Best Character Creation System

^I agree completely.

I still needed to grind that legendary swimming skill in W7 though

The game shouldn't force you to grind.

I think one of the ways to make the game reasonably challenging without forcing you to grind is to make the game non-linear (even the main quest) to a degree. That way, when you reach the dead-end in a form of too tough opponents or not having required skills to continue quest etc, you can leave it for later and do something else instead.
Of course, this also needs to be well balanced, otherwise there would be a risk that game would become linear again forcing you to do the quests in sequence from easy to difficult. Err, I'm gonna repeat myself but W7 and W8 are fine example of games which handled this well. I also liked how this was handled in G1/G2.

Not having monsters respawned will reduce grinding opportunities anyway.
Still, I like when some tougher encounters/quests can be reached relatively early in game - it feels natural. Yes, you will be smitten in no time but when you finally return strong enough to deal with such encounters, it's not only satisfactory, but it also puts progression of your party into better perspective.

Also, it would be nice to have specific encounters which are easy if you have some class/high skill in your party or difficult if you have not. This goes back to my post about possible peaceful resolution of the quests. I'd welcome having more ways of succesful solution of some quests depending on your party's composition. This of course requires having well though out skill system in which points in skills, or having those skills really matters.

I see that I got a bit carried away again, so I add just a tiny bit of something hopefully 100% on-topic now
Generally, good character creation system should offer lot of possibilities in class-races-skills department, as well as be reasonably restrictive in some aspects (some class-race combinations impossible, not being able to assign all points to just one skill/attribute) and not have any random factors included aka no rerolling.
Very important for character creation system is transparency. Player should be able to create effective party without knowing what awaits him in the game itself. Good description of classes, races, skills and attributes readable in-game should help it a lot.
All skills should be really relevant in-game for which is quite important to include just right amount of them. Again, in W8 this was pretty ideal.
Being able to learn some entirely new skills which wouldn't be accessible during character creation wouldn't hurt either, be it connected to specializations or some special opportunities.
Simplicity, effectivity, transparency, variability, relevance, a lot of fun. Sounds easy to me.

azraelck said:

That's why I like keeping XP and some method for earning skill points, or at least buying training with otherwise useless gold, over a pure practice-makes-perfect system. Wizardry did it right, giving you a few skill points but also leveling skills up as you used them. That way, you could pump lesser-used skills like mapping and swimming, and when you NEED those skills, you're not lost in the woods or drowning in a shallow creek.

Click to expand...

Agree

I think the neatest way to balance the issue is if the game allows for multiple approaches to various problems, but that's not a character creation/development issue per se Otherwise one could go for the traditional way out of such situations by having spells or carefully hidden scrolls that can do the work of skills, which IMHO is a cheap and unbalancing solution as it might make skills pointless. If I were a game designer I'd probably simply choose to cut out rarely used but still essential skills and either use gadgets to perform them or make all characters know them. Getting stuck in a Star Trail dungeon because you didnt start to build a spell that you only use once in the game is not gameplay, it's stupidity.

Grinding - the very heart and soul of the evil that is massive multiplayer online heresy - should be avoided at all costs!

Fire and brimstone falling from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! I'm out of lasagna! Forty years of darkness, earthquakes volcanoes; the dead rising from their graves! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, it's mass hysteria!

I'll go off as well and say that every problem should have at least two solutions. In fact, there should be as many ways to deal with an issue as possible. Such as raising a Death Knight from his state of undeath, rather than getting into one hell of a difficult fight with him. Or convincing same Knight that what he is doing goes against his old ideals, and turn him back to the path of "good" (or evil, depending on you're objectives, but I digress even further). Or raising him then killing his freshly raised mortal form.

Furthermore, what you do to sub-bosses such as the Death Knight should come into play later on down the line; keeping a group of slaves from the slaughter because the one who would have killed them has either changed or is dead; perhaps he'll even help with the BBEG at the end.

Done going off-topic for now. Give my 5 minuets, I'll be back to go off topic again.