Development Cycle Archive
Thread: IC 1-17 Star Wars Galaxies Combat Profession Mix and Match
For example, people in the marksman/brawler trees would see a 10-15% reduction in the damage they do, where as people in the elite combat tress like BH, Pistoleer, etc. would see a 15-20% damage reduction.
This will increase the effectiveness of other classes like creature handler, combat medic, medic, crafters who only have the skill points for a bit of a novice combat class, and would encourage group work. Also, the relative difficulty of Mobs would increase, you would have fewer people out soloing Krayts, bull rancors, kimogilas, etc.
Also, it has been suggested that defensive mods be split into general defence and a weapon-specific defence. This is a great idea, and is a really good way to eliminate uber-stacking, but not eliminate any benefit.
Just a couple of ideas.
OK, here's my take on it
Most of the items I agree with, masters should be able to defeat dabblers under the appropriate conditions, defences AS WELL AS offences should not stack, the bonuses should be based off the weapon or equipmentthat you have equipped. Dabbling should have benifits but not as powerful as they are now.
What I would like to see is mastering multiple skills have even added benifit such as if a player has a Master Pistoleer and a Master Smuggler or a Master Weaponsmith and a Master Armorsmith that you get an additional bonus, skill, or somethng else that is unique. Part of me would say that even a 3rd tier tree would be a great idea but with the lack of content in some professions this wouldn't even out well.
TH, I love SWG because exactly these reasons. I am tired of the old traditional online games like daoc and eq, where you need to have X class to do anything.
In SWG everyone can do whatever they want. I love it.
Its different and I think you guys are leading the way to a new style of game play. When I came to SWG from my last game daoc, I was sick of the way they did things, so traditional. You are leading the way to a whole new gaming style and I love it.
Daker-Naritus wrote:
Quote:
The part of stacking that is bad is when people can have multiple professions but not master them and be better than someone who mastered two at something that was particularly related to those two the second person mastered.
You are talking about a person picking and choosing certain trees without mastering professions right? I still don't think that is a bad thing IF everything is balanced right.
Let's say most combat professions have 4 types of trees: 1 Combat Specials Tree, 1 accuracy tree, 1 defensive mods tree, and 1 speed tree. You are saying that players should not, for example, be able to pick up only the defensive trees in each profession (so that they are really hard to hit). Respectfully, I disagree.
Yes that person is choosing a combat templatethat makes them hard to hit, and spending all their skill points on defensive mods. However, by doing that, that same player would not be as accurate, as fast, or as powerful (specials), as a player who actually mastered the whole professions together. IF PROPERLY BALANCED, the high defensive mods vs. the higher accuracy/speed/extra damage, and the low defensive mods vs. the slow regular damagewould counteract each other.
Similarally, if a player dabbled and picked up the specials (ONLY)out of several professions, that player would have powerful moves, butlow defensive mods.
What is important is skill points. If both the dabbler and the master spend the same number of skill points on combat,the battleshould be a toss up. Mastery should NOT be required, it should be one of MANY routes that a player can take.
I agree that IF properly balanced there should be no problem with this and that offensive, as well as defensive mods should stack. My point was that someone who spends the points for say 4 columns in pistoleer which all relate to pistols should be better all around when fighting with a pistol than someone who spends points for only 2 or 3 columns relating to pistols from different professions. What I was saying about mastering two professions is that if you've done all 4 lines in your first combat profession, mastered and picked up another and mastered it as well you should have better offense than someone who only took the offensive lines of both and better defense than someone who only took the defensive lines of both. The reason behind this is that mastering limits the number of professions you can incorporate.Like you said, the most important is skill points - thingsCAN be properly balancedsolelythrough skill points.I think what I'm getting at is that master boxes have prerequisites of all 16 boxes in the profession so they should give some significant advantage - not bigger than any full column, but better than any one box and encompassing all of the columns. So, by mastering, you've not only spent the skillpoints but also invested them into one profession limiting your diversity. One of the big advantages of dabbling is the diversity you can create.
thingsCAN be properly balancedsolelythrough skill points.
SHOULD BE:
things CAN be properly balanced solely through skill points, but taking prerequisites into account can add another level.Oops, added the beginning of the this then moved to correct something else and forgot to finish it. Kinda didn't make sense unfinished.
There really should be clear roles for what professions do, essentially the more skills you take from that profession the better you can perform that role. The trick is to really ensure that the specials and skills which are really valuable for the role of that profession are near the top of the tree, this ensures that a master will always be better in that role than someone who dabbles. This isn't just a case of 'power' as much as it's a situation of 'functionality'.
