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Szlat

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Split off as a separate thread from the Classes implementation discussion.

If we get this class stuff implemented, what classes do we want on DC?

Do we want to keep the existing Weapons Master, Adrenaline Master, Medic/Monster Master and Engineer?

I think we have to have a class like the Weapons Master. The raw fighter. However, I would be tempted to make them more so. Reduce what they can do with adrenaline, but give them better weapons, increased damage and better shields.

I would consider introducing a new wizard class. Does significantly reduced damage with weapons, but has much more powerful offensive magic skills.

This would then put the current Adrenaline Master as a Fighter/Wizard, with a subset of the combined abilities of Fighters and Wizards. Not as good with weapons as a Fighter, nor as good with adrenaline as a wizard, but can do a bit of both. (Currently, Adrenaline Masters have better weapons than fighters, and I think that is wrong)

I think the term "Medic" is a bit misleading, but cannot think of a better one. Not Cleric. Should do normal damage (i.e. less than Fighters), and I would suggest allow them to have resupply and allow all their friendly fire to be healing, rather than using an infinite medic weapon.
Personally I would prefer no pets.

Engineers. if we were doing this again, I would probably say no offensive sentinels or vehicles. Just turrets and walls. Plus the shield/armor abilities. Plus perhaps some demolition skills with explosives.

Just some thoughts. If everyone else posts their thoughts, Druid can decide what he wants.
FogRaider(_MM)

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As I said on the other thread, I am in support of rebalancing all abilities to be useful for their cost, eliminating classes, and using a level cap to limit people's maximum character strength.
Short of this, however, I would prefer people to have a considerable amount of freedom within their class. Keep the level cap and rebalance abilities like before, and force people to make decisions about what they really want to buy. For example, if we implement a fighter/WM class, one person of that class may want to focus more on the damage-dealing aspects: upgraded weapon speed, vampirism, quickfoot and the like. Another may want to focus more on "tanking": upgrading their health, regeneration, shields up etc.
In addition, subclasses could be used to allow further customization: a(n) wizard/AM might be able to specialize and get either an enchanter subclass (MWM, maxer etc focus), or a chaos-mage subclass (direct damage spell oriented), or whatever.
To get classes, IMO we should look at traditional RPGs, and find how classes are generally divided. Of course, these divisions/classes often run into eachother in actual games, but conceptually, most designers think basically as follows.
1st division: between magic and non-magic
Non-magic: Divide hand to hand and longrange fighters. However, this is not applicable here, so I will move on to the division amongst hand to hand fighters
Hand to Hand fighters: Divide Between damage-dealers and tanks. As already shown, however, I believe this would best be done with specializations within the fighter/WM Class.

Classes so far: Fighter/WM. This may vary a bit from the WM we have now, but it would basically be devoted to fighting solely with weapons. Most specialization would be in regards to damage vs survival, since range is virtually preset by the common weapons available to all players regardless of class.

Magic: Divide between Damage dealers, Healers, Summoners and Debuffers. Potentially Buffers could be another division here, but that is usuallly coupled with Healing, or distributed amongst all character types. Summoning creates lesser versions of another type of character, and so it is really not a discipline unto itself, but only a roundabout way of being a fighter, a caster or whatever.
Healer: Can sometimes be divided by range or by armor level vs healing speed vs buffing power, but I will stop here.

Classes so far: Fighter/WM, Healer/MM. Healers heal, basically. Since this is ultimately a team based server, it would even be acceptable to allow people to be pure healers if they want, and rely on others to make kills. Specialization could include but is not limited to healing, survivability and buffing. Traditionally, Healers are magic-based, and that could add range, sustainability and versatility components, as discussed later.

Damage dealer (magical): Divided according to the proportion of range, power, survivability, mana usage rate and versatility, or the size of one's spell pool. Having access to different "target patterns" is one of the primary facets of versatility, for example, having access to Area of Affect spells can be an advantage over someone who has only single target spells.

