In Star Wars Galaxies one thing that bothered me was that Pistoleer, Rifleman, Commando, etc were entire classes built around using a single type of weapon in a single combat style. This is okay in a raid situation where every specialist fills a role: Tank, range dps, melee dps, debuffer, etc. But inevitably you come up against the problem of balancing a specialist class across an entire game, including PvP. You either have to give the Rifle specialist some kind of strange close-up combat specials, or AoE attacks, or you have to acknowledge that the player that chose to specialize in Rifles is just out of luck when encountering sub-optimal combat situations like melee. Likewise you either have the Pistoleer and the rocket-spewing Commando do the same damage, or you relegate the Pistoleer to being a sub-optimal DPSer and try to make it up to them with crowd control abilities or some such.
You see this argument a lot in regards to hybrid classes in WoW: Performance in a raid setting is only a slice of the overall game, but raiding is about maximization of specialties, so it is cold comfort to a class able to do many things fairly well (healing, tanking or dealing damage) when they feel that their raid performance is unfavorable compared to a class that has no options to switch over to healing or tanking or has more limited crowd control abilities.
In essence, I feel that class systems bring a lot of problems with them, and so I'd like to avoid them. Because our combat system does not include the traditional tank-healer-dps model, I think that we are free to reimagine how players decide "What is my job in this world?" without having the answer packaged as a pre-fab class. By virtue of that we're not as beholden to balance concerns, creating content and playstyles explicitly balanced in terms of fun and potential for every class. We are also free to focus exclusively (for the moment) on combat and not worry too much about non-combat skills that are often weighted into a class' overall balance.
Don't Bring a Knife to a Gunfight
The first principle I think is important in terms of combat balance is that different styles of weapons do not need to be equal in all situations. Because we won't have a Blademaster class and a Sniper class, we don't need to be concerned about balancing knife combat with rifle combat. Instead a player will likely carry multiple weapons and choose what skills to learn or focus on in a variety of weapons, switching between them as the situation warrants. We can also devise unique strengths and weaknesses for various combat styles that will add another layer of tactical thinking to the game.
For instance, say we have a legal system in the game in which NPC police don't allow gunfights in town, and anyone brandishing a weapon is arrested. Perhaps gunfire would attract the local law enforcement. In a town like that, being skilled with a switchblade would come in pretty handy. By contrast, out in the wild wastes the ability to pick off an opponent from half a mile away with a sniper rifle is a clear advantage. A pistol may be able to be drawn more quickly than an assault rifle slung across your back, and surely one wouldn't be advised to use explosives or rocket launchers in close quarters or indoors. So our players will likely follow the Mass Effect model of carrying multiple types of weapons and choosing the best one for the situation.
With that understanding, let's step away from weaponry and consider some combat styles that we might want to allow players to learn or specialize in through skill training. Here's a quick brainstorm of some combat playstyles we could create skills for:
First Aid - although we aren't going to have a 'healer' role, the Kill Shot system could be further adapted to allow for non-lethal kill shots to extremities resulting in the need for splints, stopping blood loss, administering of painkillers or futuristic healing gels, etc. An ability to do some quick first aid after a firefight to get people back on their feet would be a nice set of subskills. It would be fun to have this be a fleshed out set of skills to pick some or all from, so a character's first aid training could range from the very basic to full out high tech battlefield medicine.
Armor - It's somewhat traditional to require training to use various types of armor. In our world we might even have advanced mechanized armor that requires specialization to use - something like Fallout's Power Armor. Relying on Armor in our setting might indicate a more head-on combat approach.
SpecOps - Stealth skills would of course have a role and mesh well with a variety of weapon choices, from camoflauging an anti-tank weapon to eliminating an unsuspecting guard from behind with a knife. Of course defeating security measures would be a great sub-specialization here.
Vehicles - From simple driving that all characters will probably have skill at up to operating more complex vehicles, a variety of training and specialization could be included for all sorts of rides.
Survival - Depending on whether it is appropriate to the setting, a whole set of skills could be gathered around the principle of survival in the wild - tracking, scouting, orienteering, moving quickly across terrain, recognizing natural dangers and using camoflauge.
Engineering - Remote control of drones, use of mines and tripwires, battlefield repair of weapons and vehicles, etc.
