Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Placing drawbacks on abilities would exaggerate the specialization problem above, hastening the devolution into a trinity system.
Either there is differentiation between characters, or there isn't. Somebody in the group is going to be the easiest one to kill. In a balanced system, that character will have some advantage that the other characters don't have. Within the setting, that means magic; in a combat character, that means combat magic, which means the ability to disable or damage the enemy. Since that character can't do the magic stuff if the enemy beats him up too much, the group needs to keep the enemy from beating him up too much. (That's the controller, striker, and tank 'role' summarized). Some characters will have the specialized ability to improve the performance of other characters, or heal damage (leader and healer 'role').
Character roles aren't an artificially imposed though of how characters should be played- they are a natural result of having differentiated characters to begin with. If specialization isn't permitted, then everybody is the same, and just a better or worse generalist. Why should a fighter have the same ability to buff that a mystic theurge does? If everybody heals as well as the cleric, what does the cleric do? If the wizard handles melee combat as well as the paladin, what makes the paladin special?
Don't try to eliminate specialization, make specialization more fluid: The cleric, depending on spell choice, can either be a healer, a leader, a striker, a controller, or a tank. The fighter, with different equipment and feat choices, can easily be a tank, striker, or controller. If you want a wizard to be able to tank (with various spells that grant effective HP, AC boni, and the like), don't expect that wizard to be as effective at other things as he would be without spending resources on protecting himself. If the wizard instead focuses all of his resources on things will kill the enemy, then the fighter can dedicate more of his resources to making sure that the enemy can't hurt the wizard. The fighter stands next to the wizard, covering him with his shield, prepared to trip anybody that comes close enough. The wizard casts the spell with the best chance of incapacitating the enemy (sleep, hold person, blindness), and the rogue comes out of the shadows and guts the poor guy.
If, instead, the rogue can't focus on being unseen and delivering a few powerful strikes, and the fighter can't focus on protecting and denying enemy movement, then the wizard has to cast protective spells, then get away from the enemy, then work on hurting them. (Wizard controller, fighter tank, rogue striker)
Alternatively, the wizard can focus on defensive spells, and the fighter or barbarian can charge into combat with two hands full of weaponry and magically hardened skin. Anyone going after the wizard finds that his target is an illusion, and the invisible rogue cuts some important tendons in his legs, removing him from the fight. (Wizard tank, fighter/barbarian striker, rogue controller)
Give everyone the tools to fill any one of several of the accepted roles, but make being much better at one role mean being worse at others.
If everybody is interchangeable, then nobody is special.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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that is not going to happen. it's one thing to have 4-5 unique characters in a tabletop. it's another to have 40-50 thousand different characters in MMO....
In the world that it seems like PFO is becoming, having everyone be unique would be welcome.
Four thousand, five hundred. That's the stated starting limit.
Thirty factions of a hundred and fifty players each. Or a hundred and fifty factions of thirty players each. Enough that I can either know a lot about my competition, or a lot about my own group, but neither both, nor enough to reasonably expect to recognize every opposing faction name and every ally by name. Instead of 'massively' multiplayer, think of it as 'large' multiplayer.
Goblin Squad Member
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The most important thing is for the game to be fun for the players. My experience playing a number of MMOs over the last decade has led me to consider these things very important:
1. You can't identify the Player, so any attempt to limit what a Player can do by limiting what can be done on a single Account is doomed to fail. It is easy to circumvent the limitation by getting a second account, but the limitation creates frustration for people who just want to have fun playing the game.
2. Limiting Character Skills arbitrarily (for example, only one Crafting profession allowed per character) is easily circumvented again, by creating multiple characters, and again is just a frustration for people who just want to have fun playing the game.
3. Limiting Character Progression, either by capping skill levels, or capping a total number of points that can be spent in a Talent Tree system, may be necessary to balance ranked PvP matches, but it's not very RP, and again, just frustrates people who want to have fun playing the game.
I still don't understand the fundamentals of the objection to having Fighter/Mage/Cleric/Thief 20/20/20/20. Even if Goblinworks did make it so that all of the benefits of all the classes are active at the same time, how does this hurt other players? It seems to me the only real reason to object to this is because you don't want to do that yourself, and you don't want other players to do something you don't want to do. If I'm wrong, please enlighten me with a real harm that this would do to other players.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I still don't understand the fundamentals of the objection to having Fighter/Mage/Cleric/Thief 20/20/20/20. Even if Goblinworks did make it so that all of the benefits of all the classes are active at the same time, how does this hurt other players? It seems to me the only real reason to object to this is because you don't want to do that yourself, and you don't want other players to do something you don't want to do. If I'm wrong, please enlighten me with a real harm that this would do to other players.
I agree with your points 1-2. 3. I do believe goblinworks will absolutely necessarally have to do something to contain the power levels of the characters. You've agreed several times on the idea that the power level difference between characters cannot be that much different. I'm also not even saying the abilities have to be locked out, but possibly simply hindered with equipment, with certain ones fully coming through, some being flat out blocked and some being drastically weakened depending on your equipment. As far as a wizard, in full plate armor and a heavy shield, ambushing from stealthed mode, landing a fire ball on 10 opponents, then meleeing the fighter that charges him after, I see that as a huge imbalance, not just for ranked PVP, but simply trying to escort goods from town A to town B.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As far as a wizard, in full plate armor and a heavy shield, ambushing from stealthed mode, landing a fire ball on 10 opponents, then meleeing the fighter that charges him after, I see that as a huge imbalance, not just for ranked PVP, but simply trying to escort goods from town A to town B.
Absolutely, I agree that would be bad.