Despite having more options to go after than the other classes, it may still be a good idea to encompass all magical damage dealers in just one class. However, I think this class has the potential to gain a lot more depth with this installment. Crucial to creating this depth amongst the various casters is the abilty to pick out which spells to buy individually, and not be forced to buy them all in one package. This allows players to play out their preferences more, and differentiate themselves.

Classes so far: Fighter/WM, Healer/MM, Caster/AM. Casters can choose to focus on survivability, damage output, range, sustainablity (the ability to continue casting without running out of mana), or versatility in the amount of spells they have to choose from, to be able to deal with any situation.

Debuffer: This is the first category we come to that doesn't really resemble one of the existing classes. Like the healer, the debuffer cannot truly kill anytbing on its own, so it must be either coupled with secondary abilities or else rely on the team. Debuffs in unreal tournament, however, may be difficult to implement, due to the short survival time of most enemies. Similar to damage dealing casters, debuffers can focus on survivability, sustainability, range, debuff magnitude/power, and versatility. Debuff power can be further divided into duration and force, how long the debuff lasts, and how powerful its effect is respectively.

Classes so far: Fighter/WM, Healer/MM, Caster/AM, Crippler (someone please suggest a better name)/no current equivalent. Cripplers use adrenaline to cast debuffs on enemies. In comparison to casters, most of their spells MUST be quick and easy to use in order for this class to be effective (for example, aiming helps could be used for most of their spells). Their spells also must be worth their weight, that is, if 50 adrenaline can kill a skaarj without much thought, the cost to cripple a skaarj must be less than 50 adrenaline. Concentrations within the class have already been discussed.

That leaves summoner, which has briefly been discussed. Engineer falls into the Summoner category.

So, that makes for 4-5 classes, most based on old ones. In addition, "hybrid" classes are used in many games, which incorporate features from multiple categories, and there is no reason we couldn't have "hybrid" classes in DC as well. However, as I said, I personally do not prefer classes (I don't dislike them, I just like their alternative [a classless system] better). Thoughts?
Dracos

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I dunno about a hard level cap. Depending on what the cap is and what abilities you can get, it might make it where the person would just roll another class.

Soft Cap I can see maybe if you want to go down that road. By soft Cap I mean have a normal XP curve up to the supposed Cap then Levels beyond that take expodential XP requirements so that increases are much farther.

Ex. Lv 100 is the Soft Cap.

98 - 90,000 xp required
99 - 95,000 xp required
100 - 100,000 xp required
101 - 250,000 xp required
102 - 300,000 xp required

Something like that. I dont see a hard cap as a good idea.

But your idea on various classes is interesting.

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Szlat

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Lots to think about there.
A couple of quick responses.

Firstly, in your list you have AM and Caster as being the same. In mine, I had wizards - which were a lot more spell based and less weapon based than the existing AMs.

Secondly. I am not sure there is enough power in a Debuffer class. It is probably just a subset of the caster class.
FogRaider(_MM)

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@ Szlat:

1st remark: I was envisioning both the current AMs and the more spell-based Wizards as simply being two different paths within the Caster class. You could then go either way by deciding where to spend your points; will I buy spell related abilities or weapons based abilites?

2nd remark: You're right, of course. Debuffers would be a prime candidate for class hybridization, or else they would need some really sweet curses. But on the flip side, what about medics/healers? Are they really powerful enough to justify a pure class? In fact, it may have been for just that reason that pets were added to the medic class.

@ Dracos:

What's wrong with rolling another character? I have 4 characters as it is, and I love it!

EDIT: In other games I have played, Debuffers are given "indirect" damage spells. For example, a debuffer might get a spell that halves the enemy's current HP, or they might get a Doom spell that kills the affected enemy after a certain amount of time has passed, provided the debuff is not removed. Some of the effects they can use are quite powerful; mind control, petrification etc can be very powerful.
Szlat

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FogRaider(_MM wrote:
1st remark: I was envisioning both the current AMs and the more spell-based Wizards as simply being two different paths within the Caster class. You could then go either way by deciding where to spend your points; will I buy spell related abilities or weapons based abilites? 
But if it is one class, then all of it is eventually available to the character (assuming we are not going down the route of "if you have bought this, then you cannot buy this"). This would mean that the wizard spells cannot be too powerful if the character is also a good fighter. So you are stuck at the AM level. A separate Wizard class allows for some seriously powerful spells because the character will be weak with weapons.

