[Class] new Tier 3 Class: the Wanderer

[Badziew]

Inspired by recent Technomancer thread, I decided to submit my own half-serious idea for a new character class.

I am fully aware that this idea stands in opposition to intended theme and style of the game, and because of that it will probably never be implemented, but I still had to post it to "exorcise" it out of my head.

Besides, some of the proposed Skills may have some merit on their own and could be reused in some other Class.



TLDR

- new Tier 3 Class: the Wanderer
- dedicated for neutral or pacifist players that are not interested in organized warfare
- modular skill-set should allow characters to specialise in different roles, ranging from team players to total hermits



General concept

Some of the Nexus inhabitants grow weary of the constant combat and would much prefer a more peaceful life-style.
Others are naturally curious and prefer wandering the world instead of settling down in a Faction Stronghold.
Such people may become the Wanderers, focusing their skill-sets on travelling and trading.



Class requirements

This is a Transcendent counterpart to Fallen and Redeemed Classes, with analogous requirements.

- a Character willing to become a Wanderer can be any Tier 2 Class, but they cannot be a Mortal
- the Character must have spent a total of at least 250 Character Points on Skills (standard requirement for any Tier 3 Class)
- the Character must have also spent at least 100 Character Points on their Tier 2 skills (analogous to Fallen and Redeemed)
- upon becoming a Wanderer the Character loses access to their Tier 2 skills to represent their new way of life (also analogous to Fallen and Redeemed)



Class Skills

Path of the Wanderer

- free Skill, obtained automatically upon selecting the Class
- passive ability
- Character have their outdoor tile-to-tile movement cost halved (similar to other movement Skills like Ether Stepping or Way of Lightning)
- the bonus does not apply to indoor movement, and to stepping into tiles that have movement cost penalties (Water, Mountain, etc)

Path of Wilderness

- cost 60 CP
- requires: Path of the Wanderer
- passive ability
- Character ignores movement cost penalties of special tile types (like Water or Mountain), so movement always has the same "half AP" cost on any tile type
- Character still cannot enter tile types that are normally impassable (like Void) or have special requirements (Olympic Tower, secret path to Terra Nullus, etc)

Path of the Burglar

- cost: 60 CP
- requires: Path of the Wanderer
- passive ability
- Character does not need to open a closed door to enter a building, although they are still blocked by other protections like Stronghold Ward
- chance of success when picking a lock is increased by 25%

Mantra of Survival

- cost: 60 CP
- requires: Path of the Wanderer
- cost of activation: 1 AP and 10 MP
- when the Skill is activated, Character gains 30 status ticks of Mantra of Survival status effect (stackable)
- while under the status effect, Character is immune to environmental effects like lava, drowning, or planar damage

Path of the Pacifist

- cost: 30 AP
- passive ability
- Character loses the ability to attack and to use offensive items like grenades
- Character instinctively avoids combat, gaining a permanent +25% Defense bonus
- Character's presence on a tile is ignored for the purpose of determining if Stronghold Flag can be taken, and in any other checks where it could be used to passively "troll" other players

Path of the Diplomat

- cost: 60 CP
- requires: Path of the Pacifist
- passive ability
- Character becomes unable to join a Faction, if they are a member of a Faction they automatically leave it upon learning the Skill
- Character ignores effects of Glyphs and Stronghold Wards and can freely enter any Stronghold

Diplomatic Immunity

- cost: 90 CP
- requires: Path of the Diplomat
- cost of activation: 5 AP and 30 MP
- when the Skill is activated, Character gains 30 status ticks of Diplomatic Immunity status effect (stackable)
- while under the status effect, Character gains additional +25% Defense bonus (cumulative with Path of the Pacifist and other Skills), and is ignored by pets, wandering monsters and other NPC enemies

Voice of the Messenger

- cost: 90 CP
- requires: Path of the Diplomat
- cost of activation: 1 AP and 10 MP
- when the Skill is activated, Character gains 30 status ticks of Voice of the Messenger status effect (stackable)
- while under the status effect, Character can choose to speak so loud that they are heard on the whole tile (similar to using a Bullhorn)

Path of the Courier

- cost: 30 CP
- passive ability
- Character's inventory capacity is permanently increased by 25 points

Path of the Postman

- cost: 60 CP
- requires: Path of the Courier
- cost of activation: 5 AP and 10 MP
- when the Skill is used, a Post Office status effect is placed on a tile for 24 hours (stackable)
- when a Character is present in a tile with the status effect, a new type of action is available to them: "posting a package"
- posting a package costs 1 AP and 5 MP, player has to select an item to be packaged and has to specify (by a text field) the name of the Character that is the package's recipient
- the game checks if the recipient's name is correct (that is, there is a Character with such name in the game), and if so then removes the selected item from Character inventory
- posted packages are visible in the tile's description as "a package for Character Name", similar to dropped items and Heavy Items
- contrary to standard dropped items, packages are never removed by the game and they can be only picked up by their assigned recipients
- contents and weight of packages is not visible to any Character, not even their posters and recipients
- when a recipient picks up a package, it is "unwrapped" and its content is added to the recipient's inventory (similar to finding an item while searching)
- when the Post Office status effect ends, all packages in the tile are automatically "unwrapped" and their contents are dropped in the tile

