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Skill mastery based on race and class.

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schveider
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Post  Sinbad Thu Sep 08, 2011 1:30 am

Hi guys, I have a suggestion I believe would allow for more replayability in MMT.

In might and magic 6, player character could only be human.
In might and magic 7, player characters could be human, elven, dwarven or goblin. - However the choice of race only effected starting stat points and the character images
In might and magic 8, player characters could be human, vampire, dark elf, troll, minotaur or dragon . - However only the humans had classes, and could only be knights, clerics or necromancers.
In might and magic 9, player characters could be human, elven, dwarven or half-orc. - However the choice of race only effected starting stat points and character portraits.

In might and magic tribute, player characters can be a motley assortment of races. - However the choice of race will only effect starting stat points and the character images.
My suggestion is that the race you choose effects your skills in a way that hasn't really been touched upon in might and magic to the best of my knowledge ( I haven't played mm1-5 )
So here it is:

The mastery ( normal, expertise, mastery or grandmastery ) of any given skill for might and magic tribute should be determined by a combination of race and class.

The real world explaination for this is that each player character would have had an upbringing ( depending on their race ) in which certain skills were more applicable to them.
As they become adventurers, they begin to choose which areas to grow in and which jobs they enjoy ( classes ).

Here is an example:

Sinbad the Human Adventurer can become an Expert in the sword skill and learn the bow skill.
Arwen the Elven Adventurer can learn the sword skill and become an Expert in the bow skill. ( Notice the difference here is due to Racial weapon affinity )

Sinbad gets a promotion to Knight and can now Master the sword skill and become an Expert in the bow skill.
Arwen promotes to Archer and can now become an Expert in the sword skill and Master the bow skill.
As an Archer, Arwen can now also learn Fire, Air, Water and Earth magic.
She can also become an expert in Air magic. ( Due to Elves having a bonus in Air magic )

Kaiisan the Elven Archmage can Grandmaster Fire, Water and Earth Magic.
She can also Grandmaster Air magic with an added + 10 Skill bonus upon doing so ( Due to her Elven Air Magic Affinity )
Pertal the Troll Archmage can Grandmaster Air, Water and Earth Magic.
She can only Master Fire magic however.. ( Due to Trolls being weak in Fire Magic )

End of example.


So obviously in order for my suggestion to work, someone ( and I'm keen to do it ) will have to go through the list of races and decide which ones will have an affinity or weakness for certain skills.
If you guys like this idea, please let me know and I will start doing so and post my results here.
You are all more than welcome to suggest changes or post your own lists of which races are good/bad at what.

Just an idea, but I think it would be cool.

Cheers,


- Sinbad

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Post  schveider Thu Sep 08, 2011 7:39 am

It sounds like a good idea, I like it.But I have one question: that skill bonus is bonus of skillpoints?If so it would unbalance game although what could works is that it would grow with skill mastery or level.

Some ideas:
Pathfinding Elf - bonus, Genie - penalization or disallowing to learn this skill because they dont have legs they do not need it
Spellcasting: Genie - bonus, Ogre - penalty

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Post  Akkarin Thu Sep 08, 2011 12:40 pm

Sinbad wrote:
In might and magic tribute, player characters can be a motley assortment of races. - However the choice of race will only effect starting stat points and the character images.

Well that's not completely true. There are some parts where race also does play a role. For example each race has some positive and negative effects, like vampires getting a skillpoint boost at night and ogres having a larger inventory. And there are two special abilities for every race. Furthermore race does play a role in the reputation system. (cf. http://www.castlegobs.nl/wiki/index.php?title=Race).

Basically I support the idea of race having a bigger impact on the game.

However I think it would be bad, if a player would find out in midgame, that his sorcerer won't be able to learn the flying spell, just because he picked the wrong race.
And that system should not be too complex, so players don't need to look up tables to find out what effects their choice of race will have. I'd rather have players pick a race, just because they think it would be cool to have a vampire on the team, instead of having to calculate which race brings the biggest advantage to a certian class and having to plan every skill in advance.

Maybe on higher difficulty levels it would make sense to implement this feature, since experienced players possibly know which skills are important and as you said that would allow for more replayability.

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Post  schveider Thu Sep 08, 2011 12:51 pm

And how about to add some kind of advisor for the beginning of the game?

Maybe on higher difficulty levels it would make sense to implement this feature, since experienced players possibly know which skills are important and as you said that would allow for more replayability.

