Single Classing to 50

[JonnyBravo]

I'm not sure if anyone has ever suggested this, but what if a single class was allowed to level to 50 single, instead of having to class three times?

I know for me, greater variety means more fun. I am not sure how others would feel about this though.

[Pol]

I think the general idea has merit - inasmuch as having an eff 50 character with only one class. Raising the level limit to 50, however, would probably be a tremendous amount of hassel to code and have many unintended effects. I'm not so sure that's a good idea, on balance.

I think the best idea I've seen presented on this (and apologies to the author, I don't recall who suggested it originally) is to have "blank" classes that only provide effective levels and hp and/or mana gains but no additional skills or spells or abilities. One retains the "identity" of their prime class, but can add effective levels and be competitive with the L30+ crowd without being forced to change strategies, equipment etc.

Cheers,

Pol O'Song

[JonnyBravo]

You saying that gave me another idea, a slight alteration of what you suggested. A blank class is nice for the eff's, but offers nothing new.

What if every class contained several "sub" classes that, instead of dualing/trippling to meleeclass/thiefclass/casterclass, one could dual or tripple into melee, thief, or caster classes. I'm not suggesting a cleric/mage/shaman, but a cleric/subcleric/subcleric, or warrior/subwarrior/subwarrior.

As a start, any sub-class wouldn't need to have any additional skills, just "blank" sub-classes as suggested, but they would be named. These sub-classes would be specific for a single class or group of classes, but not accessible by other classes. So you wouldn't have a Cleric/Warriorsubclass/Rangersubclass. Although you could have a Cleric/Warrior/Warriorsubclass, or Cleric/Warrior/Clericsubclass.

For instance, there could be several melee sub-classes that both Warrior and Ranger could choose from (although some may be specific only to one or the other). To give an example:

Fighter: Warrior or Ranger sub-class
Warder: Warrior or Ranger sub-class
Berserker: Warrior only sub-class
Fencer: Ranger only sub-class
Herbalist: Shaman only sub-class
Druid: Shaman only sub-class
Ice Wizard: Mage only sub-class
Fire Wizard: Mage only sub-class
Healer: Cleric only sub-class
Mentalist: Mage or Healer sub-class
Warlock: Shaman or Mage sub-class
Necromancer: Mage, Shaman or Cleric sub-class
Assassin: Thief or Thug sub-class

... you get the idea

Now, a single 30 Warrior could choose to be a Warrior/Berserker/Warder. A Dual 30Warrior/30Cleric could be a Warrior/Cleric/Fighter or a Warrior/Cleric/Healer.

For now it would be as simple as naming these "blank" classes under such a system, and no doubt players would level under them for the effective levels. In the future, one or two skills might be added to every "blank" class to offer a little more specialization in sub-classing. For instance, the below sub-classes might be given the following abilities upon level 30:

Fighter: Block - in-combat ability to block an attack, at the expense of landing an attack
Warder: Recuperate - out-of-combat ability to regenerate health faster (much like meditate)
Berserker: Berserk - in-combat ability to swing extra with a 2h, at the expense of health
Fencer: Enhanced parry - in-combat passive ability, increases chance to parry
Herbalist: Create potion - ability to create any potion with 3 effects, but cannot be given to another (or stolen) and only one such created potion can be held in inventory.
Ice Wizard: Freeze - out of combat cast, can freeze an enemy for 5 seconds.
etc., etc., etc.

This would create some very interested combo's, and since only one or two additional "skills" would be added to any sub-class, it would really be more similar to coding just one regular class with all new abilities - just spread out over several different sub-classes.

Thoughts?

[Anathema]

I think the general idea has merit - inasmuch as having an eff 50 character with only one class. Raising the level limit to 50, however, would probably be a tremendous amount of hassel to code and have many unintended effects. I'm not so sure that's a good idea, on balance.

I think the best idea I've seen presented on this (and apologies to the author, I don't recall who suggested it originally) is to have "blank" classes that only provide effective levels and hp and/or mana gains but no additional skills or spells or abilities. One retains the "identity" of their prime class, but can add effective levels and be competitive with the L30+ crowd without being forced to change strategies, equipment etc.

Cheers,

Pol O'Song

It was me Pol, so I will take credit where credit is due.

http://forums.finalchallenge.net/showthread.php?t=138&highlight=muggle

Honestly, I think the holder class idea is the most reasonable and easy to implement. Perhaps once you hit 30 you can go to Jack or Jill and simply class to the same class again. I do not think you should be able to do it like multiclasses now, but rather can only start the additional identical class once you have hit 30. I think making other changes as suggested herein would be too complicated and game changing. I think such efforts would be better directed at improving current classes, such as shaman and finishing bard completely. However, simply allowing for bigger single class players seems like a good idea. I am not however sure about whether dualed players should be permitted to do this. I need to think about it. My thought is probably not. I think there might be balance issues with and abundance of level 50 cleric warriors running around (although we do have ordains). Again, I just need to ponder that for a bit.

Shuger

[Furnock]

Maybe the problem isn't solved with beefing up the single class character. The main issue may involve too much benefit from the second and third class. Multi-Classing inherintly interferes with training and advancment. You are attempting to learn a whole new occupation while not letting your former skills diminish.