Lets take the pistoleer for example, this is clearly a profession designed for one on one combat or close range fighting which allows the player to avoid more damage while slowly chipping away at the enemy. At the moment though the profession has just as much power to cause damage as your typical rifleman when you compare a master marksman with a master rifleman. Put simply the place to start is to imagine that all combat professions when in a group all are valued because they fill seperate roles, a team which doesn't have at least one of every combat profession should effectively have a clear weakeness. This also extends to the combat support professions such as healers. When it comes to crafters the same applies but to the economy, if you have a community with every crafter than you should technically have a self contained economy at work. A community which doesn't have one of anything should NEED to look outside of the community for something.
That ensures interdependance which at the moment does not exist, let take the typical CL300 mobs in the game or even the CL200+. None of these can be tackled by a well formed group, the ONLY way to overcome them is with raw force and no brains. That is the flaw in the combat system because if you want to make professions meaningfull then it means a group with one of every combatant profession would be a near-unstopable force as they can do anything and overcome any enemy through tactics rather than raw firepower The strength of dabbling would need to be multiple tactical options rather than power, someone who dabbles in a melee profession and a ranged profession should lose a one on one battle with someone who specialized in one or another. If they go into melee with someone who has dedicated more skill points to melee profession then they should almost always lose because of decreased power however if they then decided to use ranged weapons they could prey on the opponents weakness. Specialising should always = more power but less flexability, dabbling should always = more flexability but less power. A simple analogy is that if someone who has dedicated their life to the martial arts went up against someone who had studied firearms and martial arts when in a one on one martial arts fight the winner would be certain, however if the dabbler pulled out a gun he would gain a slight advantage over the martial arts master if he exploited his opponents weakness.
Specializing should always lead to inherant weaknesses The good thing about mixing though is that it allows solo players to enjoy a wide variety of things in the game so I guess that is one of the strengths of the system, the drawback is that it's hard to balance such power as it has become obvious Like I suggested the skills should determine if someone leans more towards one role or several. The key is ensuring that each profession is fixed totally on a single purpose and cannot easily be used as another role. The issue also stands with hybrid professions, since they are a huge cost on skill points they need to do what they do very well and really be the most raw powerful professions since they are a greater skill cost than elite combat ones. technically by simple logic since you need two pre-requisite professions for BH and commando while the elite's don't even need one then a hybrid profession should cause twice as much damage as any single elite. Flexability really isn't an option for power, a profession in of itself should NOT be flexible as it means they fill more than one role.
The BH is a prime example, they have a heavy weapon skills, carbine skills and pistoleer skills. technically heavy weapons have utterly no place in a one on one fight which is afterall the purpose of the BH. The carbine is fine i think since it's essentially used for slightly tougher opponents and it's a supression weapon. But the BH really needs more raw power for one on one situations and the LLC really fits the role of a ranged support weapon for helpping groups due to the accuracy being low. A BH to be designed for one on one needs to be able to be able to really overwhlem someone but not do so well against groups or in a 'war' situation. Howver the current build for the BH gives them various potential roles and that is source of it's problem.. not enough specialisation. The other problem is starting professions, these are NEVER powerful because they are mearly stepping stones into specialized professions. As such they should always be a dabbling profession which has variety over power even when you master them
Combinations should never be 'better' at something than someone dedicated to a fixed profession or group of professions. SOE needs to sit down and hammer out a plan for each profession giving them a fixed purpose which is seperate from any other profession and is valuable in a combat situation. Saddly the smuggler is NOT a combat profession and doesn't really stand any chance of being due to it's ambiguity. This is yet another profession which is unpopular because it has various weak roles when it needs a genuinely strong singular purpose
Only what I think each combat profession would be focussed towards:
Bounty Hunter - powerful for one on one with NPCs, weak for warfare and group support
Brawler - varied melee dabbling profession
Carbineer - powerful ranged supression skills, designed to keep enemies pinned and at a disadventage
Combat Medic - medical assistance for allied groups and slowly wearing enemies down using chemicals
Commando - powerful group support and for dealing damage to groups more than induviduals
Creature handler - diversionary role, draws fire from induviduals and groups
Fencer - powerful melee evasion skills, slowly wears down induviduals more than dealing damage
Marksman - varied ranged dabbling profession
Pikeman - powerful melee damage dealing against groups of enemies, poor evasion skills
Pistoleer - powerful ranged evasion skills, slowly wears down induviduals more than dealing damage
Rifleman - powerful group support and for dealing damage to induviduals more than groups
Squadleader - designed to enhance the skills and coordinate groups of players
Swordsman - powerful melee damage dealing against induviduals, poor evasion skills
TKA - powerful melee evasion skills, slowerly wears down groups of enemies
This ensures that if ranged professions group together you have all bases covered. A pistoleer goes at the front, drawing attention but avoiding damage while dishing out minor pot shots. The Carbineer is right behind them using their skills to keep the enemy pinned in place and with as many status effects as possible while dealing moderate damage. The Commando is then right behind causing damage to the group of enemies at the front in a support role safe in the knowledge that the carbineer is making sure the enemy are blinding, stunned, dizzied and generally bearly able to hit anyone plus the pistoleer is drawing their fire. The rifleman then sits at the back, perfectly safe. Picking off induviduals one at a time. A perfect harmony of blaster fire.
