Team Fortress has some interesting classes and can be a starting point.
Classes that I think would be interesting in your game.
A Dual wielding pistol/small arms user. The class is relatively fast moving, fast reloading, and gets a bonus to accuracy. They have light armor and act as a high damage class. Uses gadgets for offense and defense.
A spy, pistol with silencer, traps, stealth, and attacks of opportunity.
Soldier. Straight forward class and does not specialize in any one direction too much.
Soldier sub classes can be based on types of damage in you game.
Cyborg: A class that has the person use large numbers of electronic enhancements. They specialize in energy/laser weapons mostly but also have some other weapon types for situations where they are needed. Their enhancements can provide all sorts of various bonuses but they are all based off of energy levels.
Plasma guns could be large and heavy requiring large bulky people to carry them. Slower movement, heavy armor, big plasma gun. Could be an alien species and class name could be based off of that species.
I am sure you could think of more interesting wrinkles but I think the above is a good place to start. If you have classes I think you really want to make them as interesting as possible.
Ranged weapon classes
Quote:Original post by KestQuote:Original post by Way Walker
The thing is, if it's on a continuum, there's no need to define a weapon as small/medium/large, just smaller/larger when compared to a different weapon.
But that was never a problem. I don't mind labeling a certain weapon as being medium size, or as an SMG. I just don't want a skill labeled as medium or SMG.
There is no spoon.
Quote:
I can't title the skills as small, medium, and large, because there's more than just size differences between the weapon classes. Handguns vs SMGs vs rifles vs cannons are all held, manipulated, and aimed differently.
Reflected by their differing positions along different continua. Picture a point in 2D space. Just because they have the same x value doesn't mean they're anywhere near the same position since their y values could differ by several orders of magnitude.
Quote:
And I can't title a skill as SMG because the machine part doesn't fit all of the weapon types that will go into the class.
Which is why I suggested not having "classes". Think of it like class-based vs. skill-based character types in RPG's.
Quote:Quote:Right, when I said "need", I was referring to a combat need. Fallout wouldn't have been the same without that tech, but the pulse and plasma rifles just didn't offer enough over the Gauss weapons or the .223 pistol. If they did, then they could justify the separate skill. Otherwise, just make them small arms.
A different type of offense would have been ideal, but not a better offense. I think an equal balance between all weapon classes that have equal skills would be a good design. If energy weapons are more powerful and cause splash damage, they could have slower firing rates and worse accuracy to make up for it. This would cause players to play differently. Holding off a shot and trying to get enemies to pile up so they can blast more than one at a time.
Right, but even a better offense could've been significant if the energy weapons had out-classed small arms late game and required a different skill to use. That sort of quantitative difference would effect a qualitative change in character design and cause players to play differently. This is especially true since they already included the qualitatively different offense you described (heavy weapons).
Quote:Original post by Kest
But then which class would an automatic pistol or automatic heavy weapon fall under? As a player, wouldn't you feel slightly ripped off that your expert pistol wielder can't use a machine pistol?
No. Firing full auto is completely different from firing single shots with a pistol. I would say it's two separate skills. I would put automatic pistols in the SMG category and keep it separate from the rifle category. SMG often have higher rate of fire with smaller projectiles when compared to rifles.
If you're going to break guns up by skill and want any sort of realistic edge to it, they should be grouped by firing and reloading characteristics. If an energy weapon has the same sort of recoil and fire rate as an SMG, make it an SMG regardless of its munition type.
This topic is relevant to something I happen to be working on. Having thought about it, I would consider using three basic skill categories - handgun, rifle, and cannon - and then giving the weapons a percentage from one or several of them.
A standard handgun might have 100% handgun, an automatic handgun might be 75% handgun and 25% rifle, and an SMG might be 50% handgun and 50% rifle. It doesn't need to be linear, either; a miniature grenade launcher might be 50% handgun and 50% cannon. Maybe not these exact numbers, but I hope that was clear on the idea; you would gain skills in one of three weapon archetypes, but the weapons themselves might not fit cleanly into one of them, so they would benefit partially from more than one.
A standard handgun might have 100% handgun, an automatic handgun might be 75% handgun and 25% rifle, and an SMG might be 50% handgun and 50% rifle. It doesn't need to be linear, either; a miniature grenade launcher might be 50% handgun and 50% cannon. Maybe not these exact numbers, but I hope that was clear on the idea; you would gain skills in one of three weapon archetypes, but the weapons themselves might not fit cleanly into one of them, so they would benefit partially from more than one.
In your game does the player control one or multiple characters,
From a gameplay perspective if the player has multiple characters its ok for them to be over specialized but if only one I don't see the advantage of giving the player 20 weapons but effectively saying they only get to use 5 of them. So if one character I would give a lot cross skills bonuses so even if they specialized in one type using other weapons would still be viable in some situation.
