[.98][Beta4][Feedback]WTB Sovereign Classes

This would make a nice mod.

Classes, booo.  I'm afraid you're not going to sell me on the idea of "less" freedom in my Lord creation.  I prefer classless systems like it is right now.

What there needs to be, however, is more room for specialization though, and mechanics that encourage specialization. More special combat abilities you can buy, and mechanics like increasing successive spellbook costs to make purchasing more than one or two different spell schools prohibitively expensive. 

You're perfectly capable of creating a specialized character under an open system.  All "classes" do is artificially restrict the choices to cookie cutter templates to form someone *elses* idea of a character, not your own.  If I want a character that can wield a broadsword, cast fireballs, *and* heal, I want to be able to make that character. But there should be mechanics in place that make that kind of versatility expensive, or otherwise reward specialization.  Right now it's too easy to carry 4 or 5 spell books, and none of the special combat abilities are in yet.

I believe that the suggestion would require some major changes to the current class, histories, and character creation system. It's best to keep it as simple as possible. HOWEVER...

It IS a nice mod, lol. I'm working on something simular to give more depth to the current histories, classes, and traits. I've given each history and trait a "passive" bonus to make each one a little more unique and meaningful. This also gives you the choice to station a character in a city... or send them out exploring/conquering.

See this thread: https://forums.elementalgame.com/389736

Feel free to contribute ideas or code

Umm... Its not like you wouldn't be able to cast any spell you have books for...  Or wear any armor... you would just have EXTRA specialized skills.  Widely(possibly infinitely) expandable growth.  Hell you could even throw in the madness that was FFT or FF2j, you know... like 30 jobs, oh and you can subjob.

Look at it this way... if you intend to cast spells... what are you going to invest points in.  Simple Int + Ess + Con, and thats it... why wouldn't you want to have more caster oriented perks to go with that.

Nothing claims you couldn't have 'Titan's Fist' as a Class for empire, that had a more freeform mixed skillset.

I like the classless system. 

Specialization is when you choose to get A and will never get B.

Specialization usually appeals to people by creating playstyles that can't be reproduced without certain specialization. They often include "Tasty" features.

This uniqueness is what supposedly adds replayabiltiy. IMHO it quite often adds an attachment to a playstyle instead.

This uniqueness is also why a simple system that allows to choose where to put points at level-up is not considered a specialization based system.

Freedom is when you choose to have more of A while having less of B.

Freedom usually appeals to people by allowing to tailor (more or less) ones playstyle to ones liking.

This freedom is what supposedly gives "unrestricted development", in fact however development is still restricted by efficiency which is a good thing, since an RPG combat system where every character is equally effective is a boring RPG combat system.

This freedom contradicts any class or specialization system. This does not mean that they cannot be mixed, this just means that the more freedom the system gains the less specialization it has left (and vise versa).

So YES, classes mean less freedom in sovereign creation.

I'm not saying one system is absolutely better than another. It's all just a matter of preference. Personally I enjoy both when they are well made. And personally I'd prefer not to lose freedom in favor of specialization in Elemental.

P.S. and don't get me started on FFT. It really was madness, mainly because those jobs affected stat advancement... ugh...

Great idea. You should re-post this in the "Idea's Section" . I'd recomend with a tag of "Customization" or "Game-Play". Great idea though

But the freedom of a Classless system is in reality just an illusion.  You will still have the same number of points as anyone else at the same level. Effective and Efficient use of those points towards the end that is victory will encourage 'stacking' of certain stats...

E.G. figure your sovereign taps out at 20(just for giggles) under the current system of b4.

• Take a 'balanced character' That invested in both casting and in melee/ranged. He would need Int/str/con/dex/ess/speed so at 20 he is at around(depending on starting stats) 20 str, 20 dex, 20 int, 20 con, 24 essence and 4-5 speed. Not too shabby... but not really great.
• Then the 'Warrior' (assume 15 str 15 dex 15 con start, maybe less if he wants more spells) at 20: 25 str, 25 dex, 25 con, 5-6 speed.  Yeah... this guy will maul yours army... He does 35-50% more damage a turn than the 'Balanced'. And he still have 10 essence(+research) so he can buff himself with protections. Yeah....
• Then the Mage: 25 int, 30 ess, 25 con, 5-6 speed... sooo... assuming the mage is smart... he has titan/demons/summons... oh and he can hit you with melting touch 5-6 times a turn for 25-50 damage a pop... and he still has some armor, so nothing short of a 10/20man squad will really hurt him.

So what do you think players will gravitate toward(not that I blame them)?

P.S. I very much agree with you about FFT... should have been [BaseStatByLevel]*[(JobMod)(JobLevelMultiplier)]... Level up monk... level down Calculator.

