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Radically new character class idea

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:55:53

borsuk

Hey In another topic Neoworm said that all Hexen classes play more or less the same in later game. This is simply true. Here's an idea for a class which would play completely different. I plan to mod it sooner or later, but I have other priorities, especially refreshing trigonometry because it turns out you can't mod games without it. I share this idea, because the best way to kill an idea is to keep it to yourself. ==================== Skinshifter Skinshifter can't switch weapons. It doesn't matter, because he doesn't find any. He doesn't need mana to perform attacks ! However, instead of switching weapons, he changes form (the same keys are used: 1, 2, 3, 4...). Only changing form costs mana. Each form has a different attack, but not only that - forms differ in stats, HP, AC, speed, even size and other abilities. So can skinshifter just transform into his best form and destroy everything ? Hardly. 1) Combat forms are effective, but highly specialised. Different situations call for different forms. Mixed monster groups in particular would be problematic; player would need to switch form a few times to handle different enemies. 2) There are other ways player can be taxed. For example, charge player (mana) for some very basic action performed in Hexen. Something that is performed once per 5 seconds, and sometimes more. I'm talking about activating switches. No, really - activating switches and doors could be performed only in the basic (human) form of Skinshifter. This essentially makes switches cost mana, although player can still optimise, such as kill monsters first then activate several switches at once. Additionally, most fancy items could be used only in human form. ================= Example implementation: 1, Human form, 0 mana. The only form that can activate switches, doors, use fancy items. It also moves quite fast. 2, Salamander form, costing lots of blue mana. A bit slower, but with decent ranged attack. Doesn't take damage walking on lava (this likely won't matter much in practice, but would be nice flavour). Additional drawback: can only shoot horizontally, or in a very small arc. This means other forms have to be used to fight flyers, and salamander can't use cheesy tactics to snipe enemies. For example in Guardian of Ice player would have to either advance carefully as Human and use melee attack, or switch to salamander and jump right into the swarm of ettins because shooting them from above is impossible. 3, Scary Melee Monster, costing lots of green mana. A werewolf, vampiric mist, or something. Fast and strong in melee. To make it different from all other melee attacks in Hexen, it could be like Gauntlets of Necromancer/Chainsaw. This means very short range, relatively low damage, but high rate of fire resulting in most monsters being paralysed and unable to retaliate. However, for it to work player would have to remain close to victim, nearly stationary and an easy target. Player would want to use his victim as a living shield (place it between himself and other enemies) 4. Dragon Form, lots of green and blue mana Big and fairly slow, so worse at dodging missiles. Partially compensated by good AC. Has great firepower, for example equivalent of Rocket Launcher/Phoenix Rod. Unlike salamander, missiles can be shot at any angle. Big enough so it can't fit into narrow passages, so it can mostly be used in arena-like locations. Additionally, explosive ranged weapon is bad news if something comes close. Your best option becomes to morph into Scary Melee Monster, or Human to run away to increase distance and morph into somethng ranged again. ------------- You are welcome to use this idea in whatever mod you're working on (Scattered Evil ?). Just be nice, if you use it give me credit somewhere.
Wed, 09 Jun 2010 20:45:29

RambOrc

Sounds a lot like ShadowCaster.
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 03:34:52

borsuk

That may be so, but completely unlike DooM, Heretic, or Hexen. I never played Shadowcaster. The concept of shapeshifters is much older anyway, and battle of shapeshifters exists in many folk tales around the world. But I'm sorely disappointed by final boss fight (watched on youtube). Nonexistant tactics, just use strongest combat form. This is precisely what I tried to avoid in the post above. As far as I know Shadowcaster uses forms mostly (or only) as means of travel - jump higher, dive underwater, fly. This is sufficiently different from what I described (difference in combat abilities). Forms which enhance travel would need extra work put into designing levels, sich as locking anything important with keys etc. Or go in the opposite direction: give other classes equivalent powers as well (Telekinesis, teleportation/exchange position....)
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 08:46:56