FogRaider(_MM wrote:
2nd remark: You're right, of course. Debuffers would be a prime candidate for class hybridization, or else they would need some really sweet curses. But on the flip side, what about medics/healers? Are they really powerful enough to justify a pure class? In fact, it may have been for just that reason that pets were added to the medic class. 
The existing medic class is not a pure medic, it is really a combined fighter/medic (ignoring the pets). It hasn't got Loaded Weapons, Vampire or resupply, but with an infinite healing weapon it sort of has. I am not sure a pure medic will work. Thought - make the pure medic a monk character. Healing and hand-to-hand combat.

EDIT: so that would give us 6 classes
Wizard ---- (Current AM) ---- Fighter ---- (Current medic) ---- Monk
and the Engineer
Szlat

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I suppose to continue the thinking, if we consider our current Engineer Class as a mixture of a Fighter and a Technician, then that allows for a pure Technician class. Not so good with the standard weapons, but lots of power toys. These would get the sentinels, the drones, the armored suits, the teleporters and the stasis cubes.

So we also have a chain

Fighter ---- Engineer ---- Technician

so now 7 classes.
FogRaider(_MM)

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But if it is one class, then all of it is eventually available to the character (assuming we are not going down the route of "if you have bought this, then you cannot buy this"). This would mean that the wizard spells cannot be too powerful if the character is also a good fighter. So you are stuck at the AM level. A separate Wizard class allows for some seriously powerful spells because the character will be weak with weapons.  

I am in support of a level cap (or at least a point cap) that would prevent a person from maxing out a class.
The existing medic class is not a pure medic, it is really a combined fighter/medic (ignoring the pets). It hasn't got Loaded Weapons, Vampire or resupply, but with an infinite healing weapon it sort of has. I am not sure a pure medic will work. Thought - make the pure medic a monk character. Healing and hand-to-hand combat.
 

Others have suggested making Resupply a classless ability, just like Quickfoot or Ghost. Alternatively, you could give them tentative Debuffer class an infinite weapon like those two classes (Medic/Engineer), though I'm not sure what it would be.
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It would be kool if you made this thing to buy were u put down traps and when monsters walk over em, the like shoot up and stun them or something. But if ya do make it like have a duration time 4 it.

(idk if this helps any i think it would be kool!)

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Wonko The Sane

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I like the idea of a wizard.

I'd keep the other 4 classes, but would also change engineer significantly. So much, that I would not call it engineer anymore, but rather something like protector. Medics could be called healers?

So basically you'd have 3 attacking classes (with different magic/brutal force offensive abilities) and 2 support classes. It would be neat if support classes could get some score from healing/shieldboosting too (based on % healed/shielded).

Since I only play weapon master and engineer I can only give some suggestion on those two:

Protector (engineer)
I see it as a class preventing health damage in the first place. If damage happens, medics take care of it.
- can build defensive sentinels and nothing else. This could mean a sent similar to defense sent now or one that freezes/nulls monsters but does no damage.
- shield blast (can shield somewhat past the max shield, as medics)
- shield healing (can shield somewhat past the max shield, as medics)
- inf link
- Has somewhat lower health but higher shield (e.g. health 250, shield 300)
- Medium ammount of adrenaline + 1lvl of adrenaline drip
- can make a shielding field similar to that of a palladin (so it can only take a fixed amount of damage), only teamplayers can shoot thru. Perhaps with a modified shield gun.
- give it a minelayer and AVRIL
- stun grenade launcher. Does no damage but stuns monsters (can't shoot, can't moove) for X seconds in Y distance around detonation.
- gets some XP and score based on % of shields healed

Weapon master
This class is so well done now so only minor suggestions (basically I'd keep it the same).
- more damage bonus and weapon speed than others
- Has no regen. Your place as a WM is face to face with enemy, vamp there or look for a medic. And with increased weapon speed and damage bonus, you'll vamp better too.
- Low on adrenaline.
- Can specialize in one weapon type of choice.
Example:
  • with level 1 you choose the weapon (say flak) and every flak you have makes 5% more damage from now on
  • lvl2: your flak does 10% more damage and you can choose magic type too (say null)
  • lvl3: your null flak does 15% more damage
  • lvl4: your null flak does 20% more damage and it is always maxed

