Dev Blog 3: Classes & Abilities

Hydracol

Hydracol

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Time to talk about one of my favorite aspects of this game: the unique class and ability system. Most standard RPGs will ask you to pick a class and kinda stick with it the whole way. OLO is a bit different.

The classes
- There are 3 main-classes: Power, Agility, and Arcane.
- Each of those main classes has multiple subclasses. (and with the first release of the game, there will only be one subclass per mainclass)

- Here's a breakdown of what I mean
- Power Mainclass: Swordsman, Tank, Paladin...
- Agility Mainclass: Hunter, Assassin, Bandit...
- Arcane Mainclass: Elementist, White Mage, Necromancer, Druid...

Each of the subclasses has their own ability tree, and every subclass has the exact same number of abilities, which currently is 14. 7 of those abilities can be purchased in the skill shops, but the other 7 are unlocked based on how many abilities of that subclass that you currently have.

You can think of it like a tree. The more roots you have, the bigger the tree will be. This is a check-and-balance system that allows users to purchase a number of abilities from different sub-classes, yet they will never be too overpowered because the strongest abilities remain only available to those who are proficient in that particular tree.

Was that too confusing? Let's try it with an example... first I will show you the current sub-classes and their respective abilities...

Swordsman (part of the Power class):

Here

Hunter (part of the Agility class):

Here

Elementist (part of the Arcane class):

Here

So let's say I wanted to get the Elementist's teleport ability... we can see that that is on the right side of the chart, which means it is only available through unlocking it.

We would first need to purchase Energy Bolt, Arcane Blast, Fire Bolt, Meditation, and finally Mana Stream in order to unlock Teleport, since it is in the corresponding row. But along the way we would also unlock the other lower level abilities such as Managize and Fireheart.

Here is a visual example of the skill tree:

Here

You can see that the skill labeled (TELEPORT) is the fourth ability in the tree for Elementist. Which means that the player needs to purchase the four abilities in the roots of the tree (the first one is given for free). See how it corresponds like 1:1?

Anyway, there are other checks in place to prevent over powered players. Each player can only purchase a set number of abilities, which I will most likely limit at 14. Thus, the player can choose to specialize in two classes, or spread themselves out a bit more. Remember, if the user can purchase 14 abilities, that means the user can also unlock 14 abilities.

Mon 13 Apr 2015, 11:53 am by **candyman** · Mon 13 Apr 2015, 11:53 am by **candyman**

How long till game release?

Mon 13 Apr 2015, 1:05 pm by **OhhPaigey** · Mon 13 Apr 2015, 1:05 pm by **OhhPaigey**

candyman wrote:How long till game release?

On IndieDB it says "Coming Jun 2015". I'm not sure if there'll be any tests before that atm.

Mon 13 Apr 2015, 1:32 pm by **candyman** · Mon 13 Apr 2015, 1:32 pm by **candyman**

Oh all right, sweet.

Tue 14 Apr 2015, 10:29 pm by **Hydracol** · Tue 14 Apr 2015, 10:29 pm by **Hydracol**

@candyman the release date is TBA. Planned for sometime in June, though.

There will be an invite only alpha test either this weekend or next weekend. Most likely next weekend, though.

Fri 14 Aug 2015, 7:03 pm by **Pogofishmage** · Fri 14 Aug 2015, 7:03 pm by **Pogofishmage**

After reading it a few times I finally got what you wanted to express with that skilltree.

So in your version of skill tree it looks like there are on the upper side the linear 'special skills' which are on the right side of the chart in your image links. So one gets the impression that if you want to get one skill there, you need to place a skill point in the previous one. Meaning: If someone wants to get teleport, he would have to place a skillpoint into Managize, then into Fireheart and then into Wise Soul in this order to allow placing a skillpoint into his desired 'Teleport' with his next point.
At the same time the bunch of mixed skills on the bottom look like free-to-choose without further meaning.

for this reason I would re-structure the skilltree like this to clearify what it really means:

Dev Blog 3: Classes & Abilities Omxd3jsi

Dev Blog 3: Classes & Abilities Omxd3jsi

On the left side are the skills you will have to place points into, highlighted by the black shadow line to the bottom and right of the skill pictures. On the right side you have the automatical stuff that will only be influenced by the 'main tree' their inserted skills. The special skills you placed in your chart to the right will therefore have no direct connection between eachother and will also not have any further points you need to spend into aside spending one skillpoint to the skill to its left.

By how I understood it, you have to learn the skills of the left side in order. So you can not start with e.g. Arcane Blast, but have to skill energy Bolt first before beeing able to get a hand on Arcane Blast.

Can someone verify this?

Edit:
Ah, actually I wanted to give in my concerns, when I first read it (though I had to understand first, how the skillsystem works)

To me it looks like the combo mage+hunter is overpowered due to their combined crowd control effects combined with some damage skills, exspecially with hunter as primary class.

Why?

Because they have to gether the chance to lock down a target for whole 8 seconds (Achilles+Ice Bolt), ading the chance to teleport and place a bear trap for another 4 seconds, if the victim resonds late. And this combined leaves only 3 seconds in which all skills have cool down before the char can redo his deed.

If the victim is lucky and can avoid the bear trap (which would probably not be the case with NPC but morely to real players), then he has to strugle 'only' with 7 seconds in which his assassin is still able to teleport around or activate his minor haste. And if this misses, he can still Grapple to you (I should add that I am not sure about the effect of Grapple, but fallowing the translator, it probably means 'pull yourselfe to the target').

In other words: someone who chooses hunter+mage will have targets who can impossibly run away and are locked on a place anyways for the most time. At the same time the knight-class has not even one skill that locks down an enemy though he is due to his lack in range the one who suffers most by not beeing able to catch up anyhow or to hold an enemy in one spot.

The only reason for choosing knight right now would be in a PvE event in which an enemy would be
1. too fast to keep distance to your highspeeded hunterblood-floor-locker or
2. a monster that can itselfe entangle players and is immune to floor-locking when your hunter-mage teleports away after using one of his own floor-lockers.

Well, I wanted to post a balancing idea anyways but I was searching first if a plan how chars work does already exist - and found this topic via main page.

In my opinion there should be a clear rock-paper-scissors system in which each class outclasses one class but is weak to another. This should be something exclusive that only a class (like knight) has access to, maybe beeing even passive (I will think about it in a suggestion topic later), while the whole field of skills are still open for all classes as mentioned.

Well maybe I overact. after all this is still in alpha and nothing is nailed in stone. It was simply a first impression of what I stumbled over albino

Last edited by Pogofishmage on Fri 14 Aug 2015, 8:00 pm; edited 2 times in total (Reason for editing : added skill names to the image)

Sat 15 Aug 2015, 1:06 am by **Voo** · Sat 15 Aug 2015, 1:06 am by **Voo**

^Necro OP.

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