General non specific thoughts

[pixie]

So after my diatribe on clerics, i started thinking, a unique and painful thing to be assured, and i came up with some thoughts and here they are.

all classes, save ranger, are either hp, mana, or both classes, leaning one way or another on the spectrum. as follows.

w/t/n: pure hp, no spells, depend on hp to carry them through when xping. Hopefully the revisions will push ninjas an=d thieves in to more of a move/hp split, one favoring moves ofer hp, the other the opposite or something...

anti/pal/j/s: hp/mana classes, leaning heavily towards hp, but enough mana to buff selvs a bit, and heal relatively well, or just increased dam output (evil j or s)

bard: balanced hp/mana class, needing a goodly amount of mana to buff self, and debuff foes, but still needing hp to win the day.

cleric: hp/mana class, favoring mana for buffs/heals, but needing greater hp if hope to fight larger mobs.

mages: marines of jedi, kinda 1 shot 1 kill, maybe fire a second if time allows, but vs big mobs, without pets, if that mob saves they die, having dedicated to mana almost to the point of having forsaken hp.

and rangers need all 3, hp,move, mana, in pretty much equal parts.

so maybe a lot of the balancing can come from here, possible that increasing the hp of clerics as they stand now, decreasing the mana, and fixing the quake spell is all that is needed.

If you only get say 300 mana at level 30, but also have 300ish hp, sure you cant heal as much, and the buffs will be more painful to cast on self, as a result of mana drain on limited pool, the added hp would grant more safety to use the mana, a 150 hp heal could be spun off and you would still live (having another 150 hp to see you 1 round)! trade off of course is lower number of spells to be cast. balance the mana vs hp is i guess my point.

Second point is on pure hp classes, boost hp gains to compensate for complete lack of buff spells that can be self cast, now i know some of you are thinging, 'so what if you cant cast them, you can run canned'. Yeah so can casters to save themselves the mana. if canned was exclusively !caster that would be valid.

To skills, all skills should have a cost, hp, mana or moves. backstab should cost moves, dhit should cost moves, most combat skills should cost moves! all skills that can not be decided on cost, or that seem over powered even with cost, should either
a) have increased cost
b) have a delay
c) shortened durration, where applicable

constant effect skills (dhit, divine defence, underhanded tactics) should have a small cost assosciated to its success on a round by round basis.

Skills hopefully now actually having costs should work a tad better, 0 round dodges, 0 round disarms etc. could be less prevalent.

skills having short random durrations should cost considerably less than spells with fixed durrations, disarm not lasting as long as sanc, and not carrying over to next mob etc should not cost 100 moves, just makes sense.

skills like circle and backstab that have level mod increases should be split in to multipe skills:
level 1 blindside
level 5 backstab...... level 27 assassinate

with costs appropriate do dam inflicted.

mage spells should do way more damage than cleric spells for less mana, and mage combat buffs should cost way more and be les effective than cleric spells, i look at this as the current incarnations of heal, vs e-drain on the mage side, maybe apply thought to cleric side?

Now, in addition, regen should be cut to either int or wis on caster classes, according to primary cast stat, not both. con should have same effect on hp regen as wis or int does on mana regen, and same for dex vs moves.

all classes should at level 30 have about same score on hp+mana+moves =
except bard/ranger, seeing as they are remort only.

I am not saying warriors should have 800+ hp because a cleric has 200 hp, 500 mana, and 100 moves but a warrior, after skill costs are innitiated, should have 500hp 100 mana 200 moves.

would be nice if classes stats were based on needs of skills for class, warrior is fine now, but apal/pal have move based skills, and dex is lowest skill. Maybe fix things like that?

and now that i have rambled endlessly yet again...

[farbekrieg]

My warrior has 489 hps and 140ish moves naked? Does this mean hes pretty close to being balanced?

[Dank]

i was reading pixie's post and it just hit me like a lightning bolt... (i had stepped on the bare wire splice between my surge protector and the Romex run to my neighbor's basement.) dammit that hurt.

so i'm sitting there, a little smoke puff wafting away from my temple, and it hit me...

base initial (level one) hp, mana, and mov values on native stats but then provide for (this is the key!) intra-level gains based solely on stat enhancements without specific modifiers for specific classes! keep the same maximum stat enhancement caps based on current remort rules... but remove silly class differences. clerics and warriors can achieve the same amount of mana or hp per level gain if they're wearing the right eq.

then, going one step farther, (i need a good electrocution more often!) , toss the silly class-based experience tables, and adopt a single experience ladder for every class.

