What is the best skill leveling system?

[Zorafim]

In PSIV, you got skills as you leveled. Skills were just part of a character and you needed to accept that.
In PSO, you got skills as random drops. If you really wanted a strong ice spell but got fire spells, your only choice was to switch to fire or be gimped (ignoring the elemental resistance system for a minute)
In PSU, skills leveled as they were used. While this theoretically meant you got to use your favorite skills more, in practice it meant having to modify your gameplay to grind skills until they were useful.
In PSO2, they went back to a drop system. If you'd rather have a slow, powerful attack but only get quick spammy attacks, there's nothing you can do.

So, what we've seen is that random drops work best in practice. The weak skill may be a higher level now, but eventually you'll find the good skill. I believe this only works because of the grindy nature of the game. Leveling up works fine if the rates for leveling are quick, but that wasn't the case because of what kind of game this series has become.

But can this be improve upon? What kind of skill leveling system would you like to see?
Personally, I think some kind of buying system would work best. You gain points through some system, whether it be random drops or exp, and you spend these points on PA levels. This way, the way you're grinding is just by playing the game, and you get to chose which skills you want. No more spending ten levels without your favorite skill, and no more having to stand in one place shooting boomas for skill exp. Just run through TACOs or AQs with your best setup, and use the PA exp you gain on skills you prefer.

[Xaeris]

I liked PSU's system. Granted, the amount of grinding to get a bullet or a technic up to par was pretty bonkers, I think the work involved in leveling up skills was just right. Not only did it make thematic sense (you get better with a skill by practicing it, duh), it also didn't leave you at the mercy of RNG, and gave you yet another treadmill to walk on that at least went at a consistent predictable pace and had a definitive end.

[Unnamed Player]

I like the special weapon skills from PSO.

[Kondibon]

Grindyness aside, my favorite skill leveling system on a conceptual level was Mabinogi's, as it encouraged you to use a skill in specific ways, as you could only gain a specific total amount of skill exp from a specific training method, instead of just spamming it on garbage mobs until it leveled. On top of that skills had an Ability point cost, that varied from skill to skill. This meant they could balance certain skills to have really grindy training but cost a negligible amount of skill points (most crafting), or have easy training with a high AP cost (lolmagic).

Unfortunately in practice most of the skill training for offensive skills ended up being pretty shallow, especially as they started adding new skills, and while crafting . 3:

EDIT: Also, yes I know Zorafim was talking about games in the PS series, but I really liked Mabi's skill system OK? ; w;

[yoshiblue]

Mabi's combat (Before the changes) and skill system was pretty great. Though out of all the Phantasy Stars, gonna have to go with PSU's skill system. Though I also want to be evil and lock certain PAs behind certain races. :witch:

[Kondibon]

My problem with PSU's system was just how grindy it was, but if maybe the cap for PAs/Techs was tied to something else (like level, or some COs) it might be easier to pace instead of needing to be super grindy to keep people from caping everything faster than they level.

Also, while I have Mabi on the mind, I also wish more of the skills and PAs in PSO2 had functionality changes at specific break points, like some skills in Mabi did. Smash is a good example, normally it's a single target attack, but at rank 5 it starts dealing splash damage, and at rank 1 the splash AoE and damage increase, in addition to the base damage increase. Or bolt spells which are normally canceled when you're knocked back, but at higher ranks you lose only one charge.

They could merge a lot of skills with their secondary skills that way, but with the way skill points work I guess that would require an entire overhaul.

[yoshiblue]

I could see it being locked behind the crafting system, requiring a certain level of PA to be already learned to craft the add on. Or the disk too.

[Kondibon]

I was mainly thinking about skills with that. I feel like having functionality changes on PAs past a certain level would be kinda weird, and now that you mention it PA crafting is SUPPOSED to fill that niche, too bad they seem to have forgotten about it. :wacko:

I'm getting tired of them adding new systems to basically get around re-balancing stuff, especially in regards to gunner

[landman]

In practice, in PSU you would end not using your awesome lvl 40/50 arts/bullets/techs because you'd still have others to level up, and using the capped ones was a waste of training time!

I don't really mind the disc method, specially after the rebalance which means that if you are unlucky you are only missing a small % of damage output.

[Skyly]

PSU buff parties >

[Punisher106]

PSU. Nothing was better than safespotting hordes of Boomas in Sakura Blast S2 while training techs.

[schnee4]

best skill leveling?
hmm maybe leeching for american!

[milranduil]

PSU. Nothing was better than safespotting hordes of Boomas in Sakura Blast S2 while training techs.

i miss this :( i leveled FT/MF on my cast just for super leveling ease.

[Shinmarizu]

A combination of PSIV and PSU: unlocking skills by leveling, which could then be upgraded through repeated use. That would be grand.

Could lead into combination/hybrid skills depending on preferences.

[zandra117]

Some variation of Phantasy Star III's tech redistribution system might be neat for a future game
http://ps3.huguesjohnson.com/techniques.html

[PandaRehab]

Grindyness aside, my favorite skill leveling system on a conceptual level was Mabinogi's, as it encouraged you to use a skill in specific ways, as you could only gain a specific total amount of skill exp from a specific training method, instead of just spamming it on garbage mobs until it leveled. On top of that skills had an Ability point cost, that varied from skill to skill. This meant they could balance certain skills to have really grindy training but cost a negligible amount of skill points (most crafting), or have easy training with a high AP cost (lolmagic).