I'm firmly in the camp of "can't cast spells while wearing metal armor", and several other classic restrictions. In fact, I imagine that's how this particular debate will ultimately get resolved. But I don't think that will be enough for some people. Somehow, I imagine that even if you had to go back to town and spend 5 minutes switching over from Fighter-spec to Mage-spec, some people would still argue vehemently against it.
I don't really fall into this category myself, but I've known a number of people who really never wanted to play but one character. I just don't see why they should be, in effect, punished for not wanting to roll a bunch of alts or create a bunch of secondary accounts.
Personally, I want to create a character for each Character that inhabits my mind. Khimber, the Paladin. Nihimon, the Wizard. Andiron, the Warrior. I don't want the game mechanics to encourage me to make a separate character for each function I want to perform just because I'm only allowed one function per character.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As far as a wizard, in full plate armor and a heavy shield, ambushing from stealthed mode, landing a fire ball on 10 opponents, then meleeing the fighter that charges him after, I see that as a huge imbalance, not just for ranked PVP, but simply trying to escort goods from town A to town B.
Well, keep in mind a lot of this will be limited by wearing full plate armor. Don't forget the armor check penalty. Can you imagine trying to sneak up on someone while wearing that hvy armor?
*sneak sneak sneak, clink clink clink*
And you may not be able to move during the casting of a spell. So combine that with the check penalty and suddenly you are ripe for an attack from the other people.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As far as a wizard, in full plate armor and a heavy shield, ambushing from stealthed mode, landing a fire ball on 10 opponents, then meleeing the fighter that charges him after, I see that as a huge imbalance, not just for ranked PVP, but simply trying to escort goods from town A to town B.Well, keep in mind a lot of this will be limited by wearing full plate armor. Don't forget the armor check penalty. Can you imagine trying to sneak up on someone while wearing that hvy armor?
*sneak sneak sneak, clink clink clink*
And you may not be able to move during the casting of a spell. So combine that with the check penalty and suddenly you are ripe for an attack from the other people.
Well yeah, if you had read my post that was more or less what I was suggesting
I'm also not even saying the abilities have to be locked out, but possibly simply hindered with equipment, with certain ones fully coming through, some being flat out blocked and some being drastically weakened depending on your equipment
Though I do think a few will have to still be modified vs the normal P&P due to some other extremes that can still work out, IE while the full plate fighter wizard is not a high possibility, a monk can have similar defense and melee capabilities as a fighter, without anything that would cost in the spell-casting department. The only possible work around for that one, is to make attributes fully effect your actual skills rather than just the leveling of them. Maybe you can allow them to be re-statted out as easily as you can switch ships in eve, but they still have to prevent simultaneously having full defense of a monk and full damage of a wizard simultaniously IMO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Has it been suggested somewhere (I assume it has) of treating the multiclass as sorta like "attunement"?
Say, at the top end, you can only have 20 lvls worth of archetypes. So you could go for 20 fighter or 10/10 fighter/cleric or 5/5/5/5 fighter/cleric/thief/monk
Even if you have badges for 20/20/20/20 etc. You can only ever have 20 lvls active at any time.
This would allow for the versatility as well as keep the power levels with a top end.
I know, I'm not the only one to think of this. There are smarter people on this forum. :-)
Chief Technical Officer
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Lets consider some of the implications here of being able to Max abilities in multiple classes...I really don't think you guys are thinking this all the way through in detail.
Lets say one of a fighters abilities is getting a +2 to hit/+2 damage when using his favorate weapon. Doesn't sound all that unreasonable in isolation right?
But wait...that fighter is now a Ranger too...and has access to a favorate enemy ability that also has +2/+2. So now we're upto +4/+4...still not bad....
You're applying *way* too many assumptions based on RPG mechanics.
Remember:
In Pathfinder Online, we've turned the system on its head: instead of using experience points as a prerequisite for improving in a skill, improving skills are part of the prerequisite for gaining new abilities. Your character must earn all the things needed to qualify for a new "level," and then you're rewarded with a special bonus. If you want to be a better rogue, you do roguish things and train roguish skills, and at a certain point, you receive a special merit badge recognizing a development milestone, rewarding you with a benefit for your persistence. Like class levels in the tabletop game, there will be 20 of these rewards available for each class type, creating a way to simulate a 20-level progression within our unique system.
Class rewards are more about capturing the *flavor* of pen-and-paper classes. That is, they'll be about giving you new options, not about upping your power level.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Remember:
In Pathfinder Online, we've turned the system on its head: instead of using experience points as a prerequisite for improving in a skill, improving skills are part of the prerequisite for gaining new abilities. Your character must earn all the things needed to qualify for a new "level," and then you're rewarded with a special bonus. If you want to be a better rogue, you do roguish things and train roguish skills, and at a certain point, you receive a special merit badge recognizing a development milestone, rewarding you with a benefit for your persistence. Like class levels in the tabletop game, there will be 20 of these rewards available for each class type, creating a way to simulate a 20-level progression within our unique system.Class rewards are more about capturing the *flavor* of pen-and-paper classes. That is, they'll be about giving you new options, not about upping your power level.
Nice. So, in theory, what could simulate a fighter hitting lvl 2? Typically they would receive a bonus to their attack and maybe an increase in a save.
If this system is all about the "flavor" of the class, what would qualify in this case?
Giving a straight bonus to your attack is still in the vein of P&P. In PFO, would a fighter, upon earning his first fighter merit badge, be able to use a 2nd sword type? Assuming of course, you are only allowed to pick one weapon upon creation.
Are multiple attacks still a remnant of P&P? Attacking twice or more in a round has always been a looked to trait in RPGs. In terms of PFO it could be considered upping your power level. Which is something that is trying to be avoided in PFO.
As I said earlier, my way of understanding this is to figure a fighter could choose a new weapon to be proficient in with each merit badge.
