To be honest I can't uderstand why MMORP don't take in account any way to natural lose skills/levels. I mean, if I'm lvl 40 character and I'm beaten on skills use by a lvl 38 mob/player I should deserve chances to lose skills points on skills used during the combat and, eventually, I should risk to lose a lvl if I keep to be beaten by lower rank mobs/players.

Moreover, a character should have a pool of maximum skill points tied to character level (i.e. 20 till level 10, 40 till level 30, 60 till level 40 and so on). Whenever one reach the maxmimum allocated skill points, tied to current character level, it can't grow anymore on slotted skills, and if it switches to a different armor, weapon, etc. it should lose skill points gained in previsously trained armor/weapon/... and gain new skill points on new weared armor/weapon/... that would be a more realistic system to handle skills: it's simply ridiculous to think one only gains points and never lose them whatever it is done. And, honestly I can't understand why all MMO keep falling on this point

In few words: If one play good it should improve own skills, otherwise it should worsen them. That's how it works in a true competition system. No excuse

Because basically no RPG has that system. It would be poor gameplay indeed, if you DID lose skill, and then the game might become unplayable because you keep getting killed too easily. because people play to get BETTER, not to get worse.

I think a couple (Diablo II and SWG I think) had a mode where there were such serious consequences. However, yes, they would not be a popular feature. MMOs do tend to have you accepting deaths as more of an inconvenience.

i remember playing lineage 2 and it did have de-leveling, but players didn't loose skills, just the mana pools large enough to cast them or most of them.

I am not even talking about MMOs, but RPG's in general, VERY few have that feature, and none of the original RPGs EVER had that feature.