I wrote you guys a story today
- Thread starter fuwok
- Start date
real world talk: this thread was the closest thing to chillville i could find without following my bookmark to the still-existing chillville
thus i have further developed the game idea i'll never work on:
No classes or levels, gear would define your effective archetype/what you can do, blah blah blah. No economy or skills or anything that doesn't directly get you gear by killing things. Should be able to change the role you can play in a group at the drop of a hat if you keep alternate gear sets on you.
STR: +2.5% melee autoattack damage per point.
AGI: +2.5% combat ability damage per point.
WIS: +2.5% spellcast healing per point.
INT: +2.5% spellcast damage per point.
DEX: +2.5% proc healing/damage per point (in place of AGI/WIS/INT)
CHA: +? crowd control and debuff duration/effectiveness.
STA: +0.2% guaranteed melee damage mitigation per point.
COR: +0.2% guaranteed spell damage mitigation per point.
AC: +0.1% potential melee damage mitigation per point.
Sv: +0.1% potential spell damage mitigation per point.
Randomness would be minimized. There would be no accuracy, avoidance or spell failures, and melee hits and nukes would always do the same damage hit by hit and cast by cast before constant reductions from STA and COR and randomized reductions from AC and SvMagic.
To somewhat address the silliness of having 5 different resistances for non-melee when non-melee damage is so rare compared to melee damage, resists would be partially aggregated. For example, if you were being hit with a magic nuke and the sum of 40% your SvMagic plus 60% of the average of your other four resistances was greater than the full value of your SvMagic on its own, that value would be used instead. A little more clearly: if you had 25svM, 50svF, 50svC, 80svP and 20svD, 25*0.4 + (50+50+80+20/4)*0.6 = 40, and 40 is greater than 25 so that value would be used instead.
Spells and combat abilities would be gained or lost by equipping gear with something in its "Ability:" slot. Weapon ratios would get upgraded as you go, but melee-oriented characters would still generally be more focused on using combat abilities for damage. To simplify balance, there would be no autoattack haste. Dual wield would always work and there would be no base double attack.
Everyone would start out the same regardless of race:
0 in all core stats ('cept 15 COR and scattered race-based resists cuz those can't be changed)
430 HP
300 Mana
300 Endurance
Basic Short Sword x2 (5dmg/20dly x2 = 5 DPS against newb trash-type mobs)
Ring of Minor Burst (newb quick nuke)
Ring of Minor Heal (newb quick heal)
It shouldn't be possible to max all the core stats; most individual items would be aimed at a particular archetype and would have a mix of bonuses to that archetype's main stats and negatives to other archetype's stats (i.e. if something had +10 AGI, +5 STR and +5 STA it'd probably have -5 INT and -5 WIS or some such as a counterbalance). On the other hand there'd be gear with hybridized stat combinations too, though, so you don't automatically get completely screwed on INT if you go for AGI, for example. Min/maxing the perfect combination of stats and abilities at a given point in progression would be a major focus of the game, but it should also be easy for a casual player to just focus on one or two archetypes (say, an INT-based nuker with a secondary focus on WIS for some extra healing or healing-via-damage) without going crazy with spreadsheets.
There would of course be procs and clickies to supplement the hunt for stats and abilities, and eventually there would probably be advanced item stats, things like:
*Crits for the various sources of damage and healing
*Crit amount modifiers (i.e. +150% damage instead of +100% on crit, etc)
*Doublecast (chance to instantly proc the spell or ability you just cast for free, with the proc using DEX in place of AGI/INT/WIS like standard procs)
*tanking-related stuff
There should be a good mix of abilities across the three main ability-enhancing stats (AGI, INT, WIS) to facilitate interesting playstyles, hybridization, min/maxing etc. A melee DPS that does most of their damage with procs or a tank that focuses on INT-based damage-returning and lifetapping spells should ideally be viable things, at least in some areas of the game.
Basic ability ideas:
INT
*Quick nukes, something a melee could potentially use between attacks
*Slow, big nukes, more pure-castery
*DoTs
*AEs, rains
*Short-term Damage Shields, bigger ones being self-only.
*Reverse Damage Shield
WIS
*Quick heals
*Big heals
*Group heals
*HoTs
*HP transfers/sacrifices
*Combat rez ?
*Runes ?
