Guild Wars 2

Ok… So just an idea after playing GW2 with a couple of beers…

What if instead of having the points allocation system we have been using for years in every mmo ever made the character was “built” simply by the way it is played?

I.E If you fight with Greatsword a lot, you will become awesome with greatsword. You will get access to greatsword skills that become increasingly powerful with your proficiency and you start unlocking access to offensive trait lines that focus on burst DPS and might stacking. If you switch to hammer you gain proficiency with this and start unlocking skills and a mix of offensive traits that focus on CC and defensive trait lines that focus on protection. As you gain proficiency in hammer you will slowly lose proficiency in greatsword… The more advanced you were with greatsword and the associated traits, the slower you will lose proficiency.

If you frequently use a skill that gives you protection, you will unlock traits that make you better at buffing yourself defensively. If you frequently use a skill that group buffs protection you will unlock traits that make you better at buffing your group defensively..

If you land dodge rolls…. If you Absorb X amount of damage from Aegis… It all unlocks…. but you can only take it so far because the more proficiency you have, the slower they all progress which provides your power cap.

It could be applied to every facet of the game.

I know there are HUGE problems with this ps… It just though it sounded cool.

There was a pen and paper RPG called Runequest that used a system very similar. No classes at all. It was awesome.

And instead of XP your character ages based on total proficiency gained.

Skyrim did it this way so you can see an example of how it works.

That makes it extremely annoying for build swapping not to mention potentially extremely grindy but attempting to fix those aspects risk trivializing the system’s existence.

Ultima Online was like that, everybody copied Everquest instead.