Community Question: Create a Class

[Khamul]

- Get rid of the specialised tasks (e.g. in Counterstrike every class can disarm a bomb)

We dont wanna Enemy territory : Counter strike

[MoonOnAStick]

People seem to wrongly think that players have to obey the commander, the commander how I imagine it is a single support role, they advice the rest of the team about where to go depending on what they see on their overhead view. They can drop supplies to aid players who are struggling to get past a choke point or so. They would research new upgrades that would be available to the team to use (purchase using individual resources), what upgrades he chooses would hopefully be based on the circumstances of that given match. All this would be supplementary not mandatory, a lousy commander would just mean the team has to be more self reliant using their own resources more to get what they require.

I don’t think the NS2-style, resource gathering commander (where you must have a commander and it’s difficult to have a good game without two competent commanders) is a good fit. But what about a part-time comm?

For ETQW(ish) outdoors environments I could imagine a mobile command station, bigger and slower than an MCP, providing:
– forward spawn
– radar within a radius (enhanced by cov-ops dropping repeaters behind enemy lines)
– missiles for field-ops to target within a radius (supplemented by self-deployable automated mortar or vampire)

The commander could be responsible for:
– positioning the comm station
– accessing a map and relaying enemy positions
– choosing upgrade paths for campaign?
– health/weapon drops (on a timer) (medics/soldiers still have individual drops)
– kit-form deployables (vehicles/shielding/…) for engineers to build
– no drops inside, keep the infantry only segments

A Command station would have some light automated defences but heavier guns would require manual use by the commander and other players. Vulnerable to enemy fire/artillery (and perhaps to disguised cov-ops hopping inside, knifing the commander and setting an auto-destruct.), loss of a comm station would mean marching a new one back to the front line.

Players could jump into the comm chair to move the station or drop deployables but it would be possible to manage without a full-time commander. Or you could have a little back-and-forth between comm stations. A commander might position the station on the doorstep of an (indoor) objective to shorten the spawn distance for a rush, at the expense of managing only a couple of spawns before the enemy comm/players destroy it.

[Breo]

Wait, wait, wait, you want to make it possible for every class to disarm?

We dont wanna Enemy territory : Counter strike

Depends on other game mechanics ofc. CS doesn’t have respawns/heal/regen basicly damage/dead is permanent for one game. Also the team doesn’t nessary have a particular class to win the game.
It doesn’t really fit the ruleset of ETQW but it was more like a example to make things clear about classes

[tangoliber]

Here are some ideas. I’m going to do this according to the Brink character options. (bodytype, two weapons, active abilities, and maybe passives)

Medic variants:

Starter Medic
Medium body type
Primary: Plasma-based assault rifle (accurate, but slow projectiles),
Secondary: Revive gun (similar to Killzone 2…lets you revive from about 5 feet away…requires aim)
Ability: Healthpacks,
Ability: Health Scavenge (replenish health packs from scavenging dead medics…including your own teammates),
Ability: Turret Mod (can add health pack dispenser functionality to friendly Engineer turrets)
Grenades: Impact Nades (little damage, but knocks people back),

Tech Medic
Heavy Body type
Primary: Chaingun
Secondary: Double-barreled revolver
Ability: Field Regen Unit
Ability: Revive UAV (Has a lot of health, can be piloted around reviving.)
Ability:
Grenade: Defuse Grenade (Instant impact grenade that will cancel any non-friendly grenades in the radius. Used to protect defensive areas, such as field regen units, from being naded.)

Scientist
Light Body type
Primary: Burst-fire SMG
Secondary: Acid revolver (hits and then burns)
Ability: Adrenaline Buff Pack
Ability: Speed Boost Pack(a lot more bonus speed than in Brink.)
Ability: Revive syringe (must be used up close on the body, like in Brink, but like a melee rather than an F key buff…but revives the player with 200% health and 50% speed)
Grenade: Syringe Nade (Poisons and slows opponents)

