here, it depends on your target audience.
04 Feb, 2010, elanthis wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
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but we need to view things differently when we're designing games.


The fact that items and skills grant bonuses __that are gained in different fashions__ is very, very, very critical to the design process and not just cosmetic fluff. If it was cosmetic fluff, items with powers would be bought with skill/XP like GURPS or the other attribute-based RPGs, not a wholly separate mechanic that happens to have the same effect.

Quote
They are both abilities and usually work in parallel, but (to quote your own comment from earlier in the post) "There is a HUGE difference between skills and items in most games".


Most designs don't have them work in parallel though (yes, yes, some do – I said "most"). They're just duplicate systems that have the same result (bigger numbers) but with two separate mechanics.

I have seen many interesting systems where items and equipment actually do work in parallel with skills, such as allowing different combinations of moves based on equipped weapon, or where choice of weapon basically affects what types of enemies can be killed instead of how well all enemies can be killed, or even where item use determines which innate skills the wielder can learn or improve. In such systems equipment plays an actual separate role from skills and truly complements the skill system.

If all your equipment does is grant the same kind of bonuses or abilities that skills do, then it's just an alternate route to work around the skill system. Some rare games actually take this into account and expect players to have certain combinations of equipment and skills to gain the expected set of bonuses or abilities. Most games _claim_ to take it into account, but they do a horribly bad job of it. Most just kind of create a grab-bag of crap and toss it out into the game for players to acquire and stack however they can with no real forethought to the consequence or overall effect on the game system as a whole. And then you get the games where they originally had complementary purposes behind equipment and skills but which over time and through the constant churn of contributors end up a total mess where items supplant skills and skills supplant items and suddenly the min-maxed level 12 fighter hurls bigger fireballs than the level 30 wizard and the munchkin level 8 priest is a better assassin than the level 17 rogue and everybody sits there scratching their nerd-beards** wondering why a simple system of bonuses and abilities is so hard to balance properly.

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Of course removing one of the elements (skills or equipment) will simplify the game, just as removing both would simplify it even further.


Which is a popular option, I might note. :)

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There is no "right" or "wrong" here


I never said there was, just that I dislike (as in I personally disfavor for personal reasons of a disfavoring nature) systems that add a whole separate set of mechanics for the same thing for no reason other than having a separate set of mechanics for the same thing. I dislike equipment-based systems in general for purely cosmetic/story reasons, though there are other games that are purely equipment-based that I am insanely fond of (the Legend of Zelda series, as a great example).

** my beard is a man-beard, which is differentiated from a nerd-beard on account of it not being scraggly, greasy, patchwork, or worn in an attempt to either hide multiple chins or to imitate Norse mythological figures. If your beard matches any of those criteria, you have a nerd-beard, and you need to shave it the hell off. The gag-reflexes of the girls you clumsily hit on at the comic shop will appreciate it. This public service announcement is brought to you by Gillette, the number 5, and the letter ?.
05 Feb, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
elanthis said:
** my beard is a man-beard, which is differentiated from a nerd-beard on account of it not being scraggly, greasy, patchwork, or worn in an attempt to either hide multiple chins or to imitate Norse mythological figures. If your beard matches any of those criteria, you have a nerd-beard, and you need to shave it the hell off. The gag-reflexes of the girls you clumsily hit on at the comic shop will appreciate it. This public service announcement is brought to you by Gillette, the number 5, and the letter ?.

pics or it didn't happen
BTW, your Facebook pic disagrees. :wink:
05 Feb, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 12th comment:
Votes: 0
elanthis said:
The fact that items and skills grant bonuses __that are gained in different fashions__ is very, very, very critical to the design process and not just cosmetic fluff.

You're still looking at it the wrong way around - describing your abilities as "items" or "skills" is just cosmetic fluff, and should be done after you've decided how you want a particular type of ability to work.

If your design requires a type of ability that can be stolen, bought and sold, then a good thematic justification for such an ability is to call it an "item".

If your design requires a type of ability that is non-transferable and can be improved over time, then a good thematic justification for such an ability is to call it a "skill".

But if you start out thinking in terms of "items" and "skills", you're immediately limiting your design choices, because you've divided your potential abilities into two narrow categories before you've even thought about how those abilities should work - and there will be potential abilities that could fit both or neither category.