Unfortunately in practice most of the skill training for offensive skills ended up being pretty shallow, especially as they started adding new skills, and while crafting . 3:

EDIT: Also, yes I know Zorafim was talking about games in the PS series, but I really liked Mabi's skill system OK? ; w;
I really miss that system. Training windmill in Tir Na Nog with limited access was a really unique feeling especially. It was like actually becoming a hermit lol.

[Keilyn]

I miss PSU and PSO1

In PSO1 we had normal attack, heavy attack, and special attack. I liked that combination.
I loved PSU and felt its PAs were better than PSO2s....

In fact I miss the style of PSU.

PSU had weapons in which the photon blade color represented elements. It was also understood that the characters alone didn't have any real defense and that protection was provided by a pattern in their clothing filling itself to an elemental color. These were called Line-Shields.

I liked that each planet had a culture and that each race had an approach and their story....as well as the fact that EVENT maps were not about going in circles and actually were more thought out than PSO2.

Then came Guardians Cash and everything started going downhill......

[Serinah]

Grindyness aside, my favorite skill leveling system on a conceptual level was Mabinogi's, as it encouraged you to use a skill in specific ways, as you could only gain a specific total amount of skill exp from a specific training method, instead of just spamming it on garbage mobs until it leveled. On top of that skills had an Ability point cost, that varied from skill to skill. This meant they could balance certain skills to have really grindy training but cost a negligible amount of skill points (most crafting), or have easy training with a high AP cost (lolmagic).

Unfortunately in practice most of the skill training for offensive skills ended up being pretty shallow, especially as they started adding new skills, and while crafting . 3:

EDIT: Also, yes I know Zorafim was talking about games in the PS series, but I really liked Mabi's skill system OK? ; w;

Mabi's probably the MMO I've played with the most indepth character progression system, and I've never seen anything quite like it (unfortunately).

There did end up being some problems with the skill ranking system, however.
With AP becoming more and more superfluous, people began getting more and more stats. People with a lot of stats will have a hard time finding readily available enemies of the correct power level to grind on, and there are some skills that become next to impossible to rank.

devCAT's answer to this, was to release new skills without the combat power requirements, at the cost of making the skills a lot grindier. And thus they created skills like Smokescreen, which you have to use something like 10500 times to rank from 5 to 1 (before training bonuses).

It really is quite sad the direction that game has taken.

[Tunga]

Being able to buy every disk from shop at lvl 1 and grinding them to higher levels. Maybe 250K meseta total from lvl 1 to lvl 17. I mean it's not like the clerks from the disk shop starve to death everyday...

[isCasted]

I'd want a system akin to PSU, where:
- you buy rare disks with gathered materials (PA frags, Photon Spheres, badges...) in shops which you have to unlock;
- you level PAs by using them;
- levelling PA improves more than just damage;
- GAS-like customization.

But:
- attack PAs level up based on damage (not hit count) and support techs level based on efficiency of usage (for example, the EXP formula could account an actual stat gain and penalise for early recasts). This would make it easier for high-level players to level new PAs, and it wouldn't require nearly as much time dedicated solely to grind them;
- you can gain additional EXP and unlock customization options by using materials and/or other discs;
- discs of level higher than 1 may drop on higher difficulties (but not too high-level. For example, if PA level cap was 50, maximal level for a drop disc could be 20).

[RadiantLegend]

I HATE PSU SYSTEM. Effing dugrega was a nightmare.
I just got over it don't remind me.

[Dragwind]

I loved most of PSU, but by far I couldn't stand PA leveling. I'd much rather find PAs vs leveling them. I just about capped every single PA in the game as I played every class, and that was the worst and most boring time sink. I did it because I wanted to maximize my damage output on every class, so that's probably not a good reason for hating them.

However, leveling PAs had a social problem- people leveling PAs in groups caused all sorts of side effects from unwanted knock back (causing frustration for other players- detracting from fun) as well as spamming the same PA over and over again in situation that would make a hunt or grinding much more frustrating for other players. One could argue on either side of the fence for this one, but personally I think it really caused problems within parties.

I hope we never have to level PAs again. Being a type of player that has to cap everything for different reasons, that was like punishment to me.

[[Ayumi]]

I rather PSU's for one reason. One simple reason.
When you're done maxing out a skill, you can turn it back into a disc and then give it to any character on your account.
Better than having to hunt all over the place for sometimes 3 or 4 of the same level 17 techs and such.

[Hysteria1987]

I've hardly had too much experience in other MMORPGs, but maybe some combination of PSO's and PSU's would be nice. Finding a high-level disk could get you to the base point of that level, and training that technique could get you to what's possible for that disk level. Only the training's an overall sort of thing, I wouldn't say if you level a disk up you're back to square one, that's a little cruel. That sorta thing.

I don't mind the grindey stuff too much. Gotta have a reason to play after all.

Also I might be in the minority here, but I liked PSO's normal/heavy/special attacks more than PSO2's system of everything needing to be PAs, because regular attacks aren't powerful enough to do much good. I also like the material system better than the skill tree system, but I think a hybrid of the two would be even better.