Class system in a vidyagaem.

>>51614870
Depends a lot on your context. For mine I went with 5 non casters (barbarian, soldier, thief, hunter, warlord), 5 casters (wizard, sorcerer, warlock, druid, and priest), and 5 races (human, troll, goblin, elf, dwarf).

That said, your perfect class roster is going to depend pretty heavily on what your rules allow you to design content for, what's appropriate to the tone of your game, and so on. I split sorcerer and wizard because giving blasty magic and noclip magic to the same dude was excessive. I've got a distinct soldier class partly because my reach and AoO rules let me turn walking backwards slowly into a nigh game-breaking superpower. Warlord made it in because I'm doing something powers based and it's a popular class in that genre.

So maybe tell us a little more about the game itself.

File: 81152-1443048672-Leigh bowry-xl.jpg (94KB, 512x512px) Image search: [Google]

94KB, 512x512px

Knight, Thief, Mage, Paladin, Archer, Priest, Blackguard, Assassin, Shaman.

File: how.png (209KB, 540x440px) Image search: [Google]

209KB, 540x440px

>>51615033
It's single-player, with simple loot and crafting elements. Dungeons have big complex ecosystems and food chains. Currently I've got one dungeon with a flooded theme. There's streams, ponds, flooded rooms, and semi-aquatic life, which reflects in the combat encounters. Giant frogs, turtles, killer fish, poisonous reptiles, sentient fish men, and a hydra as the final boss. Except the hydra is free to hunt and wander the environment, creating a cat and mouse dynamic as you worm your way through the environment and gather materials to craft yourself good enough gear to actually kill the hydra. Not all of this is fully functioning and no where near completion. I'm trying to create several dungeons each with different themes.

I think for something with this level of complexity you probably just want a few really tight classes rather than 9. I would say Caster, Fighter, Rogue. If you really want more, I would say Elementalist, Necromancer, Priest, Warrior, Barbarian, Paladin, Archer, Thief, Assassin

If it's crafting focused, dont have classes, have the gear change how your character plays.

>>51615410
First off I've got to say that I love the decision to include a properly wandering monster with a run of the place. It's rare in vidya I've played so far.

So the hydra can encounter you before you're ready. Is it safe to assume there are transversal and/or door blocking gameplay elements so that just being spotted isn't a game over?

Are there mechanics associated with the water? Forced movement? Submerged passages? Drowning? Torch dousing? Puzzly bits utilizing any or all of the former.

Also, is this single player single character or a single player managing a party?

>>51615696
>I love the decision to include a properly wandering monster with a run of the place.

I haven't played much of it myself, but as I recall the Etrian Odyssey series has that as a core mechanic. If you can stomach the distilled weeb, I would give that a shot.

>>51615696
Keep in mind I'm not too far into this project, combat and crafting are really what I've worked the most on so far.

So far, the hydra is as big slowly moving sprite, as I haven't created any attack animations for it. The player enters the dungeon in a safe room, and the hydra's collision won't let it enter the first few rooms because the entrances aren't wide enough.

Water mechanics haven't been fleshed out at all either, but I'll probably use it as a way to keep the player out of areas they aren't supposed to be in yet. (rebreather required? Maybe a spell of waterwalking?)

You control a single character.

>>51615682
Perhaps. I just wanted to give the player different mechanics to explore. I was considering differing stats for different classes, but maybe just different perks or abilities for different class choices? Barbarian would have less accuracy but could go into a rage mode of increased damage or something.

>>51615880
From this, nine as a class set up is excessive from a design standpoint. You could argue one class would be all you would need for the general purpose of it and have the dungeons themselves do a sort of zelda situation where you gain benefits within them to conquer them.

As I gather that's not the intent, you need to instead make sure these dungeons are going to support all possible differences in play style a class system might have. You don't want a player to get stuck with no options as a Fighter for exploration if the dungeons only grant such perks to Rogues or Mages.

