@Maverick: If I only could, If I only could...sigh...wait did I repeat myself...? If I only could, I would. I have numerous ideas. Especially due to my reworking of the whole idea of what a RPG is -- and trying to write my own... I am finding it more daunting of a task than when I first began to tackle it...
My programming knowledge is limited, as well as time to learn... You, Maverick, seem to know what you speak of... care to collaborate?
VOTING: My stupid one class idea:))
Moderator: Moderator
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Eclipse of fate ex-coder
Classless common flaws & fixes
When I worked on Eclipse of fate code (ages ago) and a few other misc RPG, these were the major design flaws that were seen in most of the MUDS who tried for classless:
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FLAW: What good is a classless character if he has to kill his first monster with a mere dagger and no skill??? Too many random death for non-troll newbies. Too many choices for people who play for the first time.
A VIABLE OPTION: give starting characters a few different starting kits to choose from, and 10 skill points. So my yeek spectre sorcerer wannabe doesn't die of slowness in his first combat because the starting armor and dagger is too heavy not to mention the Eru penalty on the dagger...
So my yeek could pick: "+3 INT, +2 WIS, -3 STR, -2 CON, a healing potion, a slowly rotting mage staff(temporary object, lasts a few days), and one fireproof basic spellbook of your choice" as his start kit. Note that the stats changes all add up to zero always... and those stats would NOT be associated with a maxstat change, they're merely what you start with!
***
FLAW: If you gain your skills in a different order than "ideal" (which may include irritants such as waiting many levels before investing skills, etc), you may have less skill points total at level 50 than otherwise. This one had grown men cry! TOME has this flaw, for example this week I spent 32 points on Thaumaturgy just to get FumbleFinger raise my training rate +0.100 and +0.100 again just after!!! Since it was the only FumbleFinger I ever got on this char at level 47, and he put magic 50 too early so some skill points were lost, so I deleted him and started over without sending the monitor out the window...
Totally order-independant total skill points is a *key feature*... your total skill points SPENT is capped by your level*5 at all times, plus a small variable for the skill potion if you find it. (-;
(make sure to debug corpse-changing and polymorph for that... skill total shouldn't change)
One brilliant idea was the (artefact) retraining potion; it let you convert 25 points of skill level (of any skill combo) back into skill points, which you can invest back into OTHER skills. This lets the player experiment, unbelievers repent, and remove mistakes... and Fumblefingers could let you do that with 5 skill points, too.
And no you CAN'T get back those 70 points after you've trained your super-super-artefacts! So just dump them on mount doom for your next char. (-;
(Alchemy should be unforgetable for obvious rea$on$... those potions of detonation to get level 20 at once are too good if you can forget alchemy after...)
***
FLAW: In many classless RPG, all characters were nearly identical or following the warrior-or-mage specialisation. This was a tendency because jack-of-all-trade characters really sucked badly! This was fixed when hit point bonus for "warriors" was reintroduced.
IDEA: Typical implementation was 2 hit points gained for each full warrior skill point, and 1 hit point for priest/rogue type skill. Typically necromancy was -2 but in ToME tradition would give that penalty to sorcery...
More cross-school spells and abilities would make jack-of-all-trade characters a very variable and versatile option... otherwise the tendency I see is the classes all over again with one skill changed at most...
***
One of the thing FumbleFingers should NOT do is give you skill or better skill-gaining ability; he should merely allow you to train beyond character level+4 for a choosen skill which would be flagged "You have a master". Then you could train up to character level+10 using skill points gained thru normal means... and that would last until the adventurer dies, or forever if you don't want him along... (so the some players would actually take the adventurer along!!). And adventurers should have distinct personalities and names... but that's for another thread I guess. (-;
FATE IDEA: "You are fated to meet the alchemist Kelek fumblefingers who lost his gloves on level 17".
The level 50 character would be the exact same in the end, but being allowed to get artefact creation(or whatever) 6 levels earlier than usual is a big bonus for any character...
The old race bonuses (i.e. +0.200 for archery in wood elves) could be replaced by "Wood elves are intuitive about archery: they may train archery skill at character level+8"
***
FLAW: race-specific abilities or skill being too powerful, or simply too class-like...
IDEA: for example Troll regeneration. Force trolls to spend 5 points to get it at birth, and allow other characters to gain it at high level & high constitution and maybe a quest/magic shop but still spend 5 skill points for it!!
Imagine a storyline about a Troll who can't regenerate anymore, after he started learning sorcery from a strange master met due to a fate... sounds ToMEish or not?
***
Traditionally humans are "boring", so maybe make them interesting you can give them the ability to train up to Character level + 6 in all skills. Or maybe it should be a yeek ability. Or maybe yeek should get 8 skill points per level for the first 25 levels and 2 points per level after... just optional ideas...
***
OFF TOPIC: About maya aggravation: you really should tone it down to stealth -90% or something, it makes absolutely no sense! And document that XP drain *PLEASE* I've wasted 11 characters to it!!!
***
FLAW: What good is a classless character if he has to kill his first monster with a mere dagger and no skill??? Too many random death for non-troll newbies. Too many choices for people who play for the first time.
A VIABLE OPTION: give starting characters a few different starting kits to choose from, and 10 skill points. So my yeek spectre sorcerer wannabe doesn't die of slowness in his first combat because the starting armor and dagger is too heavy not to mention the Eru penalty on the dagger...
So my yeek could pick: "+3 INT, +2 WIS, -3 STR, -2 CON, a healing potion, a slowly rotting mage staff(temporary object, lasts a few days), and one fireproof basic spellbook of your choice" as his start kit. Note that the stats changes all add up to zero always... and those stats would NOT be associated with a maxstat change, they're merely what you start with!
