My idea(s) for possible "Nature" class

I would like to start by thanking Steven and everyone at Intrepid Studios for making this incredible project a reality!

I can't help but feel concerned for the lack of a directly Nature related class (yes, something like a Druid) a guardian of the woods and everything that calls the woods their home, a Keeper of the Grove if you will.

Here are some BASE ideas for a unique Nature wielding class Archetype.

Primary role - Healer
Type - Arcane?
Spell/ability Resource - Health (more health than any other class, mana/health merge to make one resource pool)
Hybrid of magical/physical abilities (some spells deal physical damage I.E. launching a chunk of Verra at the target to stun, or binding a enemy with thorny roots, while the more arcane related spells would be for healing/buffing or maybe even some form of mobility)
The option to "cook" your spells (The longer you hold the spell button the more %health you dump into the spell increasing the effectiveness of cooked spell, absolutely having the possibility to misjudge and kill ones self, providing a very "high risk, high reward" style of play)

I think I'll leave it at that, and let the community add/subtract or all together tear apart my idea.

P.S. I'm not much of a forum poster, so if anything about the layout of my post upsets you, I apologize.

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Sathrago

Ill be real this sounds more like a Hemomancer than a nature based character.

Ardiguan The Guardian

Sathrago wrote: »

Ill be real this sounds more like a Hemomancer than a nature based character.

Just to clarify, I get the idea of using one's life force to power spells from the Eragon books.

Now, you wouldn't be wrong by seeing this as some sort of "Bloodmage" though I think that would be a awesome class name for a Cleric secondary archetype tapping into the "death magic" side of a Cleric.

The only reason I included the bit about using health instead of mana is to break the mold on what people expect from a caster.

Irohnic

I think what they have now for archetypes and classes is plenty. Any additions should be saved for post-launch content/expansions to 1.) prevent scope creap pre-launch and 2. save some cool content for later expansions. And this is coming from someone who would kill to play a druid-type class in AoC.

Also a healing class that uses health as a resource sounds pretty strange to me. Would you be able to heal yourself? is it a 1:1 trade of health? If you get more healing than you spend, would you then be able to heal other druids and essentially have an infinite source of healing between the 2 of you? would you have super strong health regen so you can keep healing in long fights? It all seems very hard to balance. My concept for implementing such a system would be something along the lines of planting/growing trees and other plants. Essentially you spend health (or mana if you want to be more tradiitonal) to spawn trees or other types of plants that then provide the healing or buffing, or that give you a different resource that you can then spend to heal others. That way it differentiates from a more traditional healer (cleric) which starts the fight with full mana and spends it to heal, and instead starts the fight with nothing and has to build up it's tree/plants before it is fully effective. It would also add an additonal layer of positioning and mobility limitations as the plants for the most part would not be able to move. Regardless seems tough to balance but love the theorizing. Also i love the "cook your spell" idea.

Ardiguan The Guardian

Irohnic wrote: »

I think what they have now for archetypes and classes is plenty. Any additions should be saved for post-launch content/expansions to 1.) prevent scope creap pre-launch and 2. save some cool content for later expansions. And this is coming from someone who would kill to play a druid-type class in AoC.

Also a healing class that uses health as a resource sounds pretty strange to me. Would you be able to heal yourself? is it a 1:1 trade of health? If you get more healing than you spend, would you then be able to heal other druids and essentially have an infinite source of healing between the 2 of you?

I would say the druid would not be able to be directly healed even by another druid, but has to absorb health over time from the enemy or maybe something like you said sprouting little trees(totems) that provide a HoT/buff for self/party.

Balrog21

I'm pretty sure Steven has said somewhere that there will be a class close to the Rift Chloromancer if I'm not mistaken.

Medrash1

I had the same problem with the game, it misses a so basic archetype , and everyone loves Druids, me specially.
The magic guardian of nature, the magic of the wild etc. It has the same importance of a warrior or a mage, instead of summoners and bard that are optional classes and secondary archetype of a class archetype.

