some things i'd like to see (if they're possible)

daimyo

Dalayan Beginner
I don't know if this is hardcoded into the client or if its possible to change it through an in-game function or something of the sort but i'd really love to see new classes added to existing races.

It's such a shame that as an almost completely custom world, WR characters still have to follow the same basic structure laid out by eqlive.

Wouldn't be nice to see froglok necro's or magicians or enchanters.

I mean consider monks for example, every monk you see is either human or iksar...its always the same, theres very little room for differentiation. Wouldn't be nice to be able to play a dark elf shaman or monk?

Im not suggesting we add every class to every race but simply that we expand the current list of options, if its possible. Also, I do understand that some races just arent meant to be certain classes. i.e. a troll wizard, so im not expecting ludicrous combinations. Only combinations which might seem likely if we didn't have to contend with EQlive lore.
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The second thing i'd like to see is a brand new idea which i think is going to be a tough task but will add so much depth to the current game.

I propse we make use of the 'Research skill' for intelligence casters, primarily wizards.

If you think about wizards and what they're typically known for in these types of games, it's their ability to research and create new spells of all types. So wouldn't be really great if Wizards (and other int casters to a lesser extent) could combine existing spells to create new ones?

For example, WizardA gets a research tome, he then gets two spells, tishans clash (a direct dmg + stun) and Root. After a successful combine, he has created a new spell, that has the effects of both with an appropriate mana cost.

Just as an example, and this is by no means how the final system would work im just speculating, you could take damage, mana cost, casting time and level of spell into account when designing the algorithms that would be used to construct these new spells, if you planned it that way and didnt use recipes for pre-defined results.

For example, using an algorithm, when WizardB combines Ancient destruction of Ice (1200 dmg lvl 60) with Pillar of Flame (800 dmg AE lvl 57) the result may be a new CR and FR AE with a random dmg figure between 1200 + 800 at an appropriate mana cost (say mana cost of spell 1 + mana cost of spell 2 divided by 2 + lvl of spells combined *1 - which in this case would be 265 + 345 / 2 + 60 + 57 which equals 422 mana).


Obviously the exact mechanics of this system would need to be properly thought-out and possibly debated, and im sure Wiz could construct a better algorithm than the one I've just given but the basic idea is what I wanted to propose.

I.e. the use of the 'Research' skill which is currently doing nothing, for the purpose of combining existing spells to produce new spells of possibly infinite combinations. Eg. One person could have an AE Root + dmg spell, while another person could have come up with a better combination.

As for how it would actually work, well it would be just like any other tradeskill. Build up your 'Research skill' and combine spells in a container. The higher your skill, the higher the lvl of spells you can combine and the better the combined spell will be.

It might also be worth making these new spells NoDrop or specific to the class of caster making the spell.

Is this making any sense?


Dukat
62 Warder
 
1 isn't possible really, at least not using the basic char creation.

2... will basically require rebalancing the entire game, not to mention rewriting the entire spell structure... actually with the client limitations we'd have to either take into account every possible combination beforehand or somehow write directly into the person's spells_us when they do the combine, then force them to restart the game.
 
You have some good ideas, but there some fairly big problems wiht them:

Alot of the races dont have Robe graphics, and if ever wear a robe just show up as nothing. Therefor if you had a Barbarian Wizard (just for example) they could never have a Robe Graphic on them. This applys to monks too, since monks wear robes some times, you wouldnt want a Wood Elf monk that couldnt wear any robes. Also with monks im not sure any other race besides Iksar/Human have the animations programed for Round kick/Flying kick/Dragon Punch ect. If you had a Dark elf monk, would it make sense to do a flying kick for 89dmg but not actualy see him move his feet?

And with you spell research/combining idea. I think its a fairly good idea... but if wizards get it every single class that gets spells should also get it. If a wizard can combine spells to make a Nuke/Stun/Root into one spell i want my Ranger to be able to Nuke/DoT/Jolt all in one spell... or my druid to Root/Port/Summon Food in one spell. :roll:

Good ideas. Im really not sure how you could actualy make them work though, it would involve revamping the whole Spell/Magic system..
 
You could always use the standard 'kick' animation for those who don't have the flying kick. Granted it would be generic, but at least it is a kick.
 
