Hybrid Additional Ideas

Now these ideas are all different yet they continue to fuse one class further into another. Now before disagreeing with me, just hear me out until the end and then make an opinion after all the information has been read.

There are sections in the forums that now lie as forgotten. There once were ideas brought up some time ago about giving turrets the ability to have magical properties, about an ability to make weapon racks, and even about weapons having more than 1 magical property which I have discussed about recently. Before these ideas didn't have a place. The common questions were, "How would these abilities fit in? Would they be overpowered?" But then again there were no subclasses back then. Now with the advent of hybrids there is a place for these forgotten ideas to make an appearance on the server once again.

Okay so first thing is first, here is the list of the hybrids currently on the server as shown by the DC Wiki:

AM/WM hybrid
AM/MM hybrid
AM/Eng hybrid
WM/MM hybrid
WM/Eng hybrid
MM/Eng hybrid

Next I will discuss about each one and a possible new ability for each. An ability that is different in each hybrid yet would go by the same name, possibly as a hidden power.

AM/WM hybrid: In this subclass one is given limited artifacts and limited vamp. These limitations are a good thing as they will provide the foundation of the new ability. Due to these limitations you are not an expert in either, therefore because of the trade-off one is relatively weaker. My 2 ideas on this subclass were to make two abilities, for example "Hidden Magic" would give you 2 magical properties on your weapons. But remember this subclass only has loaded weapons 1, meaning no avril or mines or super-weapons, which in reality would be a fair trade-off. The next ability would be "Hidden Vamp", it would allow your artifacts to return health to you, in other words it enables vamparism on artifacts. But then again remember, one is limited to level 4 vamp on this subclass and also limited to loaded artifacts 2. Although the rod as strong as it is, if tweaked this ability can work. Now before I go on to the next subclass, my idea is if one purchases one of these abilities the other cannot be purchased in order to maintain a fair and balanced game. This rule would go on for the following hybrids.

AM/MM hybrid: In this subclass there are also 2 abilities I have thought of. The first would be "Hidden Magic", which would provide the pets with a magical property, but only 1 magical property, and all pets would have the same magical property. Also keep in mind the medic hybrid has limited pets, its strongest being a mercenary, and being able to make only 1 pet since it is the hybrid subclass sounds reasonable. The next ability would be "Hidden Healing", it would provide an artifact that would either behave like a rod or a bolt. If it behaves like a rod it would heal the health of teammates at a lower percentage while if it acts as a bolt it would heal them in 1 hit or 100 health per hit. This would be the only artifact that the subclass possesses that would be able to heal at a level 9 experienced healing, the weapon would heal normally which is limited, the artifact should break the limit as it is a passive artifact and would require adrenaline to activate. Also once again if one purchases one of the 2 abilities then the other cannot be purchased.

AM/ENG: In this subclass I was only able to think of one ability "Hidden Magic", it would provide the sentinels, turrets, and vehicles, of this subclass but only to the user a magical property. And as like the pets, the sentinels would have the same magical property as the turret or vehicle. Also keep in mind because this class is a hybrid it is limited to a lightning sentinel, energy turret, and a hellbender. So the magical property cannot be used on stronger sentinels, turrets, or vehicles.

WM/MM: In this subclass I was able to think of two abilities. "Hidden Vamp", would provide the pets of the medic with vamparism, but only equal to the max vamp of the player which would be vamp 4. Making the strongest monster the hybrid can make which is a mercenary to have a fighting chance and heal itself while killing. The second would be "Hidden Healing", it would let the pets which of course are limited, target the players and heal them. In order to make it fair and xp worthy, the pets would have to heal at level 9 experienced healing, but only the pets, the hybrid's weapon would still be normal.

WM/ENG: In this subclass luckily I was able to think of 2 abilities, the first would be "Hidden Vamp", it would like the previous mentioned hybrids provide vamp but only to the sentinels as the turrets and vehicles would already have armor vamparism, and the ability should not stack. The sentinel would only be limited to level 4 vamp. The second ability would be "Hidden Structure", it would be a passive ability but should reward with good xp to people who pick up weapons or reload there. As it would let the hybrid to make weapon racks, these weapon racks would only be limited to what the hybrid's weapons are which would be only loaded weapons 1. This provides the essential weapons to everyone without exposing the onslaught weapons which are granted to the other WM.