The first step to decide on with your design isn't what classes there should be, but as >>51615682 pointed out, WHY classes in the first place. A class exists because a game is designed around rewarding specialties, be it combat related or not.

With exploration and crafting the primary focus, the environments need to compliment the existence of each class, and in fact the existence of classes period. Start with the holy trinity and then branch from there if you come up with different options for environmental benefit.

>>51615880
With one player one character, I'd second the notion of eschewing classes and levels. Just let the gear crafting system stand in for that. If you want to have characters built differently, distribute single-instance ingredients (say, from bosses) that can be crafted into one of several upgrades.

>Invisible walls and slow speed on the hydra
It would probably be better to have a specific feature that the hydra can't cross and the player can. This would reward the player for making a mental note of where that stuff is and navigating the dungeon. It'd also keep your chase sequences shorter even if they happen deeper into the dungeon. Rather than opening up the option of plinking the thing with arrows from behind an invisible force field that exists for metagame reasons. Or having a player be totally fucked because they're on the opposite side of the dungeon. Or allowing kiting and ranged attacks to wear the thing out at any level.

>Water not fleshed out, but acting as a barrier
You might flip this one of two ways. Either letting the player cross water but not the hydra early on or limiting the hydra to water and making it a player barrier until later. I'd probably favor the latter. You can build your mental map of the place and where the water is by running from the bad guy, but by the time you're ready to face him it simultaneously opens up a bunch of shortcuts and helps you find the hydra.

>classes
>levels

Why does your game require these design elements and what does it add to the game?

So, basically, what everybody else said.

>>51616939
There won't be experience points/any leveling system, just different tiers of gear.

If you're talking about levels like different game worlds, I'm planning on having different dungeons that you unlock one after the other.

Rolled 79 (1d100)

>>51614870

>top down, action adventure rpg game set in a big ol' dungeon.

So a roguelike game without roguelike gameplay?

>>51614870
Am I the only one who doesn't know what /agdg/ is?

>>51617102
amateur game design general
It's /v/'s hbg

>>51617061
Or a zelda clone without the overworld and just the dungeons.

>>51617061
>>51617190
It doesn't seem to have much of a mechanical identity yet.

File: classes for anon.png (27KB, 900x901px) Image search: [Google]

27KB, 900x901px

>>51614870
>>51615410
>>51617026
This seems to match the gameplay pretty well, just come up with names for the blank squares.
Natural manipulates the ecosystem, item-based steals and crafts, martial and supernatural are self-explanatory.

>>51617568
Thanks this works pretty well!

>>51617568
Here's a few ideas for missing gaps.
>Pure Item-Based: Thief, Merchant, Engineer
>Supernatural/Item-Based: Artificer, Summoner
>Supernatural/Martial: Monk, Spellblade

>>51618122
>>Pure Item-Based: rogue
>>Supernatural/Item-Based: enchanter
>>Supernatural/Martial: battlemage
additional ideas

>>51617622
you're welcome

>>51614870
First, tell me about the setting of the game. A world shouldn't just have random classes in it. Classes represent things people do as adventurers, or even for means other than adventuring. What sort of magic is in the world? Are there gods? Do people invest a lot to go through these dungeons?

File: 87f.jpg (588KB, 3154x2493px) Image search: [Google]

588KB, 3154x2493px

Rolled 90 (1d100)

>>51614870
Rolling!

File: classes.png (6KB, 880x580px) Image search: [Google]

6KB, 880x580px

>>51614870
some fun non-magic based ideas

>>51618369
Yeah, what kind of world is this and what kind of gameplay are you going for? Is stuff like breaking into chests and avoiding traps a big deal? Is it a turn based sort of thing like, you know... rougelikes or is it real time or what?
Cause classes from a pure gameplay perspective are choices that designer is giving the player on how they want to focus their experience. I can give you 9 cool names but I donno what you actually need unless I know more about what kind of game you're makin'.

>>51614870
>clerk