Divination RPG

[Lord_Earthfire]

Hi there,

I'm currently working on some systems for a new rpg map and i would like to get feedback for the current ideas i have got for this map:

Story (Short):

The island (insert name here) became well known for being a refuge for exiled soldiers, occultists and criminals, creating a multi-culture mercenary camp and for the rumor of inhabiting the mysterious "stone of divination".

This ancient gem is rumored to inhabit the soul of the god "Anub", sealed there since the creation of this world for betraying the other 11 ancient gods (More information about this will follow in the long version).
In this form, occultist, which are workshipping this banished god, have found an ancient ritual with which it is possible to merge the prison of their master with the body of any being. With this, it would be possible to bring this god into physical form, the dream of any of his workshippers and the fear of any of the 11 gods.

And with this, a footrace for the stone of divination began. Anub's workshipper promissed everyone, who would be is able to find this gem, the fusion with their god, granting this being infinite powers. The other 11 gods began to send their workshippers on the mission to find this gem either to destroy Anub's soul by shattering the stone of divination in the ancient forge of souls, which is also located on this island.

Many travelers tried, many did fail on finding this sacred gem and so the rumor itself just stayed. At the current time, only a few, most time insane, beings try to find this gem in the ancient ruins of Anub, guarded by dreadful demons and beasts, blocked by hundreds of traps and sealed by powerfull seals, only breakable by divine artefacts, located all around this small, but nowadays historical island.

You are one of these adventurers, seeking for wealth, power and honor, not knowing what adventure is in front of you, will you be able to find this ancient artefact and will you be able to take it out alive? And then, for which side?

The idea:

To create an orpg which is on the one side heaviely competition based and on the other side highly cooperative, since you cannot find the gem alone, but you need to work together with the other player, while you know that at the end, you need to get out alone with this gem, since, independent on which side you are, only the one who brings the gem to its destination is honored and rewarded.

This means:
This RPG will contain many pvp events while still being focused on heavy teamplay in pve.

The RPG will be also based on full character customization, since then balancing in pvp is almost an impossible task. (See features)

Edit: What i forgot to mention, most of the time you travel on the island, seeking there for the artefacts used to get to the stone of divination, the ruins of Anub will be for the endgame (You can say last chapter), althought you can enter it at the beginning of the game (not recommended, the creeps rip you into pieces).

Features:

Since i'm working currently on the systems, i can show what i have done and what i want to do:

-Attribute system (Needs to be done)
-Complete Damage System (eg. blocking, evasion, resistances, crit, magical crit) (Done)
-Projectile attack system (Meaning ranged system will cause in dummi missiles) Done, waiting for more content to improve
-Dual weapon handling (Needs to be done)
-Custom ability menu (since damage detection system makes spellbooks unuseable) (Needs to be done)
-Hero-independent stash and equipment system (meaning hero inventory is extendet by stash and equipment dummi) Done, waiting for more content to improve
-Complete stat control (meaning hp, vision, mana, reg, etc.) (Done)
-Flexible item stat change (meaning items effect can be modified) Done, waiting for more content to improve
-Professions/sockets (Depending on item management) (Needs to be done)
-Nutrition (Yes, you need to eat) (Needs to be done)
-Birthsign (Content dependent) (Needs to be done)
-God workhipping (Content dependent) (Needs to be done)
-Flexible class change and skillpoint system (You don't need to stay on your current class, you can change it like you need and even crossclass skills) (Needs to be done)
-Custom experience and level system (experience split and so on) (Done)
-Creep generator (Creeps just generate when you enter a region) (Needs to be done)
-Loot generator and statsets for items (Needs to be done)
-Reviving system on "revival stones" (Needs to be done)

Maybe more systems, the more i make, the less i need to hardcode

thanks to Bribe's GUI Damage Engine (Yes, i'm triggering in GUI )

Edit: I'm really unsure if i should implement a save/load system or not and when i'm doing this, what i should save. I won't save items for sure, because drops will be created with random stats (But will follow hardcoded statsets) and i can save many stats in one item (Items are just dummis) (I won't save that much, it should not be come too much effects for one item), saving/loading them would be really too much. (Since you have 1 hero, 2 stashes and one equipment with all in all 24 items). When i would add save/load, i would only save level and collected skill and attribute points. any suggestions?