Melee professions to have all bases covered when groups. Fencers and TKA go at the front, drawing the enemies attention and generally ensuring they are at a disatvantage. The Pikeman is then causing damage to the group all at once while the swordsman takes up the role of beating down induviduals.
You can then combine all of these in a war if you want. Melee professions at the front with the pistoleers generally drawing attention while avoiding getting hurt. The commando and carbineer right behind them just out of harms way, the carbineer making sure the enemy is pinned as much as possible whole the commando dishes out damage to entrire groups at once. The rifleman at the back is then cleaning up by picking off the weaker ones.
You can even extend this to one on one, if a rifleman goes in against a carbineer then it could go either way. The carbineer ensures that the rifleman has so many status effects that he struggles to accurate respond while also causing only moderate damage, the rifleman however only needs one or two clean shots to put away the carbineer for good. Thus it's a nice 50/50 battle based entirely on some lucky chance rolls assuming both are playing it smart.
Sorry if that is unclear butit was taking me 15 minutes trying to find out what the forum software thought was invalid HTML when I had the questions copied and pasted to the topic. Whatever TH writes his posts with the forum doesn't like you copying and pasting it no matter what you do. PLEASE stop using whatever you're using TH cause it's a pain in the ass trying to fix it.
Take a column from any skilltree and invest mega SP into it.
For Pistoleer lets say, put 75% of your SP into a continuation of Quickdraw or Trickshot.
If you go quickdraw, you blow the speedcap, maybe dual wield, new specials like a rapid fire shot or a nice run & gun bonus.
If you go Trickshot, maybe you get new special that are more flashy in terms of animation and more impactful in terms of damage. And targeted damage, not random HAM.
Maybe for the sniper branch of rifles, have a nice, but slow, special that brings up a zoomed set of crosshairs. During the time between shots you can aim and click to lock your shot onto a specific area. The better your aim, maybe it kicks up your min & max dmg for the shot. Bring more realism to it and make it a bit more fun.
Maybe a CH going up the empathy tree has the ability to persuade critters in the wild to do their will.
Maybe a squad leader could... Nah, there's no hope for them.
And another thing....
It seems that DABBLING is taboo here. Why is that? I mean, if pistols give you +X to dodge, and fencing gives you +x to dodge, that should make them a natural combo! X + X = X? If you don't like the way the numbers add up, take some of the mods away from each class. People should mix and match to get better combos.
/channelfireball Xenothaulus
As others have said, a Master sure be distinctive and have a uniques role. Whereas, the hybrid (dabbler) should have some of the class abilities, but they should be unable to access the special abilities that should be at the top levels of the class.
An example of a skill tree that has tried to address this is CH (note, I only am referring to the skill tree, the class itself is no longer viable to me). The benefit of the class is distributed all across the trees, so taking 1 line will get limited benefit. In contrast--just as an example--if you wanted the benefit of Meditation or perhaps the defense mods, you'd take just that 1 line of TK, or if you want to use a Flame Thrower you use (again) just 1 line of Commando.
If the trees were made to give more benefit to those who take more of the lines, instead of allowing a single column to grant the hybrid so much of the class's rewards, then there would be greater distinction between the masters and the hybrids. Both would fill a role, but would not so closely mimic each other. As it stands now, a hybrid (and there are many combinations that work like this) is more powerful and/or useful than any one of his/her parent classes.
Also, for the record--there will never be true balance and there should not be. A master commando should never lose to a novice artisan in a fight (just an example), as the two classes and skill levels would suggest. We are far better served if we fix the existing problems with the game and the classes, and then do what little balancing can acutally be achieved afterwards. A truly balanced profession system would mean everyone equals everyone else, and then you have no game. It is in the differences--strengths and weaknesses--that the game can be the fun and challenging diversion from RL that we want.
Just my $0.02.
