Crossover Skills?

Had a thought last night....

- I apologise if its already be mentioned -

....but I was thinking that it would be cool it there were skills available that only certain combined classes can have, that arn't available to the individual classes.

I.E. A skill you can only use if you have a W/R combo etc.

Now, not counting which professions you choose to have primary and which you choose to have secondary - there are 15 possible combinations of combined professions, I probably don't need to mention them, but what the hell;

W/R,
W/E,
W/Mo,
W/N,
W/Me,
R/E,
R/Mo,
R/N,
R/Me,
E/Mo,
E/N,
E/Me
Mo/N,
Mo/Me,
N/Me,

Each profession has, approximatly, 75 skills available to them, if we allow, say, 5 skills for each available combined class then that makes 75 crossover skills available in the game also (coincidence - i think not).

I think this will allow another level of depth/accoplishment to the game also, and will make you want to keep playing after you've completed it.

For example, lets say you've played it to death and managed to collect every skill you can by repeated changing your 2nd class, that'll mean that there's still 50 skills you can unlock if you start the game again with a different primary class - some may see this as a bad thing, and other may see this as a good thing, personally I think its a good thing because it was only when I start the game again with a different primary class did I realise how powerful other combinations and classes could be ... but that going off on a tangent slightly

I just wondered if anyone had any thoughts on the subject?

sounds like a good idea to me. these skills should be very limited tho in my opinion if they impliment this. (limitied by the number they make, not in quality)

Quote:

~as a side note ever notice how you gotta post on america time to get any replies~

...like I said

~BUMP~

Well, I think it belongs in the suggestion forums for a start; I do think it's a neat idea, it is a bit like how MtG introduced the double spell cards (Wax/Wane), the gold (two mana type) cards, the kicker cards and so on, rewarding the combining of skills.

I see a major problem - at 3 skills per class combo of the 15 class combos you don't have anywhere near enough to make it work, unless they are unlinked skills. If they are attribute linked there's a real push to stereotype classes even more than currently - after all, if there was a smiting/hammer, a healing/sword and a protection/tactics special skill, wouldn't it tend to push people into those selections? Making enough skills to go around would be insane if you tried to have each atribute combo represented, as you'd get 16 skills between W/E, with 9 for a small one like Me/Mo, and that's not involving primary attributes. 150-200 more skills would be neat, but possibly a bit much. Then again, maybe a good expansion idea.

It's an interesting idea, but you've got to remember that a war/mo is very, very different from a mo/war, and if the skills are based on, say, one primary attribute of one class, and a secondary of another, than there are more potential classes you have to take into account. At the same time, the problem with this, is that if the skills are good, it pigeonholes people into playnig character combinations, and if they're bad, no one would care. I think it would be interesting to have one or two skills that activate based on a primary attribute of one class, and have 5 different potential actions, based on 5 secondary attributes, one from each class. For instance, a move that does something based on divine favor, and than something based on tactics, wilderness survival, water magic, illusion magic, and curses, depending on what your secondary was.

^^^ if they made it too powerful, it wouldnt work.... thats true
if they made it bad, it wouldnt work.... true.
Therefore they should balance it like every other skill

I like the idea of a skill per attribute, but why dont they just add to the line as it is? Thinking about what each character mixes general role is may be a bit of a headache, buts its doable. Just work on the trends, then make something that complements this.

Well, there are 30 different class combinations (60 if you count primary vs. secondary). So, if they added 2 per class combination, that would make 60 skills, which is relatively little, compared to the ~450 skills that are currently in the game. They don't have to tie a skill to an attribute (or, say, for a W/Mo or Mo/W, you could have a skill that's tied to both Divine Favor and Strength; Strength might increase the duration of the skill, whereas Divine Favor might increase the effectiveness; one skill would be vastly different depending on which class is primary and which is secondary).

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Ok - I see where people are coming from with this, all the different skill combos do have to be taken into account;

NOTE: Attributes in italics are apply to primary classes only - so you would never need a italic + italic skill

WARRIOR:
Axe Mastery
Hammer Mastery
Swordsmanship
Tactics
Strength

RANGER:
Beast Mastery
Marksmanship
Wilderness Survival
Expertise

ELEMENTALIST:
Air Magic
Earth Magic
Fire Magic
Water Magic
Energy Storage

MONK:
Healing Prayers
Protection Prayers
Smiting Prayers
Divine Favor

NECROMANCER:
Blood Magic
Curses
Death Magic
Soul Reaping

MESMER:
Domination Magic
Illusion Magic
Inspiration Magic
Fast Casting

Using the above as a reference I've worked out the minimum amount of new skills depending on class combinations;

NOTE: The values below represent the unique combination of skills across the two classes followed by the two additional values depending on which class is primary and which is secondary

W/R - 4*3+3+4 = 19
W/E - 4*4+4+4 = 24
W/Mo - 4*3+3+4 = 19
W/N - 4*3+3+4 = 19
W/Me - 4*3+3+4 = 19
R/E - 3*4+3+4 = 19
R/Mo - 3*3+3+3 = 15
R/N - 3*3+3+3 = 15
R/Me - 3*3+3+3 = 15
E/Mo - 4*3+4+3 = 19
E/N - 4*3+4+3 = 19
E/Me - 4*3+4+3 = 19
Mo/N - 3*3+3+3 = 15
Mo/Me - 3*3+3+3 = 15
N/Me - 3*3+3+3 = 15

Giving a total of 266 uniquely needed skills for this to work
(or 166 if you don't allow for primary only skill combos)

I think my calculations are correct - Although technically it would mean average of 17 new skills that you can unlock for your character - you would mainly benefit the most from only one of them - but could still use the other skills - if you so desired.

I've edited this to add an example of how I calculated it using the WARRIOR + RANGER

...like I said

~BUMP~

...like I said

~BUMP~

That'd be a good idea, but it would be imposible to balance all of them out so there might be disadvantages to other players.
Let's just consider that a E/R had a combined skill of "Iron Arrow" that does something like penetrates armor and does +20 - 40 more damage but moves at half speed.
Then there's a M/R skill called "Energy Wound" that causes the opponent to have -1 energy regen for 3 - 6 seconds.

People would eventually probably make more E/R's because the combo skill tends to overpower energy wound in most cases. If they did manage to make sure the combo skills didn't unbalance things then it would be a great addition.

I'd like to see this implemented. It would be cool to have something like a Vampiric Arrow if you're a R/N. ^.^

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...like I said

~BUMP~

( its a sorry state of affairs when 10 of the 17 posts are your own )