Edit: I probable change the name of the rpg to "Hunt for divination" or something like this, ideas for this?

 

[Omnom18]

Hunt for Divination seems like a better idea. Also, you mentioned there were 11 other Gods seeking to destroy Anub's soul. Who are they, and what are their focuses? I would assume there would be Gods of Might (Strength rewarding), Zeal (Perhaps? Attack speed rewarding), Arcane (Intelligence/Magic damage rewarding) etc. Or would it be more specialist, meaning worshipping a certain God sets you on a certain path with abilities/items to go with it? For example, worshipping the God of Might (if you put one in) would award an item tailored to melee damage, or a new ability.

 

[Lord_Earthfire]

Workshipping gods will be a key in character development, since some oppress your selection of abilitys/weapons/skills by setting special conditions that are needed to workship them, while granting you sets of abilitys and sometimes rewards in form of items/skillpoints and so on.

In fact, if you workship a god, there are 6 stages of reputation:

1. The first one is the one you begin at. You receive nothing from you god and have to fullfill the conditions of your god on your playstile.

2-5: While you fullfill these standarts, you gain attention from your god and with this some skills and items which fits to the way the god sees the world, like when you workship "Carnaque" (Represents anger and bloodlust), you gain at some rank the beserk ability, which increases your stats, while making you unable to cast spells. The drawback of this skill is obsolete for a real workshipper of him, since the disappreciates magic anyway, so casting skills would cause you to be punished by him and would cause your rank to be lowered, while the bonuses are perfec fitting since you need to kill living beings to satisfy him.

6: this rank is max, here you gain major boosts and gifts. Still you are able to satisfy your god more, but only to gain some attention-based gifts.

This system would influence your gamestyle, since then you have to decide which god your are workshipping, since it can manipulates your whole stats.

By the way, you need to go to the altar of the god to receive the gift-items.

All in all, you have to select between 12 gods to workship, since you begin as atheist, you find some altars early and some later, and since you can abadon a religion (which causes high punishment by your former god and the loss of all skills (but not items) gained from him), you can change between them.

These are/represent (they have descriptions if i have a rough idea):

List

-Cruelity and betrayal (Anub): Althought his soul is banished into the seal, the cultists of him enchant you and equipt you, so you still be superior to a atheist of the same build. But in the ruins of Anub, you can still feel and you will be affected by the power of this god, drastically increasing your stats and granting you abilitys.
Appreciates the use of venoms and pain causing spells as much as the killing of innocent people. He disappreciates the use of holy weapons as much as the solving of quests which are connected with "good doing".
Hes is a real endgame god to workship and ending with him as main god will change the game ending. He is a perfect fit for damage-necromancer and assassins.

-Wisdom (Scientius the Lorekeeper): This god is focused on variety of magic skills. You will gain most time increased magical stats from him and increased amount of skillpoints, which turns him into the god you want to make a pure multi-elemental mage build.
He appreciates your improvement of magical skills as like as reaching level as a mage. He disappreciates when you become lazy (his attention lower with time in which you not proceed learning).

-Anger and bloodlust (Carnaque): This god can never rest to cause destruction and a bloodbath in every civilation. His workshipper always seek for new victims to slay and new blood to shed. And so, this god gifts his followers with more anger and more power but also with new weapons, most time empowered with a magic denying powers.
He appreciates killing of living, demonic, undead... of almost any being, at most he likes when you kill spellcasters. he disappreciates the learning of magical skills and the traveling with a mageclass.
He is the must have god for barbarians and carrier-type heros, althought for normal warriors and other classes he may be a bit to offensive orientated. Could be a god for tanks if they want to be flexible.

