It has its roots in absolutely nothing and is just "out there" for the sake of it. How about an Ice Cream Man class, or a Pilot Instructor class, or a Horse Whisperer class, a Balloon Folding class? See, I can be original too.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
Depends. What do they do that makes them stand out? How is playing them any different from other classes in the genre? What elements do they bring to group play previously unseen?
None of your examples are original unless they bring something new along with.
I believe the that the theme of the class was inspired by the contribution the railway made to expanding and settling the U.S. Frontier.
Challenge accepted! Ahem, here we go:
Ice Cream Man class. Is based on combining two abilities (they would be called flavors) to create different status effects, benificial or harmful. The first group of abilities would be called Scoop 1 and the second group Scoop 2. Different combinations give different results of course. When having exhausted all of these abilities you would trigger the Sold Out ability which would drop a massive ice cream van at your position creating a huge AOE blast while also refreshing all your cooldowns/flavours. The trick is your are working with a Temperature meter and you have to stay cold. combining too fast would make you get overheated so you would need to cooldown. you could do so by using other abilities instead of flavors (meleeing a cone or waffle for instance) but you would cool down faster by running around.
Pilot Instructor class. This would be a combo class, creating a string of attacks resulting in a finisher. It would be a three step combination starting with 1. Motivation, then 2. Education en finally 3. Exam. 1,2 and 3 would be groups of abilities. Each group has a positive, a neutral, and a negative ability. If the final result of your combo (the combo being 1 ability from each group) is positive you will use a Take Off finisher. If it is neutral you will perform a Grounded finisher and if it is negative you will use a Crash finisher. A positive result comes from the majority of abilities being positive, or two neutral and 1 positive. Neutral would be all neutral abilities or 1 positive, 1 neutral and 1 negative etc. etc.
Horse Whisperer class. This class would focus on your pet and make it an essential tool in your arsenal. It would also always be a horse. you could give it special attacks and status effects by whispering the right ability in its ear before it charges the assigned target. You yourself would be using a whip "controlling" the battle field. What makes this class unique is that you need to keep close to your horse at all times to be able to fully use it, you're the horse whisperer, not the horse screamer so he/she won't be able to hear you when you are too far away.
Balloon folding class. This would be a CC class. An inflatible balloon could be used to whack a target over the head, stunning or confusing it. you could also summon minions by folding balloons into animals. Your resource would be air, which you could run out of by using your abilities too much. You could then use "catch a Breath" to instantly replenish it. That would be a ranged AOE ability which you would have to cast at a completely empty spot. Another, slower, way of recovering air is by standing still. Being a light armor user this is a bit more risky. You can also use Inflate and Deflate buffs. Inflate will increase your size and damage but will make you run out of air faster. Deflate will decrease your size and damage but you won't run out of air that fast.
Well, there you go, original and all that. Brilliant ain't it?
/Cheers, Lahnmir
Wow, I hope the railmaster has as many mechanics as those ideas. Right now it mostly just seems to be the same as a turret class where you can reposition your turret but you have to be within melee range to do it. IMHO the class might be more functional if it had the ability to lay down rails at range (although that'd probably look kinda weird)
Maybe they should add delivery skills to the train. Like, it can deliver bombs to a set location. ...again, for that to be really functional, long-range rail placing would have to be there otherwise you may as well just play a melee class.
Yeah, and I came up with all of that in about 30 minutes. Maybe the finalized class will be amazing but so far its a crappy idea with, seemingly, crappy execution.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
'the only way he could nail it any better is if he used a cross.'
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
It has its roots in absolutely nothing and is just "out there" for the sake of it. How about an Ice Cream Man class, or a Pilot Instructor class, or a Horse Whisperer class, a Balloon Folding class? See, I can be original too.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
Depends. What do they do that makes them stand out? How is playing them any different from other classes in the genre? What elements do they bring to group play previously unseen?
None of your examples are original unless they bring something new along with.
I believe the that the theme of the class was inspired by the contribution the railway made to expanding and settling the U.S. Frontier.