I'm happy to see that i'm not alone

with this feeling and problems.

I made more post/discussions to adress other problems with the game, if you are interested to.

Sathrago

Ardiguan The Guardian wrote: »

Irohnic wrote: »

I think what they have now for archetypes and classes is plenty. Any additions should be saved for post-launch content/expansions to 1.) prevent scope creap pre-launch and 2. save some cool content for later expansions. And this is coming from someone who would kill to play a druid-type class in AoC.

Also a healing class that uses health as a resource sounds pretty strange to me. Would you be able to heal yourself? is it a 1:1 trade of health? If you get more healing than you spend, would you then be able to heal other druids and essentially have an infinite source of healing between the 2 of you?

I would say the druid would not be able to be directly healed even by another druid, but has to absorb health over time from the enemy or maybe something like you said sprouting little trees(totems) that provide a HoT/buff for self/party.

Ooo what if the druid embodies the aspects of plants. So rather than mana they have abilities that take in debuffs, spells, attacks, etc and turn them into powerful healing/buffs. So It would be an HP caster that gains "energy" through absorbing negative effects/damage then releasing that energy back out to heal/buff allies. This is inspired by the plants ability to take in carbon dioxide and let out oxygen. It could revolve around the purification of negative energies to help maintain the health of the lands.

Edit: This would most likely be the combination of Cleric/Tank or cleric/ranger as the basis. Healing/buffing being the primary goal with tank bringing in their toughness and ability to take damage from others with shields or pure damage transference.

maouw

@Sathrago
I think if you do that, completely remove HP casting and make it a separate resource that generates when you take damage/debuffs.

Sathrago

maouw wrote: »

@Sathrago
I think if you do that, completely remove HP casting and make it a separate resource that generates when you take damage/debuffs.

Well unless you made some spells cost nothing, it would require some health to be spent to kickstart the whole thing. that or taking damage/debuffs directly.

Ardiguan The Guardian

Sathrago wrote: »

Ooo what if the druid embodies the aspects of plants. So rather than mana they have abilities that take in debuffs, spells, attacks, etc and turn them into powerful healing/buffs. So It would be an HP caster that gains "energy" through absorbing negative effects/damage then releasing that energy back out to heal/buff allies. This is inspired by the plants ability to take in carbon dioxide and let out oxygen. It could revolve around the purification of negative energies to help maintain the health of the lands.

I'm loving your idea here, especially the connection to plants being a filter of sorts, taking in the negative and converting it to a positive.

Jahlon

Ardiguan The Guardian wrote: »

I would like to start by thanking Steven and everyone at Intrepid Studios for making this incredible project a reality!

I can't help but feel concerned for the lack of a directly Nature related class (yes, something like a Druid) a guardian of the woods and everything that calls the woods their home, a Keeper of the Grove if you will.

Here are some BASE ideas for a unique Nature wielding class Archetype.

Primary role - Healer
Type - Arcane?
Spell/ability Resource - Health (more health than any other class, mana/health merge to make one resource pool)
Hybrid of magical/physical abilities (some spells deal physical damage I.E. launching a chunk of Verra at the target to stun, or binding a enemy with thorny roots, while the more arcane related spells would be for healing/buffing or maybe even some form of mobility)
The option to "cook" your spells (The longer you hold the spell button the more %health you dump into the spell increasing the effectiveness of cooked spell, absolutely having the possibility to misjudge and kill ones self, providing a very "high risk, high reward" style of play)

I think I'll leave it at that, and let the community add/subtract or all together tear apart my idea.

P.S. I'm not much of a forum poster, so if anything about the layout of my post upsets you, I apologize.

Let's just stop right at the bold spot and realize you've gone right off the rails for anything that resembles game balance

Ardiguan The Guardian

Jahlon wrote: »

Let's just stop right at the bold spot and realize you've gone right off the rails for anything that resembles game balance

I've come to the conclusion that I don't like "balance", it appears to me that "balance" has been the driving force that has turned once great gaming experiences into a homogenized unimaginative "everybody is equal" experience where there is less class disparity.

