"Create Custom Class" option at character creation

[LadyWYT]

Given all the existing mods that add various new classes or make adjustments to existing classes, as well as discussions about classes in general, an option like this probably wouldn't be the worst thing ever. Players could select this option from the class menu at character creation and be taken to a third screen where they can pick whichever traits they want, as well as their starting outfit template from existing classes, and then give the class a custom name before playing. Of course, the player does this with the full understanding that NPCs will only ever offer the most generic interactions, with plot-relevant NPCs essentially saying "I have absolutely no idea who you are", since I mean...there's just too many variables to account for(though if the custom class name matches an existing class name exactly, then perhaps it will be treated as that class).

Obviously, this could lead to severe balance issues, but I think that's fixed simply by having a toggle for the option in the settings, turned off by default. The player will need to turn it on themselves if they want to play this way, and in the case of servers, it allows server owners to limit players to premade classes and thus maintain desired balance.

From a modding standpoint, I'm guessing this might make modding classes a little easier, at least for singleplayer, since players could probably just install a library of traits/outfits and then use the create-a-class feature to make whatever they want, rather than need to figure out how to actually mod a custom class.

Do I really expect this to happen? Eh, not really, at least not anytime soon. But I think it would probably be a handy tool to have so players could more easily balance a class however they want, without necessarily needing to learn how to mod in order to do it.

[Emeal]

Take it from me as a Dungeon Master,
many like to min/max and given the freedom they will pick the least impactful negative traits and the most impactful positive traits they can get their hands on.
and balancing THAT is way too much work and you even suggest this probably gonna be imbalanced, but...

I don't think its Anego's philosophy to make things that are too easy and free??

Edited Friday at 11:45 PM by Emeal

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Emeal said:

Take it from me as a Dungeon Master,
many like to min/max and given the freedom they will pick the least impactful negative traits and the most impactful positive traits they can get their hands on.
and balancing THAT is way too much work and you even suggest this probably gonna be imbalanced, but...

I don't think its Anego's philosophy to make things that are too easy and free??

Oh for sure, it's impossible to balance, and goes against the general design philosophy to an extent. However, there are also several settings in the game itself that allow the player to play in ways other than the intended game balance, including dialing the difficulty down to almost Minecraft levels of easy. Hence why I also suggested that it be a feature turned off by default, that the player must enable themselves if they really want to play that way.  I would also be really surprised if server admins allowed players to create custom classes.

The main drawback I see is that custom classes just aren't going to be tied to the world in any impactful way, since NPCs won't have anything to say about the player's class choice. That's not really going to make for a very interesting game if the class is just a pack of bonuses/penalties and no real impact on the world otherwise. The player could also decide to give themselves all the beneficial effects, sure, but the drawback of doing so is that there's not really much challenge if one is good at everything. However, making a custom class that has all the negative traits, or exclusively crafting traits, or some other weird combination could make for an interesting challenge.

[ArgentLuna]

Trait template ~ you pick 3 positives (maybe have them in a greater and lesser grouping and you get one Greater two lesser), 2 negatives or something along the lines of where the more negatives you pick the more or better positives you can pick

[jerjerje]

18 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Given all the existing mods that add various new classes or make adjustments to existing classes, as well as discussions about classes in general, an option like this probably wouldn't be the worst thing ever. Players could select this option from the class menu at character creation and be taken to a third screen where they can pick whichever traits they want, as well as their starting outfit template from existing classes, and then give the class a custom name before playing. Of course, the player does this with the full understanding that NPCs will only ever offer the most generic interactions, with plot-relevant NPCs essentially saying "I have absolutely no idea who you are", since I mean...there's just too many variables to account for(though if the custom class name matches an existing class name exactly, then perhaps it will be treated as that class).

11 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

The main drawback I see is that custom classes just aren't going to be tied to the world in any impactful way, since NPCs won't have anything to say about the player's class choice. That's not really going to make for a very interesting game if the class is just a pack of bonuses/penalties and no real impact on the world otherwise. The player could also decide to give themselves all the beneficial effects, sure, but the drawback of doing so is that there's not really much challenge if one is good at everything. However, making a custom class that has all the negative traits, or exclusively crafting traits, or some other weird combination could make for an interesting challenge.

I like this idea. As long as it isn't available by default, this could be some nice customizability. Both for making parts of the game easier, if desired, or for even harder challenge runs! Since it wouldn't be available by default, it wouldn't really need to be balanced either. Would be a cool addition, but likely be a priority for the devs. For now this would likely be better as a mod. In fact, there is a mod for this: https://mods.vintagestory.at/sonitodynamictraits

For it to work as you described, you would have to change the point config to be higher, so you can buy all of them. It also seems to need some additional config file, so all vanilla traits show up. I don't know how it interacts with modded traits though.

[ifoz]

13 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

However, making a custom class that has all the negative traits, or exclusively crafting traits, or some other weird combination could make for an interesting challenge.

It would be pretty funny if intentionally choosing all the possible negative traits with no positives gave your custom class a special title like "beggar" or "wretch" 
A bit of a fun surprise for the people who try to play the game as hard as possible!

Edited Saturday at 02:49 PM by ifoz

[LadyWYT]

10 hours ago, ArgentLuna said:

Trait template ~ you pick 3 positives (maybe have them in a greater and lesser grouping and you get one Greater two lesser), 2 negatives or something along the lines of where the more negatives you pick the more or better positives you can pick

I thought about a trait template, but ended up leaving it out of the suggestion, since playing broken builds(good or bad) is also fun. 

 

2 hours ago, jerjerje said:

I like this idea. As long as it isn't available by default, this could be some nice customizability. Both for making parts of the game easier, if desired, or for even harder challenge runs! Since it wouldn't be available by default, it wouldn't really need to be balanced either. Would be a cool addition, but likely be a priority for the devs. For now this would likely be better as a mod. In fact, there is a mod for this: https://mods.vintagestory.at/sonitodynamictraits

For it to work as you described, you would have to change the point config to be higher, so you can buy all of them. It also seems to need some additional config file, so all vanilla traits show up. I don't know how it interacts with modded traits though.

Oh for sure--a mod is still a win, though that mod unfortunately appears to be outdated. Though there are a few players that just absolutely will not use mods for whatever reason as well, hence why I don't think having a vanilla option to create a class would be the worst thing. In that case, players could make whatever they want, and maybe there'd be fewer forum arguments over which classes should be added/how current classes should change.