By allowing players to mix and match skills from these broad categories and decide on a number of weapons to train in, a number of different playstyles emerge that are often similar to pre-packaged classes but at the same time can also be highly flexible to allow creating the kind of character each individual wants to play without locking them into a class. We will build the skill system to account for the fact we expect all characters to be pretty good with a number of different weapons and to have the ability to flesh out their particular combat style by training in some of the above areas, mixing and matching as they see fit. Because I don't want people to be too locked into specialization, I'd like to structure skills to allow full use of at least 6 things, be they weapon styles or specialization categories like the above brainstorms.
Right now it is actually looking fairly similar to the Star Wars Galaxies skill system in that regard - in which it was basically possible to max out 3 skill trees. However, I was never a fan of the way those skill trees worked, so let's try something a little different with how characters become able to do the things they do.
I'd like to examine skill learning in two ways: Training and Practice. Training is the initial teachings needed to begin practicing a skill. Without training you can't use a skill. Practice is the experience you get as you use a skill you're trained in. The problem with Practice is that it inevitably leads to a grind mentality. Leveling up through the Pistoleer class in Star Wars Galaxies consisted of simply repeatedly killing things with a pistol. Incredibly boring. By contrast, in Eve Online there is no grinding you can do to increase your skills - you simply train them (although it does take time) and you are able to perform certain tasks. I'd like to find a nice middle ground between these that rewards practicing of skills but doesn't require or reward a grind. Here's what I'm thinking:
Training
All characters get a certain number of training points, which they can use to unlock the skills of their choosing. These unlocked skills represent the floor of their capabilities. No matter what activities they perform, they always have access to those skills. Some training may open up the ability to acquire more specialized training, but the mechanic is the equivalent of spending a talent point in WoW.
Practice
Upon unlocking that training, one's ability to perform a particular skill is improved by Practice. Think of Practice as an overcharge booster on a skill. So if you are Trained in Pistols and Rifles, but you spend a few minutes in combat using your Rifle and keep your Pistol holstered, you have more Rifle Practice than Pistol Practice and consequently your Rifle shots get a boost to accuracy and damage. With enough Practice, some skills may perform much better than without Practice, or allow you to perform special maneuvers - perhaps a Practiced Rifle user has increased accuracy while moving or can make called shots to specific body parts. A Practiced Pistol user might have a quickdraw ability and a Practiced First Aid user might be able to save characters that who have suffered from a Kill Shot and would otherwise be dead. Practice caps out at a certain point after which you cease to increase in benefit but stay "in practice". Trained skills that you neglect to use remain at their floor in terms of effectiveness - it's just like riding a bike.
So that overcharge you get from Practice sounds pretty nice - the question is how to prevent that from being a grind. On the surface of it you'd figure players would want to always have that Practice overcharge so they'd grind it out for all their skills. We can address this by making Practice a finite resource - for instance only 1 weapon skill category can benefit from Practice at a time. Using another weapon category will begin to drain the Practice from the first. Switching back and forth between several weapons can be very tactically useful, but none of those weapons will benefit from the intense practice and focus that using a single one will. In combat, Practice functions like being "on a roll" with a particular ability. If you're pounding your way through an underground base with your shotgun, kicking down doors and blasting away you'll find hit that hot streak via Practice, and become able to pull off cooler moves as a result.
Since Weapons are likely to be used a lot more often than support skill categories like First Aid or SpecOps, and it would be pretty annoying to have to go stealthing around or repeatedly picking locks in order to outpace your weapon practice, we'll probably consider support skills as a separate animal from Weapon skills, and allow more than just one Practiced category amongst them.
So something like:
1 Practiced Weapon category max
2 Practiced Support categories max
This cues us to design the categories of Weapon and Support skills with that mechanic in mind. We want each category to represent a distinct playstyle - what is the player actually doing with those skills. For instance if you are the only medic in your group and you are patching up your comrades after each encounter, you're likely to appreciate the First Aid Practice bonus. If you are charging headlong into each encounter relying on your heavy armor to protect you, you gain Armor Practice everytime your Armor saves you, reinforcing that bull rush playstyle. By contrast if you are being sneaky and stealthing up behind your opponents and slitting their throats, you'll end up with SpecOps and Blade Practice that reinforces that playstyle.
More later.
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