Mixed INT/WIS
*Lifetaps
*Directed lifetaps/heal-via-damage
*Self-buff that funnels a portion of INT-based damage into WIS-based directed- or group-healing
*Healing DS/debuff that directs some healing onto allies who damage the target
Mixed STR/INT
*Delay-adjusted bonus melee damage self-buffs
AGI
*Damaging abilities: Backstab, Whirlwind, Kicks, Bleed DoTs, combo attacks?
*Tanking abilities: pure aggro, short duration taunts, short duration personal damage reduction/timed avoidance
*Mixed: counterattacks, "ripostes", abilities that track damage taken over a short duration and then use that to power an attack.
Mixed STR/WIS
*Short duration autoattack damage based healing/lifestealing
Mixed AGI/WIS
*Shielding/diverting damage from allies
*Rapid combat rez ?
CHA
Would need to think more how to handle debuff scaling - might need to make debuffs not shackled to 6-second duration increments to smooth things out. Some debuffs would scale only by duration, but others would likely scale in effect. Not sure if there should be chances for complete resists on debuffs, but casting a high-end debuff with 0 CHA should not get you much, one way or another.
*Melee slow
*Snare
*Root
*Mezz
*Stat debuffs
*Stuns and interrupts
*Ability silences
Pets - not sure about how/if to do pets. Might be a lot of work to balance. But the basic concepts:
INT-based pet: reduces your INT or INT-based damage by a % while alive and uses that value as the basis for its damage. HP and defensive stats based on WIS? Or maybe just based on the spell used to summon it.
AGI-based pet: same as above but using AGI and maybe STA in place of INT and WIS.
Each would have relevant pet-boosting spells/abilities that should be worth using in combat, stuff like:
*Nuke that heals pet
*Nuke that gives pet lots of aggro
*Various melee/tanking abilities like above, but pet-only and some being INT- or WIS-based.
What "model" to use for content would be a bit unclear. With no leveling everyone would technically start at the "high-end game" in some sense. Everyone would start in the same newb zone. The first few zones would be mostly solo and group content probably, with a clear progression in each zone (do everything to gather some gear, then move on to the next zone and do the same for upgrades, etc) with some one-off raid bosses that can be done with gear gather in the same zone (or a bit into the next). Afterward there might be some dedicated/instanced raid zones? Or perhaps just group dungeon crawls with scripted encounters. The sort of zone you're expected to spend 4 or 5 hours in with 18 other people would probably be the exception rather than the rule. Dunno.
There wouldn't be any cities since there'd be no point for them, but there would probably be small hubs with instant travel options.
Out of combat regeneration would be fairly fast; preferably people should be able to go all out with their abilities most of the time rather than holding things in reserve just to grind.
There might be exp to gain from killing things, but not to gain levels. Everyone would either start with or obtain a blank Charm with 5 aug slots. Upon filling your exp bar you'd gain a credit or token to obtain or upgrade an aug for one of those slots. Each aug slot would be aim at particular stats - basically it'd give players a small level of "specialization" apart from the gear they obtain, at least early on. Each aug type would have straightforward upgrade paths and eventually you'd be able to full upgrade each one. Maybe early on you'd focus on the INT-giving aug, or choose instead to get the most basic of each type of aug and sloooowly upgrade the entire group tier by tier. Ultimately these wouldn't be huge things, just a little bonus.
Charm of Experience
Aug slot: (Durability Specialization - STA, HP, AC)
Aug slot: (Combat Specialization - STR, AGI, Endurance)
Aug slot: (Arcane Specialization - INT, Mana, COR)
Aug slot: (Protection Specialization - WIS, Mana, SvM)
Aug slot: (Control Specialization - CHA, DEX, SvF, SvC, SvP, SvD)
Blah blah blah blah blah
thus i have further developed the game idea i'll never work on:
No classes or levels, gear would define your effective archetype/what you can do, blah blah blah. No economy or skills or anything that doesn't directly get you gear by killing things. Should be able to change the role you can play in a group at the drop of a hat if you keep alternate gear sets on you.
STR: +2.5% melee autoattack damage per point.
AGI: +2.5% combat ability damage per point.
WIS: +2.5% spellcast healing per point.
INT: +2.5% spellcast damage per point.
DEX: +2.5% proc healing/damage per point (in place of AGI/WIS/INT)
CHA: +? crowd control and debuff duration/effectiveness.
STA: +0.2% guaranteed melee damage mitigation per point.
COR: +0.2% guaranteed spell damage mitigation per point.