There are definite advantages in having a mixture of transferable and non-transferable abilities, and separating them into clearly labelled categories (such as "items" and "skills") can make it much easier for the player to distinguish between the two. But such a categorisation is for the benefit of the players, and is based on a specific implementation. If you're creating your own game, you should be designing your own ability categories.
05 Feb, 2010, elanthis wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
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BTW, your Facebook pic disagrees. :wink:


We talking the one where I don't even have a beard or the Batman pic? :p

… wait a minute. You're implying my beard is scraggly, greasy, patchwork, covering multiple chins, and/or in imitation of Norse mythological figures, aren't you? You cheeky bastard.

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You're still looking at it the wrong way around - describing your abilities as "items" or "skills" is just cosmetic fluff, and should be done after you've decided how you want a particular type of ability to work.


I'm describing what they are in actual games we actually play. I did state some other games use them differently.

You are dead on correct on the design aspects. Like I said, if you design with them properly, they work. Most games do not, they just use them as an identical system. (Do I need to repeat "most games" a few more times or is that part clear yet?)
05 Feb, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
elanthis said:
You are dead on correct on the design aspects. Like I said, if you design with them properly, they work. Most games do not, they just use them as an identical system. (Do I need to repeat "most games" a few more times or is that part clear yet?)

Nope, I get that - you dislike the idea of equipment, because most games you've played have implemented it badly. I'm much the same way with certain types of food, after facing the horrifying experience of school dinners as a child, so I can sort of relate. But when it comes to mud design I try to view things from a more detached perspective, and work out why a particular implementation of a feature is "bad", rather simply discard the entire idea out of hand.

For example in Tonitrus's case he mentioned that he's not too fond of the role of equipment in muds. But when quizzed, he admitted that he liked items that progress with him and loved crafting systems - but disliked having to hunt for better equipment, and would hate a necromatic skill system that required you to constantly hunt for better skill bonuses.

So I would approach this by taking a step back from the labels and looking at it as an abstract ability. Tonitrus seems to looking for something like this:

1. The ability should improve with the character.
2. The ability should be customisable.
3. The ability should have an associated currency cost.
4. The ability should NOT require you to hunt mobs.
5. The ability should NOT be something that can be freely rearranged.
6. It should be possible to both teach and/or exchange abilities.
7. Some abilities should be difficult to find.
8. It would be nice if the ability could be learned through trial and error.
9. It would be nice if new abilities could be invented.

This is a difficult combination to thematically justify as a single ability, and you'll note it combines elements of traditional skill and equipment systems. But one obvious possibility that springs to mind would be a spell system that addresses the above 9 points as follows:

1. The ability to successfully cast spells improves as the character gains experience.
2. The precise effects of each spell can be enhanced or customised using configurable metamagic options.
3. It costs gold to research new spells.
4. New spells are only gained through research or trade, not found from hunting mobs.
5. Once a spell has been researched, it is fixed, aside from the minor customisation described in point 2.
6. You can can teach your spells to others, but some spells may be the result of pacts with spirits or demons, in which case you must transfer the favour (in effect, losing the spell yourself).
7. Some spells are more difficult to research than others.
8. Some spells can be discovered by experimentation, but the combinations are tied to the player ID so that the secrets cannot be shared on webpages.
9. New spells can be invented, although this is more expensive than finding them by chance.

On the other hand, it could also be done via symbiotes - a sort of living equipment system:

1. A symbiote gains experience along with the character.
2. A symbiote can be tasked with different roles, based on its type.
3. A symbiote requires an expensive operation to be attached.
4. A symbiote is attached by a doctor and dies with its host, you can't just tear it off a dead mob.
5. A symbiote cannot be removed without killing the host.
6. Your symbiote may be stimulated to produce larva, which can be sold to other players. If you want permanent exchanges, you could also allow certain symbiote to be transferred in special situations (beware of conflicts with requirement 5).
7. Some symbiotes are very rare.
8. You can find mutant symbiotes with randomised attributes in the wild.
9. You can genetically engineer your own symbiotes.

Or of course you could do something else entirely.
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