Carinth
14-04-04, 21:13
It is my belief that as long as weapons/abilities are shared between classes, then we will never be able to balance them. The best example is the Heal spell. The basic heal is available to everyone, therefor it must have the healing power to handle everyone. At the same time though, this is the new ppu's primary spell. Is a new ppu supposed to have the same power as a capped Tank, in terms of healing? If you make the heal powerful enough for a Tank, then you make it too powerful for a new ppu and overpower the entire ppu class. If you make the heal powerful enough for a new ppu (in comparison to better heals they get later), then you weaken the Tanks. This has been happening between Monks and PE's for a long time now. Half the hybrid nerfs messed with PE's too. There is no way to resolve this unless each class has it's own unique set, any overlapping should be kept at a minimum because overlap causes balance problems. So here's my idea:
There are 3 primary architypes in Neocron. You have your psionic specialists, who use psi for offense/defense. You have your tech specialists, who use tools and gadgets for offense/defense. You have your combat specialists, who use weapons of all kinds for offense/defense. These three are the Monk, Spy, and Tank. I'll get the private eye's later, they'll be a true JOAT.
Little needs to be changed with Monks, except for balancing their abilities with the other's. The only problem are Hybrids, which I'll deal as a Monk JOAT. Hybrids will not have access to apu or ppu spells, they will have Hybrid Spells. These spells will have both offensive and defensive powers. For example the equivalant of fireshield or energy drain or health leech. Some of their spells will be mostly offensive, some will be mostly defensive, some will be both. Special care will hafta be taken to make sure the pure monks abilities surpass the hybrids in a team. Outside team based fighting tho, the hybrid should have the advantage.
Spies will give up all guns, the case could be made for a sniper rifle maybe, but that would be an exception. Instead spies will use gadgets in the same way that monks use psi. Stealth is obviously the best example ingame. Offensive tools would be things like Tasers, Grenades, Turrets (maybe mannable), Landmines, and im sure there are many more gadgets that could be come up with. Likewise there will be defensive gadgets, force fields, medkits, and syringes to name a few. In short Spies can choose to be like Monks are, some can specialize in offensive gadgetry while others specialize in defensive. Having two dif classes as cleric types may seem redundant, but it'll actualy help the game. Much problem comes from ppu's being required for everything. Well if a spy medic works just as well, people are nolonger dependant on one class. To be make it interesting, spies should not be clones of monks. There should not be a coppy of every monk ability just with a different name. Vital's will be replicated, like medkits/heal, forcefield/shelter. But they can act differently because of how they're formed. For example a forcefield could be placed in a spot to protect a hacker or to reinforce the defense of an op. Syringes with custom drugs would be like monk's combat boosters, but with different effects. For example one could be a health boost, another a stamina boost, or maybe a weaponlore boost. Lots of thinking will be needed to make similar but not the same abilities on both sides and to balance them apropriately. I'm sure it can be done though, the possibiltiies are endless.
Then we have Tanks, who are combat specialists. Doesn't anyone find it odd that Tanks are so specialized in heavy weapons/melee? That is not very fitting of a combat specialist. They should be able to specialize in an array of different weapon types. You should have rifle Tanks, pistol Tanks, heavy Tanks, melee Tanks, etc. They'll be using armor for defense and limited medkits to heal.
Last are PE's, who've been the most difficult class to balance. By definition they should have access to everyone's abilities in a limited form, but not be as good as anyone in their specialty. This is quite a paradox. Currently PE's are more or less spies with a better defense. What I see is a unique line of PE weapons which are mergers of the architypes. For example Guns which are reinforced with Psi or Gadgets reinforced with Psi or Guns reinforced with Gadgets. How about a pistol with bullets that have a stored psi charge which is released on impact. A knife with a case of destructive nanobots attached to it which increase the damage done when you wound someone. There are tons of possibilities for combinations of psi/tech/guns.
There's my idea, I'm sure it'll have its own problems, but I think it would make the game so much more interesting. As it is it's really boring and confusing to have 3/4 classes use guns and 1/4 use psi. But at the same time let everyone use psi to some degree.
There are 3 primary architypes in Neocron. You have your psionic specialists, who use psi for offense/defense. You have your tech specialists, who use tools and gadgets for offense/defense. You have your combat specialists, who use weapons of all kinds for offense/defense. These three are the Monk, Spy, and Tank. I'll get the private eye's later, they'll be a true JOAT.
Little needs to be changed with Monks, except for balancing their abilities with the other's. The only problem are Hybrids, which I'll deal as a Monk JOAT. Hybrids will not have access to apu or ppu spells, they will have Hybrid Spells. These spells will have both offensive and defensive powers. For example the equivalant of fireshield or energy drain or health leech. Some of their spells will be mostly offensive, some will be mostly defensive, some will be both. Special care will hafta be taken to make sure the pure monks abilities surpass the hybrids in a team. Outside team based fighting tho, the hybrid should have the advantage.
Spies will give up all guns, the case could be made for a sniper rifle maybe, but that would be an exception. Instead spies will use gadgets in the same way that monks use psi. Stealth is obviously the best example ingame. Offensive tools would be things like Tasers, Grenades, Turrets (maybe mannable), Landmines, and im sure there are many more gadgets that could be come up with. Likewise there will be defensive gadgets, force fields, medkits, and syringes to name a few. In short Spies can choose to be like Monks are, some can specialize in offensive gadgetry while others specialize in defensive. Having two dif classes as cleric types may seem redundant, but it'll actualy help the game. Much problem comes from ppu's being required for everything. Well if a spy medic works just as well, people are nolonger dependant on one class. To be make it interesting, spies should not be clones of monks. There should not be a coppy of every monk ability just with a different name. Vital's will be replicated, like medkits/heal, forcefield/shelter. But they can act differently because of how they're formed. For example a forcefield could be placed in a spot to protect a hacker or to reinforce the defense of an op. Syringes with custom drugs would be like monk's combat boosters, but with different effects. For example one could be a health boost, another a stamina boost, or maybe a weaponlore boost. Lots of thinking will be needed to make similar but not the same abilities on both sides and to balance them apropriately. I'm sure it can be done though, the possibiltiies are endless.
Then we have Tanks, who are combat specialists. Doesn't anyone find it odd that Tanks are so specialized in heavy weapons/melee? That is not very fitting of a combat specialist. They should be able to specialize in an array of different weapon types. You should have rifle Tanks, pistol Tanks, heavy Tanks, melee Tanks, etc. They'll be using armor for defense and limited medkits to heal.
Last are PE's, who've been the most difficult class to balance. By definition they should have access to everyone's abilities in a limited form, but not be as good as anyone in their specialty. This is quite a paradox. Currently PE's are more or less spies with a better defense. What I see is a unique line of PE weapons which are mergers of the architypes. For example Guns which are reinforced with Psi or Gadgets reinforced with Psi or Guns reinforced with Gadgets. How about a pistol with bullets that have a stored psi charge which is released on impact. A knife with a case of destructive nanobots attached to it which increase the damage done when you wound someone. There are tons of possibilities for combinations of psi/tech/guns.
There's my idea, I'm sure it'll have its own problems, but I think it would make the game so much more interesting. As it is it's really boring and confusing to have 3/4 classes use guns and 1/4 use psi. But at the same time let everyone use psi to some degree.