Vinaddar
Thunderheart wrote:
In Massively Multiplayer combat, each profession should have a distinct role. Each role should help define the profession and have a relationship with its abilities in combat. In popular fantasy games, wizards cast ranged spells, warriors are “tanks”, and clerics “heal”. Each archetype has a specific role in combat. Additionally, each role gives any particular player group a unique feel depending on how many of each type is involved in a group and the role they play when combat gets tough.
In a Science-fiction oriented game, those traditional roles aren’t clear cut. Most skills and abilities are redundant because of balance issues, which take away from the unique feel of the profession. Many players have stated that they would like to see SWG professions have a more unique feel to them and we would like to know what your thoughts are.
One of the key advantages in SWG’s combat system design is that it escapes these confining roles, allowing players ranged and melee combat roles can be “cherry picked” or hand chosen by players. Players can create hybrid characters that can escape the traditional combat roles of having a single function in combat. This is an advantage we want to maintain, highlight and evolve.
- What do you think the strengths of professions mix and match are
Diversity. A player can pick up additional professions in order to either offset an inherit weakness in a profession or expand upon its strengths. Picking up an additional profession should however not add "power" straight on top of your current profession. It should allow a player to be effective in different scenarios.
An example would be a Rifleman|Fencer combo. Such a combination allows a player to be effective at both ranged and melee combat. The player should not be a better fencer because of the rifle skills or vice versa, the additional combat situations in which the player can fight effectively is the advantage. Such a player will have an advantage against a pure melee or a pure ranged player but his opponent will still stand a fair change if the player is unable utilize his tactical advantage.
- What do you think the weaknesses of professions mix and match are?
The ability to add another profession in such a way that the strengths of the additional profession add directly to the "power" level of ones current profession. Commonly refereed to as 'stacking'. This ability leads to the creation of "uber-templates" that in effect require another "uber-template" to counter. While attractive to min-maxers, that are primarily concerned with one specific portion of the combat system, such templates force players who wish to engage in combat to build these "uber-templates" in order to stay competitive. Since these templates are created by stacking the "best" parts of different professions for the template in question, they inevitably negate the effort to add a certain uniqueness to professions due to the fact that taking up most of a profession is seldom the best, or even a possible way to build an "uber-template".
- How do you think we should maintain the unique skillset flavor the game is built on?
One solution is already in the game. Namely +defence mods in the ranger and entertainer professions. People will rightly argue that such a system is not true to the nature of a skill based system but the game already forces players to pick up sometimes even entire professions in order to reach the skill nods they want ( bounty hunter +[weapon]mods being the prime example ). Truth be told, while the SWG system is unique, it is hardly a true skill based system in the first place. As you said, it has skill flavor but that's it. I see it more as flexible multi-"class" system.
Ultima Online incorporated this in a ( IMO ) highly desirable way by adding combat bonuses to skills such as lumberjacking, arms lore, mining etc. ( forgive me if those aren't specifically correct, it's been a while since I played UO. Runesabre will know!
).
Note that such bonuses do not have to, nor should they be limited to crafter oriented professions only but it would help to stimulate a more diverse player population in SWG combat. Which is to be desired if the GCW is to be as all encompassing as the current trends suggest and it would go a long way to prepare for more active GCW participation from the crafting segment.
- What are some neat combinations that would be good for the game?
I'd like to see more Combat|Support combinations. First of all it would force the team to fledge out unique support professions. DAoC has lots of these such as blademasters, beserkers, druids, wardens etc. and SWG has a few, well, I can think of one, Combat Medic. Doctor may be another but I only see Doctor as a valid support professionif the template also includes an offensive profession, hey, the strength of professions mix and match. We can create our own support templates
One neat combination I can think of is [combat professions]|Ranger. Ranger is viewed as a creature centric profession. To be honest, that's too narrow in a game where PvE is dividedbetween creatures and NPCs. With the lack of creature content it has be either PvE ( creature and NPC ) or creature in both PvE and PvP. Rangers have no direct damage dealing skills. Their traps however could provide an excellent foundation for a PvP support role.
Another neat supportprofession would be the Squad Leader. Could be tied in with any other profession to allow for added group benefits, on top of the ones inherited by the Squad Leader profession itself. A Doctor|Squad Leader could be allowed to add group buffs ( subject to balance issues of course
).
- Anything else you want to say on this subject?
Yes.Curse you for making me spend what should have been a nice XP night on writing this. YOM at least 100K ofCarbine XP
Oh, and enough with the use of fancy HTML tags that we can't quote. Wont somebody pleeeease think of the children allright!
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