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Darmo

Exclusivity of Trades / Classes

16 posts in this topic

I've been thinking about this for awhile, and I'm interested in seeing what others think with regard to whether or not 'classes' would be a desireable thing for TFC2.  By classes, I mean arranging the game mechanics such that players are discouraged from pursuing multiple major occupations (smithing, magic, etc), not only due to the time involved, but due to in-game mechanical limitations.  I'm making a big assumption here that there will actually *be* multiple classes.  Maybe that won't even be true.  But I thought it would at least be worth raising the topic.

 

I feel like this would help solidify the notion of separate roles on multiplayer servers.  Right now, everyone more or less ends up the same I think; if they play long enough, they're expert smiths, or nothing (nothing that takes much time anyway).  Their respective smithing skills may end up different.  But everyone is a smith.  My concern is, once there are other big-time trades, will the player be able to be ALL of them?   I think by not allowing players to be everything, you bring replay value to the single player experience, and increase the value of teamwork on multiplayer servers, especially if some enemies are built such that they require, for instance, both mages and warriors to defeat reliably.

 

I don't think full-on compartmentalized D&D style classes is a good idea, but there's a few different ways to accomplish this notion without classes, including stat points, and trade friction, but they're kind of a separate topic, and more of a true suggestion, so I wanted to start a discussion topic first, and see if anyone else has any thoughts on this.  Would this improve the feel of the world, and increase the replayability of the mod?  Or would it frustrate players, who generally seem to like to be able to do any and everything with one character, from what I can tell? 

 

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What if we had class specialization similar to what we have now for smithery? In the sense that even though high tier metal tools are desirable they are not essential to play the game. One can do pretty much everything without ever needing to use an anvil. I mean you can mine for rocks and make smooth stone and bricks   for your colossal castle. You can farm and preserve food.

So if we had other trades where a player could evolve just the necessary to survive or go all the way up to rip all the benefits of the high skill.  

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So if we had other trades where a player could evolve just the necessary to survive or go all the way up to rip all the benefits of the high skill.  

Well, I think that's kind of the default mode, isn't it?  Just have the trades and the player pursues any/all of them as far as they want?  I was assuming that's how it would probably be, unless plans were made otherwise.  

 

One of the places these thoughts come from, was watching Chilm's LP of the witchery mod for normal MC (an older LP, to be sure, but good).  It has all these interesting branches - witches, vampires, werewolves, necromancers - and he just basically goes through them each one by one and does them all with the same character.  It seems to me like the experiences are devalued when the player just tries and discards these roles like articles of clothing.  In the later roles he gets what should be pretty great powers, but basically they just get a shrug because he's already been more powerful in a previous role.  It seems to me the player's choices would be much more impactful if they had consequences and limitations. 

 

In a single player game, it could be motivation to retry the game more times, in more ways.   On large multiplayer servers, perhaps it could help create more tightly woven communities if one player cannot master all things.  Perhaps there is actually some benefit to having a person specialized differently than oneself, because they will in fact have a much easier time due to the way they built their character, or how the systems function.  Specialization that you yourself cannot gain, no matter how many hours you put in, because of how you built your own character, or how the systems work. 

 

i was originally going to pose this question, and also a proposal for how it could work, in one topic.  But it seemed like a rule 5 violation after I wrote it out.  So I thought I'd pose the general question first.

Edited by Darmo
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I really like this idea. I think it would create an incentive for people to get together and form a community that is dependent upon each other. My point was more in the lines of making the game possible in single player, but a lot more enjoyable in multiplayer.

There is of course the question of content. Right now in tfc1 the only aspect of the game with a clear skill lather is smithery. What I mean is forge, anvil, bloomery, blast furnace. I think no one will refute that is the richest part of the mod.

To have specialization we would need to have that same richness for other areas of the game.

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To have specialization we would need to have that same richness for other areas of the game.