This train of thought could lead to some very good forum discussion here. I can't wait until the devs release more info and what they are looking at.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Remember:
In Pathfinder Online, we've turned the system on its head: instead of using experience points as a prerequisite for improving in a skill, improving skills are part of the prerequisite for gaining new abilities. Your character must earn all the things needed to qualify for a new "level," and then you're rewarded with a special bonus. If you want to be a better rogue, you do roguish things and train roguish skills, and at a certain point, you receive a special merit badge recognizing a development milestone, rewarding you with a benefit for your persistence. Like class levels in the tabletop game, there will be 20 of these rewards available for each class type, creating a way to simulate a 20-level progression within our unique system.Class rewards are more about capturing the *flavor* of pen-and-paper classes. That is, they'll be about giving you new options, not about upping your power level.Nice. So, in theory, what could simulate a fighter hitting lvl 2? Typically they would receive a bonus to their attack and maybe an increase in a save.
If this system is all about the "flavor" of the class, what would qualify in this case?
Giving a straight bonus to your attack is still in the vein of P&P. In PFO, would a fighter, upon earning his first fighter merit badge, be able to use a 2nd sword type? Assuming of course, you are only allowed to pick one weapon upon creation.
Are multiple attacks still a remnant of P&P? Attacking twice or more in a round has always been a looked to trait in RPGs. In terms of PFO it could be considered upping your power level. Which is something that is trying to be avoided in PFO.
As I said earlier, my way of understanding this is to figure a fighter could choose a new weapon to be proficient in with each merit badge.
This train of thought could lead to some very good forum discussion here. I can't wait until the devs release more info and what they are looking at.
It sounds to me the way vic is talking is you won't necessarally gain + to attack at all, It sounds more along the lines of each level of fighter may grant different weapons etc... maybe even different techniques, say more effective trip with chains etc... Directly upping damage as you are asking, sounds to me like directly raising power, but perhaps it is about unlocking abilities that are comperable power, but more or less useful depending on the situation then straight out attacking, more akin to bull rush disarm, possibly sunder or weapon proficiancies, all valid options, but none that is necessarally the best in every situation.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Nice. So, in theory, what could simulate a fighter hitting lvl 2? Typically they would receive a bonus to their attack and maybe an increase in a save.
Keep in mind I'm not in any way responsible for designing this sort of thing, so this is *very* hypothetical...
...but if I were designing it, I'd look at the Pathfinder RPG fighter and I'd see that as fighters level, they gain feats, armor training, and weapon training. Keeping in mind that Pathfinder Online's goal is to use some of the level-based benefits instead as the prerequisites for leveling, I'd probably build the Pathfinder Online model to use weapon and armor training as prerequisites, and think about feats as inspiration for the benefit you get from earning the level.
So, let's say that the fighter tree says that I'll get my next fighter-class merit badge if I first train with thrown weapons and then I successfully use a blowgun and a throwing axe in combat. Once I do those things, I effectively "level," and maybe I get something kind of like a fighter-specific bonus feat—maybe one specifically tied to that "thrown weapon" thing I just trained.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Onishi - Yeah, I think I am getting geeked up for this. So, let's think about this for a second.
I am a fresh fighter. Straight outta Lynwood. At this point all I can do is swing my longsword. I am not trained in any other techniques or weapons.
You are a more experienced fighter. You have earned, let's say, 5 merit badges. You are trained with a longsword just like me. However, you have learned the parry ability as well as sunder. Throw in being proficient with a thrown weapon, and look at your flexibility.
Power level wise, we are on the same plane, roughly speaking. It could be possible for me to defeat you, but it would be a tough fight. As it should be since you have earned more merit badges than me.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Also, don't forget this:
Also, Pathfinder Online is going to focus primarily on the kinds of classic adventure content that the tabletop game features at moderate levels—exploring dangerous areas and confronting monsters and villains that are scary and dangerous, but not challenging cosmic horrors or universe-destroyers.
So even though we're planning on keeping the idea of 20 merit badges ("levels") per class, the overall power range we're talking about in Pathfinder Online is really going to be equivalent to about levels 6 to 10 of the RPG. So the 1st through 4th merit badges will generally provide benefits that would be appropriate for 6th-level RPG characters, and the 17th through 20th merit badges will offer benefits more on par with those offered to a 10th-level RPG character.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Also, don't forget this:
Also, Pathfinder Online is going to focus primarily on the kinds of classic adventure content that the tabletop game features at moderate levels—exploring dangerous areas and confronting monsters and villains that are scary and dangerous, but not challenging cosmic horrors or universe-destroyers.So even though we're planning on keeping the idea of 20 merit badges ("levels") per class, the overall power range we're talking about in Pathfinder Online is really going to be equivalent to about levels 6 to 10 of the RPG. So the 1st through 4th merit badges will generally provide benefits that would be appropriate for 6th-level RPG characters, and the 17th through 20th merit badges will offer benefits more on par with those offered to a 10th-level RPG character.
Nice, thank you for clearing that up, I think too many people here were boldly speculating that a capstoned character, would be at the grade where he crushes 100 man armies of new players single handedly, this makes far more sense.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Lets consider some of the implications here of being able to Max abilities in multiple classes...I really don't think you guys are thinking this all the way through in detail.
Lets say one of a fighters abilities is getting a +2 to hit/+2 damage when using his favorate weapon. Doesn't sound all that unreasonable in isolation right?
But wait...that fighter is now a Ranger too...and has access to a favorate enemy ability that also has +2/+2. So now we're upto +4/+4...still not bad....
You're applying *way* too many assumptions based on RPG mechanics.