Personally, I don't like the idea of doing such a thing.The higher difficulty should bring e.g. stronger enemies not new conditions for gameplay.

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Post  asomath Thu Sep 08, 2011 10:12 pm

I also support the idea of having race effects on play slightly larger. The MMT so far has already done a pretty good job on increasing their effect on gameplay. However, I dislike the idea of race effecting the actual ability of a character to reach a certain skill proficency. The purpose of a class is to be that limiting factor. Any effects of race in addition to the one's that we already have should be minor enough that it allows the races to create different play styles, rather than creating streamline Race/Class combinations that everyone knows is the "Right Choice"

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Post  schveider Fri Sep 09, 2011 11:51 am

OK, these arguments are reasonable.For player who wouldn't be aware of this could be frustrating to realize in the middle of the game that he can't learn some spells.On the other hand I think this is very good idea and I'm not willing to let it be.Let's make compromise.Since integrating this rules into higher levels of difficulty seems to be (according to the my opinion) quite wierd I suggest to make some special game mode which could player activate before start.Something like this was in one of Icewind Dales where it was called "Heart of Fury".

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Post  schveider Sat Sep 10, 2011 7:08 am

By the previous post I didn't wanted to say the discussion is over Smile.What do you think is this good idea to make such mode?

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Post  asomath Sat Sep 10, 2011 11:50 am

If this idea was to be implemented in the way Sinbad suggested it, then yes, the best way to add it would be through a special game mode (that perhaps you could unlock). However, I would like to simply keep it, at this point, within the scope of the MMT project, to a single game with different difficulty levels.

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Post  Akkarin Sat Sep 10, 2011 5:12 pm

I do also think that the suggested race/class model would better fit into a separate game mode. Nevertheless I would suggest concentrating on the main game and consider introducing different game play types after large parts of the game have been finished.

Though I appreciate Sinbad's efforts to increase the impact of race on gameplay.

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Post  schveider Sat Sep 10, 2011 6:22 pm

Dont worry Sinbad we will push it into release version Very Happy

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Post  Panda Tar Sun Sep 11, 2011 9:58 pm

I must say this is an interesting approach. Developing characters must reach an uniqueness we haven't seen in previous MM games. I could even stretch this subject due the actual skill development seen in Heroes games as well - poor at no end; there are many suggestions on this behalf that can help your guys into this race/class-specific development.

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Post  Sinbad Mon Sep 12, 2011 8:16 am

One last try and then I'll let it roll over and die:

I think this suggestion could be implemented into the main gameplay (i.e. not into a seperate (unlockable) difficulty mode..) by following one simple rule. I'll get onto that soon, first let me explain my motive for this suggestion. ( By the way, skip to my conclusion at the bottom if you don't want to read a novel... )

Ok. For starters, please note that I completely agree with not limiting character design to certain "correct" races to choose for the right classes. Rather instead I had hoped it would work in the opposite by allowing alternative races to excel in classes they previously may not have been picked for.
I believe that previous releases of might and magic DID work in that way..

An example I will use is choosing a race for your sorcerer in mm7.
You basically had 2 choices: human or elf, with elf being the obvious choice because of its boosted intelligence.
Choosing a goblin resulted in a penalty to intelligence (and personality) and choosing a dwarf gave a penalty to speed and accuracy which means slower, inaccurate spellcasting...

Thats not to say they couldn't be picked for a sorcerer, just that you would have a much harder time in the early game if you chose to do so.

The same went for Melee classes like Knight and Paladin, where choosing an elf gave a penalty to Endurance - meaning a less durable tank...

Choosing Races in MM7 really came down to what was the "right" choice for that class and I would hope MMT wouldn't run the same problem.
This was actually one of the main points I had in mind when I came up with this suggestion.
I wanted MMT to have alot more replayablity.

So now that I've had my little rant, I'll offer up the solution to fix the problem of having "correct" races to choose for your classes.
Obviously If choosing an elf for example, gave a boost to Bow, Air Magic, Chain Armour and Perception it would make them the perfect race to choose for a ranger.
I don't want every ranger I create to HAVE to be an elf so the simple solution is to make sure that
not ALL of the skills choosing an elf boosts are the skills a ranger excels at.

So instead of Elf boosting Bow, Chain, Air and Perception like I said before, maybe we make Elf boost Bow, Air, Dagger, Pathfinding and Dodging..

If this were the case, Elves would make excellent Rangers, but so would another race that for example has a penalty to bow but boosts some of the other skills rangers excel at.

