Map Idea

[Prodigy]

I'm looking to make a rpg that relies more on a player's environmental surroundings and is fairly unforgiving to those that mess up on obvious mechanics.

Concept Breakdown: The rpg would revolve around classes known as mancers that may use the environment to aid their magic.

The Five Mancers/Classes: [and roles (Primary, Secondary)]

- Geomancer: can cause some cliffs to avalanche on enemies, or transform rocks into living golems, earthquakes, etc.
(Tank, Support Class)

- Hydromancer: can cause water to become steam, create mirages, summon water elementals from nearby water sources, and even freeze water nearby to create a bridge for example, etc.
(Healer, Support Class)

- Pyromancer: may summon fire elementals from fire sources or lava, may cause water to become steam, or simply control nearby fire, etc.
(Support Class)

- Ethermancer: May glide over some obstacles, may generate electrical storms, create electric and wind elementals, or use telepathic abilities. (Support / Healing Class)

- Shadowmancer: may blend into the shadows at night, call forth demons or spirits from the darkness, can vanish into shadows of enemies or objects to avoid damage/attacks, etc.
(Support, Tank Class)


"Instances" for these roles would be designed for three players minimum, but would be scaled to allow for more.

All support classes will get a crowd control ability. (stun, sleep, sheep)

All tank classes will have ways to avoid large amounts of damage that would kill other roles in one hit. (jumping into the shadows for shadow mancers for example and maybe some type of stone cage (multi-directional barrier) for geomancers)

The triggerset will determine who has the most threat by using an ai that pays attention to custom unit values. This means that the tank only needs to beat on one to get the attention of the others, leaving the tank more time to focus on avoiding damage, and allowing for more creative/elaborate boss fights.

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Lore:

In Progress.

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Any ideas or suggestions are welcome. I'm also looking for a suitable name for the map and for comments on practicality.

 

[Tickles]

This is a great idea. I've thought of something similar before. I never got around to making it, so I would love to play something like this. It sounds like you thought out most of the elemental aspects of each class, and it seems like it would be a much more strategic and balanced RPG than most of the others out there.

How will revival work? Something I thought of in the past for a concept like this would be that the player could click an object of their element to revive themselves after dying (with some minor cost). Obviously this would be a problem if there weren't any objects of the player's element in view, but elemental items could also be used. This type of revival just seems more reasonable than suddenly appearing in the center of a town after being hacked to pieces by an enemy.

By the way, when I think of hydro-, ice doesn't pop into my mind. Have you thought of creating a cryomancer who deals strictly in ice and freezing instead? It could be the only class with multiple crowd control abilities (freezing, slowing, etc.) to give a little extra spice in the class types.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Maybe add something like terrain affecting the spells, for example rock golems require the geomancer to be standing on a rocky tileset or they'll be weaker, pyromancer requires lava tilesets (which his spells produce as a side effect), etc.

Can I suggest Aeromancer for the wind caster? It seems more appropriate than Ethermancer.

 

[Prodigy]

@Tickles. Yeah, I have thought about the ice concept, but I was thinking of making two specializations for each class with their own talent trees. Ice would be one of them, although I simply have not found a proper name for all the subclasses themselves. Using fewer classes means I can add more custom flare.

I do kind of like the revival concept however.

I originally I had three ideas for revival. None of which have I decided upon:

1) Waiting in line at purgatory where you will be resurrected when you reach the front of the line. Something I picked up from the allods mmorpg.

2) Going into the spirit world when you die, and you have to fight through elementals to be ressurected.

3) Using character transparencies to make the units seem ghostlike, and youd have to walk back to your corpse to ressurect. (wow style)

Although I like your idea also, I'm looking for something unique in the respect of resurrection. I also recently had an idea of combining 2 and 3. For example, I would place elementals all over the map with invisibility whenever someone was dead, make it so only dead people can see invisible units, turn off collision for the elementals and the player, and have the elementals unally dead players. However, there is still the issue of making it so dead players can't attack living creatures. I just thought it was an interesting concept.

 

[Prodigy]

@cleavinghammer

I was thinking of ether as kind of a celestial mancer, one subclass being telepathy and psionic abilities. The other being an Aeromancer. I do like the title aeromancer however, and I will definitely use it in the map.

I will definitely implement trigger/spells that target different types of terrain.

 

[Prodigy]

Sidenote on subclasses: Subclasses would only have one role. For example, (if you look at primary, secondary) The Psimancer (or whatever I decide to call it) will be the secondary (healer class) and the Aeromancer will be purely support. (buffs, crowd control)

However, this does not mean that you can't mix and match your subclasses when using the talent trees. The extent of mix/matching will depend on how many balance issues it creates.