-Blossom and prosper (Chrysanthema): This goddess time is definitely spring and summer. She loves when plants grow everywhere on the world and take over anything artificial. This also applies to her workshipper. She likes them, like her flowers, to grow in intellectual and physical way, and helps her workshipper on doing so. Unfortunaly, she cannot really decide between both, turning her highest ranked workshippers slowly into hybrids of flesh and wood, with all cons and pros.
She appreciates when you gain experience level. She disappreciates when you help on creating something artificial (eg. blacksmith) and when you destroy plants.
This goddess is perfect for tanks which don't face fire or ice casters, since she grants high physical resistances, health and a higher exprate, which makes here best at the beginning of a game, since you gain experience faster than other heros.

-Zealotry (Need name here): For this god, life is an eternal crusade. His workshipper are always seeking for unholy and godless beings (In fact people who does not workship him) to find and to destroy. He will bless his crusaders with holy weapons and holy spells, making them able to face any possible undead threat. This never saw the world save from Anub and he was the first one who got to known his betrayal, so he is the greatest enemy of Anub.
He appreciates the killing of undead and demonic being as much as the killing of other gods workshipper. He also appreciates when you are just under his command (attention rises with time) while not wandering together with followers of Anub (then attention sinks over time).
He disappreciates the use of venom and demonic/dark/paincausing spells abd weapons (Magical) as much as the killing of innocent and divine beings and the use of assassination.
This god is probably the biggest counterpart of Anub, making him a great choise in the endgame. Although you need to fullfill many conditions, his abilitys are just great for combat.

-Law (Judicius): Need ideas here

-Hate (Need name here): This will be like an avenger, picking his enemy and skills against fighting this one (Need a little lore here)

-Peace (Pacis): This friendly god wants an eternal peace. No more fighting, just living. He seems to know that violence is never impossible, but for him, this world is currently a cruel place without hope. In order to restore this hope, he send his workshippers out into this world to pacify anthing and anyone in order to creat at least a little peace, and for this, they will need to use violence... His workshippers don't want to harm anyone, they are more likely to restore wounds, let other fight for them in this world, while they stay behind.
This god appreciates healing of other characters as much as the pacifying of humanoid beings and the killing of demonic beings, which are in the eyes of this god bringer of violence. He also likes it when weapons are destroyed, since they are only used for violence.
This god disappreciates the killing of humanoid beings, excommunation will happen if they are innocent. He also disappreciates assassination and any form of venom, necromancy or paincausing spells.
Since they will be no priest class, this god and his workshipper are the exchange for this. And he's usefull for warriors also, since they can heal themself, assembling a "paladin".

-Destruction (need name here): need idea here

-Time (chrona): need idea here

-Death (Mortus): need idea here

-Demonic (Need name here): need idea here

By the way, with "painbringing" spells and weapons is ment that "darkness" damage does not exist, instead, they cause heavy torment to the target.

Edit: Seems like i got too many "evil" gods here. Some suggestions which i can throw out/add? (Maybe i expand the number over 12 gods, making a group of "for" and "against" Anub, so he's not that much alone :>)

 

[Omnom18]

Trying to think of names... The Demonic God would need a near-nonsensical name, like maybe Xet'ozz perhaps, it seems right to me. Destruction could be Cataclysmos (first thing that came to mind). Mortus would more than likely enjoy it when Necromatic spells are used, and hate healing. Not a clue about Chrona. Judicious wouldn't work unless you had a law system in game.

 

[Lord_Earthfire]

:/ True, Judicius would be quite impossible zo make, except i base it on a "divine law", which is quite senseless.

I like the idea for the names, i added them.