RambOrc

[quote="borsuk":3l8dlio5]As far as I know Shadowcaster uses forms mostly (or only) as means of travel - jump higher, dive underwater, fly. This is sufficiently different from what I described (difference in combat abilities). Utterly, completely, 100% wrong. <!-- s:P --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc4.gif" alt=":P" title="Razz" /><!-- s:P --> Different forms have different abilities, a few of them environment related (e.g. underwater breathing, flying), but most of them combat abilities/spells.
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 09:59:50

borsuk

Apparently some people don't agree (or we don't understand each other). Here's a quote from Shadowcaster review:
The character development - what there is of it. During the course of the game you acquire six alternative bodies with various capabilities (seven counting the human one you start with). The problem here is that each time you acquire one, the next level is so obviously tailored to require what that body can do, and after that the body is almost never used again. The only exception is levels 24 and 25, which were added to the CD-ROM edition of the game and require at least five of the seven forms to successfully negotiate. The endgame - only need one form for that. It's over pretty quickly and fairly simply, considering the time spent leading up to it.
Ok. But don't you think it's a very interesting class idea ? There is enough conceptual difference between Fighter and Mage/Cleric. But not so much between Mage and Cleric. Both use mystic powers to attack from afar. "More melee than mage" doesn't count, because Mace of Contrition is not a viable weapon. Meanwhile a shapeshifter is much better defined, and fundamentally different in gameplay. If I were to design a mod - I don't see much point in clinging to a poorly defined concept like Cleric. I'd go for shapeshifter instead.
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:37:18

RambOrc

That's because you don't know what the Cleric in SE will look like (nor the mage, for that matter). <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc9.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->
Fri, 11 Jun 2010 08:08:40

borsuk

Good luck with that (pleasantly surprising me). No sarcasm, we would both benefit from it. But I doubt you can do that. To elaborate on what I said, "cleric" is not a playstyle description. A very pragmatic description of Mage and Cleric is the same:A character using mystical powers to fight his enemies. The difference is really just thematic - in case of mage the power comes from knowledge/studies/intelligence/magic items, whereas in case of cleric it's faith/magic items. Unless you do something truly creative, like going that extra mile and... implementing actual religions. And simulate god entities which judge your behaviour and encourage/coerce player to behave in certain way. Examples from Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (a roguelike): For most gods piety increases with certain actions (which unlocks extra powers), and drops with time and especially with bad deeds. - piety for warlike gods generally increases as you kill things, but drops with time. To get the most benefit you have to advance faster. In terms of Hexen this would mean forcing player to play a bit like a speedrunner ! You could even have piety drop over time proportional to difficulty level. - player is disallowed to perform certain actions. For example a god which values honorable fights disallows backstabbing. In terms of Hexen: no shooting at unaware creatures. Admittedly there are very few ambush opportunities in Hexen compared to DooM... - Honorable god disallows using tricks like poison, necromancy etc. In Hexen you could make use of poison flechettes decrease piety ! DCSS can get away with disallowing players to use some items based on religion, because it's a much deeper game than Hexen. For extra style points, allow player to choose one of few gods to follow. Yes, I'm still talking about Hexen. Perhaps even better example of a game where religion dictates code of conduct is POWDER. I'd check it out if I were you because it's a fountain of good ideas.
Fri, 11 Jun 2010 10:43:33