Challenge accepted! Ahem, here we go:
Ice Cream Man class. Is based on combining two abilities (they would be called flavors) to create different status effects, benificial or harmful. The first group of abilities would be called Scoop 1 and the second group Scoop 2. Different combinations give different results of course. When having exhausted all of these abilities you would trigger the Sold Out ability which would drop a massive ice cream van at your position creating a huge AOE blast while also refreshing all your cooldowns/flavours. The trick is your are working with a Temperature meter and you have to stay cold. combining too fast would make you get overheated so you would need to cooldown. you could do so by using other abilities instead of flavors (meleeing a cone or waffle for instance) but you would cool down faster by running around.
Pilot Instructor class. This would be a combo class, creating a string of attacks resulting in a finisher. It would be a three step combination starting with 1. Motivation, then 2. Education en finally 3. Exam. 1,2 and 3 would be groups of abilities. Each group has a positive, a neutral, and a negative ability. If the final result of your combo (the combo being 1 ability from each group) is positive you will use a Take Off finisher. If it is neutral you will perform a Grounded finisher and if it is negative you will use a Crash finisher. A positive result comes from the majority of abilities being positive, or two neutral and 1 positive. Neutral would be all neutral abilities or 1 positive, 1 neutral and 1 negative etc. etc.
Horse Whisperer class. This class would focus on your pet and make it an essential tool in your arsenal. It would also always be a horse. you could give it special attacks and status effects by whispering the right ability in its ear before it charges the assigned target. You yourself would be using a whip "controlling" the battle field. What makes this class unique is that you need to keep close to your horse at all times to be able to fully use it, you're the horse whisperer, not the horse screamer so he/she won't be able to hear you when you are too far away.
Balloon folding class. This would be a CC class. An inflatible balloon could be used to whack a target over the head, stunning or confusing it. you could also summon minions by folding balloons into animals. Your resource would be air, which you could run out of by using your abilities too much. You could then use "catch a Breath" to instantly replenish it. That would be a ranged AOE ability which you would have to cast at a completely empty spot. Another, slower, way of recovering air is by standing still. Being a light armor user this is a bit more risky. You can also use Inflate and Deflate buffs. Inflate will increase your size and damage but will make you run out of air faster. Deflate will decrease your size and damage but you won't run out of air that fast.
Well, there you go, original and all that. Brilliant ain't it?
/Cheers, Lahnmir
Brilliant enough, anyway, to make for a fun read. Most of them could probably be easily adapted to work well as classes in West of Loathing, at least thematically.
None of them mesh as well thematically as the Railmaster in the Torchlight Frontiers setting, which already alludes to steam-powered technology being part of it.
Still, I can understand why many feel it goes too far into the Whimsy Zone compared to previous titles and I feel they could have kept the theme while making a class that was a bit more grounded in what could be expected based on the past.
The game is still in alpha so there is still time to revise the class if it is poorly received. so the Railmaster as is can easily become a failed experiment transformed into something players find pleasing. Then again, it may catch on more than posts in this thread suggest.
Time will tell, and for all we known this may not even be the class furthest the from beaten trail compared to others they have yet to reveal.
Maybe they should hire you as a class designer. It seems you can think inside their box when you are so inclined.
Comments
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
None of them mesh as well thematically as the Railmaster in the Torchlight Frontiers setting, which already alludes to steam-powered technology being part of it.
Still, I can understand why many feel it goes too far into the Whimsy Zone compared to previous titles and I feel they could have kept the theme while making a class that was a bit more grounded in what could be expected based on the past.
The game is still in alpha so there is still time to revise the class if it is poorly received. so the Railmaster as is can easily become a failed experiment transformed into something players find pleasing. Then again, it may catch on more than posts in this thread suggest.
Time will tell, and for all we known this may not even be the class furthest the from beaten trail compared to others they have yet to reveal.
Maybe they should hire you as a class designer. It seems you can think inside their box when you are so inclined.