If I could make any changes I wanted (PITS/Stream of consciousness)

  • Okay, just in case the topic is unclear, this is pie-in-the-sky wishfulness on my part, and probably shouldn't be regarded as serious suggestions. I realize that the devs here are working on an upgraded client, and that has priority over most things right now, and that these might not be feasible even then. So feel free to take them with a grain of salt.

    Dynamic Basic Attacks

    Allow all classes to use basic attacks at both melee and range (up to 35m away). At a distance, they use ki blast attacks similar to what Spiritualist/Dragon Clan/Wonder Majin characters, dealing Energy damage. If enemies close to within 2m, they switch to punches/kicks/weapon strikes, dealing Physical damage.


    Skill Streamlining

    It honestly feels to me like a lot of classes have way, way too many skills, with far too many points being eaten up by prerequesites. In particular, the melee classes (Martial Artist, Namek Warrior, Mighty Majin) and their associated subclasses suffer from this the most. You really can't make a build that takes advantage of even half of their buffing options without gimping your offense completely. I dunno, maybe that's intended design, but these classes are already limited by being intended for use at point-blank range, where all the nastiest stuff happens. It'd be nice to be able to see classes intended to tank be able to tank while still having an offense. Many of the ranged classes - particularly Turtle Hermit and Plasma Majin - don't suffer this nearly as badly, mounting a capable offense while still leveraging their buffs and debuffs effectively.

    Specific Changes:

    Mighty Majin: Roll Evade Up, Spirit Up, Critical Defense, and Critical Attack into one skill with 4 levels, only apply Critical Defense & Attack's effect at levels 3 and 4. Roll Hardening, Defense, Guarding and Enchanting Breezes into one skill that is single-ally targeted and has 4 levels, only apply Guarding and Enchanting Breeze's effects at levels 3 and 4. Get rid of Detoxifying Breeze, put Banishing Breeze in its place with its functionality unchanged. Normalize all group-ally skills to 8m range on 8 targets. Provoke gets a 3rd level, where its cooldown equals its duration.


    Namekian Warrior: Roll Draconic Protection, Righteousness, and Defense into one skill, apply Defense's +10% Guard bonus only when that skill is maxed out. Roll Draconic Spirit, Force, and Resistance into one skill, apply Resistance's +5% status guard only when that skill is maxed out. Draconic Taunt gets a 3rd level, where its cooldown equals its duration.

    Martial Artist: Roll Fortitude, and Might into one skill with 4 levels, only apply the Critical Hit bonuses at levels 3 and 4, move it where Opening Roar is on the tree. Move Opening Roar where Spirited Roar is on the tree. Move Spirited Roar where Prepared to Roar is on the tree. Move Prepared to Roar where Speed Up is on the tree.

    Dragon Clan: Roll Kami's Assistance and Kami's Sponsor into one skill with 3 levels; level 1 removes Paralysis and Curse, level 2 removes those plus Abdominal Pain, level 3 adds the RP bonus, but the RP bonus only occurs if a status effect is treated.


    New Skills

    There's a few new skills I'd like to see.


    Martial Artist: Boost Kamehameha - launch yourself at a single target with a Kamehameha's recoil, dealing physical damage. Other enemies along a 5m wide line behind you take energy damage as you pass through.
    Fighter: Dirty Fireworks - A mediocre energy attack that deals triple damage on enemies below 30% HP. Enemies killed by this attack inflict its damage to all other enemies in an 8m radius.


    Spiritualist: Reverse Boost Kamehameha - use a Kamehameha to propel yourself backward away from an enemy. The target and any enemies along a 5m wide line take energy damage.

    Crane Hermit: Tongue Stab - a low-damage physical attack that inflicts paralyze and moves you behind the target.



    New Race: Frieza's Clan

    Descended from distant branches of King Cold's line, these cultured-yet-deadly extraterrestrials bring a combination of psychokinetic finesse and withering brutality to the battlefield. Their two basic classes are the Noble and the Berserker.


    Noble

    Refined, charming, yet exquisitely deadly, these ranged fighters prefer not to get their hands dirty with close combat, instead dismantling enemies with pinpoint ki attacks and potent psychokinesis. Their advanced classes are the Emperor and the Ambassador.

    Signature Skills: Death Beam, Crazy Death Beam, Eye Beams, Death Grip


    Emperor: Why kill you himself when he has minions to do that for him? The Emperor employs a small squad of elite soldiers to take enemies apart while the Emperor gives commands and occasionally takes potshots at distracted enemies. Adept at supporting allies, whether it be other players or their own servants.

    Signature Skills: Elite Special Squad, Squad Pose, Supernova, Death Psycho Bomb


    Ambassador: Very good at using both intimidation and suave to get others to do what he wants. The Ambassador uses precision sniping attacks to get the point across and is adept at getting enemies to work for him instead of against him. Surprisingly offense-minded, a proponent of forceful negotiations and applying leverage.