MM/ENG: In the this last subclass I have only 1 but not so well conceived idea as the others. It would be For the second idea "Hidden Structure", it would provide the lightning sentinel of this character to not only target monsters but also nearby players. As it deals damage to monsters it can also heal players that are nearby for double the amount of xp. And also to make it xp friendly it would be better for the sentinel to heal at a level 9 experienced healing. But again only the sentinel, not the player.

And just to make things clear, since the hybrids are to come out to level 80's or 100's I think that theses abilities should only be available around level 130-150. I hope these ideas might be put to good use on this server and would appreciate any feedback

.

I like the ideas Elite as the Sub-classes do max out fairly quickly
fair bonuses nothing apparently "exploitable" ,well thought out

At the moment, we do not really know how the hybrids will perform - especially at the lower levels once it is opened up. I suspect that they are underpowered - otherwise we would see more people playing them. So adding something extra for hybrids could work well - especially if the added item merges the theme of each of the two classes. And something new that the standard classes can't buy would also be nice. So, well done for raising the topic.
So far so good.

However, somethings are a little more complicated. I will go through them.

AM/WM

"2 magic properties on weapons" for the AM/WM has been bounced before by Druid. As you say, this is a different context, so he may bite. I will take it up with him again.

Vamp on adrenaline attacks. Yes, I can see that would be ok - since it already gets adrenaline on weapon attacks.

AM/MM

"pet with magical property" - I presume you are meaning a weapon attack like force/vampire/piercing/healing etc like the weapons have? We would have to create a shortlist of those that would work - e.g. healing wouldn't as the pets would not normally target players of the same side. An alternative would be to have energy vampire on the pets damage.

healing rod/bolt. Wouldn't it just be better to give them the healing blast as a form of adrenaline based healing?

AM/Eng

"Magical property to turrets, sentinels and vehicles" - again I assume you mean force/vampire etc. Only some magic types are applicable e.g. force cannot apply to instant hit sentinels and turrets. Vampire is a non-starter, and Infinity, Quickfoot, and Luck are also not really on. Healing also has to be off limits, as is Rage. Personally, I think I would go for the simpler "energy vampire off lightning sentinels"

An alternative would be an artifact that temporarily affected the sentinels/turrets etc. E.g. have a Double Damage artifact that increases the damage from sentinels

Also, perhaps the AM/Eng ought to have the shield blast?

WM/MM

"Pets with Vampire" - I presume you mean pets doing damage and the vampire healing the player, not healing the pet? I am not sure if pets get the abilities the spawner has - in which case the pet would already have vampire for itself?

"Pets target players and heal" - as mentioned on the AM/MM, getting pets to target players to heal them isn't the simplest thing. The only way of doing it might be to have a weaponless pet, that has a proximity healing effect - or say runs a permanent weak healing sphere. But I am not sure

WM/Eng

vamp from sentinels, turrets and vehicles. Sentinels with vampire that heals the sentinel is a bit too powerful. So I think we are talking about sentinel damage giving vamp to the player. Could do.

"xp from weapon racks" - I am still not sure about weapon racks. We have already made ammo less of an issue by giving medics and engs infinite weapons, so I am relucant to make weapons and ammo more available

MM/Eng

"lightning sent heals nearby players" - I think if we go the route of healing sentinels, then it would make sense for this subclass. However, I would go for the defense sentinel not the lightning sentinel.

In general, where two extra skills are suggested, I am not sure about the concept of having one special skill or the other. It really means splitting the hybrid subclass into 2 different subclasses - which may be a bit excessive at this stage. So I think whatever we end up with has to be balanced with all of it purchased.

Szlat wrote:

AM/WM
# "2 magic properties on weapons" for the AM/WM has been bounced before by Druid. As you say, this is a different context, so he may bite. I will take it up with him again.
# Vamp on adrenaline attacks. Yes, I can see that would be ok - since it already gets adrenaline on weapon attacks.

For the 2 magical properties on the weapons, it would be completely random correct? but would it be coded so it cannot be 2 of the same type? and if there were 2 properties of the same type, would they stack? For both the "Hidden Magic" and "Hidden Vamp" would there be just 1 level of the skill that would provide the bonus or should it be upgradeable. e.g. level 1 gives 1 level of vamp on artifacts and maxing it would give you level 4 which is the limit.

