Betraying the Class System

[AnxiousMonkey 1]

I was just wondering if people are happy with the standard class system, and how they feel about a different version of it. This post will have two paragraphs, One explaining my idea on how to improve upon the class system, and another to explain what I'm going to do with the current placement of the classes in the database. Also I talk too much, feel free to skip around to the important parts. The explanation of the class system is in the first paragraph, halfway in to line 3. Another important part is halfway through line 7.

 

I was dissatisfied with the current class system, how you just get skills by leveling up, and not really much else. This mainly came from an incident I had where I had a skill using a class transformation script (It allows states to apply a class transformation, I'll explain just how useful that is in the next paragraph) to transform the user in to a crystal golem. Unfortunately, when I transformed back, I had noticed that all the skills I had learned from leveling up were gone. It was probably a minor bug, but regardless, it gave inspiration for a new system. The new system makes the class section irrelevant, it replaces helmets or headgear with a Soul. The Soul cannot be unequipped, is selected for the single actor (it can work for 2), and is upgraded by visiting an elder. At a certain level, the elder will upgrade your soul. Souls give minor stat modifiers and teach you abilities. These replace the current class system, they would be like a class in a normal game, you upgrade them every few levels. It will cost a decent sum of gold to upgrade, as well as some rare items. At level 30 (the final soul upgrade), all learned spells/skills are replaced by a more relevant to the upgraded class version, or simply a better version. Example: Sorcerer goes in to Archmage, Sorcerer's flame weapon which provides a chance to burn them on hit, and bonus damage, is replaced by Archmage's knowledge of Soul magic. This knowledge is used in soul weapon, which provides both physical and magical lifesteal, bonus damage and magic damage. The soul's skills will not be offensive abilities that deal direct damage, except perhaps 1 or 2 throughout the classes. Weapons will provide basic attacks, which vary from weapon to weapon thanks to one of the best scripts ever, Guarding abilities, and other offensive abilities. Weapons will give a passive boost at +4, and offensive abilities from +1 to +5 (+0 is the basic attack). Weapons are upgraded on a crafting system, and at +5 they get a finisher that usually ties in with one of their other abilities.

 

The current classes will be used for visuals. Using a script for animated battlers (All of my scripts mentioned can be found below), different weapons will have different visuals, in essence, Visual Equip. Each actor will represent a different class, Warrior Defender Sorcerer and Cleric, and each of those can be any of the 12 classes for the 12 weapons. This also allows for visual class transformations as well, so using a large series of variables, if a sorcerer uses flame weapon on his own sword or any other weapon of his, it will be a class transformation in to Flaming Longsword from the class Longsword. This would change the entire spritesheet, from the idle sword having flaming particle effects to the basic attack having a fire slash effect to it.

 

This is a bit of a rant at this point, talking about myself as it stands, sorry about that. But it's an idea where items will dictate the abilities a character has, and you will have to really dedicate yourself to a build, while still having a chance to change it. I posted it because I haven't really seen it anywhere, and I'd like to know public opinion on the idea. 

 

Scripts Mentioned: 

Transformation Stats by Fomar - http://www.rpgmakervxace.net/topic/1601-transformation-states/

Convert Damage (Lifesteal) by Yanfly - http://rpgmaker.net/scripts/117/

Animated Battlers by Jet - http://www.rpgmakervxace.net/topic/500-animated-battlers/

 

 

 

 

[klokwerkaos 0]

Greetings Anxious Monkey!

 

I've been toying with the same idea myself, I just made a post about it in my first thread here and I would love to discuss ideas with you as I've been planning on something similar for my game, I was actually thinking of achieving it similarly by having the characters have a soul like equipment slot that gave them abilities, spells, buffs, etc. that they could then custom upgrade to give control to the player to allow them to play as they wish.

 

I can't say commit to a build is a great idea IMO though since I've found that allowing players to respec is essential as they won't understand the game mechanics and exploits for the first good long while, as well as the use of some skills and such until they try them, and it's frustrating for the player to have to restart a game every time they dump points in the wrong slots when respec option seems like a fine option to let them alter their character, and even then, you could have the cost of such an option be based on character level so it wouldn't be something terribly abused.