Remember:
In Pathfinder Online, we've turned the system on its head: instead of using experience points as a prerequisite for improving in a skill, improving skills are part of the prerequisite for gaining new abilities. Your character must earn all the things needed to qualify for a new "level," and then you're rewarded with a special bonus. If you want to be a better rogue, you do roguish things and train roguish skills, and at a certain point, you receive a special merit badge recognizing a development milestone, rewarding you with a benefit for your persistence. Like class levels in the tabletop game, there will be 20 of these rewards available for each class type, creating a way to simulate a 20-level progression within our unique system.Class rewards are more about capturing the *flavor* of pen-and-paper classes. That is, they'll be about giving you new options, not about upping your power level.
I read this as basically saying that any archetype can train, for example, +2 to hit / + 2 damage, and that is a requirement for Fighters.
I know the skill is probably wrong, but as an example it works. It's not that being Level 20 in Fighter will give you all these great benefits, it's more that all characters can train these great benefits, and if you train this particular set of great benefits, you can call yourself a Fighter.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Class rewards are more about capturing the *flavor* of pen-and-paper classes. That is, they'll be about giving you new options, not about upping your power level.
Nitpicking: Did you mean "They'll give you new options, not improve the power of your existing options?" in the sense that 'only training 1h blunt weapons skill will improve your ability to hit things with a flail, but the 'trip' badge will let you make trip attacks with one and let you train your trip skill'?
I can't say that a character who can't trip with a flail is just as powerful as one that can, all other things being equal. More options, along with the ability to determine in what situations those options are beneficial, IS more power. Flat boni to existing abilities is also power, but of a radically different nature.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Lets consider some of the implications here of being able to Max abilities in multiple classes...I really don't think you guys are thinking this all the way through in detail.
Lets say one of a fighters abilities is getting a +2 to hit/+2 damage when using his favorate weapon. Doesn't sound all that unreasonable in isolation right?
But wait...that fighter is now a Ranger too...and has access to a favorate enemy ability that also has +2/+2. So now we're upto +4/+4...still not bad....
You're applying *way* too many assumptions based on RPG mechanics.
Remember:
In Pathfinder Online, we've turned the system on its head: instead of using experience points as a prerequisite for improving in a skill, improving skills are part of the prerequisite for gaining new abilities. Your character must earn all the things needed to qualify for a new "level," and then you're rewarded with a special bonus. If you want to be a better rogue, you do roguish things and train roguish skills, and at a certain point, you receive a special merit badge recognizing a development milestone, rewarding you with a benefit for your persistence. Like class levels in the tabletop game, there will be 20 of these rewards available for each class type, creating a way to simulate a 20-level progression within our unique system.Class rewards are more about capturing the *flavor* of pen-and-paper classes. That is, they'll be about giving you new options, not about upping your power level.
Vic,
I understand your design intent with the system...but when it gets down to the details of implimention... I just can't see you actualy ACHIEVING those goals without some mechanism for limiting the number of abilities a player can utilize at any one time.
I don't believe there is a functional difference between earning "levels" that give you abilities or earning abilities that give you "levels"...in each case the character has some functionality that improves thier combat power....if any of those abilities have additive effects (even indirectly) then your 20/20/20/20 character is going to end up not just more versatile then a level 20 character but also vastly more powerfull.
For example, even if the "Paladin" track shares a common "hit better with melee weapons" ability advancement track with the "Fighter" ... If the "Paladin" has some ability track...say "fight against Evil" (because that's kinda a big part of what defines A Paladin" that gives them any sort of ability (say "Smite Evil") that's addittive (even indirectly) with the power of the "hit better with melee weapons" ability...and the Fighter track has any sort of ability track that is also additive (say "Weapons Specialization" ...because that's a big part of what fighters are about). Then the character that has access to all 3 tracks (20/20 fighter/paladin) is going to be not much more versatile but also more powerfull then one with just two (20 fighter).
In fact, you could remove classes pretty much completely from the game and you'd still have the same results... a character with 80 abilities (20/20/20/20) is going to be significantly more powerfull then one with 20 abilities....simply by dint of having more abilities that he can combine (directly or indirectly) to enhance his combat power....unless you maybe only have 20 abilities that effect combat in the entire game.
Functionaly, the only other way around this aside from capping the abilities available to a character at any one time is to try to figure out some way to make sure abilities are not in any way (directly or indirectly) additive in nature....but not only will that be functionaly a nightmare to achieve (because any time you go to determine how any ability works in the game you have to consider interaction with N squared abilities) but it will also truely GIMP the 10/10 multi-class character in realtion to the straight 20 character...because the multi-class guys RELY on the additive nature of thier abilities in each to make up for the fact they have only gone half as deep on any one track as the straight 20 character.
The way class-based games like Pathfinder RPG work to make characters balanced is by making sure each class has weaknesses as well as strengths (i.e. Wizards have a wide range of powerfull spells but tend to have poor hit points and AC) and for the guys that multi-class making sure that the more powerfull abilities tend to come deeper down the path chain in each class AND by giving them a FINITE number of levels in total (spread over all thier classes).
Non-class based games tend to use a similar mechanism. The player may have 200 plus combat abilities that they can choose from...and they can pick whichever ones they want...but they can only pick 20 combat abilities TOTAL.
I can virtualy assure you, regardless of your design intent, if you have a character with 80 plus combat abilities and they have access to ALL those combat abilities at the same time...they are going to be both significantly more powerfull and more versatile then a character with only 20 combat abilities.
A design like EvE tends to work BECAUSE no matter how many combat abilities the character has, the only ones relevant to the ship THEY ARE FLYING AT THE TIME. In other words, they have a mechanism built right into the design to limit the number of relevant abilities the character can apply at any one time.
If you guys have a way around this that works, I'm all ears.....but I think you need to look at the functional details of implimentation rather then just the theory of how you want it to end up.
- For example do you have any abilities that build upon each other in order to make sure the level 20 fighter is more powerfull then the level 10 fighter?