Well, yes, my op pointed out I was assuming that there would actually be some other 'classes' eventually, which I probably should have said 'trades'.  But magic at least has it's own thread.  It seems likely it might end up in the game.  If there could be a few branches of magic, they could be mutually exclusive.  But even if there is only ever one magic path, and smithing, it'd still be good to make it hard/impossible to do both, I think.  And by hard/impossible I mean you can maybe do the lower levels of both with one character, but with difficulty, but the higher tier benefits are impossible to have both of in one character.

 

In this context I was trying to use 'trade' or 'class' to mean a system which takes a lot of time investment from the player, down a defined progression, and hopefully involving some actual skill, as opposed to simply grinding up a skill bar.  So ya, smithing is currently the only one.  People can say that they're a miner or farmer, but really those don't take a lot of time, or any skill.  Both have an associated skill, but the benefits are minimal, and not particularly exciting.

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The only other area of the game that has the need for a skill in the real sense of the world is prospecting. I mean like there are players that can't prospect while others cannot ever learn how to use the anvil.

The difference is that smithing has degrees up.

I wish that we could have classes/trades/professions in tfc, they would need to have some kind of mini-game or real difficulty that would not be easily learned or liked for every kind of player.

It;s a big plate to fill. In smithery the player is able to smelt and cast copper and 3 types of bronze. The same would need to hold true for other classes. So players would be able to accomplish simple tasks, but not more elaborate ones.

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I'd like to see some sort of buff or "skill" that is decided on spawn, that gives a player a perk in one or two trades. Like how IRL, some people are very adept at smithing, and others have a knack for farming. This could translate into the game as a perk applied to maybe two or so trades, decided on spawn. For example, a certain player in a specific server gets the perk of extra durability on whatever tools he makes on an anvil; or he could tame animals faster, or harvest crops more efficiently, etc. Of course, this player could pursue other trades, or further the ones he has a "skill" in. In the words of the great Bear Bryant, "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.", just because a player has a talent in a trade doesn't mean he is excluded from trades. I somewhat understand that there is a similar system in place for taste in TFC1, but I'm no coder, so I don't know how hard something like this would be to implemented.

 

Any thoughts?

Edited by earthboundflyer
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I'd like to see some sort of buff or "skill" that is decided on spawn, that gives a player a perk in one or two trades. Like how IRL, some people are very adept at smithing, and others have a knack for farming. This could translate into the game as a perk applied to maybe two or so trades, decided on spawn. For example, a certain player in a specific server gets the perk of extra durability on whatever tools he makes on an anvil; or he could tame animals faster, or harvest crops more efficiently, etc. Of course, this player could pursue other trades, or further the ones he has a "skill" in. In the words of the great Bear Bryant, "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.", just because a player has a talent in a trade doesn't mean he is excluded from trades. I somewhat understand that there is a similar system in place for taste in TFC1, but I'm no coder, so I don't know how hard something like this would be to implemented.

 

Any thoughts?

Not sure. For one side it would add believable to this innate skill system. For other it would need to be random, so it would be possible for a small server to have all 5 players get the same skill. I think it implemented it should need to be chosen by the player. So for example when a new player joins a small server or town he could choose whatever trade is needed or the one he likes best.

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I think that there should be four or five main "trades": Magic, Smithing, Mining & Forestry (though they are totally separate IRL, it would be hard to make a trade out of each.), farming (& butchering?), etc. There is a sort of "trade" system in TFC1 that uses a levels and XP system, but I feel like trades in TFC2 could be an overhauled version of the original. I like the idea of mutual exclusivity (ERWIN SCHRODINGER!!!), within the branches of different trades. While on my morning run, I brainstormed some possible perks of a higher level of XP in a certain trade. Honestly, I have nothing for magic, as I wouldn't choose it as a trade in the game anyway. Smiths of a higher level could produce tools with a higher durability. Forester/Miners could have a higher chance of collecting seeds from trees (pretty sure that is a possible feature of TFC2, but I haven't checked that thread in a while), or they could have a chance of obtaining ores, each of the chances becoming greater as the player levels up. Farmers harvest a higher yield during harvest (and butchering?), or certain crops can only be cultivated by farmers of a certain levels, like grapes for example ( I am told there is a great deal of experience needed to harvest grapes IRL). There is a possibility for implementing many of the new features of TFC2, such as apiaries, tree seeds (instead of saplings), magic, and possibly tinkering(?)( there is a thread on machines and whatnot, and I feel that working with machinations would dovetail nicely as a branch of smithing.)