Its easy really. I just have to come up with a list of boosts and penalties for each race that doesn't OVERLAP the boosts and penalties of the classes.

Another thing I will need to take into consideration is not to have any race that has an all over boost to magic.
Essentially what I mean is that Genies for example shouldn't get a boost to Spellcasting, Air, Fire etc. as this would overbalance them to be used purely as spellcasters and maybe stop players from choosing them as melee characters which - IF my suggestion was to be implelemented properly - would be something I would hope to see being viable. Just like troll Sorcerers and Vampire Saints. No longer should strange race/class combinations be limited to being "humorous" or because you felt like a challange, they should all be viable and I would hope that my suggestion would allow for this.




In conclusion:

So long as no racial boosts overlap too many areas of class expertise and no racial penalties overlap too many areas of the same class' failings, there's no reason why this suggestion wouldn't add an interesting extra factor to MMT and allow for extra replayability, while not limiting certain races to being the "correct" choice for any given class.

Cheers,


- Sinbad

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Post  Guest Mon Sep 12, 2011 8:21 am

'However, I dislike the idea of race effecting the actual ability of a character to reach a certain skill proficiency. The purpose of a class is to be that limiting factor. Any effects of race in addition to the one's that we already have should be minor enough that it allows the races to create different play styles, rather than creating streamline Race/Class combinations that everyone knows is the "Right Choice" '

I'm with Asomath on this, for two reasons. Firstly, remember the newbie player - keep it reasonably simple. Secondly, the more complex the game is, the more coding you're going to have to provide, and the greater is the chance of getting something wrong. A decent fan game of any sort is not all that common, let alone one as complicated as this will probably be - i.e. again, keep it simple.

The final objective is to finish the game, not leave it to join the multitude of half-finished codings I've seen gathering dust in the worlds of Wizardry, Eye of the Beholder, Forgotten Realms, and so on.

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Post  Sinbad Mon Sep 12, 2011 8:34 am

Also, I just had another idea ( a compromise if you will ) to the system of limiting expertise based on race.

What if we instead made it that certain races can master skills earlier or later if they have an affinity/penalty?


i.e: Bow skill: Elves get a bonus, humans don't and ogres get a penalty..

Elven Explorer can expert bow right? yes, and they can do so at a bow skill level of 3!

Human explorer becomes an expert at level 4 like anyone else.

An Ogre however has to be level 6 to expert bow...

Elven ranger masters bow at level 5 and Grandmasters bow at level 8!

Human masters it at level 7 and grandmasters at 10.

The ogre ranger has to get their bow skill all the way up to 9 to master it and level 14 to grandmaster...

This way nobody misses out, but it still has a working effect on the game. What you guys reckon? good compromise?

Cheers,


- Sinbad


Last edited by Sinbad on Mon Sep 12, 2011 9:37 am; edited 1 time in total

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Post  Sinbad Mon Sep 12, 2011 8:40 am

Ok, I'll admit that I don't know a lot about coding a game but to be honest this doesn't seem like the hardest thing to implement, especially my compromised idea. (which I realise I wrote after your comment)

This would be a simple racial modifier on the skill level required at skill teacher's houses

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Post  asomath Mon Sep 12, 2011 12:39 pm

Now Sinbads compromise I can see worrking nicely. It utilizes the races in a fashion thats not going to alienate certain class/race combinations... it'll just be little tweaks for a persons preference. For example, even though it would take longer to grandmaster, perhaps the extra attack bonus from the ogres strength would be worth it for someplayers. And I know that simply modifying code as to the comprimise doesn't take too long at all, just an extra conditonal statement or so. What do ya'll think?

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Post  Admin Fri Sep 16, 2011 2:23 pm

Peter2:

I agree with Asomath on this one; I like Sinbad's compromise. One of the things that "killed my pig" about MM7 was that no party could get access to both Light and Dark Magic in the same game. The developers might have thought it necessary, but for me it was a complete turn-off. Additionally, I thought they'd been a bit too restrictive about limiting the access of some characters to mastery and grandmastery in some of the skills, but I was more prepared to put up with that.

I very much like the idea that most classes and races can eventually GM most non-magic skills despite the inherent problems that they may have, and that the system will cope with that. One of the most enjoyable aspects of an RPG is character development, and the system you propose actually takes this a step further than any other game I've come across.

Nice one, Sinbad!

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Post  Sinbad Sat Sep 17, 2011 6:04 am

Haha thanks! Glad you guys like the compromise

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