- If you don't and the level 20 fighter just gets a more powerfull attack that is completely independent (i.e. non-stacking, non-addititive) then the attack he got at level 10 (for example)...then how do you insure that the guy who does level 10/10 Fighter/Paladin isn't completely GIMPED compared to the Level 20 Fighter?
- If you do have abilities that build upon each other...then how does the 20/20/20 Fighter/Paladin/Ranger NOT end up much more powerfull then either the 20 Fighter or the 10/10 Fighter/Paladin?
This strikes me as a Catch-22 in design.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Lets consider some of the implications here of being able to Max abilities in multiple classes...I really don't think you guys are thinking this all the way through in detail.
Lets say one of a fighters abilities is getting a +2 to hit/+2 damage when using his favorate weapon. Doesn't sound all that unreasonable in isolation right?
But wait...that fighter is now a Ranger too...and has access to a favorate enemy ability that also has +2/+2. So now we're upto +4/+4...still not bad....
You're applying *way* too many assumptions based on RPG mechanics.
Remember:
In Pathfinder Online, we've turned the system on its head: instead of using experience points as a prerequisite for improving in a skill, improving skills are part of the prerequisite for gaining new abilities. Your character must earn all the things needed to qualify for a new "level," and then you're rewarded with a special bonus. If you want to be a better rogue, you do roguish things and train roguish skills, and at a certain point, you receive a special merit badge recognizing a development milestone, rewarding you with a benefit for your persistence. Like class levels in the tabletop game, there will be 20 of these rewards available for each class type, creating a way to simulate a 20-level progression within our unique system.Class rewards are more about capturing the *flavor* of pen-and-paper classes. That is, they'll be about giving you new options, not about upping your power level.I read this as basically saying that any archetype can train, for example, +2 to hit / + 2 damage, and that is a requirement for Fighters.
I know the skill is probably wrong, but as an example it works. It's not that being Level 20 in Fighter will give you all these great benefits, it's more that all characters can train these great benefits, and if you train this particular set of great benefits, you can call yourself a Fighter.
Nihimon,
I see whether that is true or not as functionaliy irrelevent to the issue at hand. It's even functionaly irrelevant that the game even has "classes". What's functionaly relevent is how the abilities add together or interact(directly or indirectly) to increase the characters combat power.
For example, let's assume that ANY archtype can train up +2 to hit/ +2 damage...and that ability could be one of the requirements for labeling the character a "Fighter"....lets also assume that ANY archtype can train up a "Smite Evil" ability that grants lets say +1/+4 and that is one of the requirements for the character to be labeled a "Paladin". Lets say that any archetype can train up the ability to have a "Favorate Enemies" ability that also grants +2/+2 and that could be one of the requirements for being labled a "Ranger".
So how do we prevent the Fighter/Paladin/Ranger (who would have in our example +5/+8) at level 20/20/20 from being more powerfull from the straight Fighter at level 20 or the Fighter/Paladin at level 10/10 ?
That's just using abilities that are DIRECTLY addititive. You can even look at things that are INDIRECTY addititive...like the guy who trains up casting Fireball (level 20 "Wizard") with the guy who trains up having AC 0 with no armor (level 20 "Barbarian" or "Monk").
Remember the design goals they've stated (at least I believe) for the game are
- That older players (i.e. someone that has multi-classed 20/20/20/20) NOT dominate players that have reached plateau (i.e. Level 20 in a single class) in terms of combat...nor characters that have multi-classed to 10/10. They want all those characters to be ROUGHLY equal in terms of combat power.
- They also want players to be able to advance INDEFINATELY (i.e 20/20/20/20/20 etc) but not be significantly more powerfull then people who may have joined the game at a later date...but played long enough to reach some plateau (i.e. the 2.5 years they estimate it will take to get 20 levels of ability in classes).
I don't see those stated goals as being compatible without some mechanism to limit the number of abilities the character has available to them at ANY one time?
How do you make the "Wizard" (level 20) not horribly weak in comparison to the "Wizard/Monk" (level 20/20) who has access to EVERYTHING the "Wizard" has...but can also walk around with AC 0 wearing no armor?
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Chief Technical Officer
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Nitpicking: Did you mean "They'll give you new options, not improve the power of your existing options?"
Class rewards are more about capturing the *flavor* of pen-and-paper classes. That is, they'll be about giving you new options, not about upping your power level.
This early on, saying that they'll *never* improve power would be a mistake. But the main focus will be on flexibility, not power... and—this is also my answer to GrumpyMel's last few posts—if there are things that increase power, we'll make sure that it's done in a way that doesn't get out of hand when people have 20 levels in each of 16 different classes.
No, I can't tell you how that will happen specifically, as it's *far* too early, but that's the kind of thing that will be a fundamental philosophy that all things will be measured against. (Read this post for more of that).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Remember the design goals they've stated (at least I believe) for the game are
- That older players (i.e. someone that has multi-classed 20/20/20/20) NOT dominate players that have reached plateau (i.e. Level 20 in a single class) in terms of combat...nor characters that have multi-classed to 10/10. They want all those characters to be ROUGHLY equal in terms of combat power.
- They also want players to be able to advance INDEFINATELY (i.e 20/20/20/20/20 etc) but not be significantly more powerfull then people who may have joined the game at a later date...but played long enough to reach some plateau (i.e. the 2.5 years they estimate it will take to get 20 levels of ability in classes).
I don't see those stated goals as being compatible without some mechanism to limit the number of abilities the character has available to them at ANY one time?
I'm perfectly fine with those design goals.
I think that some people are very worried that allowing a 20/20 will necessarily mean that character is more powerful than a 20 or a 10/10. I am much more confident that PFO will be able to achieve the goal of making them roughly balanced with respect to combat.