Rush Medic
Light Body type
Primary: Single Barrel shotgun (Doom style…never have to reload…but not very meaty)
Secondary: Mini-mortar (small explosion radius radius)
Ability: Impact Melee (Use on the ground to launch yourself into the air, to launch mortars or throw Lazarus Grenades. You can also launch twice is high if you first use the impact melee, and then use the mortar as you are coming down.)
Ability: Impact Heal (Use the Impact Melee gun on a body to revive, but they get up with little health, and the body can also be pushed in the direction of the blast (to good or bad effect)
Ability: Impact Push (Use Impact Melee on an enemy or a grenade to knock them back)
Grenade: Lazarus Grenade

Engineers variants

Starter Engineer
Medium Body type
Primary: Shotgun (similar to the Mossington)
Secondary: Repair gun
Ability: 2 Medium turrets (Good balance of targeting, health, and damage)
Ability: 2 Deployable shields. (Energy walls that can be used as cover…see Tribes: Ascend)
Ability: 2 Phase Gates (Teleport between them)
No grenades

Heavy Engineer
Heavy Body type
Primary: Jackhammer Shotgun (Hjammerdeim)
Secondary: Repair gun (slow, but can over charge)
Ability: 2 Heavy Turrets (Best firepower, but limited ability to target. Can mostly only aim in the direction it is placed)
Ability: Field Repair Unit (Like field regen unit, but only repairs structures)
Ability: Deployable Radar
Grenade: Throwable mortar (long delay decent radius)

Combat Engineer
Medium Body type
Primary: Projectile based shotgun (bounces off surfaces)
Secondary: Repair and move gun (Can be used to move turrets or other structures around.)
Ability: 3 Light turrets (Deploy fast, and can be thrown about 5-10 feet. Low health and firepower)
Ability: 1 Deployable shield.
Grenade: Throwable sensors (Alerts team on HUD, when an enemy enters the radius)

Engineer Sniper
Light Body Type
Primary: (Sniper rifle with sticky, explosive bullets. There is an initial damage, and then the explosive damage which can hurt other enemies nearbye the target. Can also be used on walls or something.)
Secondary: Shotgun pistol
Ability: Flamethrower UAV (Decent firepower, medium health, and can repair structures)
Ability: 3 Sensors (to help cover his back)
Ability: Assault Rifle Armory (Let’s teammates pick up the best Assault Rifle in the game…generates a new rifle every minute, but doesn’t start generating a new one until the previous one has been picked up.)
No Grenade

Soldier Variants

Starter Soldier
Medium Body Type
Primary: Disc launcher (like a spinfuser)
Secondary: Hitscan SMG
Ability: Ammo Packs
Ability: Scavenge Ammo (Just walk over dead bodies)
Ability: Armor Packs (Armor can be repaired by repair guns or field repair units)
Ability: Turret Mod (Add ammo dispensers onto friendly turrets…limited replenishment)
Grenade: Standard grenade

Artillery Specialist
Heavy Body Type
Primary: Grenade Launcher
Secondary: Short range disc launcher
Ability: Deployable Ammo Dispenser (Full replenishment)
Ability: Deployable Armor Gate (Players walk through to get extra armor)
Ability: Firepower Turret Mod (adds extra firepower to friendly turrets)
Grenade: Extra Strength Grenade

Base Destroyer
Medium Body Type
Primary: Sticky Nade Launcher (Extra damage vs enemy structures)
Secondary: Projectile SMG with ricochet bullets
Passive: Starting armor
Passive: Extra speed
Ability: Explosives (Detonate in 15 seconds unless defused. Can be dropped in a base area and take out everything in its radius if no one is around to defuse it.)
Grenade: Napalm

Operative Variants (There is a generator near the enemies spawn, which can be shutdown by any operative variant. It turns off all enemy electronic devices and structures…but doesn’t take long for the enemy team to reboot it.)