I will, I am Kinda mentally developing it atm.

The freedom isn't an illusion. It is very concrete. Under your class system, you can choose to be either a healing character,  or a fighting character. You are physically prevented from being able to choose both.  Under an open system, there may be practical matters of efficiency that encourage players to develop more along one line or another, but they have the freedom to explore that and learn it for themselves, and to make the best decision about *their* character concept.

There is all the value in the world in the latter.  You would deprive the players of those choices, and actually diminish replay value.  Class system says you can only be one of these three characters someone else has envisioned for you. Classless system says here are all the possible abilities in the game; You're probably going to find it most effective to develop along one of these three main lines, but we have provided for a full spectrum of shades of grey in between for you to make up your *own mind* about, experiment with, and optimize.

Versatility is it's own reward. Obviously a versatile character won't excel at any individual area as much as a specialized character.  But on the other hand, they can do things that a specialized character cannot do at all, and a player gets to determine if the ability to do those things has a value for their own strategy.  A class system denies players the ability to determine *for themselves* where the optimum balance point lies between different aspects, like combat effectiveness (perhaps there is such a thing as being *good enough* in combat for the player's purposes), and empire support abilities.

In the end, it comes down to this. I prefer complete authorship ability over my own character, rather than someone else's authorship, especially in a game like Elemental which is all about giving players complete control of the nature of their own game. A classless system does not prevent players from creating the specialized "classes" you envision, out of whatever eventual abilities are available. A class system, on the other hand, *does* prevent players from creating some character variations.   This seems like an easy call to me, in terms of how to accommodate the greatest amount of player preference.

There is a reason there is no such thing as 'competitive play' in sandbox games. The lack of lockout to certain abilities makes competitive modes impossible.

Imagine something like what you want... in a Multiplayer form.  It would be impossible to balance, and all 'authorship' would eventually evolve toward nothing but an absolute cookiecutter.

People don't like to lose, and will often do things they wouldn't to avoid it.

Freeform is fine for singleplay. But it can't be balanced in multiplay.

Good thing Elemental is a single player focused game then, that allows player freedom and imagination.  The devs have made it clear since day one that is where the focus is.

If I wanted to play a MP game that trades off player freedom for some illusion of absolute balance among disparate "classes", there are more than a few of those to choose from.  Few though that ever actually achieve real balance even with rigidly defined classes. Balance is always a work in progress, over years for ongoing games. If you want absolute balance, go play Counterstrike, or a shooter where player abilities are the same.

Elemental is a wide open sandbox strategy game that gives players unprecedented control and freedom in defining their game experience, and creating the kingdom and characters that suit their own personal narrative. By all means, use the tools to make a Mod that narrows the game's scope if you want. But I wouldn't want to see Elemental be less of what it is. It has traded off focus on a number of subordinate game elements, precisely to achieve that freedom.

That is all well and good... right up until you finish the campaign. Then what?  It isn't like your staunch refusal to see it will just make Multiplayer go away.  It isn't tinkerbell, you can't disbelieve it out of existence.

MP keeps people coming back to the trough.  And limits on what any one character can achieve is what makes the game interesting.

That is why fallout 3 was such a freaking snooze.  You were 'free' to chose whatever you wanted... but the 'right' choices became painfully obvious and dominated the playscape of the game.  It was sad to be honest.

A simple way for class improvements; have them auto-acquire an upgrade (of your choice) at say level 6 and level 10.

Your argument is flawed.  You are saying that because some abilities are more useful than others, people should be forced to chose bundles of inferior abilities.  The far preferable solution is to address the inferior abilities, not to force people to play cookie cutter templates that artificially spread the useful abilities around, and limit player choice.  Id rather see a list of abilities that are all useful.

  If it were really the character "classes" themselves which were so good, once again, there's nothing under the classless system that prevents you from creating those "classes".  On the other hand, a class system keeps you from visualizing some character concepts, like an assassin/healer priest, who worships the concept of holy judgment, and gives aid to the righteous, while stalking the wicked and poisoning him.

  Elemental is a game deigned to give you the freedom to envision your own armies and narrative.  The biggest problem is that the Soverigns need *more* options right now, and better ways to make generalization more costly, like increasing spellbook costs to keep people from having more than one or two, and to have more special abilities available.  Likewise, the attributes right now are all more or less tied to combat.  There should be stats and abilities that support more alternate strategies, like diplomacy.  There are other ways to discourage overly effective generalization, than imposing a cookie cutter class system.