Given that we know slightly more than nothing about the way the game will implement 20/20, I don't think it likely that anyone can propose the solution that must be implemented to avoid the problems some people are very concerned about.
And please don't misunderstand me: I'm not trying to belittle those concerns. I may have said some things that made it sound like I wanted a 20/20 to be able to dominate a 20, but I don't really care about that. It wouldn't really bother me if that were the case, just like it won't bother me if a 20 is able to dominate a 10. But it's also not something I feel is important, and I'm perfectly comfortable with PFO making the decision that a 20 = 10/10 = 5/5/5/5 = 20/20 = 20/20/20/20/20/20/20/20/20/20/20.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Nitpicking: Did you mean "They'll give you new options, not improve the power of your existing options?"
Class rewards are more about capturing the *flavor* of pen-and-paper classes. That is, they'll be about giving you new options, not about upping your power level.This early on, saying that they'll *never* improve power would be a mistake. But the main focus will be on flexibility, not power... and—this is also my answer to GrumpyMel's last few posts—if there are things that increase power, we'll make sure that it's done in a way that doesn't get out of hand when people have 20 levels in each of 16 different classes.
No, I can't tell you how that will happen specifically, as it's *far* too early, but that's the kind of thing that will be a fundamental philosophy that all things will be measured against. (Read this post for more of that).
Vic,
I really do appreciate the design intent that you guys have...and please don't interpret anything I've posted as doubting Goblinworks intent or abilities. I really do hope you guys can pull those goals off well...I'm certainly rooting for you. I just have a difficult time imagining how you are effectively going to impliment them under the currently described plan.
Perhaps it's one of those proffesional curses with me. I'm an Engineer in charge of IT Operations for my company...so it's a large part of my proffesional responsibility to take all those nice, lofty sounding design goals that other Team Members come up with and explain to them all the different ways things will break when it comes to implimentation if they haven't taken certain details into account when working out the design plan. I'm the guy that gets to say things like "That does sound like an awesome plan...You do realize that it will require a server with a capacity 50,000 Gigs of RAM.... that functionality won't work if users are connecting with greater then 5 ms latency.... and won't that break the first time you have 2 users connect concurrently?"
Sorry, if I'm being a sounding a bit too skeptical here....chalk it upto force of habit.
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Chief Technical Officer
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I do totally get your perspective, and now is the time to voice concerns like that... but I also think you're a bit too fixated on Pathfinder RPG rules assumptions. Obviously, in the RPG, your "+2/+2" example is valid—if you gave that type of bonus within each class, unlimited multiclassing would eventually make you superpowered.
The thing is, the whole concept of +2 to attack, +2 damage may not even *exist* in the game. It's a relatively simple concept and that makes it easy to implement in the tabletop game, but the MMO doesn't *need* every concept to be that simple. For just one example, it's way easier to make things conditional in an MMO—we could give you a boon that provides some sort of bonus or option you can use just against orcs, or just against leather armor, or just when you're reduced to less than half your hit points, or just when you have two allies within 20 feet of you, or just when you're within a mile of your home, or just when you're somewhere cold and dark. In short, I'm confident that we can find ways to give you benefits that don't effectively stack until you're superman.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I don't see why the system can't be like EVE. Not all skills in EVE apply specifically to the ship you're in, some of them apply to what your ship is equipped with. You likely won't get a flat bonus to how much damage you do with weapons, or at least not a very big one.
I could see them implementing the skills so that each increasing level does provide a bonus. But at the same time, each skill could branch at every level requiring a more specific situation in which the badge you've earned will help you.
I can:
wield one handed blades
..and use them to parry
....with no penalty
......and follow through with a riposte
..with great accuracy
....to deadly effect
..and use them to disarm
....with no penalty
wield two handed blades
..and use them to parry
....with no penalty
......and follow through with a riposte
..with no penalty while using a buckler
....retaining it's AC bonus
And perhaps as part of leveling fighter you only need to train one weapon skill up one path. But if you take the time to get a second weapon skill your progress towards 20 will be slowed. The could have similar trees for hundreds of things related to fighters with very little overlap and only slight bits of stacking that were designed to go together well... like a buckler tree of some sort.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not really sure how I feel about this. If you're 20/20 and you're the exact same power level as a 10/10 or a 20, I sorta dig that as far as output. But as far as your ability as someone with twice the character level to soak or mitigate that damage being equal, I'm a little dubious.
It seems to me that if it'll take a significant period of time to hit 20, then there has to be some sort of reward for doing it twice other than a bigger toy-box. I'm on board with limiting the number of toys you can play with to your "level", but you've gotta functionally have more HP and better saves having seen and been through twice as much as a "person".
If skills will only give access to new abilities(which is awesome) then the only way to generate hp is through abilities, yes? If you can only have 20 active at a time, there's no way to implement that disparity which I find breaks immersion right off the bat. If I'm misunderstanding how HP and such will work then I apologize, but it seems to me that if you keep doing cool stuff you would keep getting stronger in all regards, not just the versatility of your abilities. As everyone is always so quick to point out, we aren't playing PnP... these characters will continue to develop new abilities until the end of time.
I guess I'm picturing Elminster, who's at least 20W/10C/5F/5R (disregarding all the demi-god stuff and just focusing on character levels. You can say that he couldn't have that level distribution in PFPnP, and you're right, but apply it to the context of this discussion) getting taken out by a 20 wizard. They might have the same number of spells per day(assuming Elminster took all spells), but Elminster has all those extra HP's and saving throw bonuses that imo *have* to carry over even if it's fractional and that's not what you call them.
As for the capstones, I pretty much love the idea with a few minor quibbles. I like the restriction of a certain set of abilities as prereq's for the capstone, and I don't have a problem with further restricting...
