[MUD-Dev2] Specialization

[Damion Schubert]

On Jan 3, 2008 4:50 PM, Sean Howard <squidi at squidi.net> wrote:

>
> Specialization is entirely overrated. Only in the videogame world would a
> guy who carries an axe be unable to administer even a bandaid, or somebody
> who learns to read books by beating the crap out of monsters. People are
> multi-class, multi-discipline. People learn to play basketball and speed
> read and write essays and be parents and ballroom dance and program their
> VCR. Skill based systems aren't really that big an improvement, but it
> beats forced socialization by purposely inventing ability gaps. I can't do
> it myself, so I need other people. Bull honkey. It's like telling girls
> they'll never be president (they'll have to reroll).
>

Specialization isn't overrated.  Realism is overrated, at least as far as
game design inspiration comes from.  Specialization has many positive
roles in the game, including creating a need for different
player roles and making the game possible to balance.  And almost
every MMO that has eschewed any specialization restrictions has been
a balance nightmare.

Specialization allows us to make things COOLER.  If you know that
only rogues can go invisible, you can actually give them more powerful
attacks designed to go well with that invisibility, and you can push that
to 11.  However, if everyone can go invisible, the designer must account
for the combination of invisibility and every possible power.  As an
example,
in Shadowbane, stealth + summon = instant army in the opposition's base.
Combinations this powerful end up actually SHRINKING player choice,
as all players in the arena either choose the broken template, or are
forced to make choices designed to combat it.

There are ways to have soft specialization.  In Magic the Gathering, for
example, you can mix any colors you want, but you have to deal with
the mana restrictions that go with going multi-color.  But just
abandoning any specialization restrictions altogether ... that way lie
dragons.

--d