-
[Less Rant, more actionable ideas]
Hi gyt! I'm thinking about the 2 points you made, on PROGRESSION and NARROWER CLASS SKILL TREES.
How about the passives then? Because I presume what you intended to narrow-down was the set of active skills of each class. So would it be the passives which actually "make you get better", giving you better abilities and adding more power to your active skills? That kinda makes sense to me, but let me know if that's not where you were heading with this
That is largely where I was heading with it. But... what I would ideally like to do is create an entire overhaul mod that discards the current class and 100 level system for something different. These are the two ideas I have kicking around in my head:
1) A classless system wherein you can invest in ANY of a number of talent trees that are composed of passive and active skills (much like Dragon Age: Origins). Investing a skill point into the first tier of a skill tree would unlock the second skill and so forth. Each skill would have only 1 rank. So a talent tree might look like this:
Way of the Sword
Talent 1, 'Swordsmanship': Reduces stat requirements when equipping one-handed swords.
Talent 2, 'Blade Expertise': Activate this ability to greatly reduce fumble chance and increase dodge and critical chance, but attack speed is reduced (active).
Talent 3, 'Sword Soul': Increases damage done while wielding a one-handed sword (passive).
Talent 4, 'Lunge': Quickly close the distance to your enemy with a powerful strike that deals extra damage (active).
This system would be excellent for supporting single-player play because of the free-form progression that is allowed by a classless system like this.
2)The other idea is a class system with more narrowly defined roles, which would be ideal for a cooperative multiplayer mod where each player has a unique role to fill. This could be an adventure-style hack n' slash or a competitive MOBA-like (though, I'm not really interested in making a MOBA, something more akin to a fantasy-themed, 3rd person Halo or Tribes).
In this setup classes would have 3-4 active abilities and a few passives. Progression would be much more limited than in the classless model but would provide a few choices where skill points could be invested. Again, each passive and active would have only 1 level. So an example of a passive and active might be something like this:
Class: Swordsman (role: balanced, mobile melee fighter)
Active Ability: 'Lunge' (as above)
Passive Ability1, 'Power Lunge': Your lunges deal more damage.
Passive Ability 2, 'Surprise Lunge': Your lunges gain a chance to stun your targets.
So, the passives would augment the active of your choice and would slightly modify the way you play, but your role would remain relatively static. Choice might be introduced where one passive must be chosen between two options, the passives being mutually exclusive. The real focus of this system, again, is to encourage teamwork. So there might be, aside from the melee fighter, a scout, a tank, a ranged attacker, a support character and a debuffer/debilitator. No healers, though. They water down strategy. -
-
Personally I really like this idea! And I think it might address what many users think is "broken" in TL. Can we make it? pls?
I also like it partly because I've seen a few other modders talking about kinda similar ideas already - great minds think alike, no? -
-
I think it's a good idea. I think it's low priority as a standalone mod. I think it would be GREAT as part of a new campaign that incorporated all the upcoming gameplay and balance fixes we're working on.
It would require a lot of initial design before we even get to the production stage. Phan, if you wanna dream up a boatload of skill trees, that'd probably be the first step towards making this real. -
-
And I know you mentioned you'd like to have mutually exclusive skills where picking one skill turns off the option to invest in another. I'll experiment with the UI editor and see if I can make that work. I'm 99% sure it's possible.
-
-
Yeah design-wise, you'd have to (almost) stop thinking "classes" and instead think... "disciplines" maybe? Would anyone tell me NOT to look at the Path Of Exile skills map?
And yes I totally agree this should be designed to work with the "Loot Improvement Mod".
I also think there are similarities with @Kva3imoda 's "Dark Palace" mod concept (but I need to research that more). Maybe we could join forces
-
-
Kva's Dark Palace mod is much simpler and is inspired by Arcanum or Fallout. I did the skills for his, so you have your choice of 5 primary stats (str, int, HP) and 8 secondary passives (one-handed melee, staves, dodge), each with 3 tier bonuses, but no active skills. Yes, Kva also had a similar plan in mind to rebalance a lot of things. I didn't get to see the whole picture of his mod, but it looked promising. A lot like an ARPG version of Arcanum.
What I'm thinking is also more along the lines of PoE or Dragon Age. But, we can make it as unique as we like.
If I can figure out how to turn skills on or off according to where you invest your points we could do something like the following:
If you max out the 'Swordsman' discipline AND a magic discipline, then you unlock the 'Spellsword' discipline. Maybe max out the 'Soldier' discipline and the 'Scholar' discipline and you could open up the 'Tactician' discipline. Etc etc.