Path of the Merchant

- cost: 60 CP
- requires: Path of the Courier
- cost of activation: 30 AP and 20 MP (similar to Faction Stronghold)
- when the Skill is activated, Character gains 24 hours of Trading Post status effect (stackable)
- when there are Characters with the status effect present in a tile, tile description is updated to reflect that fact ("There is a Trading Post owned by Character Name", "There are N Trading Posts, owned by A, B and C", etc)
- tiles containing Trading Posts could also be specially marked on game map (similar to Characters, Pets, Strongholds, Glyphs, Ley Lines, etc)
- when a Character is present on a tile that has the Trading Post status effect, they can initiate trading offers with other Characters present on the tile
- a trading offer is a temporary list, into which items can be added by both participants
- at any moment a trading offer can be cancelled by any of its participants, which deletes it from the game as if it never existed
- a trading offer is automatically cancelled when one of its participant is attacked, afflicted by a negative status effect, dies, or leaves the tile
- when the last Trading Post status effect on a tile ends, all the trading offers on the tile are automatically cancelled
- items added to a trading offer are specially marked in participant's inventory list and they cannot be used in any way (dropped, used, given, equipped, etc) while the trading offer exists
- just to clarify: items cannot be added to multiple trading offers at the same time
- a Character can mark their side of trading offer as complete, after which they cannot further modify it, they can only cancel the trading offer
- when both participants have marked their sides as complete, they decide to either accept the offer or cancel it
- when the trading offer is accepted by both participants, the items are exchanged between participant inventories and the trading offer is removed from the game

Mantra of Appraisal

- cost: 90 CP
- requires: Path of the Merchant
- cost of activation: 1 AP and 15 MP
- when the Skill is activated, Character gains 30 status ticks of Mantra of Appraisal status effect (stackable)
- while under the status effect, Character can see all details of an item as if they knew a relevant Skill (Sense Magic for potions, spellcasting for Spellgems, Enchant Item for enchanted items, etc)
- the status effect applies to all places in user interface where item details can be displayed: inventory, trading offer, attack dropdown, dropped items, etc

[CrusaderDroid]

Well, this is interesting. I'm not really sure this is viable or fun for anyone other than a literal handful of people though. I'll go over it, piece by piece.

[Badziew]

Heh. I am fully aware this is not a build for everybody, and it is directly in opposition to main theme of the game (which is PvP, and combat in general).

I just tried to design a class for this small niche of casual players that are not interested in regular combat, not always have time to organise and synchronize things (nor via game, nor via Discord) and just visit the game to wander a bit and perhaps socialize with random people.

I also tried to not overdo the features, not make the class overpowered, and (most importantly) avoid possibility to abuse the class to troll or obstruct regular combat-focused gameplay. Judging by your comments I overdid it in the opposite direction and made the class to weak to be interesting.

Oh well, if I have some time in the future, I may revisit the concept once again and try a different skill set instead.

Anyway, thank you for your comments. It is always nice to see a reply to a thread

[haliphax]

[CrusaderDroid]

Yeah, it's kinda rough. I'm sure there's players out there that it would appeal to. I just haven't met them yet since I'm relatively new to this scene. I hope some of those people swing by and give their thoughts too, since I'm very combat-focused and have difficulty getting through that bias.

It's better to swing for being overpowered when you're doing game design, incidentally. You can always tune back what's overpowered until you get it in a good spot, since at least there's a solid direction to go in. You can't do that with underpowered skills though - all of Path of the Wanderer's child skills, for instance, are too weak to be worth considering, but also don't have any real direction to improve in.

The focus on keeping people from trolling is admirable, but I feel like it's getting in the way of interacting with other players positively, since the related abilities are taking up space for other abilities that could be helpful. Maybe if you played up the class so it's more universally helpful to whoever you meet so you're not just a really tough person to hit, you might be able to make Wanderer a better sell. Something like a boost to search rate so you can pick up more stuff to give to other people, or being able to transfer MP or bestow decreased AP costs for movement upon other people - anything, really, that makes the Wanderer someone you're happy to see for more than just exp. The name lends itself pretty well to a kindly sage or hermit archetype - I think if you play into that, you'll find some cool stuff.

Don't be afraid of making things overpowered. Characters should feel strong. Even if you can't deal a single point of damage to someone, the player using the character should still feel strong in that they have capabilities that can't be duplicated and they can feel good using them. Better to swing for the stars than settle for touching a cloud.

[haliphax]

Pacifist characters are fairly niche due to the inherent goals of this game, but it's an emergent behavior that I've seen many different times. Much like MUDs, some players aren't necessarily in it for the murder and mayhem -- that's more of a backdrop to the social interactions, reading area descriptions, and the like. Something that caters to that play style would certainly be interesting, especially considering the incredibly low numbers of purchases seen for current skills in the game. (I mention that as a bit of a justification for spending the time to incorporate such pacifist features.)
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// haliphax // wiki page // /

[tommy]

I really like this idea!

I think while killing people is a big attraction for lots of people in the game, lots of other people would probably play a RP character, and this is more than just a RP character!

I do think some of the skills could be adjusted, and some others added.

I also think that with the redo of how the Fallen and Redeemed will be done in B5 (they don't lose their T2 skills, they just get changed is my understanding), that it will effect what other "open entry" T3 classes they decide to put in.

Some thoughts:
I think the 60CP child skills for movement are too expensive, so might be worth combining some of them into 1.

It would be cool to have some kind of 'hermit stash' ability (that is maybe accessible to other characters who have that ability?)- though the fact that they can get substantially higher inventory space might take away from the need (though I think a random stash you have hidden somewhere could make for some fun interactions- maybe make it similar to the cloven portal abilities where you put down a mark of some sort).

I think it would be cool to give this character an ability that decreases repair or crafting skills, to let people play it as a 'helping people' character (similar to those people who choose to get all the repair item skills). In line with that, would you consider allowing this class to do enchants as well?

I do like the movement skill being the free skill, but maybe it would be better to make the free skill something about not being able to enter a faction?

Overall cool idea, and I would love to see some more classes added (they don't have to be super destroyer OP classes either!)

[Kandarin]

This is a good concept for an avenue of play, but shouldn't be a class of its own.