Originally Posted by Sythe

I suggest we redesign the XP paradigm instead of mindlessly following it.

Perhaps we could combine skill metrics (measures of real user skill) with the traditional xp per kill system.

For example if you miss 90% of the enemies attacks and hit 75% of the time, then you should get a better score than someone who kills the same enemy but gets hit more often and misses the target more often.

Further, successfully blocking attacks, dodging, aiming, etc should contribute to a fixed set of player stats. So if you are really good at dodging then you get more agility points which makes your character faster, which makes you still better at dodging. This is called a positive feedback loop.

In addition to the xp automatically gained on the skills you use while fighting, you might accure bonus points which can be added to any skill later, or turned into gold as was suggested above.

In reward for your efforts I think monsters should drop gems or something. INRL certain whales have a highly valuable substance inside them which is used for making fine perfume. Using this same concept we could develop a range of monsters each with different kill values plus or minus a random amount.

This way you could start off killing low level monsters for no profit until you've established your skill set (by being a skilled player in real life) then you could move up to other players and valuable monsters.

Of course these are just my thoughts. Anyone is free to add.