I think I would much rather see a Rock, Paper, Scissors approach where each "class" has it's obvious strengths and weaknesses.

Ardiguan The Guardian

Rock > Scissors
Paper > Rock
Scissors > Paper

Rock should have advantages over Scissors, but if Rock is less skilled or makes to many mistakes and Scissors is higher skill and makes less mistakes Scissors should be able to win through attrition.

Ventharien

Your problem there is every archtype having their counter and strength IS a balanced system. Having an archtype that explicitly has more health than every other is far too easy to break. It either becomes impossible for other archtypes to beat them, or the modifying effects to keep them from being overpowered go too far and make it a sub par choice.

Ardiguan The Guardian

Ventharien wrote: »

Your problem there is every archetype having their counter and strength IS a balanced system.

I 100% agree with you, class counters create a balanced ecosystem where "this fish eats that fish".
Where I will respectfully disagree with you is the

Ventharien wrote: »

It either becomes impossible for other archetypes to beat them, or the modifying effects to keep them from being overpowered go too far and make it a sub par choice.

with so many variables that go into designing and coding it's "impossible" for me to believe it's not possible.

Irohnic

Ardiguan The Guardian wrote: »

Ventharien wrote: »

Your problem there is every archetype having their counter and strength IS a balanced system.

I 100% agree with you, class counters create a balanced ecosystem where "this fish eats that fish".
Where I will respectfully disagree with you is the

Ventharien wrote: »

It either becomes impossible for other archetypes to beat them, or the modifying effects to keep them from being overpowered go too far and make it a sub par choice.

with so many variables that go into designing and coding it's "impossible" for me to believe it's not possible.

I gotta agree with arudiguan on this one, the simple fact of having a class with more health than the rest presents difficulties with balancing sure, but it does not inherently mean it can't be balanced. There is a big difference between health pool and effective health pool in a fight. effective health is a combination of your base health at the start of the fight and factors such as health regen, mitigation, and health spent (if talking about a class which spends health to cast spells). you could potentially make a class that has high health but a "normal" amount of effective health because it has to spend said health on spells or be useless in the fight.

Ardiguan The Guardian

Well said Irohnic, and thanks for the support.

Ventharien

I'm going to use that same token, By having a higher health pool, you also increase the efficiency of anything concerned with health. None of these archtypes exist in a vacuum. There are (If we are counting this as an addition to the list and not a substitution) 8 other archtypes to both modify the already existing health total of this one, and 8 to interact with it. What about the clerics health redistribution ability? Does this now mean this is a 'meta' pick so the group receives a higher than normal share? Balance occurs among all archtypes not just the one

If we're being honest, we can say that in battle health regeneration is ridiculously in games. It is either tied to an ability, or some sort of exclusive passive. Health totals can alter the balance between player classes too much, which is why most games only give a certain set of classes higher pools, or has the stat that gives health be a strong bonus to hate/aggro.

Classes that use their own health as a source or fuel aren't a new idea, and several games have them. But there's a reason those games don't say here's a big health pool which is effectively your health and 'mana' combined, they recognize that such an ability set is an inherently risky playstyle, and have it be a high risk high reward setup. Sometimes with later abilities setting up some safeguards (reduced costs, pop heals, life drain etc.)

Ardiguan The Guardian

*In a PvE setting - Lets say you want to bring a "Druid" primary archetype for the bonus health pool to share at a key moment during a boss fight, making the group more sustainable albeit you would be filling group slot with a support over a dps = slower kill time, but guess what, you got the boss down and you got your loot.

*In a PvP setting - Cleric uses "Life's Balance" solution... kill totem. Problem?

Ventharien

What totem? It's an instant character ability. And that was just one example. You'd have to come up with reasonable checks and balances for every interaction, all the while keeping all the archtypes feeling distinct and important.

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