As for MP, even in class system games, it is inevitable that one class is *better* for MP than the other ones. It is inevitable that a few main strategies will rise to the forefront, each with "optimum" builds to support them.  When that happens, the devs look at it, and make balance tweaks.  There is no RTS or MMO that does not do this over the entire course of their lifetime.  In the big picture, one could say that Elemental is *perfectly* balanced for MP, as at least players are free to make the exact same sovereigns and use the exact same strategies if they so choose.

Besides, even setting aside the fact that the game is single player focused, designed around player freedom, there are far better ways to address balance for what Stardock has determined time and again to be a *minority* MP audience for their turn based games, than to impose a rigid class system on the single player game.  As you correctly say, expecting "balance" with custom characters is folly. There are far too many permutations to ever account for.  "Official" multilayer matches should be limited to the stock kingdoms and sovereigns that *can* be reasonably balanced against each other.  Allowing custom characters, content, and mods can be done, but any pretense to balance goes out the window.

I've yet to ever play the "campaign" in Gal Civ , btw. It is a sandbox game, and thats where the appeal is, sandbox mode.  These games have almost infinite re playability, even without MP.

I totally agree with Spyndel.  I have the best gaming experiences with open-ended character creation, or even better, like Morrowind where there are many options for character creation. In Morrowind you can create characters from a "cookie-cutter" set of choices (for casual gamers or those who don't like micro-managing these things), OR a question-and answer type creation (which is basically random), OR an option to custom make your own character by assigning ability points in any way you want, and choosing speicalizations. This way all types of gamers can have fun. But I think the way elemental is now is great. Elemental gives you both pre-made characters, which you can try out to assess what abilities and character types you like, AND you can go and make your own character if you want. I wouldnt change a thing!

Sara

I agree with Spyndel, Elemental is a singleplayer focused game for a good reason. Personally, I don't want to see Elemental turn into a Starcraft in terms of multiplayer. People can play multiplayer the way they want to and will. I'll likely play with my friends or people I know well. Some will play competitively and likely power-class to have the "best" characters, others will mod the game to their liking and do what they want with it. Things will be lost in multiplayer and it'll lose some of it's aura.

When I finish the campaign I'll play sandbox and mod. I doubt I'll even touch multiplayer except for playing with friends. I don't need multiplayer for my game to be "complete" or interesting. A solid singleplayer game is better then any multiplayer game any day of the week for me, however, I really can appreciate that Elemental has multiplayer with it.

Also, Fallout 3 was no snooze. Modding is keeping that game as alive as ever because you can change/do anything you want. Heck, like Sara said, Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 are some of the best RPG's in computer gaming history because of their setup. Don't like the "class less" system? Then go download one of the abilities mods and make them more meaningful. There is no "right" choice as far as I am concerned. My friend plays heavy weapons, I play small arms, another friend plays melee weapons, while one more does an intelligent character... we all play it differently.

Now try to imagine what Fallout 3 would be like if it was multiplayer focused. Likely no charisma, a poorly implemented intelligence ability, a focus on weapons, and a bunch of 12 year old taunting you or screaming when you kill them. Multiplayer isn't always the capitalization of a game and can often lead to it's detriment.

ALSO, did someone break the forums or is it just me seeing threads categorized?

It looks like they did a lot of changes to the forums today.  I couldn't get into the beta forums at all for a couple of hours, it insisted on giving me the developer journals forums instead.

This is not always true. Maybe for games that are MEANT for MP do, but a well designed game doesn't need MP to make it great for replayability. To me, MP ruins most games. Others, it's necessary. This is most obviously NOT an MP based game, nor should it be. If you've played any of Stardock's games, you'd realize their games are great on their own merit, without the need for MP or mods to make it good. And when an expansion comes out, it's not just little stupid things, it changes the way the game is played. Look at GalCiv 2 dark avatar to twilight, to some companies, that would have just been a sequel instead of an expansion.

it said that you could pick the Class of your Sov on the home page but they seem to have removed it now. i hope they do have some form of a class system.

I'm only really getting this game because it features MP basically means i will play with one more person, other wise this game might not have been such a great bargain might have gotten Civ 5.

the only games that would really being ruined would be RPGs like mass effect and etc.

MP just allows a human to take a place of an AI in elemental.

I don't know, I am all about classes to a point, there is nothing saying they couldn't add sub soveriens or sister/daughter/brother etc to a base and say this child raised as a... bla bla bla ... loves to scout and etc.. and have these classes imputed. There is no classes in this game, but I get what the OP is getting at.

It would be nice (if your not so into the stats etc) to have some base to represent something one is use to, IE healer, caster, tank etc.. even thou there is really no such thing in this game. At least to this point you could play these sovs or look at their builds and go "ahh ok ,thats how I would make a... "insert class here"  ".