Your suggestions for SC2 Gaias?

[Zwiebelchen]

Your suggestions for the SC2 version?

I'm currently waiting for Fellow to come online, so that I can get the newest terrain from him, that's why I am a little bored and thought about the SC2 version again.

As you all know, Gaia's Retaliation will be remade on SC2. And yes, it will be fantasy setting. I am currently learning animating and UVW mapping to build the unit and attachment models we are going to use.


So this is what this thread is about: I want to hear suggestions for the SC2 version of Gaias Retaliation. Let me hear your wishes, ideas and the stuff you always wanted to see in an rpg ... But remember that it has to be possible with a reasonable amount of work (So do not suggest something like different dialogues depending on your race/gender/etc ... )...



Maybe as an introduction, I have some general questions about the gameplay of Gaias Retaliation II (which will be the working title of the new RPG):

Combat System:
Do you want to see changes to the combat system? Maybe tactical-round-based combat instead of realtime? Or maybe ATB, which is a mixture of both worlds? Or do you prefer the MMO styled realtime 3rd-person battles?

Skill & Stat System:
Do you prefer a skill tree or buyable/findable spells like in Gaia's I? Do you want stats to be learnable when leveling up (kinda like in Gaia's I, just with more variation) or "smoothly" in exchange for gained XP?

Classes:
This is what I am very unsure about yet. Did you like the 5-base-with-evolves system? Or do you want to select your class right from the start? Or maybe only have only one class that is able to have free access to all powers, depending on how you skill it?


Tell me what you guys want! I'm pretty much open for everything.

 

[S0ulseeker]

Combat System:
I rather liked the combat system, and don't think it should be changed, after all it was the style of the game and how it ran that people were so drawn to the map in the first place and altering that would damage the map I believe.

Skill & Stat System:
I'm not sure about the skills aspect I think a skill tree or the current 'Guild Wars' type skill system are both good, but I think stats should be learnable as leveling still and not 'smoothly' in exchange for gained XP because that allows you to create your hero the way you intended on creating him, speccing him certain ways and being able to change that any time if need be for a cost. However I am not sure if skills should be based upon stats, it just seems like it would be something rather hard to control. If you had the Skill tree it would be a little easier to balance where the more points you throw in the tree the better the skill can get, or you can always drop 'upgraded versions' of the skills as well or sell them & have requirements that you need the 'first' skill first before it can be upgraded or something.

Classes:
I personally like the concept of evolving into new classes and the current way it goes about it.

Comments & suggestions:
I'm sure whatever you guys end up making on Starcraft II will be amazing, because you guys pretty much rock, I've never really felt so excited about a Custom game before :]
As for some things I think you should consider in Gaia II is money sink holes, people are going to farm it's inevitable so it's better to get the sink holes in the game implemented early, like Gold loss per death, or max level requirements on potions, that way lower levels can use the 'cheap' potions that heal for like 200, but then for a level 12 to use a hp potion that heals 200 he would have to buy a different one for like 200 gold or something seeing as 200 hp healed from a 25 gold potion right now at a high level in Gaias seems way too cheap for the amount healed. I would also add reply factors in the map, something that will keep people wanting to play, don't get me wrong the dungeons are amazing but once you've cleared them and have gotten all the gear you need that's it, so I recommend adding 'repeatable daily quests' quests in which you can keep redoing (not all the quests, I like the fact that the quests saved with characters) and these quests could be randomly generated, like go to this zone and thin the number of wolves, or find the missing artifact that would randomly spawn somewhere in the zone. Another replayable factor I would add is the Arena concept that I've been trying to push on Gaias I. I think adding the arena where peoples can enter by themselves or as a team to fight off waves of monsters with boss waves spread throughout would be very fun and could almost be a game within a game. The arena could also be used for 1v1 pvp matches between players or 2v2s, etc. If I think of anymore suggestions I will most them, keep up the good work guys :] but if you ever get bored of SCII, don't forget the WCIII community loves your maps!

 

[Zwiebelchen]

First of ... thanks for the reply.

Yeah, as for the combat part, I agree that realtime combat might be more "difficult" and also more entertaining, although I think that round based combat is more unique, as almost no wc3 funmaps ever had that. But I can understand that it slows down the gameplay way to much.

