From what I have read classes in this game dont exist, only abilities do. So the player is pretty much to forge his own class. Post what you think you might make...

The races in this game are as follows:

1) Verduren: a race that is one with nature.

2) Waerians: a race at home underwater or on land.

3) Gargoyles: their flesh is attuned to the stone of the earth.

4) Tyven: A small animal race who have little respect for the idea of personal possession.

5) Jenomos: an odd race from underground who are avid practical jokers who love creating mischief.

6) Human: What you begin as in the game, though you may not remain so forever.

The class archetypes are as follows, these are very broad though, hence: archetype:

1) Magic

2) Spirit

3) Heroes

4) Marksman

5) Shadow (not necessarily evil)

I am thinking a Waerian Marksman with some spirit mixed in. Let me know what you think.

Let me start off by saying that I will surely try them all.

I'm going to be a Jenemos, main league will be shadow, then marksman, with a touch of magic.

A lot like my character in Oblivion now that I think about it.

Dont know which Race I will play but I am going to go with Marksman with some shadow.

Think of an evil Ranger type and you have my class.

Racially I'd go with verduren. For class, I really don't know. For equipment I'd like to use a heavy sword or a rapier or a schiavona or a fist weapon like Freddy's gloves or a katar-like weapon.

I think you guys will find that you will get the majority of your Abilities from one or two Leagues, and then perhaps kind of 'minor' in another one or two, and likely get some Abilities from all leagues. 

What will really set you apart from other players will not be the Leagues in which you get Abilities, so much as which Abilities you choose and perhaps even more importantly, which ones you advance.  As you progress Abilities you will reach Echelons, getting new 'features' for that Ability.  Additionally, there is another 'goal' in grouping Abilities.  More on that later... 

We're considering an issue with our 'create your own character class' system. The issue is simply that when forming a group how do you know what the other player has in the way of Abilities?  In a class based system you can say, "Oh, you're a Healer, we need one of those".  But in a system without formal class designations, this becomes more difficult.

We have the University, which allows players who do not wish to go through all the work (and fun) of designing their own character progression.  For those folk who just want to have a 'plan' to follow to become say, a Necromancer, they simply go to the University, locate the school of Necromancy and obtain a plan on what Leagues and Abilities, etc. they need to seek in order to become a Necromancer.  When they complete the plan they earn the title of Necromancer.

However, for all the people who create their own custom character class, we don't have titles.  One suggestion we have on the table is that once you have some percentage of the needed items to earn a University 'title' you are given an honorary title.  Example: I don't sign up at the University to become a Necromancer, but while building my own custom character I happen to get 80% of what is needed to become a Necromancer.  We would then award the player the honorary title of Necromancer.  If they also obtained another title later, they would also get that honorary title. 

When joining a group, the Leader could then see what titles, honorary or otherwise, the player has earned to tell them something about their skill set.

Anyway, what do you all think? 

Originally posted by Jatar

We're considering an issue with our 'create your own character class' system. The issue is simply that when forming a group how do you know what the other player has in the way of Abilities?  In a class based system you can say, "Oh, you're a Healer, we need one of those".  But in a system without formal class designations, this becomes more difficult.

We have the University, which allows players who do not wish to go through all the work (and fun) of designing their own character progression.  For those folk who just want to have a 'plan' to follow to become say, a Necromancer, they simply go to the University, locate the school of Necromancy and obtain a plan on what Leagues and Abilities, etc. they need to seek in order to become a Necromancer.  When they complete the plan they earn the title of Necromancer.

However, for all the people who create their own custom character class, we don't have titles.  One suggestion we have on the table is that once you have some percentage of the needed items to earn a University 'title' you are given an honorary title.  Example: I don't sign up at the University to become a Necromancer, but while building my own custom character I happen to get 80% of what is needed to become a Necromancer.  We would then award the player the honorary title of Necromancer.  If they also obtained another title later, they would also get that honorary title. 

When joining a group, the Leader could then see what titles, honorary or otherwise, the player has earned to tell them something about their skill set.

Anyway, what do you all think? 

Hmm,  I think I understand the problem.  I don't think it would be fair to group players as the closest class.  For instance, even though I am 80% Necro, I will also have other, different skills.  Since they are different than the orginal build for a necro, they shouldn't have the same title.

I ran through a couple ideas, like player's personal titles and custom titles, but they didn't work.

But then I came across an idea which, in my opinion, would work perfectly.

What if there was an option to look at a player's combat-involved skills (and their level for each skill).  For instance, say I was inviting someone to a group.  I simple right click the character, click "Player's Skills" and the list of skills open up.  I then browse through the list of skills and see if the polayers will be helpful to the group.  This way, players could view the skills of everyone, which will help greatly when looking for a certain type of player to a group.

The above idea is the only thing I can think of.