Szlat wrote:

# AM/MM
# "pet with magical property" - I presume you are meaning a weapon attack like force/vampire/piercing/healing etc like the weapons have? We would have to create a shortlist of those that would work - e.g. healing wouldn't as the pets would not normally target players of the same side. An alternative would be to have energy vampire on the pets damage.
# healing rod/bolt. Wouldn't it just be better to give them the healing blast as a form of adrenaline based healing?

Yes, I mean that exactly a specific weapon attack, also shouldn't the magical properties be set to completely random or should they be specified by the player? I was suggesting a rod/bolt in order to make it different from the original classes, but if a healing blast is preferred, it would also work just as well.

Szlat wrote:

# AM/Eng
# "Magical property to turrets, sentinels and vehicles" - again I assume you mean force/vampire etc. Only some magic types are applicable e.g. force cannot apply to instant hit sentinels and turrets. Vampire is a non-starter, and Infinity, Quickfoot, and Luck are also not really on. Healing also has to be off limits, as is Rage. Personally, I think I would go for the simpler "energy vampire off lightning sentinels"

Yes, the magical properties on turrets and vehicles would be less varied as there would be more restrictions

Szlat wrote:

# WM/MM
# "Pets with Vampire" - I presume you mean pets doing damage and the vampire healing the player, not healing the pet? I am not sure if pets get the abilities the spawner has - in which case the pet would already have vampire for itself?

I did not think of it at the moment, but players who have vampire already will have pets with vampire as well. So I guess you are right, to make it more efficient the vampire would go to the player as well.

Szlat wrote:

# WM/Eng
# vamp from sentinels, turrets and vehicles. Sentinels with vampire that heals the sentinel is a bit too powerful. So I think we are talking about sentinel damage giving vamp to the player. Could do.

Yes, if it sounds overpowered for the sents to have vamp then it would be better for the vamp to be directed to the player when the sentinel shoots. Either way it will still be beneficial.

Szlat wrote:

# MM/Eng
# "lightning sent heals nearby players" - I think if we go the route of healing sentinels, then it would make sense for this subclass. However, I would go for the defense sentinel not the lightning sentinel.

Either could work, but if it were to be like a lightning sentinel it would heal less but more people at a time?... but if it was like a defensive sent would it heal to full health just like a defensive sent completely eradicates a enemy projectile?

And when I suggested the two skill concept it was just as a precaution so it might not be overpowered.

Quick question on the subject... is this idea still pending? or has it been confirmed? or what is the current status on the idea?

Elite wrote:

Quick question on the subject... is this idea still pending? or has it been confirmed? or what is the current status on the idea?

Still under discussion I think.
I haven't done anything on it. Any spare development time I get I am chasing up the crashes to see if I can duplicate/fix.

I think some are reasonable ideas, but I have reservations about others - both about if Druid will accept them and if they may be too overpowered. And I suppose in particular, I am not convinced about making pets or sentinels any stronger.

What it really needs is more input from others.

What about these:

med/eng:
engineer nali that run round healing peoples shields or vehicles/sents with the engi link gun.
shield ultima for your pets. when they die they create a small shield blast.

Med/adren:
Artifacts apply to pets but are slightly weaker. e.g as shorter range and less powerful rod is activated for your pets as well as yourself when you use rod. Could also be used on the adren/eng.

This seems fairly quiet ...so...

So my current thoughts are as follows:

For the AM/WM I don't want to do the "2 magic properties on weapons" yet, without further consultation with Druid. And it is a big hack.

However, I am prepared to go along with "Vampire off adrenaline attacks". However, because most adrenaline attacks use the "superweapon" flag to bypass DB/DR, it cannot be captured by a normal ability like Vampire. So I propose to do it the same way that AdrenalineSurge works, by trapping the ScoreKill. This will then vampire health off all kills - including both weapons and adrenaline. So, I will add the new ability for AM/WMs but reduce normal Vampire down from 4 to 3 levels to compensate for the vampire surge giving health for weapon kills.
Sound reasonable enough? Might also give one level of this to the General Class.

Then, as far as all the Engineer ones go, I don't particularly want to increase the offensive capability of the Engineers - I think they are pretty strong as it is - the hybrids get the lightning sentinel, the hellbender and the energy turret! And I would like to encourage more Engineer-to-Non-engineer support. So instead, I was thinking about giving in to another Elite (and others) suggestion about allowing sentinels to heal.