can it get better? sure it can! remove all class restrictions from equipment and allow every class to cross train any skill. if you join a guild, you can prac certain specialized skills/spells, but otherwise, hoo-yah! it's a free for all! much more realistic and varied than the present system.

call it role-playing economics.

that way, my casting, double hitting paladin can warm himself beside the camp fire right next to your backstabbing, wodding, lock-picking mage. but we wouldn't actually be paladins or mages anymore, just a couple of rogues boasting a robust blend of adventuring skills. sure you're in the mage's guild now, but maybe you'll join a brigand's guild tomorrow! think of the hijinx!

unfortunately, like in the movie Awakenings, the bolt of enlightenment left me as quickly as it came upon me.

i now sit, alone, in my attic, wishing for a better time and while yelling profanities into my acoustic coupler.

[Arizhel]

Vote said:

I am not saying warriors should have 800+ hp because a cleric has 200 hp, 500 mana, and 100 moves but a warrior, after skill costs are innitiated, should have 500hp 100 mana 200 moves.

Okay, but earlier in this post you said that w/t/n are 100% hp, and no mana. Why should they take a penalty of 100 points just because they -don't- use mana? Should that 100 mana really count as anything if it's utterly useless?

On another note, I'd rather like to see ninja have use of their mana for various and sundry things.

[Dank]

Arizhel said:

On another note, I'd rather like to see ninja have use of their mana for various and sundry things.

so i take it that you didn't fall in love with my marxist implementation of the new jedi society?

bleh! join me, my brethren, in the continuing struggle to throw off the imperialist yoke of the class revision team.

or is that yolk?

[Arizhel]

Well, the concept of the 'non-class' class is interesting, in and of itself.

However, we've already got enough classless people around here.

[DaHart85]

Just an idea from another game: If you look at Diablo 2, barbarians can use warcry's and stuff like that. You can actually get some good ideas for spells and things to do with non-magic classes from Diablo 2 Expansion.

[October]

Lemme toss out a couple more skill and spell ideas -

(general disclaimer: I haven't read every post on the board so sorry if I'm stealing your idea)

choke (ninja/warrior): works like grapple but inflicts some direct damage too.

cheapshot (thief): something in the spirit of a sucker punch or nut grab.

arson (thief/ninja): a time-delayed area effect skill that burns everything in a room - maybe it could even last several rounds

mug (high level thief): an extension of steal except it removes a WORN item from the mob (of course, the mob will object to this and fight back)

nuke (mage): the same skill as before but extend the effects to rooms adjacent to ground zero – think of the unintended consequences!

[Cordelia]

Let me indulge in a Ricki Lake moment and 'fess up to two important qualifiers that should be taken into consideration for the purposes of this post:

(1) I am an ex-EQ player (AyRo posse, 'till I die, baybee)
(2) I loathe D&D

Simply put, my major gripe with Jedi is with the overriding consideration for the D&D straight-jacket. Free thy self from D&D/AD&D 2nd ed. rule-books and think a little out of the box with what you hope to establish with class revision.

I applaud the decision to engage in this long-overdue exercise but it would help one's goal if we place class revision in a conceptual frame-work regarding the direction that we wish to move Jedi forward.

At present, I still feel that classes are little more than cookie-cutter from when I first played. The only real classes with a distinctive feel are Mage and Bard, if you accept my argument that class revision should be based on different approaches to how you play the game. I accept Tam's rational argument that the Cleric class is the most 'balanced' and also agree with thinking that 'balance' in this context is not the way forward.

For my 0.02 cents (and some chump change) class revision should be based on different approaches to the game. Whilst we do have this in a limited form, a lot of the classes just feel like all of the others in a cosmetically modified form.

For class revision to work it will need to be placed within a conceptual frame-work i.e. how do we wish to see Jedi develop? Allow me to present two areas that directly and indirectly affect class revision:

(1) Skill Trees
I intensely dislike cookie cutter classes where each individual plays the same goddam class each way. Use the 4 standard classes as templates - Cleric, Mage, Thief and Warrior - and use class trees to expand and develop their skills and the direction that a player may wish to take.

Granted, it's not original but it does allow an element of personalization, and also the opportunity to throw into the mix some really good ideas for spells and abilities that you may not necessarily wish to give to the classes in their present form.

(2) Alignment
Yet another useless mechnical, redundant device from D&D to add a narrow, black and white version of morality that does little more than define what EQ a particular class can wear.

