Elements

This document outlines the current design plan. This is very much a living document.

Combat

Diablo-style but with more WoW-style rotations. Top down view, abilities are cast towards the mouse pointer. No auto attacks. Most attacks have a small area of effect. Real time rotation abilities with a GCD (1s). 4-6 core combat skills per class, ~5-10 situational skills. Talent trees are independent of each other, ie the choice is between the talents in the trees and not the trees themselves.

Current class concepts

Even if classes are marked tank or heal it doesn't mean they completely lack offensive capabilities, but their offense is bound to their tanking/healing abilities. An example might be "x% of effective healing done is inflicted on a random nearby enemy".

Martial Artist (dps)

• Mastery (opportunity attacks) // Acrobatics (movement/defense)
• Wields a quarterstaff and wears light armor.
• Resources: Energy and Opportunity.
• Elements: Physical, water.
• Adept at weaving in and out of melee range and finding weak spots in the enemies line, very mobile but fragile if cornered.
• Spends energy on a skill which does little damage but gives some opportunity.
• Opportunity is spent on skills with cooldowns.
• Goal is to optimize opportunity spending to keep the spenders on cooldown as much as possible.
• Also has a stun, a damage cooldown, a defensive cooldown etc...

Ranger (dps)

• Marksman (attacks) // Outdoorsmanship (control & survival options)
• Uses ranged weapons and medium armor.
• Resource is focus.
• Physical, Nature
• Uses poisons and traps to slow and control enemies while giving them a barrage of deadly projectiles from far away.

Berserker (dps)

• Weapon master (dual wield) // Commander (2h)
• 2h weapon/dual wield and heavy armor.
• Fury
• Physical, fire
• Gains defensive benefits from attacking, best strategy should almost always be to stand their ground. Very strong versus hordes of enemies.

Knight (tank/heal)

• Justicar (healing) // Protector (defense)
• 1h weapon and shield, heavy armor.
• Stamina and Chivalry
• Physical + light
• Chivalry is gained from taking damage and is used to restore and buff the Knight and their allies.

Monk (heal)

• Asceticism (offense) // Balance (healing)
• 1h weapon and light armor.
• Mana and Serenity
• Water, light
• Healing-focused. Effective healing builds Serenity which unlocks abilities at higher levels.

Axomancer (dps)

• Archon // Necromancy
• 1h weapon, medium armor.
• Instability.
• Chaos magic
• Medium range elemental fighter.
• Abilites build instability on self, high instability quickly becomes dangerous, but can also be unleashed against enemies.

Druid (dps/heal)

• Loremaster // Astromancy
• 1h weapon, medium armor.
• Insight
• Nature, physical.
• Calls the forces of nature to assist them.

Wizard (dps)

• Fire // Frost
• Wand and light armor.
• Mana and Synergy.
• Fire, frost
• Casting spells of the same element builds synergy which unlocks extra effects from spells. Casting spells from a different element reduces synergy. There are damage-dealing spells as well as control/utility spells in both elements. Maybe a way to reward keeping synergy near 0?

Elements

Strength/weakness-graph for elements

Elements    Weak vs         Strong vs           Keywords
Physical                                        Force, weapons, pressure
Fire                        Shadow/Nature       Heat, burn
Water                       Fire/Light          Ice, pure,
Light                       Shadow/Physical     Holy, divine, arcane,
Shadow                      Nature/Physical     Darkness, necromancy, corrupted
Nature                      Physical/Water      Life, poison, druidic, plants
(possibly more, or multi-element combinations)

Crafting

Each item requires components made from a class of material, but different choices affect the resulting items properties. All items have elemental affinities. Making an all-fire affine bow should be something you want to do (with a separate plan for fire-resistant enemies).

Example

To craft a bow, you need a handle, shafts and string The recipe is the same, but the materials depend on your progression

• Shaft
  • With an oak shaft, the bow is stronger but heavier/slower
  • If you use an yew shaft, the bow is very light
  • A carbon fiber shaft would give a light and strong bow but is hard to get
• String
  • A tougher string enables stronger materials to be used for the shaft
  • Plant fibres are common but enables the lowest draw weight
  • Wool is better
  • Kevlar is the strongest
• Handle
  • More/harder to get materials can be used for slots for sight/balancer/etc.
• Arrows are similar, but focuses on different tips. Probably not expendable.
  • Tips
    • Iron tips are cheap
    • Steel tips are more expensive but better
    • Meteorite tips give some fire damage
    • Icicle tips for frost damage
  • Shaft
    • Different woods/composites give different combinations of weight (affects range/accuracy) and elemental bonuses.
  • Fletching
    • Different types of feathers might give some elemental bonuses.

Items

Components

Components are divided into a tree (maybe even a DAG) of different classes.

• Metal
  • Iron
  • Steel
  • Meteorite
• Stone
  • Gem
    • Emerald - Nature
    • Diamond - Light
    • Ruby - Fire
    • Sapphire - Water
    • Amethyst - Shadow
  • Granite
  • Obsidian
• Composites - Handles, bow shafts, cases
  • Wood
    • Oak
    • Pine
    • Yew
  • Polymer
    • Fibre glass
    • Carbon fibre
• Fibre
  • Flax
  • Wool
  • Nylon
  • Kevlar
• Animal part
  • Bone
    • Massive
      • Elephant
      • Dragon
    • Big
      • Cow
      • Moose
      • Unicorn
    • Medium
      • Pig
      • Dog
    • Small
      • Rabbit
      • Cat
  • Horn
    • Unicorn
    • Moose
    • Cow
    • Sheep
  • Meat
    • Cow
    • Pig
    • Moose
    • Sheep
  • Skin
    • Moose
    • Cow
    • Rabbit