Really crazy ideas:

1) Skills that duplicate between classes like dodge and info are unavailable until your new class reaches the level necessary to practice it. Example: A warrior that goes mage would loose dodge until the mage class is high enough to learn it because the character is too busy keeping track of the difference in the mnemonic components between shocking grasp and magic missle. (no, I couldn't use any more prepositions in that last sentence)

2) Max HP and Mana gains (Lucky You!) go away or are reduced on prime levels. This allows the singular focus of one class to benefit over the additional gains of the dual or triple class. Another option on this vein would be only the original class gets these max gains when that class is prime.

3) Remove higher level abilities that would require a singular focus on an occupation. Example: Multi Classed mages get ID but not Imp ID, invis but not Imp Invis. Multi Classed Warriors get second attack but not third. Multi Classed Clerics get cure light, serious and critical wounds but not Heal. Multi-Class thieves get info 1 and 2 but not 3 and a loss of Backstab multipliers. Multi Class Shamans get harvest and weave but not cloak or rift (joke)

4) Bonuses never go above the prime or original class. I'm not sure how or if they are calculated now but any level calcualted bonuses would never exceed 30. It wouldn't be mulitplied by 50 (effective level) or 90 (total levels)

5) Having never been an OM or a Bard, I can't speak to that but the same spirit should be followed.

[JonnyBravo]

Maybe the problem isn't solved with beefing up the single class character.

Really we're talking about players having more options, and in some ways balancing the game out a bit more. To compete any longer, a person is forced to dual or tripple class. Not everyone wants to be a jack of all trades.

In my experience, every time an online game attempts to nerf (i.e. take away from) something to balance things out, players get disgruntled and leave.

New additons on the other hand usually draw the curious amongst true newbies (I personally chose this mud because of its tripple classing system, which gave it a lot more variety than muds who only have single classes). They also bring some of the old-timers back from retirement.

[Blanco]

If we have a warrior that's level 50 and wear metal (invincible), a level 50 mage won't be able to hit the warrior because of ac. Unless we change the code, so that everyone can wear metal... but limit the str instead, because metal weights more than leather.

I think it's a great idia, but i'm not sure if this is going to work out.

Blanco

[Pol]

Spellcasters, especially Mages, don't really need to contend with another character's AC. Spells don't take AC into account. SVS, yes, AC, no.

Besides, if you have a single-class eff 50 Warrior under the proposed system with Invincible AC, they deserve not to get hit. :) That would be a truly amazing accomplishment!

Pol O'Song

[jaeden]

Not so sure if I can put myself behind this..I went head to head with a metal wearer the other day, someone half my level. he didn't tell me his stats but he was a thug/shaman. I was wearing +13 hit, +22 dmg, and with an AC of somewhat armored and I didn't hit him once. I can't imagine what a level 50 warrior would be like in Melee combat.

[Solaron]

I've seen a mage/warrior destroy a cleric/warrior/om recently with only his lightning bolt. I don't think AC will be an issue.

[Belsambar]

AC is an issue if your opponent has a good swing. Now, on the other hand, trying to say Thug is a 'metal' class, really means nothing. Yeah, so they can wear AC8 metals. Whoo-hoo. Studded leather and heavy cloth pop AC6-7 fairly regularly, so I don't see much improvement here. And if a thug goes for AC, they'd still really need to wear leather items....dragonscale and elven chain.

Now, on the subject originally at hand, this was proposed back when Tynian also introduced us to Cold Ones. It was a comparison based survey, one of the things to compare was 'Eff 40 single class' better or worse than 'eff 50 single class'

Now, I really would like to see eff 40-50 single classers. I also see how there'd be difficulties. Someone earlier was speaking about an eff 50 warrior having the metals. Well, yeah. Not to mention they'd have 20 levels on their skills over a level 50 triple classed warrior. Yeah, the 'triple 50' will have much more variety, but skills are already decreased just from the split focus. While that may make it so if you DID fight an eff 50 warrior, it might mean something like, when they hit you, they land solid DEMO's with enhanced damage affecting their 30 dmg worn. On the other hand, they still have to hit you. If a mage were the same, think of how the spells would increase in power as well...they could wear a mere wis/int cap and be landing demo's on the small light bolts that were saved ((I'm not really sur ehow things would increase based on current scales)).

That is, of course, ignoring the fact that for level 50 you'd likely have 150K+ tnl's. ((I want to hear no complaints about thoughts of how much tnl that is. It's not a lot at all. I know from personal experience, it's REALLY not as bad as you'd think...)).

Now, yes, you could cap them at slightly above things, or add a bell curve to the scales so that the rate of increase is slowed as you reach pinnacle level.
Not really my area, I don't code, heh.

And now, to cover a couple other points earlier in this thread....

No, taking awa just because you dualled would really not be good. What good is dual classing then? Yeah, you'd still get benefits. And Bonuses from effectives. Whoo-hoo. Half the reason a class is something you'd want to take, is not for the skills you get at level 5, but the skills you get at level 25. Or 15. Or whatever.

Ass for tiered systems, or better versions of a class, yeah, it could work. I guess. I don't really like the idea on a personal level though. Just not my style.