    Signature Skills: Do You Want to Work For Me?, Death Meteor, Volcano Trigger


    Berserker

    Brutal, cunning, and self-assured of his own power, the Berserker sneers as he pounds victims into the floor with savage physicality and bewildering ki prowess. Their advanced classes are the Marauder and the Rogue.
    Signature Skills: Shadow Crusher, Tail Smash, Ruthless Blow


    Marauder: Brutal to a fault, Marauders are huge, overt threats that rip enemies asunder in close combat and blast them to craters if they try to run. There's nothing subtle about them.

    Signature Skills: Death Ball, Revenge Death Ball, Reflexive Strike, Death Crasher


    Rogue: Adept at getting behind the enemy, where they do their best work. They're scheming, conniving, and cunning, and if you're trusting them further than eyelash's reach, you may be making a mistake.

    Signature Skills: Afterimage Strike, Tail Choke, Death Slicer, Death Slash

  • Verdant

    Approved the thread.
  • Hey Nerva,


    These are pretty cool ideas. I don't think for balance reasons we'd make classes melee and ranged at the same time, but we'll see. That might be a cool class specific gimmick. As for not sacrificing durability to gain offense, that also has balance problems as well. That said, I've got a skill rework about half designed conceptually, so we'll see how it goes!

  • The thing I see is, there's a lot of skills that are clearly meant to work together, but taking them all to useful levels means sacrificing other late-in-the-tree choices that are fundamental to the class.

    For instance, on the Namekian Warrior, it's pretty clear that they're supposed to be a hybrid physical/energy attacker, blasting enemies with things like Masenko and Mouth Beam until the enemy reaches Mystic Attack range, followed by yanking them into melee and beating them down with Sharp Furious Fists, Pummelling Fists, and Charging Fist. Yet, if you take the melee skills, you're not going to be able to get to the deeper ranged skills like Charged Masenko, and if you take those you're not going to have room for Pummelling Fists or Charging Fists unless you sack points from buffs, debuffs, and passives. Point being, if you want more than a double-handful of skills, you have to spread yourself thin.

    Perhaps this will illustrate the point better. Every character gets 69 skill points over the course of their career, basic and secondary classes. Here's how many skill points each class's skill tree can take:

    • Martial Artist: 102
    • Fighter: 82+Martial Artist (184 total)
    • Swordsman: 81+Martial Artist (183 total)
    • Spiritualist: 85
    • Crane Hermit: 100+Spiritualist (185 total)
    • Turtle Hermit: 70+Spiritualist (155 total)
    • Namekian Warrior: 96
    • Dark Warrior: 76+Warrior (172 total)
    • Shadow Knight: 78+Warrior (174 total)
    • Dragon Clan: 84
    • Dende Priest: 66+Dragon Clan (150 total)
    • Poko Priest: 82+Dragon Clan (166 total)
    • Mighty Majin: 107
    • Ultimate Majin: 73+Mighty Majin (180 total)
    • Grand Chef Majin: 76+Mighty Majin (183 total)
    • Wonder Majin: 86
    • Plasma Majin: 82+Wonder Majin (168 total)
    • Karma Majin: 88+ Wonder Majin (174 total)

    Hopefully I haven't miscounted - I can guarantee I'm not off by much even if I have. The average of 1st class skill points is ~93.3. The average of 2nd class skill points is 79.5. The average of total skill points across all 2nd classes is ~172.8 points.

    Notice something? Turtle Hermits and Dende Priests have the fewest skill points needed to max out their entire tree. This also means that they don't have to spread themselves as thinly when building, and can leverage more of the raw power of their class because they have fewer skill points wasted on useless prerequisite skills that aren't part of their playstyle. They also tend to be some of the most dominant forces in PvP and group play from what I've seen, too - ever wonder if there's a connection there?


    Meanwhile, the Martial Artist, Warrior, and Mighty Majin have some of the most hungry skill trees in the entire game. That means if you want to reach deep into their trees, you'll be blowing a lot of points on prereqs. This hurts Martial Artists the most, because not only is their 1st class skill tree one of the hungriest (second only to the Mighty Majin), but their second classes are also fairly point-intensive. This means that not only do they have to ignore most of the things their class can do, but they also don't show their real power until fairly late in the game.

    I'd like to see more classes pared down to the level of the Turtle Hermit and Dende Priest, with skills rolled into others and skill points needed to get further into their tree softened a bit. At least in my opinion, it'd be a lot more fun that way, as you can do more of what your class is capable of and you'll have a wider variety of tools to choose from, even if those tools aren't strictly better than what you'd have otherwise. It's not fun to be a one-trick pony, but the way the skill system is designed, you almost have to be in order to be effective.

  • It's a lot more fun to be a well balanced, well designed one trick pony than it is for every class to be able to do everything. If classes can spec into tank + damage, or melee + ranged, then we can't make any powerful tank, damage, melee, or ranged skills because everything will just be too strong and too variable, and there won't be any point in classes at all. We're probably not going further that direction, the game is already too far in that direction.

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