Character Race/Class Feedback Options

[Rast]

So I've been tossing around a few ideas for changes to my game's race system. Currently, it's 3 races: Humans, mutants and monsters. Humans can use almost any weapon and equip most armors, but cannot use magic. They equip styles that give them certain skills and roles, such as Medic(non-magic healing skills), Defender(defense-oriented skills), Protector(skills for protecting the rest of the party), Commander(party-wide boosts) and the like. Mutants, on the other hand, can only equip some lighter equipment(and are usually stronger unarmed), but can cast spells. I've got a few changes in mind that I need feedback on.

1) Humans
When choosing humans, you will now be able to choose from 4 classes(Names are a WIP):
[][]-Slasher: Specializes in offensive skills and assaulting enemies
[][]-Medic: Specializes in first-aid and healing the party through non-magical means
[][]-Protector: Specializes in defensive skills and protecting the party.
[][]-Scout: Specializes in traps and status-effecting skills, such as maiming an enemy to impede attacking or skill usage.

Note that these status effects will ideally be useful and not just there. If I can't find a practical use for them, I'll change the class to something that's actually useful.


2) Mutants
When choosing mutants, you'll now be able to choose an element to align them to. There will be Fire, Water and Lightning elements available, with each type being able to learn additional elemental skills. Water element mutants, for example, will eventually be able to learn Ice skills which vary in damage and may freeze enemies. Some skills such as healing spells and the like will be specific to certain elements, and some skills can be taught to any mutant via a skillbook or learned at a certain level.


3) Monsters
Monsters will likely be changed a bit as well. I'm thinking of adding in a Devour skill. It would have a chance of instantly killing an enemy with low health and, if successful, a chance of learning one of that enemy's unique skills or boosting a stat. Stat boosts would likely be reserved for bosses to prevent stat-grinding for an overpowered character. Additionally, I might try to imitate FFL's Meat system, to allow them to devour enemy remains to take on a new form.




Any thoughts or opinions on this system?

[rewells]

Which game is this for? Do you have a demo? I like the general idea. I'm assuming that the player will be able to control a character of each race? Do you choose your party at the beginning of the game (like Final Fantasy I) or do you meet characters as you go along? All these things effect how the system will play out, so any information you can give on that end would be helpful for us to give feedback.

I especially like the subclasses under humans. Can each human character switch between each subclass throughout the game? I think they should be able to so the player has more options. I think you can expand this idea and give the other two races subclasses as well (you already kind of have that with the elemental alignment of mutants). This way, each character is customizable but no one character can use every skill (this is where FF XIII's paradigm system fell apart, I think - the job classes are a good idea, but once every character can use any job at anytime, the characters lose their uniqueness and choosing a party becomes more of a matter of who you want to look at while playing). Having subclasses bound to a character's race would solve this problem. The Devour skill also sounds neat though...you should def incorporate that.

So I've been tossing around a few ideas for changes to my game's race system. Currently, it's 3 races: Humans, mutants and monsters. Humans can use almost any weapon and equip most armors, but cannot use magic. They equip styles that give them certain skills and roles, such as Medic(non-magic healing skills), Defender(defense-oriented skills), Protector(skills for protecting the rest of the party), Commander(party-wide boosts) and the like. Mutants, on the other hand, can only equip some lighter equipment(and are usually stronger unarmed), but can cast spells. I've got a few changes in mind that I need feedback on.

1) Humans
When choosing humans, you will now be able to choose from 4 classes(Names are a WIP):
[][]-Slasher: Specializes in offensive skills and assaulting enemies
[][]-Medic: Specializes in first-aid and healing the party through non-magical means
[][]-Protector: Specializes in defensive skills and protecting the party.
[][]-Scout: Specializes in traps and status-effecting skills, such as maiming an enemy to impede attacking or skill usage.

Note that these status effects will ideally be useful and not just there. If I can't find a practical use for them, I'll change the class to something that's actually useful.


2) Mutants
When choosing mutants, you'll now be able to choose an element to align them to. There will be Fire, Water and Lightning elements available, with each type being able to learn additional elemental skills. Water element mutants, for example, will eventually be able to learn Ice skills which vary in damage and may freeze enemies. Some skills such as healing spells and the like will be specific to certain elements, and some skills can be taught to any mutant via a skillbook or learned at a certain level.


3) Monsters
Monsters will likely be changed a bit as well. I'm thinking of adding in a Devour skill. It would have a chance of instantly killing an enemy with low health and, if successful, a chance of learning one of that enemy's unique skills or boosting a stat. Stat boosts would likely be reserved for bosses to prevent stat-grinding for an overpowered character. Additionally, I might try to imitate FFL's Meat system, to allow them to devour enemy remains to take on a new form.




Any thoughts or opinions on this system?

[Shaddow]

I like this system it's very interesting, though if you add robots to the mix and base their stats off off the EQ they are using you have the SaGa series class system. (Not a bad system at all btw). I do like it though, but I agree with Rewells, you need to make sure not everyone can use everything or party dynamics kind of fall apart.

[Rast]

Which game is this for? Do you have a demo? I like the general idea. I'm assuming that the player will be able to control a character of each race? Do you choose your party at the beginning of the game (like Final Fantasy I) or do you meet characters as you go along? All these things effect how the system will play out, so any information you can give on that end would be helpful for us to give feedback.

It's for Tower of the Spirit World. There is a demo, but it's dated, not really polished, and the work of 2-3 years with little feedback or playtesting from others.

At the start of the game, you create a party of four characters. They can be any combination of the races, so it's really up to what they player wants. As for the mutants, their element determines a lot about what skills they can learn, especially later. Water, for example, has healing spells and water-based spells, but will eventually learn ice-based spells. Fire has more AoE spells, and spells that can cause damage over time. Lightning has spells that are generally single target, but with higher damage.

I've also been working on new skills for the human classes, specifically the Scout. Currently, they have a standard skill called "Snare" that prevents a target from attacking(and ensures all attacks will hit them) for a single turn. It has a high hit rate on any non-flying enemy, including many of the smaller(human-sized) bosses. Larger bosses are simply too big for such a small trap to effect them. That's just one of the ideas, though. I have a few I'm throwing around, but the overall goal is to make every skill useful throughout the game.

[rewells]

At the start of the game, you create a party of four characters. They can be any combination of the races, so it's really up to what they player wants. As for the mutants, their element determines a lot about what skills they can learn, especially later. Water, for example, has healing spells and water-based spells, but will eventually learn ice-based spells. Fire has more AoE spells, and spells that can cause damage over time. Lightning has spells that are generally single target, but with higher damage.

Good ideas and very original. Sounds like you put a lot of thought into it! Since it sounds like each class/element would have it's advantages, I think the player should be able to change them throughout the game. That would require more thought on the player's part, to have access to multiple strategies for battles. If the classes/elements are unchangeable, you could end up without a healer. I'd definitely like to see a demo :-)