[Azarall]

Topic header is trollbait but whatever. Wither or not I ever finish a design project is besides the point, I'd like to see other people's opinions and point of view.

For rules for the MMORPG I'd LIKE to develop, you choose a job. That job has pre-determined roles in a group. None of this ambigeous "NINJA WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A THROWING JOB, SAMURAIS CAN TANK" crap I had to listen to when an idiot on FFXI didn't want to do the job he was assigned. It's another grind to a pre-determined level, however you don't run around gaining exp by killing rabbits and goblins. You gain exp by doing job-related quests. I want the first storyline your character goes through to be your characters climb to becoming a hero... a mixture between the original story and your job's development. I don't want to do the leeching "takes 3 weeks to hit 75 then another 3 weeks to merit and a week to level your subjob". If anyone recalls how the original Ultima Online was, you pretty much built your character and did whatever you wanted to. Another important rule is that the job classes need to make sense. I don't mind the idea of jobs like Barbarian and Priest unlocking Paladin or your Ranger learning some Beast Tamer abilities, but your priest doesn't need a Great Sword and your Death Knight doesn't need Daggers. However I do want the end-class jobs (lvl90+ or whatever) to be incredibly powerful and to have access to a large array of abilities. (Paladins should be able to conjuer a protective spirit or at least be able to bless themselves in holy armor, Barbarians need more destructive attacks, and Rangers need more scouting abilities.)

I thought that the Talent Spec idea on WoW was a good step in the right direction but generally (they have dual specs now but that means you still don't have access to that 3rd spec still) you would invite a Paladin to find out they where speced wrong. Or even worse, Hunters' Survival talent is now the most useful for raids so their other 2 trees are just useless. On FFXI support jobs where limited to 2-3 bonuses (sub warrior? Paladin gains defender, double attack, and provoke. sub ninja? Ranger gains Utsusemi, Dual Weild, and Invis/Sneak spells). I never liked the support class system and I never liked how much the FFXI class system limits what you can and can't equip. Meriting is the closest you get to truly customizing your character.

So any ideas on how to incorperate a job system or tweek an existing system?

[treelo]

Not unless I'm getting paid for my input.

[Azarall]

Just a hobby designer, doubt I'll ever publish anything, but I'll paypal you $0.01 sometime.

[Zombuh]

How about a system where your abilities and "levels" are based on the weapon you're wielding. Change your weapon and you're essentially changing your job.

[Azarall]

The problem with that is multiple jobs share the same weapon

Conjuerers/Shamans/Priests/Wizards can use staffs
Warriors/Paladins/Dark Knights can use great swords.

[Saeunn]

Azarall, on 02 November 2009 - 10:24 PM, said:

The problem with that is multiple jobs share the same weapon

Conjuerers/Shamans/Priests/Wizards can use staffs
Warriors/Paladins/Dark Knights can use great swords.

Soloution: Job Specific weapons.

Also the idea that people are given pre-determined roles in a group is boring. People like to mix shit up a bit.

[Nudecke]

One of the easiest ways to add customization to an MMORPG is by adding as many jobs as possible with as many abilities as possible. People want a variety but they also need a certain amount of stability. When you have as many jobs as possible to fit a given role, you allow people to do things differently but still give them structure. In FFXI, if people want to do damage, they have a variety of ways and methods of doing so; this comes from having multiple jobs. If you have something like 30 or 40 jobs(like the MMORPG I'd create) then people have a higher chance of getting closer to what they really want. The problem them comes at one: giving the different jobs a higher amount of variety and two: balancing all of these jobs. The higher amount of jobs you have and abilities you have, the more variety people have but you also HAVE to balance them or it can become a bigger burden then it is a present. How do you balance a lot of things while keeping with set jobs? Its something that is tough to do; just look at FFXI.

Also, in mine, despite the high amount of jobs, I would allow all the jobs to learn ALL abilities. But this means if you want to learn Black Magic as a Warrior, you have to spend ALOT of time to devote yourself to it; jobs learn different abilities at different paces. Jobs can learn their own specific job abilities in a somewhat quick manner but to gain the new abilities, it takes a lot longer to get them; this is especially the case for those abilities that almost overpower a given job, those will take even longer. And then you have to remember that different jobs have different stats so even if you give a Warrior magic, he won't ever be *that* good with it because he's limited by his own job equipment, weaponry and, of course, slow learning of said ability.

P.S. I'm actually really designing more of a "story" as I and an aspiring Manga Artist, so these ideas are basically just ways in which I can categorize and understand my characters and worlds differently. Its also why I have so many classes too since each person is more or less a new class.

[Azarall]

Then a method of raising a class but using a template that dominates your stats and skills.

Example : Guardian template. Focuses on higher vit and mnd (def and mdef), has limited melee and magic slots which you can fill to do whatever
Example : Barbarian template. Focuses on higher str and vit (att and def) and has superior weapon choice and armor selection, but in exchange for power gives up magic slots.

Last night I was considering a point system to equipment

Bronze Sword (1H) : DMG: 5 WP:2
Iron Sword (1H) : DMG:7 WP:3
Bronze Greatsword (2H) DMG:12 WP:5
Iron Greatsword (2H) DMG:20 WP:10
Wooden Bow ® DMG:8 WP:2

So you would level something so give your character more WP points. They would have say... 5 points. They could Equip a Bronze Sword in each hand, or an Iron Sword and a Wooden Bow, or just a Bronze Greatsword.
From there, once they get up to 10 WP, they can Dual Weild 2 Iron Swords and equip a bow, or dual weild 2 Bronze Greatswords, or just equip one Iron Greatsword.

And the same formula could be applied for skills, armor, and magic.

Any comments on that idea?

[Velhart]

Azarall, on 02 November 2009 - 11:24 PM, said:

The problem with that is multiple jobs share the same weapon

Conjuerers/Shamans/Priests/Wizards can use staffs
Warriors/Paladins/Dark Knights can use great swords.

Hi2u FFXIV

[Azarall]

Velhart, on 04 November 2009 - 01:14 PM, said:

Hi2u FFXIV

lol. Well no one entirely knows how that system is gonna yet so we'll see.

The important thing I'm stuck on is assigning roles. I didnt get into it much in the header but theres alot of QQing about "what role your job does" in FFXI. Now granted... some jobs are flexible and can do many things, but generally speaking... Ninja, which everyone swears up and down should have been a ranged DD class or elemental DD class is now a tank class. Paladin, theres no arguing but that's only because you can't do anything else with the job.

Now look at World of Warcraft's Paladins. You get 3 talent specs and can make 3 different versions of the same job, each focusing on melee, healing, or magical nukes. Of course, WoW doesn't have very many "provoke" abilities so you actually tank through damage but otherwise if you invite a Paladin or Warrior, they're tanks.

I'd like to break away from that and make it so you can choose a role, then customize your character.

Oh well... it'll come to me.

[Demonsquall]

Its a lost cause man. Companies have been trying to do what your trying to do for years, make the be-all end-all MMORPG and the reality you have to settle with is, you can't make all people happy all the time, even in MMO's, hence the reason some people play FFXI and some people play WoW.