Sidenote on support role: None of the roles will be directly focused on damage, but I think the pyromancer will be the most devastating of the support classes in damage, giving you a reason to choose a class with less roles. Support is more for crowd control, buffs, and exploiting boss weaknesses. However, this idea can change if its unfavorable.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Perhaps make different subclasses with various specializations?

For example, a level 10 Pyromancer can choose to stay a Pyromancer, become a much more aggressive glass cannon class or a stronger support class. Alternatively, a Hydromancer can choose to focus on water (healing and support) or ice (Cryomancer, offence and slowing), or a little of both (Crydomancer?).

So you'd have a lot more choices than just the original five.


Also, I would suggest allowing for spell combos. Pyromancer creates a fire, then an Aeromancer blows wind on it to move it dealing damage in a line. Hydromancer dumps a mass of water on the ground, allowing a Geomancer to summon a Mud Golem. Geomancer summons tall standing stones, Pyromancer makes a bright light in the center, creating lots of shadows for the Shadowmancer, etc., etc.

 

[Prodigy]

I really like the combo idea, ill be sure to take those ideas into consideration. I still need to come up with a name for this project first though. lol

 

[Tickles]

Wow, a combo system makes it sound like it would be much more fun to play in strategic groups. As for a name, how about Mastering the Elements? Or is that too generic?

 

[Prodigy]

As far as the combo system goes, I have decided to give all of the classes three abilities.
Ability One - Alteration Magic
Ability Two - Destruction Magic
Ability Three - Creation Magic

Each ability will be able to target enemies, ground, doodads, and even cliffs. Different targets will have different effects based on triggers. For example, the Geomancer may cast creation magic on dirt ground tile to create a mud golem, a rock ground tile to create a rock golem, or on himself to create a barrier of stone around himself.

Now, a pyromancer could cast destruction magic on a golem to cause it to explode, damaging nearby enemies, or alteration on a water elemental from a hydromancer to turn it into a steam cloud.

While there are only three abilities, this would leave infinite possibilities for players to create interesting ways to defeat bosses and enemies.

Talents would do things like make your golems stronger for example, or reduce the cost of certain magic.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Seems kind of limited... Or do you mean that of all their abilities, only three will be combo-able? That sounds more fun.

 

[Kanadaj]

u could also make a spell system like the one in Magicka-liek u have 4 base abilities without effect, making a spell combo and a last one, a starter ability. The effect would change from te combination of the combo set before the starter is pressed

 

[cleavinghammer]

That'll depend on the kind of combat though, it might be too slow/complex for regular real-time combat.

 

[Kanadaj]

for that I can only say that casting a long spell in the heat of combat is what makes a mage ^^

 

[cleavinghammer]

Sure, but as it's an RPG (no smaller units to distract the enemy), all it takes is one stun and the spell blows up in your face.

...

That... might actually be worth looking at.

 

[PsykhoMarc]

Out of curiosity, do you have a partial lore that you would be willing to share?

 

[Prodigy]

Current Lore [Creation Story] (in progress):

In the beginning, the earth was bare. The wind goddess El cast the dust across the provinces of Naramonde, but she found nothing, but the bare land. Banished by the other divine, and left alone, she sorrowed. He who was her lover in heaven, could bear the punishment of her and himself no longer, and descended to be her lover upon the earth. He was a titan and not a god, belittled in the eyes of the divine was forbidden to her, and so the gods would surely follow to destroy him before the eyes of El.

After the wrath of the gods befell him, all that remains was the titans seed, the element of life, and so El cast it to the wind, and brought the first life to the lands of Naramonde.

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I'm thinking of other gods banished to the realm of mortals with different stories to explain each element in the world.

Fire - Punished for his ambition to rule the other divine. (Ambition / Power / Ferocity)
Shadow - Punished for following the fire god, and leading the titans to help him obtain power. (deceit / manipulation / sabotage)
Water - Banished for taking pity upon mortal creatures in the purge that came after the creation story, and saving them from destruction by the gods. (Restoration, Vitality, Mercy)
Earth/Geo - Sentenced himself to the realm of mortals, for he found the physical realm more comforting.

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As for current story for in game details. I'm still seeking a so called "Antagonist" or "Antagonist Plot" to base off the story setting.

 

[Prodigy]

@combo systems

When I say you'll be able to cast any of the three spells on any target, I mean any target.

So long as the destruction magic is not used (which is the combo breaker), and the target is not yourself. Spell combos may be in combination of three. Creation, Creation, Alteration for example.

I'm thinking of adding ultimate abilities that change based on what specialization that you take.

Maybe three ultimate abilities that can be used on the go that come every 10 levels with a level cap of 30?.

These abilities would use a percentage of total mana to use and not a set amount. Making time of use extremely important.

Any comments?