RambOrc

Basically, we are expanding on the original description from Hexen, i.e. that the cleric is in the middle between the fighter and the mage. This means more physical weapons, which are also useful. Already in KMOD 2, if you scale the Strength attribute to the maximum possible, the mace becomes a pretty powerful weapon. If there would have been no limit on the points you can put into strength for cleric, you could have beaten up everything but the bosses by the last hub. Since in SE there not only won't be a limit on the points you can put into any attribute but there also will be stronger physical weapons and upgrades you can put on them, the cleric should be viable to play without using spells if you want. Also, the cleric's spellcasting system will work differently than that of the mage, and the type of spells will be different as well.
Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:18:43

borsuk

[quote="RambOrc":20otgmxe]Basically, we are expanding on the original description from Hexen, i.e. that the cleric is in the middle between the fighter and the mage. This means more physical weapons, which are also useful. Which is what I will try to avoid in my mod. One of first things I tried in Vavoom was to make Mace of Contrition usable. And I succeeded: 38 + (P_Random() % 13) gets the result I aimed for, ettin dies in 4-5 hits. But then I understood: it merely made mace usable - not fun to use. Mace is still slower than wand and possibly gauntlets (I have yet to calculate damage per tic so I'm not sure). You can be content with "Like gauntlets, but weaker" but I am not. It's a difference in philosophy. I would like Mace of Contrition to be a weapon that other classes would like to use, just like Mage can envy gauntlets' raw power and Fighter envies the range and ripping effect. That may be difficult to achieve. I think more physical weapons are interesting only if they add something to the game. For example chainsaw-like melee weapons works quite differently. If I simply wanted to give player access to more powerful melee weapons, I can just change a number.
Already in KMOD 2, if you scale the Strength attribute to the maximum possible, the mace becomes a pretty powerful weapon. If there would have been no limit on the points you can put into strength for cleric, you could have beaten up everything but the bosses by the last hub.
This is in my opinion not necessarily a bad thing. I think enemies and battlefields should be such that player would want to gain ranged weapons. Think about Dark Bishop.
Also, the cleric's spellcasting system will work differently than that of the mage, and the type of spells will be different as well.
I look forward to trying that for sure. ----------------- Talking to myself a bit more. Telling other people what to do is essential part of any religion. Commandments, various sets of do and don'ts. Religion affects one's playstyle in physical world. Religion is an essential part of Cleric ==> Arbitrary rules and restrictions should be a part of playing Cleric. Then if player follows this rules he gets access to extra powers. No game over screen if you sin, however.
Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:23:56

RambOrc

[quote="borsuk":3dd60sy1]
Already in KMOD 2, if you scale the Strength attribute to the maximum possible, the mace becomes a pretty powerful weapon. If there would have been no limit on the points you can put into strength for cleric, you could have beaten up everything but the bosses by the last hub.
This is in my opinion not necessarily a bad thing. I think enemies and battlefields should be such that player would want to gain ranged weapons. Think about Dark Bishop. It was meant as a good thing in KMOD, not a bad one.
Sat, 12 Jun 2010 13:46:01

Valherran

Someone hand Borsuk the SDK for this game... -.-
Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:24:10

borsuk

[quote="Valherran":1lvky7lx]Someone hand Borsuk the SDK for this game... -.- Too late. I already got my hands on VavoomC, and it can do 95% things I can think about. <!-- s:lol: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orclaught2.gif" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing" /><!-- s:lol: -->
Mon, 28 Jun 2010 11:15:21

NeoWorm

I wanted to make a Shapeshifter class mod as a second new class for HeXen, but since I didnt even finished Corvus yet I doubt I will make it anytime soon (if ever). Idea was that he have 4 weapons like all other classes but second and third have a secondary attack to change into some kind of creature. First weapon were his hands partially changed into claws. Second was a Wolf scepter, that acted as a normal bashing weapon with secondary changing player into Werewolf (I even started sprites for it). Third was Dragon eye - an amulet with red crystal in shape of eye. Primary was simple firebolt that cost no mana and secondary changed player into Heretic Weredragon. Last multipiece weapon wasnt designed at all but the effect was that it morph other creatures into friendly werewolfs. I even made a concept art for him: [img:2hk2dre8]http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/5935/shapshifterresizenf4.jpg[/img:2hk2dre8]
Mon, 28 Jun 2010 12:05:44

RambOrc

Did you draw it from scratch?
Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:29:43

NeoWorm

Of course.
Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:12:23

RambOrc

So when are you drawing some new stuff for us? <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc9.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->

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