You could always use the standard 'kick' animation for those who don't have the flying kick. Granted it would be generic, but at least it is a kick.
Very true.
The idea to let more races be monk is far more plausible then the Spell Researching one. But still not only do robes not show up on alot of races, cured silk armor will not show up at all on races other then Iksar/Human.
It would be cool though... Id make a Dark Elf monk if i could! :D
 
research

Cyrus with the assistance of Aratar has been researching deeply at the monastery trying to determine a process to bless himself with the form of the Froglok, but has come to no conclusions as of yet.



(side note) Cyrus is willing to open a Karate School in Oggok to teach Dark Elves the art of the monks..... he might even be willing to teach the art form to gnomes because their little legs kicking would be so cute.
 
Some good feedback here, thanks :)

If i could just go back to the point about monks, I wasn't just talking about monks in particular, I was using it as an example. And personally, i would gladly forego a robe graphic or any other graphic if it meant we could have some more variety in the classes/races we get to be.

And theres plenty of ways around this, we could for example limit any new caster class options to races which already have some casters so that caster related graphics are already there and vice versa for melee (although melee is alot easier because practically ever race has them so the graphs are all there for bash/kick etc).

I think the question here is, would you be willing to forego an extra graphic or two for the chance to be able to play an iksar rogue for example.

I also have an idea about how this could be implemented if the problem lies in the character creation stage. Either we could get one of our resident UI experts to help us construct a new one OR we have an in-game system that changes classes, similar to the style command line system.

First of all we'd have to work out which races will have the new classes added to them. We'll assume for now that that has been thought of already and approved etc.

Now this is how people would change classes....

Say you want to a DE shaman. In the character selection screen you would choose Cleric to start off with higher wisdom. You then enter the game at level 1 with no experience.

the user would then type /race and they get a menu like this:

type /race and the corresponding number of the class that you wish to be. If your choice is a valid class for your race you will get a success message and then you must log out to desktop and log back in.

1 - wizard
2 - monk
3 - shaman
4 - etc
5 - etc

Now for example, lets say our DE cleric chooses /race 3.

He or she then receives the message 'Class updated' or 'success' and they have to then logout and log back in before changes take effect.

If they choose a class that they already are or a class that is not allowed, they get a 'Rejected' message.

AND since our DE chose a cleric on char select screen, they already have the stats necessary for their particularly class e.g. Wisdom in this case for the shaman.

So all we'd have to do is make sure people understand that they need to pick a class similar to that of their intended class at the char select screen *if* they want to have more relevant starting stats for their new class.


Summary:
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I want a Froglok monk, ill pick a froglok warrior at char select screen.

I'll get into the game and type /race <2>

I'll logout and let the changes take effect (database changes my class from warrior to monk).

Log back in and I got a froglok monk with all the relevant melee stats, even if they're off by a few points it wont matter. I got graphics for kick and punch and I can wear robes and have the graphics for that too :)


p.s. im not sure how abilities would work but i assume they are related to the class that the database thinks you are so if you are changed to a monk after creating a warrior, it will automatically update your relevant abilities / skills etc - but i dont know how it works Wiz so you'll have to enlighten me on that :)


Dukat
62 Warder
 
Reem said:
You have some good ideas, but there some fairly big problems wiht them:

And with you spell research/combining idea. I think its a fairly good idea... but if wizards get it every single class that gets spells should also get it. If a wizard can combine spells to make a Nuke/Stun/Root into one spell i want my Ranger to be able to Nuke/DoT/Jolt all in one spell... or my druid to Root/Port/Summon Food in one spell. :roll:

Good ideas. Im really not sure how you could actualy make them work though, it would involve revamping the whole Spell/Magic system..

Reem the thing is, Wizards are supposed to be researching and creating spells, giving that 'ability' to other classes wouldn't make any sense. They're not 'students' of magic like wizards are, they only get to use the spells available to them.

But i do understand where you're coming from. I think maybe imposing limits on the schools of spells that can be combined might be a way around that.


Dukat
62 Warder
 
Reem the thing is, Wizards are supposed to be researching and creating spells, giving that 'ability' to other classes wouldn't make any sense. They're not 'students' of magic like wizards are, they only get to use the spells available to them.

But i do understand where you're coming from. I think maybe imposing limits on the schools of spells that can be combined might be a way around that.


Dukat
62 Warder

It would just be way too unbalanced if only wizards got Combo-like spells. But it would not be unbalanced if Wizards could research spells for other classes. It would almost be like a class specific trade skill, like jewlcrafting is to enchanters or tinkering to gnomes.

