Dark Legacy MUD Forum

Why should a Warrior/Rogue/Mage gain as much complexity from levelling as a Druid/Cleric/Mage? Why should a Warrior/Cleric/Mage have swordskills that rival a Warrior/Paladin/Ranger's?

First of all, I suggest reworking how complexity points are gained in epiccing. Instead of gaining a point in all complexities over 40 every 30 levels, have different classes gain points at different rates. Warriors and rogues would not gain any complexity points. A mage might gain 1 point in physical every 30 levels and 1 in enchantment every 45 levels and 1 in basic every 60 levels. A psionicist would gain 1 in mind every 30, 1 in basic every 45, and one in physical every 60. They would also recieve points in other schools too, at varying levels. Obviously, with these numbers, no one would lose complexity points in their main schools and, as long as they had at least two casters, would probably gain points in most schools that more than one class was at least decent in.

I would also suggest changing how weapon skills are decided. The weapon skill itself would not change and anyone with warrior would have 99%. Similar to how complexity points work, I would suggest giving different classes bonuses to the weapon skills at different intervals. Rogues and warriors would definately gain the most, but rangers would outpace either in bows and crossbows as a single class. Different weapons would gain different bonuses as they raise. Swords would gain a mix of speed and damage bonuses while heavy weaponry such as axes gain primarily damage and light weaponry such as daggers would gain sspeed. Ranged weapons, I would suggest, would have their range decreased to 150ft, but their skills would raise their range and their AR in the case of blowguns, damage for crossbows, speed for slings, and a mixture of the three for bows. Weapons also would not only gain these attributes, but would occasionally reward new skills. Instead of giving the skills at certain levels as it currently works, skills could be given every X points. This means that instead of gaining spin and multistrike before tri-av, they would be gained with one of you first couple pointis in axes or daggers, respectively. More skills would be added in such as multishot for bows or javelin throw for spears. Obviously, some of these skills would carry over for use with other weapons too. Weapon specific skills would give reason to use the lesser used weapons. Dual Claws may gain a maul skill which is a modified multistrike for use only with claws. The added bonus from having Warrior/Paladin/Ranger should be able to make up for the lack of many great buffs. Obviously, you would gain the skills at the intervals for all of your classes and not just your strongest.

Yeah...I got a phone call 3/4 through the last paragraph, so it's a bit disjointed.

The weapons part sounds fine.


As for the complexity part, are you trying to say casters should gain ALl complexities, but different amounts for different complexities?

I apologize for the ambiguity, but I do not believe every caster should get extra complexities in all schools. Aside from rangers and druids, for example, none should gain nature.

i agree with you on the complexitys quintos, its sounds nice, also it would help balance out the magic classes a little more. i think i need to read the weapons part again when im really awake though.

So, how does reducing the rate at which you gain most of your complexities result in characters "gaining points", if they are getting less complexity in the schools they already get it in and not getting it in any new schools?

Because if a caster has more than one casting class, let's say mage and psionicist, they gain bonuses from both. The mage would gain one point in physical every 30 levels while the psionicist gains one every 60. This means that every 60 levels, the caster would gain 3 instead of 2. All casting classes would probably gain all but one or two schools at some rate which means that you're almost guaranteed for your strongest schools to become stronger. These number could also be adjusted so that they'd gain one point in their primary/secondary schools every 30 levels which would take advantage of the overlap of cleric and paladin in body and mage and psionicist in basic and physical.

I think that most of the problems dealing with balancing the game arises from the multiclass sytem. I think i know how to fix this problem.

lets say that you are a triavatar (warrior/mage/cleric)
and each class has 30 skills available.
Any given character can only have 30 skils.

So, you can only pick something like 10 from a warrior, 16 from a mage, and only 4 for a cleric.

Each of these skills have their own level of competence. You level up your chosen skills by various methods. To reach 50% of any given skills you must practice it by using it alot. To surpass 50% of that same skill you must invest skill points on them (you get skill points as you lvl up). Of course you have limited points, so you will have to be careful and plan out your character wisely.

I like this idea because it allows players to fully customize their skills. They can choose exactly what kind of player they want to be. Also, this would eliminate carbon copy of kills among players.

Of course you can reset your skill and choose a different path, but you would only get .33 points back. Every players have a limited number of skill points, 150 to be exact.

If you find flaws in this system please point them out and propose any changes that you think would make this idea work.

I like quintos's idea. It makes excellent sense.

Perhaps epic levels give an innate DR/AR/etc bonus to fighting classes...

Maybe someone could generate a whole list... hrm...

the source of imbalance is not necessarily the ability to multiclass, but rather the ability to multiclass, and be 100 percent effective in each class, thats where the imbalance comes from.

we are too far in the game to turn back unfortunately, so we work with what we have

one way i might handle it would be once you reach epic level 1, everything disappears, all non craft skills, all abilities, everything.

from there, you buy the skills you want, and this defines your character.
1 handed axes are worth 2 points
1 handed swords are worth 2 points
2 handed axes are worth 5 points
nature magic is worth 10 points
healing magic is worth 12 points
stun is worth 10 points

(random numbers) - but if you have a max number of points to work with, which never change, then you simply cannot be 100 percent in everything. Which in my estimation allows us to easier handle balance.

I would like to see a warrior be as effective as a caster, or a hybrid caster/fighter be as effective as a caster or a fighter, you just would work combat differently, sure maybe hybrid is less effective in magical combat than a pure magic user, but then again, their melee skills should make up for it.

it's probably possible to balance what we have, we just have so many more variables to deal with than other muds / mmorpgs, it makes it all that much more difficult.

If we're gonna implement a classless system, we might as well replace the whole game with it. Although I would advocate this idea, it might be better to just have additional skills to buy at tri-av. The skill buying could also replace the complexity bonuses that we get. Class and skills would affect the price to buy. A warrior with equal skill level in physical to a mage will pay more than the mage would to raise his physical skill. A mage with high physical will also pay more than a mage with low physical.

yup, sounds good