Mod Design Proposal For a Classless Character Mod

• Mod Design Proposal For a Classless Character Mod
  Posted by Phanjam on 01 Apr, 2017 23:15
• Hi @lolesch and all us torchmodders !
  
  I posted this hoping it serves as a small piece of help in moving the "classless character" mod forward.
  
  It's just an outline to suggest how the development work for this concept could be directed, before the work begins (tho I know Lolesch you've put in a lot of work already!), to give us a starting point for debating about and then agreeing the desired outcome.
  
  Also it should give us a good idea of what kind of contributions would be helpful, in case this mod needs to become a team effort.
  
  I hope this helps somehow and sorry for the wall of text! 
  
  

  Spoiler (hover to show)

  Introduction
  

  • The "classless" forums inside torchmodders (http://torchmodders.com/forums/classless-character-concept-(new)/) are now moderated by Lolesch
  • This write-up is a "fork" from gytfunke's "classless character" concept, to try and outline a development direction for such a  mod to end-up with a working "proof of concept" (POC) custom class that uses the mechanics described here.

  Skill System
  You are your skills
  

  • LOTS of passive and active skills (more than a hundred for the full mod)  to choose from so you can become whatever you want
  • To minimize dev work for the POC, just rework existing skills from the vanilla classes
  • Because there will be so many skills, actives will have much less than 15 levels per skill (not more than 5 levels)
  • To prevent getting OP too fast, passives can have more levels

  Skills are Stat-driven
  Skills, and the levels within each skill, are unlocked by...
  
  1. Having a certain number of points in a certain stat, or combination of stats
  

  • Here is a link to a forum discussion for making stat-dependent skills.  http://torchmodders.com/forums/lure-of-ember-tc-public-board/re-re-(idea-generation)-mods-to-encourage-more-online-mp/msg830/#msg830
  • as i understand it, aside from requiring the stat level in the skill .DAT, the skilltree logic also has to be rebuilt for the "unlocking" to work. I think both gyt and lolesch have made working models of this.

  2. Having a certain number of skill points invested in the "tree" of the skill you want
  

  • I believe this is needed to force just a little bit of specialization (rather than just jumping around among the skills to become a jack-of-all-trades).  The number of points required can be set so it's not too high anyway.
  • This means we will end up with many, many skill trees also, which is a UI challenge

  So if you are aiming for a certain set of skills you have to invest your stat and skill points accordingly to eventually unlock those skills.
  
  Skill book?
  One idea from gytfunke's original concept was to make the player "equip" the skills into a limited number of slots (like spell slots in vanilla tl2). Gytfunke was thinking...
  

  • You can only equip skills inside a town. So if you die in the wild because you had the wrong skills, you can only change your skill load-out only when you resurrect in town.
  • The idea was to try make multiplayer more fun because players will have to decide who will equip what as a team before they go out to the wild

  Personally i like this idea. But to keep initial dev simple, it can be left out at the start
  
  Stats
  For dev simplicity, start working with the vanilla TL2 stats. We can keep the vanilla "curves" which each stat uses, or change to use other custom curves
  

  • Strength
  • Focus
  • Dexterity
  • Vitality

  for the full mod, this stats set-up can be modified
  

  • custom curves
  • totally new stats

  Earning stat and skill points
  

  • for dev simplicity, stat points and skill points can still be earned by increasing your XP and fame
  • are other point-earning mechanics possible? Is this needed/wanted?

  The player character
  

  • for the POC i dont think any changes are needed to the player characters, but that can be revisited as the mod's "personality" stabilizes

  
  I wrote this up in workflowy. I sent you the link-to-edit Lolesch, via PM.
• 
  
• #1 Reply
  Posted by doudley on 06 Apr, 2017 02:05
• Quote from: Phanjam on 01 Apr, 2017 23:15

  You can only equip skills inside a town. So if you die in the wild because you had the wrong skills, you can only change your skill load-out only when you resurrect in town.

  I think I can be able to do the system for this....it will require a constant check of current dungeon name. If the player is in a town's name then the skill tree will be interactive again.
• 
  
• #2 Reply
  Posted by Phanjam on 06 Apr, 2017 04:50
• Hi doudley! I was hoping you would post in this thread!
  
  I have a question I have always been curious about... Is it possible for the game to "see" a new skilltree, and automatically add it to the overall skill UI?  The same way that it "sees" a new custom class and automatically adds it to the character selection UI.
  
  As for the "overall skill UI", is it possible to make it something like this...
  
  

  Spoiler (hover to show)

  

  
  and new skilltrees just keep getting added to the right?
  
  I am thinking this way, making new skills can be done by the community, packaged as their own .MOD but when you load it with the main .MOD, it shows up in the above skill UI as its own tab...
• 
  
• #3 Reply
  Posted by doudley on 06 Apr, 2017 10:49
•   Its good then that I commented!
  
  Isn't a skilltree layout (file) is connected per playable character's class? So to answer "If its possible for the game to "see" new/another skilltree", by that sense alone, it would be not. Only one UI can be activated by the game's player but using a single UI with various skilltree layouts (design) inside, then we'll be able to show/hide a certain skilltree by certain conditions.
  
  For the overall skill UI:
  
  I'm not yet been able to use this but I've seen the function of the "Frame" of UI editor, especially used on item and skill descriptions, where as there are rows of window/text/image (layer) inside the frame and if a certain layer has been hidden, the layer below it would be pulled up and make the frame's height lessen.
  
  Explanation in paragraph form:
  

  Spoiler (hover to show)

  So, in theory, if a certain skill branch (tab) has shown or hidden, it will make the column of tabs to increase/decrease in width and at the same time add/remove a that particular tab. Initially, we already have all the tabs in-placed in the UI, we'll just hide/show the ones depending on the conditions that we set.

  
  Explanation in visual form:
  

  Spoiler (hover to show)

  Lets say we have:
  
  [A] [C] <= Current tabs
  
  Tab "B" has not met the condition we placed, so it would looked like this:
  
  [A] [C]
  
  Then tab "D" has met the condition:
  
  [A] [C] [D]
  
  If all tabs are available, the tabs would looked like this:
  
  [A] [C] [D] [E] |>
  
  then
  
  <| [C] [D] [E] [F] |>
  
  and then
  
  <| [C] [D] [E] [F] [G]

  
  This are just my theory, I'm not sure if "frames" can work horizontally. But based on it, I think it is possible to make the overall skill UI to looked like the one you've shown.
  
  EDIT:
  I've been making my own TL2 UI improvements and I noticed that this skill tab action is quite possible with "List Window"
  
  EDIT2:
  I have confirmed my theory and it works, although it is not the "Frames" but "Reflow Windows" that does the aligning of objects automatically.
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