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I have been playing skyrim lately and it doesn't really have classes so much as several perk trees that the player advances for extra bonuses, kinda like how the perks for increasing skill is now in tfc, but instead you would get to pick your perks.

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I played Skyrim and hated the whole grinding for skill levels. I really hope we do not follow that system for tfc2.

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So I really enjoy the concept of this. While I have been playing this mod off and on for the past year or so, I've never really gotten too far into the mod because while I enjoy the survival aspect, going past the bronze stage in the metal tech tree has never really attracted me, as it requires so much time, especially in singleplayer, where it can be difficult to keep up the motivation to pursue something I don't want to pursue. However, I think these other classes could offer a change to this.

 

I think, if possible, two traits could be related to the trades. The first would be an innate skill, chosen randomly as the player enters the world, and the other the player would choose (perhaps they could be different traits, so that the innate trait gives physical benefits like resistance to dehydration/hunger or higher natural damage resistance, while the chosen ones would relate directly to the skills of an occupation). That way the player would have natural, random abilities, as well as a chosen vocation of sorts. If this was the idea, it might be a good concept to stagger the choice of vocational skill so as to allow the player to discover their natural strength(s) (Though I think the randomness of it would be interesting). However, this is all discussion and not yet even a suggestion yet, so I won't go any further into trying to develop this.

 

Overall though, I'm just happy there is discussion on putting in more skill trees in, and I fully support this becoming a suggestion of some sort (there are a lot of topics in there that suggest new roles, so it may be a good idea to look into more of those).

 

Edit: I should have looked in the Suggestions forum. Both Darmo's and earthboundflyer's are great continuances of this topic, and while I'm bummed out there isn't a bunch of discussion on the "traits" that earthboundflyer orginally mentioned, I like both of them. Once we get more of an idea on how TFC2 will work, hopefully it will be revisited. 

Edited by RemusSargin
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In general I'd say the innate trait thing isn't really a great way to go.  If it's skill related, then maybe the player doesn't want to pursue that skill.  So now they have to spam-create characters till they get the bonus they want, or live with being sub-optimal compared to people who got the trait associated with that trade.  If they don't find out till well into their career, they're going to be disappointed when the find out and it's not what they actually wanted to do. 

 

If it's random bonuses to hunger, damage resistance, that's better as it's generally useful, but those are things that imo would be better done temporarily via actual trades, such as magic or alchemy (or permanently via item enchantment).  Giving a player a permanent buff like that is going to be either op, or so minuscule as to make no noticeable difference I think, and it will take away from buffing trade skills.  And again, what you're likely to end up with is 1 or 2 that are most useful, and players will just recreate until they get what they want.

 

I think it's better to give players a direct choice - either via a skill web like earthboundflyer's suggestion, or stat points/trade friction per my suggestion (or both)

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I agree it would be a pain if you didn't get the trait you wanted or needed. Being a smith who doesn't have enough innate Stamina to quickly and feasibly work metal would be a pain. I was kind of thinking of in D&D, when you get a racial (innate) bonus, and so I was thinking of that. For instance, playing an Orc Wizard is quite difficult in D&D, but not impossible. That was just the idea. However, I recognize not too many players want to play against such odds, and that's okay.

 

I do like the idea of giving the stat buffs to the magic and alchemy, and that a permanent buff would be OP or minuscule, so in that regard, it's probably a no.

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Totally Agree with Darmo. I know it is realistic, and many times I strive for realism in the game, but this is still a game. It would be like in real life 2 centuries ago, so your Father is a butcher? You will be a butcher no choice there.

I really do not like the idea of some random event to pre-determine what kind of Skill or Tech tree I have to fallow, or be in disadvantage compare to people who actually got the skill they are following.

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Yeah, I kind of got caught in the realism factor rather than the believability factor that the TFC team works towards. I totally understand your feelings Tony, and I will keep these things in mind as we progress with the conversation on classes. 

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