P.S. thanks for answering the question in the other thread :)

Actually, we were already letting players look at other player's abilities.  The problem is that it is inefficient.  There can be too much information to pour though to make a quick decision.  You're getting ready to go out on a quest and a Player comes up and says, 'Can I join your group?".   So you open up this mass of information, thirty abilities each at various echelons of advancement.  Too much information, too slow. 

We're looking for a way to get a quicker read on someone. 

Again, in current MMO games people simply say, 'I'm a Hunter".   Then you make your decision.  If I could look at a player and see that they have Necromancer skills and Battlemage skills, I'd at least have some idea. 

Another possibility is a percentage look at their Abilities by League.  Where I can see that this Player is:

20% Magic

60% Hero

15% Spirit

5% Shadow

0% Marksman

Originally posted by Jatar

Actually, we were already letting players look at other player's abilities.  The problem is that it is inefficient.  There can be too much information to pour though to make a quick decision.  You're getting ready to go out on a quest and a Player comes up and says, 'Can I join your group?".   So you open up this mass of information, thirty abilities each at various echelons of advancement.  Too much information, too slow. 

We're looking for a way to get a quicker read on someone. 

Again, in current MMO games people simply say, 'I'm a Hunter".   Then you make your decision.  If I could look at a player and see that they have Necromancer skills and Battlemage skills, I'd at least have some idea. 

Another possibility is a percentage look at their Abilities by League.  Where I can see that this Player is:

20% Magic

60% Hero

15% Spirit

5% Shadow

0% Marksman

 What about allowing the player to choose a title based on the Precentage of each league...
 

So using your example.

20% magic

60% hero

15% Spirit

5% shadow

0% marksman

The player gets 3 titles in hero to choose from. Players gets 1 title from magic

so every 20% (or whatever number is choosen) they get a title from that school.

This allows the players to pick their own title but also doesnt allow the players to make up their own title.

This also allows the leader of the group to quickly see what title the player has choosen and can base that on what league they use the most.

I like the two ideas above, I think they would work perfectly.

Originally posted by TdogSkal

What about allowing the player to choose a title based on the Percentage of each league...
 

The player gets 3 titles in hero to choose from. Players gets 1 title from magic

so every 20% (or whatever number is chosen) they get a title from that school.

This allows the players to pick their own title but also doesn't allow the players to make up their own title.

This also allows the leader of the group to quickly see what title the player has choosen and can base that on what league they use the most.

There are some issues here as well.  Using your suggested numbers above that is an additional 75 titles.  (5 leagues times five levels [20% each] times three titles to choose from).   And that is in addition to the 31 cadre titles we already use).  That is a confusing number of titles for use in knowing what someone's character is like.  Too much to remember.  Someone would come up and their character would show that they are a Rapscallion / Conniver / Bushwhacker / Priest or something.   You would need to know what over 100 titles mean in order to know anything useful about them.  Too much to memorize.

Perhaps instead we use a ranking title that already has meaning like:

Neophyte

Apprentice

Journeyman

Master

Grand Master

They would have one of these for each League, so when you inspected someone (using my numbers from the previous example) instead of percentages, they would display:

Magic: Apprentice

Hero: Journeyman

Spirit: Neophyte

Shadow: Neophyte

Marksman: Neophyte

But there are issues here as well.  Just because I have 30% of a Leagues Abilities, this does not tell me much about the player.  In each League there are a large number of Abilities to choose from, and each of those Abilities can lead to various Echelons.  So my character is not just described by how many Abilities they have from a League, but by which Abilities they have and have studied / Practiced.  Though, I suppose that the Ranking Title could be based on all these factors.  But... that leads to another problem, everyone would end up being Neophytes in all Leagues for a long time until they got far enough along to earn Apprentice.   That is not good. 

At this point, the earned title idea is pretty shaky.  Our design team is sticking with letting players inspect another player's Ability list for the time being, unless we come up with a better twist.  Work goes on.

Why would it be too much information if I were to look at a players abilities? 

For example, if I click "View X's Combat Abilities" why is there so much information?  Wouldn't just the name of the ability and how skilled they are in that ability (apprentice) just come up?  Or is there more info that that?

Let me see if I understand it right and maybe come up with a solution.

Let assume the group contains 3 players and are looking for one more. The group contains the following players with the following abilities:

Player 1, 2, 3

20, 20, 0 %  Magic

60, 5, 10  % Hero

15, 50, 40% Spirit

5, 10, 40 % Shadow

0, 15, 10% Marksman

So groups total is:

40 %  Magic

75 % Hero

105 % Spirit

75 %Shadow

25 % Marksman

2 players offer to join, A and B:

player A, B                     group total with A or B

10, 30                                50, 70 % Magic

5, 5                                    80, 80 % Hero

25, 5                                  130, 110 % Spirit

30, 5 %                             105, 80 % Shadow

30, 55%                            55, 80 % Marksman

The group with player B looks more balanced so player B gets a green dot behind the name and player A orange, or B gets 1 and A gets say 3 behind the name (the lower the better fit). The ranking can then be done by the program, with 1 showing at the top. You can even do this on Echelons. So suppose you have to players like player B on abillity level. The program can rank them on Echelon level calculating which Echelons would be the most beneficial for the group.