If it worked this way a Ranger or Druid or any Spell Type class could come up to a Wizard and hand him two spell scrolls, get him to research it and hand back a new spell scroll...

But even then there are far to many things to complicate it all, many spells are used by more then one class at many different levels. So would you only be able to combine spells that are only useable by a single class? Or only be able to combine spells of the exact same level? You could end up with classes getting spells they shouldnt have in the first place, or spells that can be scribed at lower levels then they should be.

It would be alot alot of work on Wiz's part to put something like this in the game that is fine the way it is already.
 
The combo thing can't be done so there's no sense in discussing it.
/agree

The monk idea is still a good one though. I figure that it could only work if you let 'weaker' races become monks. Dont think it would be fair if suddenly Ogres or Barbarians could be Monks. But it would be different if a race with slightly lower Sta/Str/Dex/Agi could be monk, as to not nerf of the people who are already monks. That way if you wanted to maximise your time playing a monk Human/Iksar would be the best option, but if you didnt care about being slightly weaker you could have your Dark Elf monk or Half Elf Monk...

It would all depend on what Races you let become Monk/Rogue/Shaman/Enchanter or whatever. Dont want to put the people who have already made/leveld up thier class at a disadvantage.
 
Reem said:
The monk idea is still a good one though. I figure that it could only work if you let 'weaker' races become monks. Dont think it would be fair if suddenly Ogres or Barbarians could be Monks. ......

It would all depend on what Races you let become Monk/Rogue/Shaman/Enchanter or whatever. Dont want to put the people who have already made/leveld up thier class at a disadvantage.

Since monks rely a lot on agility to save them from taking a pounding, I don't see how a barb or ogre would be overpowering anyway. Yeah they're stronger and have more stamina, but that's not a big deal.

When I ran my server, I let anyone play any class/race combo they wanted ... IF they came up with a roleplay angle to it. Of course the first person I had to ban was a DE warrior who named himself Drizzt and asked to be a ranger...

But while everyone is thinking of what races/classes would be uber, I'm thinking more of a fun factor. Like I would love to play an ogre bard. I think that would be pretty cool. :) Would he be a good bard? Err...probably not a very good one compared to human, half-elf, or wood elf, but he'd be fun. :)
 
LuciferBlack said:
But while everyone is thinking of what races/classes would be uber, I'm thinking more of a fun factor. Like I would love to play an ogre bard. I think that would be pretty cool. :) Would he be a good bard? Err...probably not a very good one compared to human, half-elf, or wood elf, but he'd be fun. :)

well thats exactly what I had in mind, personally I wouldnt care if I had crap stats as a troll rogue or monk, just the sheer fun factor of it is what im looknig for. I was simply stating an idea for how stats for particular classes could be maintained by picking base classes similar to those that they intend to change to (for those who are serious about stats) but tbh we all know starting stats are irrelevant so the main point of focus here should be the fun factor involved with new class races and combo's.



When I ran my server, I let anyone play any class/race combo they wanted ...

How did you accomplish this ? it might be of some help to Wiz if he decided to implement this idea.
 
There are a quite a few chanters around with perma illusion(myself included :D ), instead of making a complicated system, if you really want to play another race, send me, or any other perma-illusion chanter a tell. Really, we dont mind. But then, dont die.
 
how 'complicated' can it be to tag characters as a different class? It's one field in the database im guessing unless EQ has been built around a complex system or there exists logic barriers which will pickup on this, which would need to be circumvented or deleted.
 
daimyo said:
When I ran my server, I let anyone play any class/race combo they wanted ...

How did you accomplish this ? it might be of some help to Wiz if he decided to implement this idea.

Mine was just cosmetic. It wasn't coded into the client. I only allowed people to play what they wanted, but there were no stat changes. There was no real min/maxing done. I had one rule: 1 change per character. If you wanted yourself changed into a troll druid, I'd do it. But you could have done no exping yet. Only problem was some vendors or trainers wouldn't liek that race combo, so ya know. There were limitations.

I had a much smaller player base than WR however. This would be a big headache for WR to implement. Especially if people are going to be changing alts as well.

I say it would be fun, but there's more important things to fix first. :)
 
I have a very funny feeling that Wiz won't allow all races to be whichever classes they wanted. Think about the item work alone.

Not gonna happen.
 
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