Rigid class system

[Elone]

One of my dreams was that someday any person will be able to learn anything with some work.

some classes could have different pros/cons with different weapons

Wizards can reach grand masteries too, regardless of the time it takes. I wished this gap between classes to be lessened even further, not increased! Surely all these past characters had a profession when they started in Drakalor Chain, and they sadly had to stick to it forever. Let's say you start a farmer with 5 learning. By the end of the game, you can have a 20x bigger learning score, but his booklearning skills are still in quite a sad state. Why? Why is such a smart character unable to finally understand a book he couldnt understand at 5 learning? Because of his past life? Does he have a complex? I very strongly disagree with this idea.

There is a plenty of ways to fix this issue from Adom.

Make bookreading improve with Learning, not change with class.
Same with other class specific traits, it should matter what you've been at the time you entered the game, but it should also equally (if not more) matter what you decided to do after you started playing.

Make smithing speed improve with the smithing skill.
Similar with other skills. IRL, the more you do something, the better you get at it. Assassin could learn to pick a good herb, why not? What, if he didnt start out with the skill, he cant gain the skill with lots of trial and error? If he doesnt start with herbalism (or learns it from a preset NPC), he'll be able to pick 1000 herbs and still wont learn how to do it.
(the jade demo had a diplomacy skill. when you talk to a few people and make stupid mistakes and lose advantage over them, you'll learn to avoid those mistakes no matter what kind of troll you are, a river troll, a cabbage troll, a forum troll, or a mountain troll.)

Make the required weaponmarks same for any class, but make fighting characters start out with pregained levels in some/all of them.
This last line may seem like it's the same thing, but it's not. Because once the wizard does catch up with a fighter's pregained weapon skill, he can continue training as any fighter would from there on.

All these examples could make you think "If an elf spent 300 years under one class, wouldnt it be hard for him to switch to another one?" I say not, if an elf gained only 15 learning in his 300 years, and reached 99 learning in a matter of 30-60 days, then they can surely find a way to switch to another class in 30-60 days too? Their initial class would still, indeed, determine their starting stats and equipment.

The progress of player's characters towards the other classes should not be slowed down or restricted in any way - they would only have more to catch up with, but once they caught up, they could continue learning from there on, just as any other class could.

[JellySlayer]

It seems to me that the effect of this would be to reduce the variety in classes. I mean, why would you ever pick a class like a wizard, when you can just start the game as a barbarian to get through the early parts, then switch to magic later on once you have more spells and no longer have the disadvantages of the wizard's frailty? While I agree with you in principle that things would work this way in the real world, from a gameplay point of view, I think it would really homogenize things too much.

Instead, I'll take the opposite argument: why should an orc EVER be able to get as much learning as an elf? Or a hurthling be as strong as a troll? Wouldn't it make more sense for races to have hard upper limits on their stats (eg. potential scores can't increase), rather than trying to explain how a character could get 15 learning in 300 years and then get up to 99 in 30 days?

[Elone]

I played a number of games where you'd start out a character who could learn just about anything, without having to even choose a class. It was quite interesting. If you wore armour, you'd gain defense bonuses but magical penalties. If you wore an enchanted robe, you'd get some bonuses to magic, but give up on heavy armour. If you attacked monsters with magic, your magic skills would be trained. If you attacked with arrows, missile attack would get trained. It took a lot of time to orient yourself into any class direction, so you had to choose what you'd like the most.

It doesnt have to be same in Adom/Jade, because it's not the same game. But I'd enjoy the freedom.

Races are another matter. In fact, they could be the key to avoiding the homogenisation. You pick a race like an orc... then you can specialise in wizardry, but will still be at disadvantage because of lack of wizard's stats. Or pick a hurtling, and just accept the fact that his muscles will never grow as big as that of a troll. This is, again, closer to the real world, but still makes for a good gameplay (if that's what you wanted). Soooo what would a Troll's appearance limit be?

Come to think of it, someone commented on a 99Ap troll in another topic.

[sgeos]

I tend to prefer classless games where characters start inclined toward one thing or another, but you can do what you want with them. Having said that, a game is a game. Some people forget that when they talk about realism. The whole point of class system is that it restricts certain options for certain characters. The end result should make things less munchkin and more interesting.

[Elone]

I'm not talking about reality here, but I played classless RPGs and they were really quite fun. I greatly oppose realism which takes away from fun.

> I tend to prefer classless games where characters start inclined toward one thing or another, but you can do what you want with them.

Make the required weaponmarks same for any class, but make fighting characters start out with pregained levels in some/all of them.
[That's one example out of many.]

So we agree here.

[sgeos]

We agree on what we prefer, but I could see giving mark penalties to certain classes. It depends on the game you are trying to make.

