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Character Progression and Roles

Design Goals

The game should feel like a classic MMO without becoming a grind-only stat treadmill. Character growth should come from practiced skills, knowledge, renown, and equipment rather than from one global character level.

No Global Level

This game should not use a universal player level.

A character should instead be defined by:

  • skill profile
  • role affinities
  • regional renown
  • knowledge and codex familiarity
  • equipment quality and specialization
  • teaching lineage and reputation where relevant

See equipment-and-gear.md for the full equipment slot, quality, and durability model.

Progression Layers

Skill Mastery

Each skill improves through relevant action. The player gets better at things by doing them well, doing them in varied conditions, and using stronger teachers or tools.

Role Signatures

Roles should emerge from skill clusters rather than from hard class ladders. A strong shield fighter with leadership and endurance plays like a Vanguard, while a skilled healer-survivalist plays like a Warden.

Renown and Trust

Each region and major town should track standing. Renown unlocks better contracts, more trusted escorts, town rights, and access to higher-responsibility systems.

Knowledge Progression

Monster knowledge, route knowledge, and resource knowledge should progress separately from raw skill. This keeps veteran value high without requiring stat inflation.

Teaching and Lineage

Advanced players should be able to teach others for free or for a fee. Teaching accelerates learning, but does not replace actually doing the work.

Skill Gain Rules

Skills should grow when the character performs relevant, meaningful actions.

Recommended rules:

  • non-trivial tasks give better gains than repetitive easy tasks
  • varied activity teaches more than one repeated exploit loop
  • success should teach more than failure, but failure can still teach something
  • guided teaching should improve gains in lower and middle skill bands
  • server-settled jobs should award skill gains from actual outcomes, not client claims

Proficiency Bands

The UI should present readable mastery bands rather than naked numbers.

Recommended bands:

  • Untrained
  • Familiar
  • Practiced
  • Skilled
  • Veteran
  • Expert
  • Master

Skill Proximity Display

The server computes a per-skill gain rate from recent expedition outcomes. When a skill is within 20% of its next band threshold, the UI surfaces an estimate:

  • On board cards: expedition cards relevant to that skill show an inline label — "Blades: ~3 hunts to Skilled (est.)"
  • Daily outlook panel: the single closest skill flip across all skills appears as one line
  • Character sheet: all skills show a thin progress bar within the current band, not just a static label

Estimates are derived from average gain rate on recent similar runs. They are labelled as estimates and do not guarantee advancement — harder runs on more challenging targets give better gains than easy repeated loops.

The proximity display is suppressed when the skill is more than 20% from the next threshold. "Blades: ~47 hunts to Skilled" is not motivating. The display activates only when the target feels achievable.

Launch Archetypes

These should be treated as starting affinity packages, not permanent classes.

  • Vanguard: shields, defense, threat control, escort stability.
  • Ranger: scouting, ranged pressure, route safety, ambush reduction.
  • Arcanist: elemental damage, utility, ritual handling, barrier breaking.
  • Warden: healing, cleansing, recovery, attrition resistance.
  • Artificer: tools, traps, repair, siege utility, expedition prep bonuses.
  • Duelist: single-target pressure, pursuit, boss execution, flexible skirmish role.

Role Model in Async Play

Classic MMO roles still matter and express through preparation, loadouts, and role coverage. In group expeditions, complementary roles increase overall coverage without forcing strict class locks.

Examples:

  • a Vanguard reduces frontline collapse chance during long escort missions
  • a Ranger improves route scouting and lowers surprise encounter risk
  • a Warden stretches food and medicine efficiency on long expeditions
  • an Artificer improves repair, trap use, and salvage returns

These roles should be derived from skill clusters, not hard class locks.

Unlock Rules

Use explicit thresholds for advanced systems instead of giving every feature immediately.

Recommended examples:

  • player contract posting unlocks when the player has relevant domain skill competence plus trusted local renown
  • town governance voting unlocks at guild rank plus local standing and leadership or stewardship competence
  • advanced recipes require matching craft skills plus local materials knowledge
  • dangerous expeditions should require relevant combat, survival, and knowledge competence instead of a level gate

Milestone Telegraphing

Unlocks must be visible before they are reached. Revealing a feature after the player already qualified for it wastes the motivational pull. The UI should show the next meaningful unlock as soon as the player can see the path to it.

Current state Upcoming unlock When to surface it
Hall rank F Hall rank E: new board tier, beginner protection expiry From first login
Hall rank E Hall rank D: Priority orders, solo bounties expand After rank E achieved
Hall rank D Hall rank C: group bounty board access After rank D
Blades Familiar Practiced: Superior weapons at full effectiveness When Familiar achieved
Survey Familiar Practiced: chart output confidence increases; higher sell value When Familiar achieved
Cartography Practiced Skilled: guild archive submission rights When Practiced achieved
Renown: Known Renown: Trusted — player contract posting unlocks When Known reached
Renown: Trusted Renown: Established — town governance voting eligible When Trusted reached

Show the next unlock only, not the full ladder. Showing five future tiers at once dilutes the pull. Each reveal should feel like discovering the next step.

Implementation: store milestone_visibility per character — a simple set of milestone ids the player has been shown. When the player crosses a threshold, mark the next milestone as visible and surface it in the daily outlook panel as a one-line entry.

Core State

Store at minimum:

  • character
  • character_loadout
  • character_skill_proficiency
  • character_role_affinity
  • character_region_renown
  • character_knowledge_summary
  • character_equipment (current equipped items per slot)
  • character_inventory (unequipped items)

Derived Combat Snapshot

Do not recalculate every modifier during every combat step from raw items. On loadout change, meaningful skill gain, or status change, build a derived combat snapshot that contains:

  • health and stamina values
  • offense_channel
  • defense_channel
  • arcane_channel
  • utility_channel
  • jewellery_bonus_set
  • role_tags
  • burden_modifier
  • expedition_tags

That snapshot becomes the server-authoritative input for expedition resolution.

Build Storage

Players should be able to save multiple loadout profiles. The active expedition references a saved build profile rather than loose equipment state.

Group Coverage Scoring

When forming group expeditions, compute a simple group role coverage score from the member snapshots. This helps surface weak compositions without forcing strict class locks.

  • skill catalog
  • equipment and gear
  • teaching and apprenticeship
  • expedition resolution
  • regional renown and town access
  • player job board permissions
  • guild ranking and officer eligibility