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Skill Immersion
RedChampion
Member Posts: 30
Skill Immersion
A Paladin-class has an ability that uses mana as a shield, as does a Mage-class. What are your thoughts on the classes sharing the same ability with different lore, or does lore not matter? More importantly, does it make the game more appealing/immersive for the skills to be named different things or does it not really matter to you?
i.e
Paladin and Mage share "Mana Shield".
or
Paladin has "Armor of Faith". Mage has "Mana Shield"
Comments
Why do so many games with Paladins have them use mana as a mechanic. Irritates me the bastardization of the paladin.
As for your question, even if they essentially do the same thing I'd rather them have separate names for the skills.
I think now is the time to introduce new concepts to each class. The mechanics of say, a warden and that of a ranger should be different. Not an ability bar that is named, oh for originality let's call it 'manna', and the mechanic is a simple 'starts at full, abilities deplete the reserve.'
In a class-based game, I want true variety between how classes work, not a carbon-copy of one another, much less a carbon-copy that doesn't even call their resource pool something different.
I have no problems with a two competing car manufacturer's producing a product that can run equal lap times. One might focus on handling and the other on acceleration. Different paths to reach the same goal. If you give me an ability, as long as the classes that share it reach it via their proper lore, I've no problems with it. But this I feel, in order to 'feel right', starts with truly making the classes unique themselves.
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
- MMO_Doubter
Well the most important thing is that each class is interesting to play and viable. This trumps everything else.
So yeah, a game is gonna be more fun if every class has a completely different playstyle with no ability overlap at all -- but this isn't really a realistic expectation.
It's like expecting every quest in a game to be totally distinct from every other quest. There's a soft cap to the amount of new ideas to be turned into quests, and at some point you're going to see overlap.
A similar soft cap to creativity exists for abilities, especially if you want the game to be balanced (because it's easy to come up with new abilities, but to implement them and balance them is the big limiting factor.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
This. Paladins wield the power of the god(s), not magic. Give them mana but call it "god juice" or something more serious like "divine favor".
I was just using the Paladin/Mage as an example. However, I always viewed the Paladin as a holy warrior, if you disagree or anyone else, please inform me how you would create a Paladin class?
Also, without revealing too much.. Mana is basically based off your intelligence, meaning the smarter you are, the more magical energy you possess. I have already changed how the skills work. The Paladin will now require mana to cast said spell, but uses a different stat altogether for how much damage it can absorb.
I would like to thank you all for your advice/suggestions.
Here's the point I was trying to make. While most games describe the paladin as a holy warrior, somehow they gain their power by tapping into the same energy as mages (mana/magic). In my opinion, a paladin/cleric would not use "magic" to cast spells or heal, rather they use the power of the gods to smite their foes and mend their allies.
The paladin would still work the same, mechanically, but would get their power from a different source.
Thank you for the reply skeaser and without diving in too deep.. In a unrevealed game, mana is raw magic that you possess, a character trait. You can transform this raw magic into any school of magic, one being holy. In lore sense, you must have innate magic powers to perform any magic, however, having those powers does not grant you access to them. One would assume you can only use an ability if you studied it long enough or if a diety gifted you.
As such, its not a simple "Armor of Faith" uses mana/magic. Its a character having innate magic powers, then training to become a Paladin and the deity gifting them ability which allows them to transform their raw magic powers into a holy spell. Which, if you wanted to break it down is simply magic, but thats why you have lore. Seeing as how I could just as easily make a blue bar into a gold bar, and call it "Faith" instead of mana. Which really doesnt sound like too bad of an idea.
I just got done trying out WAR because I've been looking for an MMO to tie me over until something comes along that's actually good. Boy I was mistaken. I've never seen so many cloned skills. And not even named differently, they are literally the exact same skill given to the same archtype but for different classes. I would expect them to at least change the name to be thematic for that race or class.
My biggest peeve with skills it that there are too many symmetrically fixated developers in MMO's. They all seem to think that archetype classes need to have the same skills otherwise chaos will ensue. I prefer asymmetrical gaming myself, it's what makes things hard to "predict" in pvp encounters. A perfectly good example of a company copping out is Blizzard with the addition of Shaman to alliance and Paladins to Horde.
My favorite axiom of asymmetrical gaming, though not an MMO, is Natural Selection. (http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/ ) . Though a FPS/RTS hybrid it shows that asymmetrical gaming can be fun and still prosper.
