Quote from: gytfunke on August 21, 2014, 06:19:31 pm

[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.

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.

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

Im gonna try kicking this around on a mind-map

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.

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.

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.