How about amending alignment to make it more of a sliding scale i.e. as one player suggested, certain acts dependent on your alignment (belief system) barely register whilst others have a more disproportionate effect. Also, for alignment based classes, alignment should be much harder to change (moves slowly) once you start to reach the zenith of alignment i.e. near towards 1000/-1000.

The one idea that I wanted to introduce to fit alongside alignment or even replace alignment would be the concept of Faction. Yes, it is an EQ concept but one that I found worked and worked well.

Faction determines your standing/reputation amongst a group of aligned mobs i.e. how mobs view you and interact with you. Certain mobs can be aligned to a particular faction and by killing mobs belonging to that faction you may inadvertently lower your standing with that faction, as well as associated factions but also raise your standing with antagonistic factions.

How does this improve upon alignment? Quite simply, by adding a RP [role-play] element because you can set a hard cap for Faction standing based on either alignment and/or class e.g. An Anti-paladin will automatically have worse relations with the Holy Order of St Michael due to antagonistic factional standings, as well as an alignment penalty.

Factional standing can be determined by multipliers and hard-caps i.e. if you are a certain class and/or alignment then your standing will be hard-capped at a particular level e.g. our Apal in the previous example will never have cordial relations with the Holy Order of St Michael (his standing with that faction will be hard-capped but could certainly deteriorate even further!), and may be KoS [kill on sight], but the Apal may be merely tolerated at best by an aligned faction but may not necessarily be KoS.

In other words, there is an inbuilt sliding scale based on multipliers such as Class, Alignment, Factional standing etc. Factions can also determine EQ distribution i.e. only characters with a certain factional standing can obtain certain items.

Also, factions could provide the Bard class (or similar) with some rather nice RP spells/abilities to 'influence' faction.

To close, I would much prefer to see a greater emphasis placed on giving classes much more focused skills/abilities than with class balance i.e. general skills/abilities at lower levels, becoming much more specialized and narrow (but more powerful) as the individual gains in experience.

Regards,
Cordelia

[mike]

Cordelia said:

(1) Skill Trees
I intensely dislike cookie cutter classes where each individual plays the same goddam class each way. Use the 4 standard classes as templates - Cleric, Mage, Thief and Warrior - and use class trees to expand and develop their skills and the direction that a player may wish to take.

an idea on trees but I offer a slight change:
make only 3-5 skills per class. Make 3-5 general skill sets for all classes.

each skill, the more you prac the more skills you get from the skill.

as an example of how I see this working consider this:

skill: Destruction (d&d magic school)
5 prac sessions, magic missile

10 prac sessions, burning hands

30 prac sessions lightning bolt

150 practice sessions: thermonuclear haulocaust

using trees like this would allow people to do some more interesting things.

A mage would be able to focus on destruction, charmin, summoning, or some general skill set and get thiefy skills.

To steal even more ideas from the dreaded D&D Books:
Some skills allowed by cross class, at 2x required to learn, if a warrior wants to learn magic missile fine, but it will take him 10 prac sessions instead of 5.

Also by adding some skills needing 200+ prac sessions, you could in essence, add remort only skills of varying potency. A 7 remort thief could be saving up prac sessions to eventually learn d-hit!

as to what kind of skills per class, I think we already have piles of skills that could be easilly categorised.

Healing : cure light - restore, including their counters (cause light - harm)

Defence: armor, sanc stone skin magical vest, and so on.

Destruction: mage skill list

Charm/Conjuration: monsumm, gate, and animal calls

you get the idea.

feasibly align could also dictate skills. Healing school heals for people above 350 align, harms below -350 align, and does either at 1/2 potency at -349 - +349
Good people summon weasels, evil people summon demons.

Speaking of Alignment. All classes should lock align to some degree at some point. I am not saying all classes should get a skill so they can never loose align, like pala skill, but more like jedi's align lock, the longer you are evil, the harder it is to go good.

G.U.R.P.S. - D&D fusion

[Air]

Here are my thoughts on what classes could maybe use.
Jedi could use a call lightning or electricity spell.
Bards need an area effect of some kind since rangers have two.

Sohei and Ninja : I have to think about this some more. Sohei maybe could use more battle skills with their weapons. Same could be said for Ninja , including hand to hand battle, I know they have decent skills already.

Thieves need not to be SO dependant on hitroll and DEX.

I like mages and clerics except they seem too easy to level and solo. Maybe take some ac spells away from them like armor from mages and magical vestment from clerics.

I always hated warrior exp required, but I can live with it.

I don't know if I want to touch paladins, antipaladins, and Rangers cause they are completed I suppose, or tweaked enough. I admit I liked the old animal call but you can do stuff with pets now too and actually use some skills!