Another thing WAR did was claim they had different "mechanics" for each class, but in reality they were the same. Like the Black Orks "Battle Plan" or the Blade Knights "Balance". Both of which had different names, but were exactly the same thing. MMO's have tried to make things different. Look at WoW. They have added another mechanic to the genre which will hopefully inspire newer MMO's to incorporate something similar. Right now we have a few different mechanics for skill...
1):Rage-meter starts at 0. Builds up through use of special skills, attacks, and taking damage.
2)Energy-meter starts at 100. Use of skills depletes energy reserves but regenerates very fast.
3)Mana-Pool of mystical energy used to "cast spells".
4)Runes-Skills activate runes which unlock higher tier skills.
5)Combination points- Similar to Runes but focused on a single target otherwise points are lost.
The best mechanic which I've seen that was innovative, even if only for a short while was the LOTRO "Conjunction" (or Fellowship Maneuvers) skills. However it became old and outdated after awhiel.
Something to think about is compounding on LOTRO's conjunctions. Instead of preset buttons, make player skills have a "group use" alternate affect. Take the following for example:
An "Archer" type class uses a skill called "rain of arrows" which does basic damage and costs him cooldowns and such. Well if you have 3 archers using rain of arrows within a certain time frame, you get a prompt to contribute to a group attack called "Bombardment of Arrows" in which if all 3 players use a special resource they all start shooting arrows nonstop for a certain duration of time. In addition to damage it has other pronounced effects on the enemy they are shooting at, and also has a vastly increased area of effect.
In counter to that if you had a Tank class with a skill called "shield wall" and 3 tanks used the skill in a short duration...you would activate a group ability like above called "Turtle" In which You have all the tanks cover their front and heads that "projects" an aura of damage vast damage reduction for a short duration. (Similar to 300 in the end scene). And you could further contribute by combining these "group skills".
Just spewing some thoughts out there.
~~Internet gaming is not for the faint of heart or the dumb of mind.~~
Lot's of good points, but I wanted to point out that the LotRO concept of 'conjunctions' have been around for a little while now, since before LotRO. Though I do wish more games would adapt them, two key examples would be EQ2's combo system, or FFXI's renkai (skillchain) system. LotRO's is a bit simpler than both, but is more or less a simplified version of EQ2's system. FFXI's system was dependant on what skills you were using, in what order (triggered different effects), but the only problem w/ it was that it was entirely offense-based. It was a hellova lot of fun, but needed more utility.
That being said, I thought u provided a great example in Natural Selection. I think the problem w/ WAR was that they had way too much going on, so in an attempt to make balancing manageable, they mirrored the classes. With NS, you have (more or less), 5 classes on each side, in WAR you had 12. NS, with less than half of the class number of WAR, still has trouble to this day balancing the asymmetry, but have managed to do a pretty good job. WAR had it's balancing problems as well, for sure, but that was mostly due to the solo vs. group combat mentallity (initially), and now is due to the fact that they barely have a staff anymore.
Interesting thoughts btw, in the last paragraph or two. Those would be some interesting combos indeed. Just keep inmind that these things do need to be balanced, so too many uber skills in a game can make that rather difficult. (remember shield walling in WAR, was nearly impossible to get passed.)
I too have just got enough time to try out WAR and it was fun trying out the various mechanics they used. My favorite being Grudge using an Ironbreaker or Accusations as a Witch Hunter. While fun at first, as I played the different classes it all began feeling the same. I will reveal the moment I started to hate WoW was when I began thinking of making my own game and wondered why a shaman, a man of great spiritual stature got his strength from the strength stat. I thought, if a shaman is very spiritual, he would be able to summon up his spiritual guide to grant him strength, therefore increasing strength making melee attacks more powerful while increasing mana regrowth. Well, that and the endless meaningless quest, but Im not here to bash those games, they are wonderful and good at what they do.
I like the conjunction idea and indeed one class idea(modelled after greek warriors) was able to perform a phalanx type maneuver. As it is though, those are just draft ideas and perfecting the basics is what its all about right now and I see your point. However, I really do think we have a unique idea, whereas each character could be a mage and play differently. Even, each mage could have picked the same abilities and play differently if you can believe it or not.
I didn't mean to create a tangent in your thread, RedChampion. I was just tired of seeing a Paladin as a "spell casting" type of warrior. They gain their strength by their faith and apply that through martial abilities rather than magic. That is all I was trying to say.
About conjunctions, I really like them especially in a group oriented game. I think EQ2 had something similar. I'd like to see that stand out more while in groups, most games it seems people are singular while in groups rather than being part of the team. I think features like conjunctions would create a more team or group atmosphere.