    Also, you can make a skill called awesomeness for weapon masters which gives them a t-shirt with "COOL DUDE" writen on it :]

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    My one question is that in the UT RPG arena its not only about gaining xp and helping out teammates..amny look for the ability to get decent scores...sooo..If the support classes do no damage...or severally little
    How will they ever score?

    Ps Wonko that T-shirt will have to modified though if a lady plays to cool dudette wouldnt it?

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    Dracos

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    -Jason_x- wrote:
    My one question is that in the UT RPG arena its not only about gaining xp and helping out teammates..amny look for the ability to get decent scores...sooo..If the support classes do no damage...or severally little
    How will they ever score?

    Ps Wonko that T-shirt will have to modified though if a lady plays to cool dudette wouldnt it? 


    Perhaps there a way to award score points for doing support things as well. Kinda like how the XP works.

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    Grizzled_Imposter

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    Classes I would like to see:

    Weapon Master: generalist.
    Weapon Master: Hit-scan/long range specialist
    Monk: Light healing (direct fire) some Weapons

    AM: Direct fire/hit-scan caster
    AM: Area effect caster
    AM: Boosting/de-buff, light heal (direct fire)

    Eng battle: sent (modified slightly down in power)
    Eng Demo: Superweapons, direct shield heal, walls, re-supply others
    Eng Support: Direct shield heal, sent based de-buffs/protections, walls, shield blast

    Medic: Light healing, area effect healing, summons

    Sorry guys I dont have much time but the way that I see it, we would be best served with a class system that provides the ability to work with the individual players styles of play, whether it be aggressive, supportive or whatever. With this option for each class (lots and lots of fine tuning needed!) I think that we leave the most flexibility to allow for players that are currently playing and their styles.

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    FogRaider(_MM)

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    Sorry guys I dont have much time but the way that I see it, we would be best served with a class system that provides the ability to work with the individual players styles of play, whether it be aggressive, supportive or whatever. With this option for each class (lots and lots of fine tuning needed!) I think that we leave the most flexibility to allow for players that are currently playing and their styles. 

    Yep, thats what it boils down to for me. Flexibility. As long as there is sufficient customisation and flexibilty built into the system, I'll be happy.

    EDIT: After classes are decided, you'll still need to determine who gets what. Will denial still be limited to WMs and AMs, etc.
    Continuum

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    Grizzled_Imposter wrote:
    Classes I would like to see:

    Weapon Master: generalist.
    Weapon Master: Hit-scan/long range specialist
    Monk: Light healing (direct fire) some Weapons

    AM: Direct fire/hit-scan caster
    AM: Area effect caster
    AM: Boosting/de-buff, light heal (direct fire)

    Eng battle: sent (modified slightly down in power)
    Eng Demo: Superweapons, direct shield heal, walls, re-supply others
    Eng Support: Direct shield heal, sent based de-buffs/protections, walls, shield blast

    Medic: Light healing, area effect healing, summons

    Sorry guys I dont have much time but the way that I see it, we would be best served with a class system that provides the ability to work with the individual players styles of play, whether it be aggressive, supportive or whatever. With this option for each class (lots and lots of fine tuning needed!) I think that we leave the most flexibility to allow for players that are currently playing and their styles. 


    I kind of like that idea but some players would max out a class fairly quickly without the addition of a quite a few new abilities. The only downfall I see to it is that making a purely support class (or version of a class) really doesn't quite work in a fps, you still have to be able to shoot and fight which will either cause the support classes to have an unfair advantage of lead to making the warrior/fighter classes over powered... (attack/strength/abilities... maybe a 4th dimension would help)

    I also like the idea of maybe having a "classless" type of class that would only be able to buy very limited basic abilities but would have higher stats like hp/speed etc... might require adding a cost multiplier to the stats or something though.




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