Then, we could add exclusions. For example, taking points in 'Ice Magic' could prevent you from taking any skills in 'Fire Magic'. Or 'Finesse Fighting' could exclude 'Berzerking'.
Or, we could nix the exclusions altogether as some people may feel frustrated by such a limitation. We'll talk it out as we get a plan together.
-
-
Im gonna try kicking this around on a mind-map
-
-
Hiyya gyt!
I am looking at RnF's response to Salan summarizing the direction of the stat changes you guys worked out...
and I just have a few questions...
1. I see the bonuses they affect have been revised - are there any other "bonuses" left out / not affected by these 4 stats?
2. If there are still some, could those be used to be affected by more/new stats?
3. Could you even make new bonuses (for new stats)?
4. Any particular reason why the Focus stat was not made to give additional Mana Regen bonus?
-
-
Hey Phanjam,
1. There are lots of bonuses not affected by the current stat overhaul including: Execute Chance, Critical Chance, Mana Regen, Fumble Chance, Fumble Recovery, Move Speed, Magic Find, Armor, Damage Reduction, Dodge, Block etc etc etc. Only the listed bonuses are in effect at the moment. I think RnF was going to make these exclusive to item affixes.
2. Yes, you could add bonuses onto the current primary stats that affect the 'leftover' secondary stats. You could also add entirely new stats.
3. New bonuses would be more difficult to achieve and conceive of. We could do things like '+x Damage per Enemy within 4m', but this requires a lot more setup (a new passive skill, an always-on looping damage shape, etc).
4. Base mana regen is 4% of your max MP per second, so increasing total mana already gives a boost to Mana Regen. -
-
1) A classless system wherein you can invest in ANY of a number of talent trees that are composed of passive and active skills (much like Dragon Age: Origins). Investing a skill point into the first tier of a skill tree would unlock the second skill and so forth. Each skill would have only 1 rank.
I think it can be done, but to make a full and good system is difficult.
In the beginning it is necessary to make the concept of UI with a working lock/unlock skill system. Then built one skill tree. The main thing here - is interface. Then everything will be easier. -
-
I think it can be done, but to make a full and good system is difficult.
In the beginning it is necessary to make the concept of UI with a working lock/unlock skill system. Then built one skill tree. The main thing here - is interface. Then everything will be easier.
I agree, Kva3i. I have an idea of how to do the UI, but it will just take a little experimentation to know if it will work. -
-
It can be done. Really easily.
You just need to set the RequireSkill field in the Player Editor:
And then, in-game, the skill will display what skill it requires before you can put points into it:
I was also playing with the UI. I made stat requirements for skills work. It's really easy. You just add a Stat Evaluator, a Timer, and the Skill to require the stat to a Logic Group. Then make the timer fire the stat evaluator, which reads the player's stat, then if it's high enough, it 'shows' the skill.
To prevent restatting with the console from being a problem, I think I'd need to add another logic link where if the Stat Evaluator finds the stat is less than it's threshold, but there are points in the skill, it fires a Respec Controller which respecs all the player's skills.
Combining the RequireSkill option and the Stat Requirement also gives us another interesting design option (especially for The Lure of Ember) which is:
Skill Tree Discovery
Using the UI, I can hide all the skills except the first tier of all the trees. Players could see the next skill in a tier only after unlocking the requisite skill.
Pros:
This could be exciting. It would make exploring the skill trees a reward in itself.
Cons:
This could be frustrating. A tree might not work out the way a player expected or wanted.
Mitigating factors:
1) In LoE players will get enough skill points to purchase far more skills than they could ever use in one loadout (read about the Limited Loadout concept on the My Dream Mod page). In fact, I am considering making it possible to unlock all skills on one character. This would reduce frustration and just make it part of the fun.
2) Someone would probably post a screenshot of the fully unlocked skill tree (easily achieved with the console). This would be good for those who want to see the whole thing, but perhaps would ruin the mystery for some. Though, if people didn't want to, they wouldn't look it up. -
-
Great detective work gyt!
Are we at the stage where we could throw together a dead-simple version of this classless char mod? Meaning just using all existing stats and skills (not even all the skills, maybe like 3 from each TL2 class)? The main questions to answer still would be "how many stat points to unlock skill x".
I'm asking only because I think being able to play with a char that works this way (even if it's a really dumbed-down version first) would fire-off more implementation ideas more quickly. -
-
Yeah, we could definitely mock up a prototype. I'll get on it once I finish up with the Destroyer then I'll send it your way.
-