What if you had a tactics book similar to the magery spell book? This book would contain UOR developed versions of the best abilities and skills of chivalry and bushido (meaning whatever items could be changed to work with UOR) plus any new abilities for the warrior class. I propose this idea for two reasons: 1. lack of utility of the tactics skill and 2. lack of warrior pvp viability. On tactic's utility, let's look at the other damage boosting skills we have currently. Anatomy also boosts healing and summarizes physical stats, evaluating Intelligence also summarizes intelligence and boost spell resist (I think). Tactics does nothing else in this regard. Instead of making new skills, why not use this already inherent skill sink to buff warriors. This would allow us to improve the warrior class and leave skill template shuffling out of the equation. For the abilities, we could use low mana costs as the usage factor because warriors have low mana. I think this would be the easy way of doing it. What do you guys think about this idea?
Fun factor is another major reason I should have included in op. I've brought people into the game before that rejected it because they were bored of seeing their guy do a reoccurring swing animation on a zombie. The game was just unappealing to them and they didn't give it a chance. Even though it may be nostalgic and simple, I think having only 1 special hit per weapon class with a .25 chance to inflict is kinda lame. I think this idea would make the warrior class way more dynamic and fun to use.
Ideas incoming... To equal the cost of making a warrior vs mage: What if you created new gumps for warrior npc guild masters where you purchased the abilities. You would buy them one by one, have to have specific tactics skill requirements to attain them, and they would cost a substantial amount of money each. This would help make it more equal to what it cost to build a mage, which is around 125k in regs and bandages or so, give or take. Even then, you have to remember the mage still gets spells resist from their training while the warrior does not.
^ I said it lacked utility, not use another one idea To make parry viable in pvp: What if the abilities all had weapon class restrictions as well. For example, two handed, one handed, shield equipped, or ranged restrictions. The abilities that were assigned to the shield equipped restriction may have paladin-like qualities that would offset the need to use potions. That in itself would be the precursor to making parry viable in pvp, don't ya think?
To make the game richer. I'm open to using other elements of games to improve this one. If you're uncomfortable with that I will respect your stance.
Also wylwrk, if you must know I got the idea of the npc ability purchase system from final fantasy and the weapon class restrictions from runescape. Totally different games, I know, but if done correctly I don't see why they can't be used in this game to great effect.
The first Final Fantasy, on the NES, where half the spells didn't work? A lot of NES rpgs/rpg-related games used that. I personally prefer "learning" my skills for more of a feeling I earned something/cheapness. (actually the way you built stats in FFII was pretty similar to UO but I'm gonna try not to JRPG nerd all over the place here) Honestly if we ripped anything off of Final Fantasy (other than more belts. we need more belts in Britannia ) I would want the Monk class for some bare-handed boxing fun but I don't see that happening. I will say this - the one thing I really like about AoS in what tiny sample I've played is the Chivalry thing. Particularly Sacred Journey. So I don't HATE your original idea, but I also don't think it'll go over well here. People won't even let dexers get 100% recall from a runebook here....
Indeed, I did mean final fantasy 1 on NES. Most of the spells were pretty crappy but if you had the beastiary from Nintendo power guide you could see all monster immunities and stuff iirc. On a side note, main thing I didn't like about Ultima AoS is that it forced this good vs evil alignment. That sort of thing doesn't mesh well in a game like this because you will have pk's that will use chivalry and such. It just makes it seem kind of silly in the end. All the more reason to use tactics as this sort of a "grey" battle arts type of skill, along with its damage boost role in my opinion.
