One of my ideas for game mechanics, should developers want to make anything out of it at any point in time. If these already exist in other games, sorry, I really thought of these and didn’t carbon copy from anywhere.
My intention is to have a more interesting game to play, just tired of dumbed down titles, oversimplistic design, classes where everyone is a clone and poor itemization.
Don’t take descriptions literally since its just a general concept, change or balance/adapt as best suits the game.
1 - Badge System (or Seals System, or whatever ^^)
Badge System serves 3 purposes:
1: An extra layer for complexity at character planning, customization, rewards when exploring the world and doing quests/achievements.
2: Additional method for developers to better balance each class individually.
3: A way to encourage players into play/level up as many different classes as they can, since a badge from a class can benefit another class (details further on).
Badges are selectable passive abilities, some have active complements too.
Characters start the game with 1 Badge (class basic), additional Badges are gained from progressing main campaign/game, doing certain side-quests or events, reaching key levels or through special accomplishments.
Except for the basic class one, Badges are not meant to be class-specific, all characters from all classes should have access/acquire all possible badges throughout the game.
Basic class badges are supposed to be very strong/useful for the nature of that particular class, less useful or relevant for other classes.
Only 1 Badge can be “active” from levels 1 to 90, two active badges at 180, three at level 360, four at 450.
To change the active badge(s) character has to access special NPCs located in towns/wherever and pay a small amount, this cost goes up at levels 30/60/90/120 respectively.
Active Badges work at full strength, badges that are not active still function, however the effect ranges from 10% to 50% of its full potential, whatever % best suits game/class balance.
Since inactive badges still provide bonuses, each player should hunt/acquire all possible badges to have a stronger character.
Some badges are account wide, these are displayed in the Badge System menu of ALL CHARACTERS, at any given time.
Badges that require a specific quest/condition/whatever will only appear in the system menu of EACH INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER after he/she has fulfilled the requirements and acquired the badge.
Account wide badges that a character does not possess are displayed in the Badge System menu as transparent and greyed out symbols, the character can’t activate these and does not gain any bonuses from it.
Account wide badges that a character does possess are displayed as transparent symbols, the character can activate these (lose transparency to portray as active), and even while inactive these do provide a reduced % of its bonuses.
Condition/quest badges are not displayed to individual characters badge system menu until the character acquires it, at wich point it is displayed as greyed out if the character does not have a high enough level or a requirement to use, or solid/transparent display depending if active or no.
Now, whenever a player reaches level 400 in a class, the basic badge of that class is unlocked for all other classes in that account. There, that gives players a small incentive to level each and every class.
Its not a huge advantage, but a small bonus that players wich aims for fully developed characters will try to accomplish.
Remember theres a limit of badges that can be active, defined by level, extra badges for the most part provide inactive, smaller bonuses and can be tweaked for each different class
Lets say you go and start playing “Knight”, upon entering the Badge System menu, there are at least XX badge symbols there (1 for each class, plus whatever other account wide badges the game currently features). Anyway, apart from the Knight badge, at this point all other badges are greyed out and transparent. The player can however, mouse over and inspect what are the bonuses those badges give to knight class, if/when unlocked.
Examples:
“Sturdiness” To unlock - None, basic knight class badge, account wide if Knight reaches level 400.
When active reduces all incoming physical damage by 10%.
When inactive reduces incoming physical damage by 5%.
Then if/when player reaches lvl 400 with Knight, this badge is unlocked for all other classes to use as well, so it grants the 10% / 5% (active / inactive) physical damage reduction, lets say balance wise this proves too strong for other classes or Berserker in particular, then devs balance it for 8% / 4% other classes, 6 / 3 for berserker.
“Momentum” - To unlock - None, basic Berserker class badge, account wide if berserker reaches level 400.
When active, each consecutive attack that hits the same target grants a 3% increase in attackspeed, stacks up to 5 times, resets if the target is not hit within 3 seconds, or upon changing to a new target.
When inactive it works the same but bonus is 1%.
*Works for area attacks if at least 1 target remains the same.
“Badge of Fire”. To unlock - Character has to do at least XXX amount of damage as fire, requires a minimum level of 33. (Can be acquired before lvl 33, but will be greyed out until lvl 33)
Active - Character does 30% increased fire damage, 10% of damage taken from fire is converted to mana, incoming damage from other elements is increased by 10% (or 20%, or 10% extra damage taken from all sources not just elements).
Inactive - Increases fire damage by 8%.
“Seal of Friction”. To unlock - Face ‘Drog the Terrible’ in combat.
Active - When losing 30% or more of total HP as damage taken from a single source, movespeed is increased by 20% plus the amount of damage that surpassed the 30%, this bonus to movespeed gradually resets over the next 5 seconds. (example: loses 45% of HP from a single attack, movespeed increases by 35%, reduced by 7% each second until it drains the 35% bonus).
Inactive - Losing more than 30% HP from a single damage source increases movespeed by 10%, gradually resets over 5 seconds.
*A new friction can’t activate until the last one has expired.
“Sky Blessed”. To unlock - Complete side quest at chapter 4 ‘The Winged Damsel’.
Active - Recover from ailments and bad statuses 10% faster, also, whenever you take a critical hit in an open sky area, theres a 30% chance that a lightning bolt will struck the place 2 seconds after, dealing XX times your level electrical damage, the bolt hits enemies and neutrals.
Inactive - Recover from ailments and bad statuses 5% faster.
*Each 30% chance stacks when a bolt fails to come down.
(meaning the first time theres a 30% chance, if bolt fails the second time a 60%, failing again the third a 90% and the fourth is a sure bolt)
A player that has unlocked a good number of CLASS badges is arguably stronger than one that hasn’t, however I don’t see the increase as being so meaningful to the point it disrupts gameplay, and at the same time it grants players more incentive and rewards to constinuously play/evolve different classes (any player that has unlocked many class badges is a very accomplished one to say the least).
This badge system is to cover a more “macro” portion of classes and gameplay, while a “passive skill tree” like the one used in path of exile (other games should port/mimic it if they can’t do better), is IMO the best way to cover the “micro” portion of each class individually, branching and fragmenting characters inside the same class while providing a lot of customization and differentiation for planning/building characters.
I also intend to present this idea/concept to Lost Ark Online and Lineage Eternal, if there is ever a way to contact the devs, since it seems impossible atm.
So, opinions, thoughts, doubts? I hope to have explained it well, my english can be horrible ^^
(I’ve some other ideas, will post when I get to write it down)
Thanks for reading!
