What would be a good alternative to the current system?
It's hard to come up with any exact solutions without looking at the game's code, but here are the main problems:
1) Getting your attacks dodged is the only way to gain. Blocks and parries do nothing at all
2) Almost nothing can dodge you once you hit the plateau, which occurs unreasonably early
3) Offense is your enemy because any points gained in offense are points you won't gain in weapon skills
4) Unlike all other skills, high levels of combat prowess are gated behind questionable ideals of "exceptionalism"
I could snap off easy-sounding "fixes" to all of that, but if it all changed at the same time, it would probably cause a bunch of problems. Based on my opinion on what's actually feasible, here's what I would see done:
Add blocks and parries to things that can raise skills, with a lower chance. We can keep the thing where your offense needs to be within x of their defense to gain, just so people don't max out on easy opponents. There's just no reason why only a dodge should work. This is the root of the whole problem.
If the above becomes reality, #2 is partially solved, but animals still tend to be really bad at dodging. This could do with a bump across the board. They don't necessarily need to dodge you all the way to master, but it's kind of silly how supposedly deadly wildlife becomes sitting ducks against any middling fighter. Feels more like fighting a walrus than a lion or dinosaur. And I would add something that makes fighting megafauna (meks, mets, etc.) effective for learning. It's silly that the most dangerous beasts are worst for skillgains.
Don't really know what to do with offense. There are so many problems with this skill. Sure, being great with a sword should mean you're also at least decent with an axe; but it shouldn't simultaneously make it way harder to get better with the axe. I liked it better the way it worked on Shadows of Isildur and its successors: offense is just half of your highest weapon skill, and is used when wielding a weapon whose skill you don't have or is lower than your offense value. Can still be used in scripts and skill checks. It'll then represent your general combat experience without interfering significantly with skill progression.
#4 is more of a cultural thing, but Armageddon needs to stop being so frightened of mundane combat. Swinging a sword accurately is
very far down on the list of mechanics that facilitate playerkilling. It's just not that perilous to the game if characters can become skilled warriors through normal, realistic means. There's simply no need for these insanely strict regulations and hamfisted notions of exceptionalism.
It makes no sense to hold weapon skills to such a harsh standard that anything above journeyman can somehow be called exceptional, especially when this is applied to no other skills in the game. You can max out things like backstab, archery, poisoning and spells with ease and nobody bats an eye when someone masters literally every relevant skill on their sheet aside from the combat ones. Hell, that almost happens automatically if your character lives for any length of time. Would you say that there's a perilous excess of characters with maxed backstab murdering people left and right? Well, it's both far deadlier than master slashing and much, much easier to achieve. So why the stigma against weapon skills?