Starter Operative
Light Body Type
Primary: SMG (best SMG in the game)
Secondary: Silenced pistol
Ability: 2 Deployable Mines
Ability: Disguise (Disguise using dead bodies. Keep disguise until you take damage (even after killing someone). Can go through enemy phase gates when disguised.
Ability: Turn any enemy structure into a proximity mine.
Ability: Turret mod (Mod friendly turrets to spot enemy operatives and remove their cover)
Grenade: Caltrops

Tech Operative
Heavy Body Type
Primary: Heavy Plasma Crossbow (Penetrates targets)
Secondary: Heavy Sniper Rifle (Highest damage weapon)
Ability: Large Radius Sapper (Kills structures in a large radius, but the sapper itself is very big and hard to hide.)
Ability: Generator Lock (If he manages to get into the enemy team’s generator, he can place the lock on it, which makes the enemy team spend more time to turn back on their power)
Ability: Corpse Mines. (He gets a bunch, but can only be placed on dead bodies.)
Grenade: Heavy Duty EMP

Bio Operative
Medium Body Type
Primary: Bio Gun (Shoots an acidic looking blob. Projectile has an arc. Hold down the trigger to charge for bigger blobs. Slows down enemies as well as causing damage. Larger blobs have decent splash damage)
Secondary: Electricity Gun (Beam weapon with less than 10 ft range.) Takes down shields fast.
Ability: Disguise (This one removes itself once you fire)
Ability: 2 Corrosive Mines (Similar to Napalm mines in Brink)
Ability: Enemy Turret Hack
Grenade: Impact EMP

I’ll think of some more later, probably. Ideally, there is synergy, not just between different class types, but between the variants as well. A combat engineer can move a heavy engineers big turrets around, for instance.

[Humate]

Well I mean the soldier should be the strongest class so that medics can also heal teammates

It is the strongest class… but what it gains in power, it loses in efficiency.

Ofcourse everyone can pick their class and choose to fight in the frontline but the equipment need to
fit the role.

I try to give a better example: what if the object class had the best equipment and the player fight in the frontline instead of doing objects?

Rambo Medic is the role, therefore they have the proper equipment.

[YouAreGood]

Rambo Medic is overpowered. 1 player behind enemy lines is 1 player behind enemy lines, not 10 players, as he will heal himself after every duel and will be “new” again. Thats the other approach to that, less rambo-ism more teamplay needed. I don’t mean nurse have to be totally weak, it would just have less firepower - and greater chance to survive shooting with its smaller hitBoxes - as it is called “medic”/“nurse”. And to use certain argument - why not pick a soldier, if the medic is nearby anyway? If team is not sticking together - why attacking constructor is left against overpowered medic-defender? It’s ok if the enemy get some cover fire and medpacks from other ppl, but if defender needs no teammates, while attacker does strongly - it’s not balanced until the medic is really weaker. He can withstand longer shooting refilling he’s HP when in cover for a second, so it shall at least do less damage.

Back to the commander and multiple classes - simplicity is a key. The game should be clear as possible, intuitive, and what should be complicated and demanding is the map. Tools should be natural in use. Classes shall be what they seems to be on the first look. Also when we see incoming soldier, fieldops etc - we better know what to expect. 10 types of medic, 20 of soldier, 50 CvOps… and no sniper rifle…

Central decision vs teamplay and individual decisions + communication… Unnecessary complication is not the way to go… Forcing players - because we will have to have some limits of supply crates and turrets, so if commander will have a turret - someone else will not have it. It’s not adding anything, it’s taxing peoples freedom and then centrally making the decision about the previously private resources. No way around, printing money is still more stable than a printed turret. And in the game the crises would come immediately, as teams would have too many turrets and crates. In other words - we have to chose between these two concepts, there is no third way, as the third way leads to the commanderism(or lack of it, as the commander have no more decision power about the next patch for the game, also commander now, 10 minutes later medic without supply crate - what to choose…).

Freedom on Earth! or SSS!
No “I don’t care” between. You will care, as they will finally take your rocket artillery away from you! Either you will be left with not enough, or the commander will have not enough toys.

Have a great day everyone - no matter what type of games you play!

[Rex]

Here are some ideas. I’m going to do this according to the Brink character options. …

Stopped reading after Brink.

I don’t think rambo medics are the problem, but rambo turrets. Engieeners can deploy them so easy and they will just shoot and shoot and shoot! I don’t like their inner aimbot either, you got no chance at all against them.

[YouAreGood]

Stopped reading after Brink.