I could see giving characters different learning rates for different skills. This way an archer would excel at bows, but could do anything else given enough time. It would probably make sense to start the characters close to blank slate in this case.

[Elone]

That's what already exists in Adom. Let's take the weapon skills. Let's say that a hurtling archer starts with 4 levels in thrown rocks. Now lets say that another fighter class starts with 0 in thrown rocks. Tell me, if you can, what stops you from catching up with that 4th weapon level... and once you caught up with it, how are you different from this archer? You arent, you get the same weaponskill bonuses. Furthermore, once a fighter and an archer reach the 4th level in thrown rocks, wont they progress equally quickly from there on, markwise? That's how it should be with nonfighter classes too. They put the same effort into it, and get the same gain. Wizards need double the marks... Explain why, please. Are they all born with a physical defect or something? Are their brains weighing them down? Are they not all young men and women who start their adventuring at about the same (race-relative) age? Why, why the difference? For gameplay?

Adom setting weighs towards the sword/magic realism. We dont play a blue hedgehog or an italian plumber, we play a serious character who fights and struggles for his life. To hell with realism, why dont Adom characters eat mushrooms and grow double their size from it, because that would be a great gameplay too?

[Evil Knievel]

Hmm, interesting topic. Let's see what I have to contribute:

I'd agree that realism is not the matter. However, we are almost unable (or don#t try) to back up our opinions without referring to realism, although the fun is important, since what we like or not is debateable. Although I see, that we all (or almost) would like different characters profiles, but maximum flexibility in shaping them - seemingly a contradiction.

Btw, the most unrealistic thing in these games is the enourmous learning rate during a game, and also it is the thing making these games fun from the beginning. It almost defines single player roguelikes and RPGs.

I propose another, maybe counter-fun constraint on this learning rate, that would make the game more difficult. I think, it would be adequate to (maybe very slowly and not completely) unlearn things not used - and I know, in the time frame of the game, this isn't realistic at all. However, then you get individually shaped characters, that are able to do, what they like most, but they won't be so good at other things. (also, this would implicitly punish time consuming scumming)
There are lots of models for implementing this, but I would not want to invent too detailed things here, since I already smell that my proposal will be countered heavily.

Another aspect is, that we do not like a character being able to do everything, but on the other hand, such a character is very interesting, since he can react differently and appropriatly to any situation. That's why the L50 characters are so powerful. But think a L50 wizard (shaped to be wizard char) that is NOT able to shoot out a molochs eyes (if a moloch has eyes) with his superbow but is too mediocre in it, so he cannot hurt it? Less options, less power, less versatility in gameplay - but also less homogeneity.

[Elone]

Different character profiles, but we shape the characters? We can shape our characters into anything, given enough freedom. Giving premade profiles to characters in form of classes would restrict freedom.

Enormous learning rate? It's not unrealistic. When you want to learn something IRL, you talk to other people. Most modern roguelikes are designed with internet in mind. It isnt an individual trying to figure something out, it's hundreds of them. The number of features, and their deeply hidden natures are found by different people, and spread to all others. If Adom had a singleplayer-easy gameplay, all of us wouldnt have anything to talk about. No, instead, we're still finding out new things in a such an old game, because it was full of things to learn. Adom was very fun in the beginning too, and not very discouraging. If your experience differs, I'm glad that you dealt with it over time.

Unlearning is silly. If you dont want to use a skill, dont use it. If you really dont want a skill, dont learn it. There could be a potion or scroll of unlearning, or an NPC, but not something that happens in the background whether the player wants it or not. Scumming was heavily discussed in Adom threads, and people came to conclusion that there are people who scum, and there are people who dont scum, and they hate each other, but they both continue to exist and enjoy what they do. Why not? A game could be made enjoyable for both scummers and non scummers. Adom was. What, does the dragongold seem like something that could be an accidental bug? An accidentally (and conveniently) planted *2 piece into the correct spot in the dragon gold drop formula?

> Another aspect is, that we do not like a character being able to do everything

We? That's a pretty bold statement.

> to shoot out a molochs eyes

Moloch has no eyes. Have you ever seen a moloch with eyes, hmm? Well?

> Less options, less power, less versatility in gameplay - but also less homogeneity.

Sounds like a very very poor tradeoff to me. Analogous to sitting into a new type of car which is harder to drive, weaker in all aspects, and with less features than other cars, but the manufacturer tells you that its main advantage is that it's unlike any other car you've seen before.

[sgeos]

Aptitude. Some people are better at learning certain things than others. But yes, it is for gameplay. Pick what you want to excel at. If you want to learn other things, grind. FWIW, this is only vaguely different from a game that has character profiles that grant bonuses and penalties.