Well the problem with the character that's 20/20 being SIGNIFICANTLY more powerfull (whether it's damage output or mitigation/resistance/hp) then the guy that's just 20 or the guy that is 10/10 is that the games PRIMARY focus is going to be PvP meaning that characters will compete DIRECTLY with each other in combat and they are tying level pretty directly to the real time you've been playing a game (i.e. you learn skill off-line...but you can't start learning until you create a character) and they are going to have no hard cap on levels abilities.
The upshot of that is...why would anyone ever be interested in joining the game 2 years after it opened...if they knew they would ALWAYS be religated to a 2nd rate character by dint of not being there the day opened?
It's one thing to say "Your going to be 2nd rate till you put your dues in" but remember they don't have a level cap... so no matter how much time you put in...the guy who was there on day one always has more.
It's one thing to say "Well the amount of time/effort you are going to put in is related directly to how powerfull you are...so if someone puts in more they are going to be more powerfull" but remember the primary mechanism for controling when you level (skill rating) seems to be simply a factor of how long the character has been around, not how much the character is played or what it does in game. So theoreticaly, a guy who started the game 2.5 years (in real life) before you and puts in the minimum amount of time to earn his "merit badges" will ALWAYS be 20 levels higher then you...no matter how much you play or what you do in game you never have a chance to catch up.
It's one thing to say "Well it really doesn't matter what level you are since you aren't directly in competition with higher level characters". That would be entirely true in a PvE focused game or even a game with PvP tiered by levels...but the primary focus of PFO looks to be open world PvP...where you are DIRECTLY going up against other players who may have been around since day 1.
Given those conditions...thier design goal of not having a huge difference in combat power between 20, 10/10 and 20/20/20/20 IS a really important idea...it's important for players that join the game 2 years after it's open to feel like at SOME point they can compete with and beat the guys who have been around since day one in SOME aspect of the game.
That's a good design goal (IMO). I don't have a problem with it...I'm just worried (hopefully without cause) about them being able to meet it from what we know of the plans so far.
i.e. in your example being "Elminster" is great for the guy that gets to play "Elminster"....it kinda sucks for the guy who always ends up having to fight "Elminster" and NEVER has a chance to catch up with "Elminster" no matter how much he plays or what he does in-game because he doesn't have a Real-Life time machine to go back 2.5 years and be there when the game opened up.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well the problem with the character that's 20/20 being SIGNIFICANTLY more powerfull (whether it's damage output or mitigation/resistance/hp) then the guy that's just 20 or the guy that is 10/10 is that the games PRIMARY focus is going to be PvP meaning that characters will compete DIRECTLY with each other in combat and they are tying level pretty directly to the real time you've been playing a game (i.e. you learn skill off-line...but you can't start learning until you create a character) and they are going to have no hard cap on levels abilities.If skills will only give access to new abilities(which is awesome) then the only way to generate hp is through abilities, yes? If you can only have 20 active at a time, there's no way to implement that disparity which I find breaks immersion right off the bat. If I'm misunderstanding how HP and such will work then I apologize, but it seems to me that if you keep doing cool stuff you would keep getting stronger in all regards, not just the versatility of your abilities. As everyone is always so quick to point out, we aren't playing PnP... these characters will continue to develop new abilities until the end of time.
Yeah I have a feeling if HP is a factor, it will be one outside of the archetypes. They mentioned that not all skills in the game are within the archtype, so it would make sense for HP, saves etc... to be a non-class based skill that takes say a month to max (whether you spread that out as 4 1 weeks over your 2.5 years or so or whatever, leveling the non-archtype skills is adding time to how long before you reach capstone). As far as saves I think they said those were off of attributes, which you most likely can change (attributes effect how fast what skills level, and saves), so if you are leveling your cleric, you will probably have a decent will and fort, when you switch from that to leveling rogue skills, even if you are focused on cleric functions, if you want your rogue skills to level quickly you will be dex/int, meaning your will will suffer and your reflex will increase in the mean time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As for the capstones, I pretty much love the idea with a few minor quibbles. I like the restriction of a certain set of abilities as prereq's for the capstone, and I don't have a problem with further restricting people to that list to get the capstone.
I don't think they're saying you can only choose Fighter Archetype skills for 2.5 years. I think they're saying you can't accept a Merit Badge in another Archetype for that 2.5 years, which means you might well be able to select many Skills from the other Archetypes.
Since we've been talking about Elminster... he was all of those other classes *before* he was a wizard, but you can't tell me he didn't have that capstone.
Are you sure he didn't get all 20 of his Wizard levels in a row? *grins*
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Goblin Squad Member
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He doesn't gain any of the saves or passive bonuses of being a Paladin? If no, then what was the point of becoming a paladin? If yes, then you can't deny that as a significant advantage over a pure fighter. Especially if the resistances will be based on a different, specific stat; because pally bonuses are divine and would affect all of them. From what I've been reading a level 40 shouldn't be stronger than a level 20, which I can't really understand.
Odds are it is going to be specific abilities, you have your lay of hands, smite evil etc... The reason that a 20/20/20 Can be comperable power level to a 20, is rather simple really, Both can use their skills at roughly the same frequency, say a universal cooldown you can use 1 skill every 6 seconds (or less, but lets just say 6 seconds for the sake of having a solid number that matches the P&P rules). Now the pure paladin has 3 nice attacks that he can alternate between, while the 20/20/20 has 9 nice attacks that he can alternate, they are both still doing the same amount of abilities per second, but the 20/20/20 is more likely to have an ability that takes advantage of the current weakness of his opponent.
And the more classes you add the more drawbacks you will run into.Except for classes that *don't* have a large overlap. Do that same comparison with a rogue and a wizard. Or a sorcerer and a ranger. Or a paladin and a bard(bearing in mind that alignment restrictions in a skill-based system make very little sense).