From a gameplay perspective if the player has multiple characters its ok for them to be over specialized but if only one I don't see the advantage of giving the player 20 weapons but effectively saying they only get to use 5 of them. So if one character I would give a lot cross skills bonuses so even if they specialized in one type using other weapons would still be viable in some situation.
Author
Quote:Original post by Way WalkerQuote:Original post by Kest
And I can't title a skill as SMG because the machine part doesn't fit all of the weapon types that will go into the class.
Which is why I suggested not having "classes". Think of it like class-based vs. skill-based character types in RPG's.
So your suggestion would be to split the skills up into many sub components. My biggest gripe with that is the potential lameness of most of the skills. Their meaning and title. Can you recommend an example of the skills that would pertain to weapon handles, postures, firing rates, recoil, etc? Or would you just title them all easy, large, etc?
Quote:Right, but even a better offense could've been significant if the energy weapons had out-classed small arms late game and required a different skill to use. That sort of quantitative difference would effect a qualitative change in character design and cause players to play differently. This is especially true since they already included the qualitatively different offense you described (heavy weapons).
I wasn't picturing it as a late game skill that could be switched over to. I agree that would be pretty neat. But Fallout sort of had that quirk where nothing could really be classified as late game. Just about everything can be randomly stumbled onto by a curious explorer.
Quote:Original post by tstrimpQuote:Original post by Kest
But then which class would an automatic pistol or automatic heavy weapon fall under? As a player, wouldn't you feel slightly ripped off that your expert pistol wielder can't use a machine pistol?
No. Firing full auto is completely different from firing single shots with a pistol.
Firing a machine gun is completely different than firing a shotgun or sniper rifle as well. As I mentioned, the realism isn't going to be perfect.
Quote:I would say it's two separate skills. I would put automatic pistols in the SMG category and keep it separate from the rifle category. SMG often have higher rate of fire with smaller projectiles when compared to rifles.
I'm not going to have an SMG category for exactly this reason. It will be a sub-something category, meaning the posture and compact concept of an SMG, but it won't imply automatic or machine fire. That helps put machine pistols into the handguns group and helps put short pulse rifles - which don't have a fast firing rate - into the sub-something group.
The main problem is that automatic fire will be meaningless. There will be so many variations in projectile types and firing rates that it just won't make much sense to classify weapons that way anymore.
Quote:Original post by Aethonic
This topic is relevant to something I happen to be working on. Having thought about it, I would consider using three basic skill categories - handgun, rifle, and cannon - and then giving the weapons a percentage from one or several of them.
I considered that. But I don't really have a problem purposefully classifying weapons to fall strictly into the four groups. As a result, it should become very obvious which skill a weapon falls under, just by looking at it.
Quote:Original post by Kaze
In your game does the player control one or multiple characters?
The player can lead a small team of 1-4 people, but he only directly controls himself.
Quote:From a gameplay perspective if the player has multiple characters its ok for them to be over specialized but if only one I don't see the advantage of giving the player 20 weapons but effectively saying they only get to use 5 of them. So if one character I would give a lot cross skills bonuses so even if they specialized in one type using other weapons would still be viable in some situation.
The player character actually begins the game with average training in all combat skills, due to part of the story. All weapons will be effective, but the player can choose to make some slightly more effective in his hands. The game is also a sandbox, and characters don't use levels to increase abilities. Any character can become a master of everything if they play the game long enough. Although I am considering having some stats deteriorate.
Seems to me there are (at least) two significant category groups which are completely independent.
Size/Body
The physical size and body shape of the weapon. Could be broken up as follows (someone who knows more about guns might be able to expand this a bit further)
Handgun(pistol), Medium*(smg, bullpup?) Rifle/Carbine, Heavy(RPG, BFG)
Obviously, most weapons will only fit into one of these categories, although it might be possible to add attachments to convert weapons from one to the other. Skill in one particular size category will probably enhance accuracy with that category.
*for want of a better name for the category.
Then, independent of that, you have the fire modes, which could be broken up:
Single shot, Semi auto, Fully auto, Spread (shotgun?), Splash(AoE), Beam, Indirect(mortar).
Now obviously, a weapon can be more than one of these, and/or may offer different fire modes to choose between. E.g an M16 with GL might be capable of single shot, semi auto, fully auto and Indirect + Splash. Obviously in this case, you would use whichever skill is most appropriate to the fire mode you're currently using. Splash is a bit of a funny one because it can be combined with ANY of the other fire modes; you could have a fully auto AoE weapon, or a beam AoE weapon, or whatever.
Skill in a particular category will enhance accuracy and probably maintenance and repair as well, as the maintenance needs of each of these categories is somewhat different.
Obviously a full implementation of this would probably result in a proliferation of skills which you sound like you don't want. To be honest, I would imagine that the latter (fire mode) categorization is the more significant of the two.
Size/Body
The physical size and body shape of the weapon. Could be broken up as follows (someone who knows more about guns might be able to expand this a bit further)
Handgun(pistol), Medium*(smg, bullpup?) Rifle/Carbine, Heavy(RPG, BFG)
Obviously, most weapons will only fit into one of these categories, although it might be possible to add attachments to convert weapons from one to the other. Skill in one particular size category will probably enhance accuracy with that category.