Hope this helped.

That is an interesting idea, Breehoorn.  However, it assumes that Players are seeking a balance of all Leagues in each group, which is a big assumption.  In CoS we don't use the Tank / Healer / Magic User, etc. format of group dynamics.  Therefore, as a leader of a group I may be looking for a certain set of Abilities for my group that best suits the strategies that I want to use in combat (there are countless).  Therefore, this simple calculation of what's missing based on percentages won't help.

As for Mike470's qusetion about 'what is so complex about looking at their list of Abilities', right now that IS the system we are planning.  I was just seeing if we could come up with an additional 'quick' method of looking at a player.  So far, there have been some interesting ideas, but nothing quite good enough to implement (I'm including my own ideas in that list  ).   What is complex about looking at a player's actual abilities list is simply that they could have many Abilities (hundreds in an extreme case) each with a certain amount of Study levels achieved, and each with a set of Echelon levels achieved.  Lots of data.  This is one of the reasons why there are thousands if not millions of character class combinations in CoS (sorry, I haven't done the permutation calculation to know the exact number, but it's a LOT). 

Still, for the moment, we'll stick with the character inspection system and see if we can't represent this in the most visually pleasing way possible to look at all this data in a glance.

On the idea of looking at the actual Abilities and progress in those abilities, perhaps a way to sort the list by most powerful or most often used.  That way you could take a look at their top ten or so most powerful, and most used Abilities to get a quick idea of what they are really good at without having to wade through many many abilities. 

As for titles, we could allow players to select from a large list of titles, a list that expands as they gain overall power.  This way players get some choice, but when you actually want to understand what they are good at, you can look at their list sorted by various ratings.

Maybe when looking for a group and you look through peoples stats, the system could filter out the many lower level and untrained skills and show only the skills that are higer level than most skills and trained often.  That way it shows the basic structure of what that persons class is.  Though there could be a problem with that though because deciding what skills are considered high enough and trained enough could cause problems, but if you could find a way around that I think that would be a really good way around it.  Maybe even combine a few of the ideas peopel have posted.

EDIT: woops.. i forgot to read your last post Jatar (a bit tired) but i guess i had the same idea you had lol.  Great minds think alike i suppose....

Originally posted by dafuzzle

EDIT: woops.. i forgot to read your last post Jatar (a bit tired) but i guess i had the same idea you had lol.  Great minds think alike i suppose....

You give yourself too much credit

Originally posted by mike470

Originally posted by dafuzzle

EDIT: woops.. i forgot to read your last post Jatar (a bit tired) but i guess i had the same idea you had lol.  Great minds think alike i suppose....

 

You give yourself too much credit

It's only true =)

Back on Topic:
 

Maybe you could divide the skills in each class of abilities and divide them into sub-groups, and then give each sub-group a percentage of how complete each Sub-group of skills is trained, and you could have it in order from higest to lowest.

The screen could just show you 5 tabs, each tab for Spirit, Heroes, Marksman, etc....  They would then click on one tab and it would bring up on the screen each of the sub-group of skills.  For Marksman it could be (just an example)  Bow Mastery 60%, Accuracy 40%, Power 40% and so on.  That way they can know what there training in there Marksman and other Abilites and decide if they want them in there group or not. 

Maybe that could work?

First topic: I believe I'd be a gargoyle if it could fly if it can't a waeryian if the waeryian can't breath under water as of them alone i'd choose what looks better.  As of abilities I'd be balanced 30% marksman, 30% shadow, 20% spirit, 15% magic, 5% Heroes

Second topic:when choosing players you should use a speed system.  Fastest would be telling what their best in.  Fast would be Just telling their skills percentages in order.  Medium would be showing their strongest abilities. Slow would be showing all abilities, levels, and percentages. 

Creating a group is an exercise in fitting people to fill the roles that will be needed to complete the mission.  For example, no game has a class or title of Tank, but everyone knows what the role of the Tank is, and which class/builds make the best Tanks.

I will assume that 2 characters with %80 Hero can be specialized so that one is a good tank (high hit points, armor, resistance, and some self healing/buff), and another is a DPS monger with crap hit points and armor.

I think identifiying a basic set of roles that people can play in a group would be most helpful to building good groups.  This requires some amount of self-evaluation to determine what roles your character can play and how well.

Example roles: Tank, DPS Fighter, Healer,  Buffer, Debuffer, AoE, Crowd Control, Undead Control.