AC: +0.1% potential melee damage mitigation per point.
Sv: +0.1% potential spell damage mitigation per point.
Randomness would be minimized. There would be no accuracy, avoidance or spell failures, and melee hits and nukes would always do the same damage hit by hit and cast by cast before constant reductions from STA and COR and randomized reductions from AC and SvMagic.
To somewhat address the silliness of having 5 different resistances for non-melee when non-melee damage is so rare compared to melee damage, resists would be partially aggregated. For example, if you were being hit with a magic nuke and the sum of 40% your SvMagic plus 60% of the average of your other four resistances was greater than the full value of your SvMagic on its own, that value would be used instead. A little more clearly: if you had 25svM, 50svF, 50svC, 80svP and 20svD, 25*0.4 + (50+50+80+20/4)*0.6 = 40, and 40 is greater than 25 so that value would be used instead.
Spells and combat abilities would be gained or lost by equipping gear with something in its "Ability:" slot. Weapon ratios would get upgraded as you go, but melee-oriented characters would still generally be more focused on using combat abilities for damage. To simplify balance, there would be no autoattack haste. Dual wield would always work and there would be no base double attack.
Everyone would start out the same regardless of race:
0 in all core stats ('cept 15 COR and scattered race-based resists cuz those can't be changed)
430 HP
300 Mana
300 Endurance
Basic Short Sword x2 (5dmg/20dly x2 = 5 DPS against newb trash-type mobs)
Ring of Minor Burst (newb quick nuke)
Ring of Minor Heal (newb quick heal)
It shouldn't be possible to max all the core stats; most individual items would be aimed at a particular archetype and would have a mix of bonuses to that archetype's main stats and negatives to other archetype's stats (i.e. if something had +10 AGI, +5 STR and +5 STA it'd probably have -5 INT and -5 WIS or some such as a counterbalance). On the other hand there'd be gear with hybridized stat combinations too, though, so you don't automatically get completely screwed on INT if you go for AGI, for example. Min/maxing the perfect combination of stats and abilities at a given point in progression would be a major focus of the game, but it should also be easy for a casual player to just focus on one or two archetypes (say, an INT-based nuker with a secondary focus on WIS for some extra healing or healing-via-damage) without going crazy with spreadsheets.
There would of course be procs and clickies to supplement the hunt for stats and abilities, and eventually there would probably be advanced item stats, things like:
*Crits for the various sources of damage and healing
*Crit amount modifiers (i.e. +150% damage instead of +100% on crit, etc)
*Doublecast (chance to instantly proc the spell or ability you just cast for free, with the proc using DEX in place of AGI/INT/WIS like standard procs)
*tanking-related stuff
There should be a good mix of abilities across the three main ability-enhancing stats (AGI, INT, WIS) to facilitate interesting playstyles, hybridization, min/maxing etc. A melee DPS that does most of their damage with procs or a tank that focuses on INT-based damage-returning and lifetapping spells should ideally be viable things, at least in some areas of the game.
Basic ability ideas:
INT
*Quick nukes, something a melee could potentially use between attacks
*Slow, big nukes, more pure-castery
*DoTs
*AEs, rains
*Short-term Damage Shields, bigger ones being self-only.
*Reverse Damage Shield
WIS
*Quick heals
*Big heals
*Group heals
*HoTs
*HP transfers/sacrifices
*Combat rez ?
*Runes ?
Mixed INT/WIS
*Lifetaps
*Directed lifetaps/heal-via-damage
*Self-buff that funnels a portion of INT-based damage into WIS-based directed- or group-healing
*Healing DS/debuff that directs some healing onto allies who damage the target
Mixed STR/INT
*Delay-adjusted bonus melee damage self-buffs
AGI
*Damaging abilities: Backstab, Whirlwind, Kicks, Bleed DoTs, combo attacks?
*Tanking abilities: pure aggro, short duration taunts, short duration personal damage reduction/timed avoidance
*Mixed: counterattacks, "ripostes", abilities that track damage taken over a short duration and then use that to power an attack.
Mixed STR/WIS
*Short duration autoattack damage based healing/lifestealing
Mixed AGI/WIS
*Shielding/diverting damage from allies
*Rapid combat rez ?
CHA
Would need to think more how to handle debuff scaling - might need to make debuffs not shackled to 6-second duration increments to smooth things out. Some debuffs would scale only by duration, but others would likely scale in effect. Not sure if there should be chances for complete resists on debuffs, but casting a high-end debuff with 0 CHA should not get you much, one way or another.