Just like in cartoon…

[Breo]

Rambo Medic is the role

Zomg :eek: Humate I’ll give up trying to explain that this shouldn’t be the intention of this class.
Maybe they should give Sly medpacks in Rambo 5?

[Humate]

And i’ll give up explaining that youre in no position to state what a player’s intention should be.

[tangoliber]

[QUOTE=Rex;408183]Stopped reading after Brink.
[/QUOTE]

I just meant I was brainstorming class variants around the 2 weapon, bodytype, and 3 active abilities that Brink had. Because I have no idea what the possibilities of character classes will be, I just decided to think in the structure of their previous game.

But I was also thinking about accurate guns and some arena style weapons… I specifically tried to avoid F key buffing…(toss out packs instead.)

[tokamak]

Tangoliber you’re definitely thinking the right way. What we need is talent trees like in WoW now. Not as absolute as those, instead the talent trees define how easy it is to get certain upgrades (by laying down a predefined path towards the upgrades, deviating is possible but more costly.)

Who decides what the right places and the right classes are? ;).

Whoever decides that, it doesn’t change the difference between how consequential the class set up in each game is.

[Humate]

Whoever decides that, it doesn’t change the difference between how consequential the class set up in each game is.

Its irrelevant .
Its doesnt change the fact the people can and will play the game the way they see fit.

[BioSnark]

Given that I usually play a tech, I have no personal problem with the mechanics but the fact that they are the most effective combat class is a class system design failing. Rambo medics have a convolution of modern fps autoregen. I don’t think the ideal solution is to give everyone autoregen like in Brink but have no other effective solution in mind other than limiting self heal effectiveness or limiting ammo (etqw medic/tech could both replenish ammo, themselves). Alternatively, the “soldier” should more clearly inhabit the “support” heavy weapons specialist or demolitions role.

As others have noted, the fops is not a very defined role. I know SD is well aware of that, however, given Brink. This is the role I think could be given “commander” support functions and squad spawn parachute beacons(/spawn hosts?) or just removed.

in the FPS/RTS hybrid model the “commander” is not able to force allocation people don’t want.

Fixed.

[Humate]

Relying on soldiers to do most of the combat dirty work, will leave the nerfed medic alone out in the cold.
They will always get owned in 1v1 situations, which will equate to far less revives. Irony x 2

[tokamak]

[QUOTE=Humate;408192]Its irrelevant .
Its doesnt change the fact the people can and will play the game the way they see fit.[/QUOTE]

It is relevant. Take your covert in a titan example. If you’re going to stay in the titan for the full game then you want be a medic and NOT a covert ops and CERTAINLY not a field ops. A medic adds max hp, a covert is neutral and being a field ops adds cooldowns on the artillery of other field ops.

Yes, everyone is free to play the game however poorly they like. But that still means that for some games your class matters a whole lot more than others.

[Humate]

Most players that are commenting on playstyles they disagree with are throwing rocks in glass houses.
Secondly its none of anyones business what playstyle is used, regardless of max hp or not.
Particularly when that player they are complaining about is the only reason they have a chance of winning.

eg rambo medic with 85 kills.

[tokamak]

Some playstyles are just objectively better and I just pointed it out, titan hogging is fine, but titan hogging while adding to a team and not taking away from other players is better. And this whole discussion is sidetracking my point about how much a class matters in the game. Even if every playstyle is equally valid, then there’s still the degree in how much your choice of class weighs. In ETQW it matters a lot, in Brink it doesn’t matter that much.

As far as certain playstyles, I definitely want to see the game facilitate to sub-classes within each class. A rambo medic is great and a support medic is also awesome, if players want to commit to one of these by specialising through upgrades it’s even better.

[Humate]

Then perhaps you might want to read further up and realise the discussion is about rambo medics, and not class distribution.

[tokamak]

A rambo medic was just an example of a specialisation within the class. That’s the context of the discussion.

Once the fields ops is more fleshed out there’s not much need for a sixth class. Further deepening out the niches within each class should be the next step.

A covert ops could be a saboteur, an assassin, and a crowd controller. Three very different roles which can be turned into three talent trees like in WoW.