For the skilltree or buyable spells discussion, I want to add that buyable spells also come with a certain money-sink that would go away when using a skilltree.
If I am really going to repeat the buyable spells thing, then I am definitely not going to make %-based spells anymore but will stick to the WoW system, where you would have to buy new ranks of the spells every x levels.
That is the pro of this system.

However, I - personally - prefer the skilltree, as it allows more "tinkering" and diversity between characters of the same class.

That was also the reason why I want a discussion on the "multiple base classes or one single class with multiple skilltrees?" issue. The latter case would be awesome in terms of flexibility, as you can literally create the character you like the most and can have (weird) class combinations. However, I would have to punish respeccing heavily in this case, so that people are still forced to actually make new characters instead of just respeccing all the time ^^'


About the money sink: I definitely learned from Gaias I in this case. TBH, the potions in the current state are like that because I felt too lazy to create multiple levels of them back then. I implemented a potion registry system way to late ... Now it would be easy to make multiple levels of potions, but it wouldn't help the moneysink issue anymore, as people would not accept another code wipe

Maybe I will add a poll about the skilltree or buyable spells issue.

 

[SwampRaider]

When Classes Evolve, they should acquire a new model. IF you have Ever played Twilight's Eve ORPG, they do this.
For example:

Novice(Villager model)-> Initiate(level 10: brown haired priest)-> Level 40: Mage(Necromancer Model) and the 4th job, you get to choose between 2 classes. one of them being An archSage(Kael model)


But I understand if that may be a hassle due to custom gear.

Another Suggestion:

Like SOulseeker said:

Arena: Cleaner PVP. and make sure people can't say -pvp in a dungeon lol..

 

[Zwiebelchen]

About the model change issue: This is not going to happen, as we are going to use only 1 basic male and female model in the map that changes appearance through different equipment.

I think it would offense the logic if the body of a human magically changes just because he went from Squire to Crusader or something ... (except god wants to make fun of him :>)

We will add diversity between the characters optic by having multiple attachment heads for the basic models and allowing limited Z scaling (at least if the attached models also scale like they did in WC3).

 

[HappyHero]

Combat:
It's perfect as it is now.

Classes/Skills:
I personally don't like the "evolve" system. I think it would be better to have a "base class" (like wc3gaias squire, thiref, etc.) and to the "personalisation" with skills/abilities.
If you'd like keep the skill-buy-system (i like the scrolls^^), then you might think of some kind of mastery system... for example, a good tanking spell, that can only be bought if you've bought some other medium tanking spells.
That would allow spezialisation and personalisation.
As an example you could obtain a skill that allows heavy armor, but you can only learn it if you've got taunt, shieldblock and xy.
To give some limitations (not allow uberclasses by buying all spells) you could just allow one spell per level oder make some cost some kind of points.

Just some Ideas.

 

[Reconcile]

Combat System:
Real-time is the way to go! Ever since the days of like "Zelda - Ocarina of Time" for N64, real-time has been more fast-paced and challenging then turn-based ever will be. Granted, Final Fantasy 13 did a GREAT job with making ATB as close to real-time as possible, but I still prefer "God-view" real-time over any other form of combat.

And while I don't care for it, 3rd person camera should still be an option though, as some people enjoy not seeing anything except what their character would see.

Skill + Stat System:
My suggestion is kinda a repetition of a few points made in this thread and comes hand-in-hand with "Classes." This is what I propose:

As you said, you're thinking of having one base male and female body, which is totally fine; you're right when you say your body just can't "magically change" just cuz' you become a stronger whatever. What I think you should do is NOT have INDIVIDUAL classes. Just have the male and female base character (Novice or whatever they may be called). Then, add in a very diverse talent tree that has a: Tanking Tree, Melee DPS Tree, Ranged DPS Tree, Magic Tree and Healing Tree and let people do what they'd like. Granted this would take A LOT of balancing to get it so you can't be a ridiculously overpowered tank AND healer and just solo everything, but I think it'd be cool. You could have talents a part-way down the tree for equipment requirements, so you can't have "rogues" in tanking gear to solve problems like that.

If that is too much work, then I would be totally fine with the GR I system of base classes and evolves - I just really like talent trees !