*for want of a better name for the category.
Then, independent of that, you have the fire modes, which could be broken up:
Single shot, Semi auto, Fully auto, Spread (shotgun?), Splash(AoE), Beam, Indirect(mortar).
Now obviously, a weapon can be more than one of these, and/or may offer different fire modes to choose between. E.g an M16 with GL might be capable of single shot, semi auto, fully auto and Indirect + Splash. Obviously in this case, you would use whichever skill is most appropriate to the fire mode you're currently using. Splash is a bit of a funny one because it can be combined with ANY of the other fire modes; you could have a fully auto AoE weapon, or a beam AoE weapon, or whatever.
Skill in a particular category will enhance accuracy and probably maintenance and repair as well, as the maintenance needs of each of these categories is somewhat different.
Obviously a full implementation of this would probably result in a proliferation of skills which you sound like you don't want. To be honest, I would imagine that the latter (fire mode) categorization is the more significant of the two.
Quote:Original post by Kest
So your suggestion would be to split the skills up into many sub components. My biggest gripe with that is the potential lameness of most of the skills. Their meaning and title. Can you recommend an example of the skills that would pertain to weapon handles, postures, firing rates, recoil, etc? Or would you just title them all easy, large, etc?
Well, Sandman did pretty well for size and firing rates (I think you could simply leave out "medium" if it's too lame and just have SMG's stuck in the middle, and you could probably get by with single, semi-, and fully-auto for firing, or merge single and semi-, and add indirect if it's needed). For some games, I think that'd be more than enough. Recoil could be put into some sort of "strength" (I don't know how realistic it is, but it's standard enough to not raise eyebrows), especially since I think (but I don't know guns) the idea of being unskilled at dealing with no recoil sounds odd. Depending on what you mean by postures, it seems that would fit under the weapon size or how you choose to use the weapon (prone, braced, standing, run-and-gun, whatever), although some weapons would be more amenable to certain postures.
Another option would be to make it purely graphical. You could show the continua with graphical representations of what applies where. For weapon size, you could have a bar, with something pistol-like on one side, rifle-like in the middle, and a bazooka-like weapon on the other side. Depending on how the skill system works, I can imagine there being counters at different points along the bar and the players can add skill points to the counters as they see fit.
Quote:Quote:Right, but even a better offense could've been significant if the energy weapons had out-classed small arms late game and required a different skill to use. That sort of quantitative difference would effect a qualitative change in character design and cause players to play differently. This is especially true since they already included the qualitatively different offense you described (heavy weapons).
I wasn't picturing it as a late game skill that could be switched over to. I agree that would be pretty neat. But Fallout sort of had that quirk where nothing could really be classified as late game. Just about everything can be randomly stumbled onto by a curious explorer.
Even so, certain areas and quests were obviously intended as early/middle/late game. People talk about sequence breaking Fallout 2 and going straight for the Advanced Power Armor, but the hazzards in that area make it clear that you're not supposed to be there yet.
Author
I agree with many of the points brought up. But I'm still pretty hesitant to include firing rates as a skill connection. I think a skill that handles recoil alone would work well to substitute a rapid-fire-skill. And a skill to handle focused aimed shots would do everything a single-shot-mode-skill would be used for.
A character that specializes in the focused fire skill could snipe really well, but rapid fire recoil would send their aim all over. And a character that specializes in the recoil skill may not be able to aim right on a dot, but they can hold their aim in the general area through terrible rapid firing. Even so, the skills don't need to conflict. If they master both skills, they can rapid fire onto the dot.
I can include this in-addition to the basic weapon class skills, like Handguns and Rifles. I could still use some help titling the sub-group, though :(
+ SRG (sub-rifle gun): Handguns, SRGs, Rifles, Cannons
+ Compact: Handguns, Compacts, Rifles, Cannons
+ Subgun: Handguns, Subguns, Rifles, Cannons
Any other ideas?
A character that specializes in the focused fire skill could snipe really well, but rapid fire recoil would send their aim all over. And a character that specializes in the recoil skill may not be able to aim right on a dot, but they can hold their aim in the general area through terrible rapid firing. Even so, the skills don't need to conflict. If they master both skills, they can rapid fire onto the dot.
I can include this in-addition to the basic weapon class skills, like Handguns and Rifles. I could still use some help titling the sub-group, though :(
+ SRG (sub-rifle gun): Handguns, SRGs, Rifles, Cannons
+ Compact: Handguns, Compacts, Rifles, Cannons
+ Subgun: Handguns, Subguns, Rifles, Cannons
Any other ideas?
The Handgun/rifle dichotomy might be what's screwing with your taxonomy. You're including battle rifles, assault rifles, sniper rifles, light machineguns and full-sized shotguns into the "rifle" class, right? Why not use Handguns, Light Guns, Heavy Guns and Special Weapons?
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