Right, but the biggest weakness is still going to be abilities/time, say a pali/rogue lets say, he can sneak attack, or he can smite evil. Both are fairly comperable abilities. Now the character with sneak attack, will do some serious damage against a Bear provided he has a team mate to distract/flank, but be rather useless against a zombie, while the paladin has much nicer damage against the zombie, and much worse tricks for the distracted bear. Against a NE Player, both abilities are about equal we'll say (Nothing is guaranteed to be designed to match or balance the rules of the tabletop game, odds are they will try to be fairly comparable with eachother). So in a bear followed by a zombie, the 20/20 will do far better than either 20, but against an evil player character, both will be about even.
Now as far as alignment/restrictions for characters, no frickin clue, when it comes to the lawful/chaotic axis's etc... who knows, they may or may not block out class abilities if your alignment shifts but offer atonement NPCs if you get it back on track. We'll need to hear the blog on alignment that ryan hinted was coming up in the future to have any reasonable speculation.
Paladins would never sneak attack or backstab or do any unlawful act else they would loose thier abilities as a paladin and be stripped of ther abilties by thier deity..end of story..sorry no..Assassins Creed for you...I hope they do consider alignment and restrictions else what makes a paladin..shock me a game with consequences...I figure you slaughter innocents and kill your alignment shifts to evil.
The paladin has to be one of the toughest classes to play with the most restrictions..you want to slaughter and backstab wait til the hellknights and antipaladins come out..lol
Same goes for Sorcerous bloodlines..what you get to 20 level fighter or cleric whatever opther class and suddenly have dragon, faerie demon or whatever bloodline power coursing thru you that was suppose to be with you at birth..makes as much sense as a Samurai20/ ninja 20 or paladin 20/ rogue 20 or ninja paladin..hopefully they don't allow these munchkin class choices to exist and use some sense in design
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Goblin Squad Member
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The paladin has to be one of the toughest classes to play with the most restrictions..you want to slaughter and backstab wait til the hellknights and antipaladins come out..lol
again as I said they may or may not block out abilities for classes with alignment. To a degree no matter what some aspects are going to be killed from any P&P game. People playing paladins will find a way to game the system to be the cruelest, harshest players in the game, without losing their alignment, it just happens and short of a 5:1 GM:Player ratio that physically monitor everyone and tweak the alignments themselves, concepts like fallen paladins etc... will be near impossible to implement. Now I could be wrong, we have to wait for the blog post on alignment before we get any hints or vague understanding of alignment in PFO.
yes definately interesting to see how they use alignments (Lawful Good ) for example..especially when it is the core substance of that class (Paladin)
Sorcerers will be another.. will someone be able to take it after or will they have to take it as a first class to get the bloodlines.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There seems to be a huge amount of focus on tailoring the game to casual players. ... The "skills on a timer" thing would be awesome, if there was something pro-active I could do to supplement it. I want to feel like I'm achieving something in the time I play...
First, I think you're reading too much into the arguments you've read supporting the Skill Progression system. It's true that it doesn't punish casual players as much as the classic XP Grind system, but that doesn't mean it's "tailored" to the casual player. The main benefit of the PFO Skill Progression system is that it frees the Player from having to game the XP Grind system, and allows the Player to do whatever the Player wants to do in the game world to advance their interests.
Which leads directly into the second statement I've quoted. What you'll be achieving is wealth, fame, resources, perhaps even land and followers. You'll be playing more like the way you'd be playing your Character sitting at a table, where you go out and adventure without worrying about how many xp/hour you're getting killing these mobs over and over. You might choose to take the path of least resistance, rather than feeling like you need to slaughter every mob in sight.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Are you sure he didn't get all 20 of his Wizard levels in a row? *grins*He did, I think. I'm not sure I read it right, but wouldn't your previous statement mean that he wasn't allowed to accept any "merit badges" in fighter, rogue, or cleric?
I think I see the misunderstanding. The key to gaining a Capstone ability is to gain 20 Merit Badges in one Archetype in a row, without gaining any Merit Badges in another Archetype during that time. It's perfectly acceptable to gain Merit Badges in other Archetypes before or after.
I would imagine that earning the first Merit Badge in an Archetype is a prerequisite for having access to more Skills in that Archetype, so that you won't be able to learn enough Skills in a second Archetype to qualify for 20 or even 2 Merit Badges immediately after gaining the Capstone in your first Archetype.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The reason that a 20/20/20 Can be comperable power level to a 20, is rather simple really, Both can use their skills at roughly the same frequency, say a universal cooldown you can use 1 skill every 6 seconds (or less, but lets just say 6 seconds for the sake of having a solid number that matches the P&P rules). Now the pure paladin has 3 nice attacks that he can alternate between, while the 20/20/20 has 9 nice attacks that he can alternate, they are both still doing the same amount of abilities per second, but the 20/20/20 is more likely to have an ability that takes advantage of the current weakness of his opponent.
Brilliant analysis. Easily the best argument I've read to explain this problem.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you spend 2 and a half years to get to level 20 and only have three decent attack skills, that alone is enough to make me worry.
I don't think the 3 attacks was literal. It was just meant as a relative way to convey the point, which is that even if you have 100 abilities as a 20 and 10,000 abilities as a 20/20/20/20/20/..., you can still only do 10 things a minute (or whatever).
As far as the defense goes, if a player is a 20/20 Monk/Wizard, then they're going to have some pretty wicked defense and some pretty awesome offense, but I can easily see PFO doing something like making your Monk Defensive Form require you to only be doing Monk-like things while it's active, so that if you started casting Fireball, you're not going to get +8 Dodge, or whatever.