I have thought again about the banished god anub and the two group-idea and i made the decision to split the gods into two groups, while the one group are the banished ones and the other ones are the ruling ones:

Ruling ones:

-Scientius the Lorekeeper (wisdom): (see above)

-Carnaque (bloodlust and anger): (see above)

-Chrysanthema (blossom and prosper): (see above)

-Caelestis (zealotry): (see above)

-Pacis (Peace): (see above)

-Chrona (Time): (coming soon)

-Cataclysmos (Destruction): (coming soon)

-Punira (vengeance): (coming soon)

-Undra (serenity): (coming soon)

Tha other 4 gods are banished in the 4 planes of the world in which this game takes place:

-The physical plane (Anub)
-The void (The Unspoken One)
-The abyss (Xet'ozz)
-The wasteland (Morte)

Wile the other gods could still unleash their powers from their exile, Anub's powers are sealed away completely in the ruins.

Banished ones:

-Anub (Cruelity and Betrayal): (See above)

-Morte (Death): Banished in the wastelands for eternity, this Morte deals with all souls of beings that have died. His powers were used by the currenlty ruling gods to seal himself with this souls from the physical plane to avoid any damage for all living beings. Sealed with angered and despeared souls, he seeks for a way to get released to take vengeance on the other gods. And here, his workshippers come into the game. Morte's workshippers seeks always for minions for his master to increase his powers to make him one time able to flee from the prison. For this, Morte grants his workshippers the abilitys to control the powers of the wasteland, making them able to seal single spirits from this plane to reap the physical plane.
Morte appreciates the killing of living, preferable other god workshipping ones, beings and the resurrection of dead bodys. He disappreciates the use of holy weapons and the healing of other persons.

-The Unspoken One (insanity): The name of this god was lost long time ago since he was banished in the endless planes of the void, a everchanging place, where nothing last for even a second. The complete isolation has made people forget about him and has driven him insane. His only workshippers in this time, shadows of beings that were one time send into this eternal planes, were also affected by his change, turned them into controlless spirits, seeking for the elimination of everything with a physical form. Since the hunt for Anub's sould began, Anub's workshippers opened the planes of the Void, in the hope to find an ally in the battle for Anub, but what they found was death. The shadows possessed them, turned them into the so called "Formless", The Unspoken One's workshipper in the physical plane. His workshipper's powers are directly linked with the void, making their bodys and minds unstable like their gods wrath. Because of this, this god's workshippers powers are unpredicable and random, turning them into a real threat.
this god works in other ways than normal gods. Instead of appreciating or disappreciating anything, His attention to you raises or falls randomly over time and you gain at random intervalls powers, only depending on your level. You can only workship this god when you chose to get transformed into a formless, which is a not reverseable process.

-Xet'ozz (demonic): (Coming soon)

Future updates to the gods will be made into this reply.

Are there any other suggestions how i could make this rpg unique to other ones, except the standart suggestions like: challenging and creative bosses, dungeons with traps and riddles and so on?

edit: I wish, that i could add rep to you, but my rep power is too low currently ^^

 

[Omnom18]

Hehe, it's fine. I'm just happy to help.

Just trying to think now... These four differnet planes are going to be accessable?

 

[Lord_Earthfire]

The physical plane is the one the game takes place, its just the normal world. Anub is sealed in a physical form, so this one will be accessable.

The wasteland will be the only plane which is not accessable, but the void and the abyss will be:

The abyss will be accessable throught portals which needs to be opened by artefacts or powerfull warlocks, it will be a type of quest which is needed to enter this planes. I think of different parts of the abyss in which different types of demons are living.

The void will be a place where you can only be send by powerfull spells and the might of the unspoken one. It is an almost plane, dark area which will be randomly changed everytime and in which you will likely to be killed. To be banished in this plane is almost equal to a sure death, since the shadows there trys to rip you into pieces, althought you can flee from it throught rifts in the reality, which are generated randomly. I barely forget to mention that a god is the only way to be protected from the possession of a shadow, meaning an atheist will likely to be turned into a follower of the unspoken one when he gets banished to early into this haunted plane.

 

[Omnom18]

Hmm... Interesting. Well, for now, I think the religious side of the map is pretty much covered. What's next to do?