*EDIT*
I guess I could've just said that my suggestion / opinion is pretty much the 1st choice in your voting poll

 

[Failenx]

With the new editor, it should be easy to create a combat system with multiple keys and third person just like WoW or other MMO's.

I strongly suggest you do this, because a lot of the RPGs that will be going out in SC2 will have this, and a hack-n-slash style combat system(point and click to autoattack) will not work. I'm sure keybindings/hotkeys will be available too, and by the looks of it, it shouldn't be extremely hard to create this type of system.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

The 3rd/1st person cam is already decided and there wont be a birdseye view anymore, as (total opposite of wc3 gaias) the terrain will be designed to look good from grounds perspective. The map will use a witcher-styled camera system, which means you have mouselook but still view the hero from behind. Moving will be via WSAD or arrow keys. Attacking will be by clicking on the unit with the right mousebutton; but the hero won't move to the target on its own.
I simply dont felt like auto-attacks should be done by hacking on your keyboard ...
So basicly, it will play like a mixture of the witcher (mouselook) and WoW (right click to attack, hotkeys to use spells).
But maybe I will also do it completely like in the witcher, where left clicking swings the weapon and right clicking fires the currently selected spell.


So right now, the poll tells me that people prefer having multiple classes with talent trees. Although I like the idea of just having one basic hero that can become healer or mage or warrior just by speccing in the right tree, I will do it the way the community suggests, so keep voting on it! I want a representative result!


As for choice #1, I just want to explain how exactly I thought about that:

- All players start out with a base character that has 5 on each attribute and are allowed to spend 10 starting points on stats on character creation
- You gain 1-2 additional attribute points each level up to spend on your stats
- You gain 1 talent point each level up, that allows you to select skills in your skill trees, which contain different types of abilities like healing magic, damage magic, melee skills, ranged, etc. ...
- You are limited in your choice by the requirements of the skills; for example, trying to learn a level 10 elemental magic spell requires at least 9 points in elemental magic AND a minimum value of the matching attribute - in this case either INT or WIS ...
- Same goes for armors and weapons: Instead of allowing armor types per se to certain classes, it only checks for your level and certain attributes ... this will prevent "mages" from wearing heavy armor, as they naturally wont specc into strenght


I really like the idea and would love to see some cool "Fighter/Cleric" class combinations, but I can understand that people like the classic class roles ...

 

[SwampRaider]

I really like the idea and would love to see some cool "Fighter/Cleric" class combinations, but I can understand that people like the classic class roles ...

A fighter/Cleric would just be a paladin. why not add that as a class? and then using talent trees, the Paladin can become either a DPSadin or a Healadin.

I liek the idea of talent trees, because heck...you could turn a healing priest into a battlepriest if you really wanted too...but i guess that's what a monk is anyway


and jsut imagine if someone tried to do a thief/Cleric combo....

 

[Cake-FTW]

skill and stats: personally i like the evolve system and believe that it should be the way to customize your character rather than spending statpoints. but im not sure how easy it would be to make a "real" respec system for that. at least if you keep the class evolve quests (which i think you should)

 

[SwampRaider]

RTS view OPTION.

My Laptop cannot handle 3rd person mode in Gaia's.. so many things are happening... plus, unless a game is designed for 3rd person, i like the RTS view!

from what i have heard, my gaming computer can probably handle SC2 on medium....hate to see what 3rd person would do...but it ran WoW fine...

 

[Zwiebelchen]

RTS view OPTION.

My Laptop cannot handle 3rd person mode in Gaia's.. so many things are happening... plus, unless a game is designed for 3rd person, i like the RTS view!

from what i have heard, my gaming computer can probably handle SC2 on medium....hate to see what 3rd person would do...but it ran WoW fine...

3rd person cams in SC2 will be much different from 3rd person cams in WC3. You can not really compare that. SC2 natively supports custom cams, whereas in WC3, all cams are just workarounds.


The whole interface of SC2 Gaias will be COMPLETELY different to the WC3 version. There will be party frames, the control is completely different (Arrow key movement actually makes sense in SC2, as it has very small reaction time) and there will be mouselook.
We simply can not create terrain that looks good from both ground AND birdseye perspective. Plus, disabling the birdseye perspective adds way more feeling to the game.


I recently played around with cams and stuff and it works pretty well. The funny thing is: SC2 runs with more FPS on my computer than Gaias on WC3.