*Melee slow
*Snare
*Root
*Mezz
*Stat debuffs
*Stuns and interrupts
*Ability silences
Pets - not sure about how/if to do pets. Might be a lot of work to balance. But the basic concepts:
INT-based pet: reduces your INT or INT-based damage by a % while alive and uses that value as the basis for its damage. HP and defensive stats based on WIS? Or maybe just based on the spell used to summon it.
AGI-based pet: same as above but using AGI and maybe STA in place of INT and WIS.
Each would have relevant pet-boosting spells/abilities that should be worth using in combat, stuff like:
*Nuke that heals pet
*Nuke that gives pet lots of aggro
*Various melee/tanking abilities like above, but pet-only and some being INT- or WIS-based.
What "model" to use for content would be a bit unclear. With no leveling everyone would technically start at the "high-end game" in some sense. Everyone would start in the same newb zone. The first few zones would be mostly solo and group content probably, with a clear progression in each zone (do everything to gather some gear, then move on to the next zone and do the same for upgrades, etc) with some one-off raid bosses that can be done with gear gather in the same zone (or a bit into the next). Afterward there might be some dedicated/instanced raid zones? Or perhaps just group dungeon crawls with scripted encounters. The sort of zone you're expected to spend 4 or 5 hours in with 18 other people would probably be the exception rather than the rule. Dunno.
There wouldn't be any cities since there'd be no point for them, but there would probably be small hubs with instant travel options.
Out of combat regeneration would be fairly fast; preferably people should be able to go all out with their abilities most of the time rather than holding things in reserve just to grind.
There might be exp to gain from killing things, but not to gain levels. Everyone would either start with or obtain a blank Charm with 5 aug slots. Upon filling your exp bar you'd gain a credit or token to obtain or upgrade an aug for one of those slots. Each aug slot would be aim at particular stats - basically it'd give players a small level of "specialization" apart from the gear they obtain, at least early on. Each aug type would have straightforward upgrade paths and eventually you'd be able to full upgrade each one. Maybe early on you'd focus on the INT-giving aug, or choose instead to get the most basic of each type of aug and sloooowly upgrade the entire group tier by tier. Ultimately these wouldn't be huge things, just a little bonus.
Charm of Experience
Aug slot: (Durability Specialization - STA, HP, AC)
Aug slot: (Combat Specialization - STR, AGI, Endurance)
Aug slot: (Arcane Specialization - INT, Mana, COR)
Aug slot: (Protection Specialization - WIS, Mana, SvM)
Aug slot: (Control Specialization - CHA, DEX, SvF, SvC, SvP, SvD)
Blah blah blah blah blah
Last edited:
donfolstar3
Dalayan Master
How would abilities be gained? I always thought it was really lazy game design that the XXX guild would sell you their carefully guarded knowledge just because you obtained a certain level. If some snot nosed punk wants to know the secret to my delicious salsa I am not going to just take some plat and hand it over. I am going to demand he prove himself worthy, perform some favors/quests, and then hand over some plat.
It would be neat to have an open ended AA system (which would just the 'A' system without levels I guess) with linear gains for exponential costs.
EX:
+Wis: adds X wisdom per rank, costs 2^[rank] AAs
Then you would know somebody was pretty serious about healing if they achieved Rank 5 or higher and clinically insane if they had Rank 9 or higher.
It would be neat to have an open ended AA system (which would just the 'A' system without levels I guess) with linear gains for exponential costs.
EX:
+Wis: adds X wisdom per rank, costs 2^[rank] AAs
Then you would know somebody was pretty serious about healing if they achieved Rank 5 or higher and clinically insane if they had Rank 9 or higher.
idk if i wrote it in there but for the purpose of this exercise abilities and spells would be on items. If your dagger had Ability: Backstab then you'd learn Backstab when you equipped it. If you took it off and none of your other gear has Backstab on it, you'd forget it. The biggest archetype-defining and highest-quality-at-this-point abilities and spells would probably be relegated to weapons (big big nuke on a 2h INT staff, group heal on a WIS-focused shield, etc) but most abilities and spells would be scattered across various slots and stuff that's the most generally useful would probably tend to go in the duplicate slots (fingers, ears, wrists) to make them easier to hold on to.
preferably
preferably