But that would completely ruin the choices you have to make when making a character. Currently you have to choose if you want to be a inf, cav, ranged or hybrid. You can't be all those things at the same time. With your suggestions the only choice you'd have to make is what do you want to start as and then just grind long enough until you can do everything.
Oh, I don't know about that. It would take
ages to become, say, an effective 1h+shielder tank + horse archer. I mean, I generally do
only Powerstrike + Weapon Master, so I'd be adding Iron Flesh and Athletics before I even thought about expanding with cavalry or ranged. And with the slot system.. would it really matter that much anyway? If I'm carrying a long bow + arrows, I only have one slot left - so I couldn't also have a 1h + shield, or any 2h, or most any polearm on me. Perhaps a few additional combinations would become feasible, but by and large, at best, a person might be able to play 1h + shielder one round, then switch to horse archer or whatever the next round. It would be mostly like having an alt.. except it would be much, much easier to just level up an alt.
Besides, easy way out of that with retirement: You start with a level cap of say 31 or so, and that increases by 1 each retirement. That
drastically increases the time it would take to reach even 35, 40. Anyone who aspires to have an uber-character, then, is going to be spending a lot of their time at lower levels. Further, when retirement first came around, with each generation the required level to retire went up as well; so it could be set so that you have to hit 31 for your first retirement, 32 for your second, and so on.
It also used to cost some gold to retire, more each retirement, and I think that would allow for a far better alternative to the current upkeep system: I don't necessarily object to repair costs in general, but only that you can be losing more money in repairs than you are earning each round. Better if more expensive equipment had a gold-gain penalty such that wearing 'too good' of gear could even stop gold gain completely - but not so far as to cost money you've already saved. That may not work
now, because there's really nothing you need gold for once you have the equipment you want to use. But if you needed gold to retire - an increasing amount each generation, perhaps - then you have a nice incentive (rather than a mandate) to use lower-tier equipment.
So.. okay, okay. Let's say someone plays
a lot, daily, for two years or something and finally reaches level 60. All Lordly plate armor, max Iron Flesh. A real tank. What's the problem with that? Yeah, a level 10 probably can't kill him. But.. that's kind of a silly test. It doesn't take long to level up from 10. Heck, if you're a casual player, you can Skip the Fun and get right to 30. Even leveling 1-30 doesn't take too long. A really good 25-30 player with an appropriate build would have a fair shot even against a super-tank. I used to have Lordly Gothic Plate w Bevor back in the earlier days of retirement; when you get whacked by someone with high Power Strike, it still does a heck of a lot of damage. And in any case, a player like that would encourage people to play as a team rather than a bunch of solo duelists ignoring their fellow teammates; there's not a whole lot you can do if 2-3 cooperating players are on you at once, no matter how well armored you are. I don't think we need to worry so much about 1v1 parity - that's why we have team autobalance.