***
FLAW: If you gain your skills in a different order than "ideal" (which may include irritants such as waiting many levels before investing skills, etc), you may have less skill points total at level 50 than otherwise. This one had grown men cry! TOME has this flaw, for example this week I spent 32 points on Thaumaturgy just to get FumbleFinger raise my training rate +0.100 and +0.100 again just after!!! Since it was the only FumbleFinger I ever got on this char at level 47, and he put magic 50 too early so some skill points were lost, so I deleted him and started over without sending the monitor out the window...
Totally order-independant total skill points is a *key feature*... your total skill points SPENT is capped by your level*5 at all times, plus a small variable for the skill potion if you find it. (-;
(make sure to debug corpse-changing and polymorph for that... skill total shouldn't change)
One brilliant idea was the (artefact) retraining potion; it let you convert 25 points of skill level (of any skill combo) back into skill points, which you can invest back into OTHER skills. This lets the player experiment, unbelievers repent, and remove mistakes... and Fumblefingers could let you do that with 5 skill points, too.
And no you CAN'T get back those 70 points after you've trained your super-super-artefacts! So just dump them on mount doom for your next char. (-;
(Alchemy should be unforgetable for obvious rea$on$... those potions of detonation to get level 20 at once are too good if you can forget alchemy after...)
***
FLAW: In many classless RPG, all characters were nearly identical or following the warrior-or-mage specialisation. This was a tendency because jack-of-all-trade characters really sucked badly! This was fixed when hit point bonus for "warriors" was reintroduced.
IDEA: Typical implementation was 2 hit points gained for each full warrior skill point, and 1 hit point for priest/rogue type skill. Typically necromancy was -2 but in ToME tradition would give that penalty to sorcery...
More cross-school spells and abilities would make jack-of-all-trade characters a very variable and versatile option... otherwise the tendency I see is the classes all over again with one skill changed at most...
***
One of the thing FumbleFingers should NOT do is give you skill or better skill-gaining ability; he should merely allow you to train beyond character level+4 for a choosen skill which would be flagged "You have a master". Then you could train up to character level+10 using skill points gained thru normal means... and that would last until the adventurer dies, or forever if you don't want him along... (so the some players would actually take the adventurer along!!). And adventurers should have distinct personalities and names... but that's for another thread I guess. (-;
FATE IDEA: "You are fated to meet the alchemist Kelek fumblefingers who lost his gloves on level 17".
The level 50 character would be the exact same in the end, but being allowed to get artefact creation(or whatever) 6 levels earlier than usual is a big bonus for any character...
The old race bonuses (i.e. +0.200 for archery in wood elves) could be replaced by "Wood elves are intuitive about archery: they may train archery skill at character level+8"
***
FLAW: race-specific abilities or skill being too powerful, or simply too class-like...
IDEA: for example Troll regeneration. Force trolls to spend 5 points to get it at birth, and allow other characters to gain it at high level & high constitution and maybe a quest/magic shop but still spend 5 skill points for it!!
Imagine a storyline about a Troll who can't regenerate anymore, after he started learning sorcery from a strange master met due to a fate... sounds ToMEish or not?
***
Traditionally humans are "boring", so maybe make them interesting you can give them the ability to train up to Character level + 6 in all skills. Or maybe it should be a yeek ability. Or maybe yeek should get 8 skill points per level for the first 25 levels and 2 points per level after... just optional ideas...
***
OFF TOPIC: About maya aggravation: you really should tone it down to stealth -90% or something, it makes absolutely no sense! And document that XP drain *PLEASE* I've wasted 11 characters to it!!!
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me again
To Robert
Do what two dozen people have done before you...
...get one of the angband source codes, and modify it rather than build from scratch!!!
To get some feeling of the realisticness and novelty of your ideas:
-For a look of how it's professionally done, look at Ultima online.
-For fun quests and crude graphics, try runescape for free! The game is free for most features but those party hats are worth 60$ on ebay. (-;
-To master a strategy driven MUD instead of just hack/slash/fireball, play Commando and Commando II a bit.
-To see what's wrong with real time games, play starcraft. At some point it's about how fast you can type the shortcut keys rather than strategy... and those long periods of boring regeneration when you can't train units on some missions... those are flaws to avoid!!
What's wrong with Omega mud? Oh, whatever you do random super-events can always destroy or boost your character... and the guild system is full of bugs... and to max your stats you must delay guild joining until you visit the 3 rocks... and... (etc)
Make a list of what annoys you in other MUDS, and what attracts you in others. That's a necessary step to MUD building!
...get one of the angband source codes, and modify it rather than build from scratch!!!
To get some feeling of the realisticness and novelty of your ideas:
-For a look of how it's professionally done, look at Ultima online.
-For fun quests and crude graphics, try runescape for free! The game is free for most features but those party hats are worth 60$ on ebay. (-;
-To master a strategy driven MUD instead of just hack/slash/fireball, play Commando and Commando II a bit.
-To see what's wrong with real time games, play starcraft. At some point it's about how fast you can type the shortcut keys rather than strategy... and those long periods of boring regeneration when you can't train units on some missions... those are flaws to avoid!!
What's wrong with Omega mud? Oh, whatever you do random super-events can always destroy or boost your character... and the guild system is full of bugs... and to max your stats you must delay guild joining until you visit the 3 rocks... and... (etc)
Make a list of what annoys you in other MUDS, and what attracts you in others. That's a necessary step to MUD building!