Combat
Characters making attacks on other characters are making a roll against the target's defenses. The Attacker's FPS aim, character skill and environmental conditions (like cover, visibility and weapon characteristics) compete with the Defender's character agility, armor and awareness (AAA) of the attacker. Should the Attacker's roll win, they score a Kill Shot on the Defender, potentially killing or incapacitating them. If the Defender is unhittable due to armor and character agility, each successive attack that fails due to armor or agility grants the attacker a Concentration Point bonus on their future attacks. Thus, heroic defenses will eventually succumb to repeated attack if the attacker is not killed first. This also means that in group on group combat, there is no advantage to focus fire. In fact the most heavily armed and armored combatants should be trying to engage with the most heavily armed and armored enemies, since they pose the greatest threat. Weaker combatants should seek out weaker enemies as they have the greatest chance to eliminate them.
This results in a more chaotic and realistic combat system than the traditional Health bars and tank/healer model.
Skill Categories
Characters are built by training skills in a number of disciplines. Weapon and Support skill trees are the two main categories that affect combat. Non-Combat skill trees may also exist. Weapon skill trees include things like Pistols, Rifles, Blades, Martial Arts and Heavy Weapons. Support skill trees include First Aid, Armor, SpecOps (Stealth), Survival, Engineering and Vehicles. A Skill Category is basically a collection of related skills that a character may choose to train some or all of.
Learning and Experience
Training is the act of selecting what skills you want your character to be able to use. Practice is the act of using a particular skill enough that the character gains a special bonus based on the tree that skill is in. Depending on what skills a character uses most they become Practiced in one Weapon category and up to two Support categories. Being Practiced in a skill category is generally indicative of a playstyle, and may grant a special ability as long as the character stays in Practice. For instance, a Practiced Pistol user may gain the ability to perform a Quickdraw and a Practiced First Aid user may gain the ability to revive a player from the brink of death.
In this way players are free to select they want through a classless skill system, and their playstyle will unlock abilities that complement their chosen path.
The next question is whether there is any further character growth beyond the selection of Trained skills and Practicing. A game like WoW utilizes a combination of leveling to a cap and then acquiring better and better gear in order to progress. The plus side of WoW's leveling system is that it is very addictive and satisfying, however one might ask "why not just start at the level cap?" In a lot of ways the whole point of a WoW-style leveling system is to maintain a continual goal in the game: self-improvement. Initially self-improvement is very straightforward, as you slay monsters and complete quests to earn experience and level up. Upon reaching the cap the self-improvement game changes slightly and it becomes about gear.
Eve Online takes a slightly different approach but ends up with a similar scheme: Skill training is continuous and improves performance in a given ship, which is further improved through equipment. However it is quite easy to reach a point at which you are as good with a particular ship as you can possibly be, and it is just a question of whether that ship is the right ship for the job. Around that point your self-improvement becomes more about versatility than potential. Eventually self-improvement becomes about projected power through political, economic and military power that isn't necessarily based on personal skill-based performance.
In many ways it is that later endgame that is the most interesting. Eve Online has the interesting characteristic that in an isolated PvP encounter skill points and equipment matter, but they are not critical - a less skilled character (or group) in a less expensive ship (or fleet) is quite capable of killing a more highly skilled and equipped player or group, with the proper tactics.
I lean more towards the Eve Online model in that I would prefer a character's worth to be based not on the skills and equipment they have but on the fruits of playstyle and tactics. So rather than focusing on self-improvement through a leveling system or gear, I'd like to build a different model into this game. A feature that I was intrigued by in The Agency was the ability to collect Operatives, NPCs that become part of your own personal spy network and expand your capabilities by allowing you to call them up to tail a suspect, hack a computer, etc. I love that concept and would like to build something similar to be the endgame self-improvement for this MMO - so rather than becoming stronger and stronger as a combat force, characters will cap out in raw capability relatively early, and turn their attentions to utilizing that combat capability to achieve and acquire power in a more abstract sense. Also, Grand Theft Auto IV has a similar concept, where by making friends with various characters you can call them up to get helicopter rides, buy weapons without having to visit a store, get some thugs to back you up, etc. These types of perks are the way to go.
Some possibilities include acquiring vehicles, creating player-owned structures in the game world, gaining followers and sidekicks and improving their capabilities, vanity items and of course garnering fame and fortune. The basic formula should probably be that success in the game translates into minor gameplay perks and major coolness perks. I would prefer to avoid a situation where success unlocks further gameplay (as in a WoW raiding progression) as I think there are plenty of MMOs that follow that PvE model. I'd rather see few obstacles to reaching the pinnacle of character development and more interesting and optional sideroads for characters to explore once they've mastered the basic gameplay.
Still, it is important for characters to have goals and feel like they have achieved things, so I guess I shouldn't neglect that. Achievement point systems are an interesting way of giving that feeling of accomplishment without impacting gameplay. If WoW instances didn't grant gear or experience but instead granted achievements for completing their storylines, would people still do them? I think that might actually encourage better storytelling in the instances - since you'd be going in there to explore and have fun rather than to grind out a level or hope that a piece of gear drops. Likewise I don't want to have prized gear dropping from monsters or being acquired by running an instance - instead I'd rather see characters defeating enemies to accomplish story goals.
In other words - the Slaver Boss you are sent to take out isn't going to drop a special pistol. But eliminating his base might allow a local gunsmith you freed to begin producing weapons again. The next post should focus on brainstorming more specifically the types of endgame self-improvement that will drive players to play, explore and achieve.
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