So, the concept is that the standard defense sentinel works as it does now, shooting down projectiles. However, if it has no projectiles to shoot, then it could do some sort of healing function.

if the defense sentinel was spawned by a MM/Eng, then it will heal the health of nearby players.

if the defense sentinel was spawned by a AM/Eng, then it will grant adrenaline to nearby players.

if the defense sentinel was spawned by a WM/Eng, then it will grant ammo to nearby players.

In a similar fashion, Extreme Engineers need a bit more, so if the defense sentinel was spawned by an Extreme Eng, then it will heal the shields of nearby players, and the armor of nearby vehicles/turrets/sentinels.
This will be controlled by extra abilities that only the relevant subclasses can buy.
The healing will be to all in range in a rod type multi-shot, rather than the defense sentinels normal single shot.

I am still thinking of giving the AM/Eng and the AM/MM the shield blast and the healing blast respectively, since they are about using adrenaline in the second capacity.

So this still leaves us the WM/MM requiring something extra.

Thoughts?

so would the defense sent still "defend" (block shots) ?
I like the idea For sure
and the VampSurge for General class too !!

RoadKill v3.4 wrote:

so would the defense sent still "defend" (block shots) ?

Yes. It would only go into healing mode when there were no projectiles around (e.g. between waves)

Szlat wrote:

RoadKill v3.4 wrote:

so would the defense sent still "defend" (block shots) ?
Yes. It would only go into healing mode when there were no projectiles around (e.g. between waves)

That sounds even better more of a rally point in between waves than a constant drip for all with in range

okay so the engineer subclasses are mainly done... just waiting for the rest. Also are the magical properties on the engineer constructions out of the question?... since I did not see you mentioning it in your plans. It was only for the AM-ENG subclass.

I had an additional idea for the WM-ENG subclass, since you stated that the vampire on sentinels would be too overpowered how about adding spider steroids to this specific class. With a mine layer and and an engineer link that can grow them, seems possible... obviously must have a limit. Just an idea please comment on what you think.

Elite wrote:

okay so the engineer subclasses are mainly done... just waiting for the rest. Also are the magical properties on the engineer constructions out of the question?... since I did not see you mentioning it in your plans. It was only for the AM-ENG subclass.

At the moment I haven't done anything about it. When I suggested it to Druid a few years ago, he said no - but that was a skill for all engineers. So, not sure at the moment.

Elite wrote:

I had an additional idea for the WM-ENG subclass, since you stated that the vampire on sentinels would be too overpowered how about adding spider steroids to this specific class. With a mine layer and and an engineer link that can grow them, seems possible... obviously must have a limit. Just an idea please comment on what you think.

Again, spider steroids were being considered at one time for the Engineers, but it does fit nicely into the WM/Eng mix. I'll have a think. Could work, as you can only apply the steroid in non-battle conditions.

I am still after something different for the WM/MM. I don't think medic pets is particularly good for WM/MM, since the medic pets would be a pure M/MM skill, and so ought to perhaps be on M/MM class. But it would probably be a pig to implement.

Okay before the next build goes up, I think there is some unfinished business regarding hybrids and their skills. Before I start off on the hybrid skills, is it a good think to have the sentinel specialist give shield and armor through defense sentinels?... Remember they can make up to 4 defensive sentinels, meaning pretty powerful.

Also along the lines of having any hybrid that is half WM, after playing with it for a while I think they should have vamparism 5 not 4. It would only be fair in having half the skill of a normal WM.

WM/ENG: I brought these ideas up before in the previous posts but rereading them again has made me change a few things. For this subclass vamparism would be given to the sentinels and turrets and vehicles. So what would happen is, when the sentinel does damage to any monster, the player would get healed through vamp. Also let me remind you the current WM/ENG hybrid has 5 levels of armor vamparism which would heal the turrets and vehicles only. The other vamp would help heal the player.

WM/MM: Also like the WM/ENG hybrid the pets should have vamparism but instead of healing itself which the current vamparism would do, they would also heal the player. So aside from vamparism 5 which the player would have(if my idea from the top is taken into account) they would also have pet vamparism which would heal the player.

AM/MM: In this subclass nothing has changed, so it would be pets with magical properties.

AM/ENG: Same for this, sentinels, turrets, and vehicles with magical properties.

And one more thing, if there is any chance to make more abilities with what I have suggested, please do. They can use the maxing out at a higher level. The average levels at which the hybrids currently max out are around 200-250. What I posted is taking into account all the changes in the next build.