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originally posted in:The Spiker Garden

This thread is inspired by another: view original post

3/11/2013 3:52:45 AM
39

A Hypothetical Example of Hunter Customization

[quote]This thread serves as an update to [url=http://www.bungie.net/en-us/Groups/Post?id=59905278&groupId=19148]my earlier thread[/url] which speculated about Class Customization. This thread is largely based off predictions and assumptions made in the original thread, so it might be a good idea to read it in its entirety. For new readers, I'll try to sum things up in under six pages.[/quote]So it occurred to me while reading through the comments to my thread that I could have done a better job at showing how everything came together at the end by giving the reader an example of the many different gameplay styles you could create by customizing a class in different ways. I'm making up for that today by showing the reader some ways you could build a Hunter in an attempt to demonstrate just how interesting and deep Destiny's Class System might become. Here are some assumptions I'm making; read my original thread for details:[quote][b][u]1) Each Guardian has four different statistics:[/u][/b] [b]A) Energy -[/b] A measure of how fast your Class Abillities Recharge and/or how slowly your Class Abillities deplete. More on Class Abillities later. [b]B) Shields -[/b] A measure of how strong your shields are. [b]C) Agility -[/b] A measure of how fast your character can move. [b]D) Discipline -[/b] A measure of how well you control your weapons; A higher Discipline means more accuracy with higher caliber weapons like Snipers. [b]>)[/b] Different Classes have different base statistics; a Titan might start with higher shields than the Warlock, but with less Energy, ect. [b][u]2) Each class chooses one of several variants of a Class Abillity.[/u][/b] [b]>)[/b] Essentially they function like Armor Abillities from Halo Reach, but with the potential to balance out the power of an abillity with the base stats of the class that it's paired with, and with the distinctive visual identity of each class serving to cut down on second guessing with regards to what abillity your opponent is using, it will function so much more smoothly than Armor Abillities did with Reach. I'm assuming the Hunter class abillity will be some form of Active Camoflage with several variants for players to choose from. [b][u]3) A Class's base statistics can be modified by equipping Modules.[/u][/b] [b]>)[/b] Each Module would either straight up put points into certain stats or it would take points out of some stats so that more points can be added to other stats (for example, a module that gives you -2 Agility, +5 Discipline). [b]>)[/b] I'm not sure what form these "Modules" would take. I could either see them as just little nodes that are equipped in a menu that have no aesthetic value, or I could see them taking the form of Armor Permutations. There are pros and cons to either approach, but in both implementations you would only be able to equip a couple of modules at a single point in time.[/quote]My vision for the Module System probably requires some elaboration because I didn't flesh it out very well in the original thread. My vision for how it works is largely inspired by the Buster Part System from [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_Man_Legends_(video_game)]Megaman Legends[/url]. In Legends, Megaman's Buster has four statistics: Attack, Energy, Range, and Rapid. Instead of finding completely new Busters as the game progresses, players find these [url=http://shrines.rpgclassics.com/psx/mml2/parts.shtml#arms]Buster Parts[/url] which they'll use to upgrade their original Buster. You can only equip three Buster Parts at a time, and different battles are better fought with different combinations of stats. Like the Buster Parts, Destiny's Modules would be found by the player while adventuring and would be equipped to boost and lower different stats to create the type of character that you want to play. The Modules differ from the Buster Parts in that whereas all the Buster Parts provided strict upgrades to statistics, Destiny's Modules would be able to downgrade some stats to upgrade others, which allows for more diversity and better flavor. Also, whereas Buster Parts could be equipped in the middle of combat, Destiny's Modules would only be changeable between missions. But hopefully like the Buster Parts, Destiny's Modules would create an elegant and interesting gameplay dynamic. To illustrate this, let's look at four possible Hunter builds that we could create in Destiny, each of which will be an extreme example where we max one of the four stats to the exclusion of the others. I imagine that configuring your modules to increase a single stat would ultimately be a sub-optimal strategy, but for the purpose of discussion it should serve to give the reader an idea of the different directions in which you could build your hunter. [quote][b]The Energy Hunter[/b][/quote]An Energy Hunter is a build that focuses your Modules towards improving the power and effectiveness of the Hunter's Cloak abillity. You've itemized for energy over shields, agility, and discipline, so you aren't particularly durable, fast, and you aren't very accurate at medium to long range. However, you are like a wraith on the battlefield, slowly drifting from target to target, positioning yourself with a shotgun for very sudden, but very deadly kills. You are a master of deceptive close range dueling, singling out targets, executing them, and then fading back into the shadows to select a new victim. [quote][b]The Shield Hunter[/b][/quote]A Shield Hunter is a build that focuses your Modules towards improving the Hunter's durabillity and survivabillity in combat. You've itemized for shields over energy, agility, and discipline, so you aren't particularly stealthy, fast, and you aren't very accurate at medium to long range. However, you are like a mini-titan on the battlefield, your armor allows you to survive through most engagements, but unlike the Titan, your higher default agillity makes you more mobile in combat. You are a stalwart warrior, arriving to the skirmish before your slower units do, holding the line until they arrive to back you up. [quote][b]The Agility Hunter[/b][/quote]An Agillity Hunter is a build that focuses your Modules towards improving the Hunter's speed and mobillity on the battlefield. You've itemized for agillity over energy, shields, and discipline, so you aren't particularly stealthy, durable, and you aren't very accurate at medium to long range. However, you are the quintessential scout for your squad, running ahead to locate enemy placements, and maneuvering in to flank and distract them while your team mates get into position. You are a fast responder, controlling the map's objectives with your velocity-fueled map presence, quickly discovering and taking out threats before they can react. [quote][b]The Discipline Hunter[/b][/quote]A Discipline Hunter is a build that focuses your Modules towards improving the accuracy and precision of the Hunter's marksmanship. You've itemized for discipline over energy, shield, and agility, so you aren't particularly stealthy, durable, and fast. However, you are the strongest Sniper on Destiny's battlefields, taking your opponent out long before they have a chance to spot you. You are an embodiment of death and fear, you slowly but methodically move closer to your enemy, rock by rock, vantage point by vantage point, until you can line them up in your crosshairs and take them out with a single shot to the head. Establishing these four corners for the reader should hopefully allow them to infer a world of possibillities that exists between the pillars. It certainetly does seem like we can create quite a bit of variation within a single class simply by modifying four stats am I right? This is what excites me the most about Destiny's Potential Class system. I should probably mention that for some classes, the way you build your stats are going to be pretty straight forward. For example, it seems like a tremendous waste if you build the Warlock Class without some amount of Energy, as presumably the Warlock Class will have some form of interesting offensive spell whose cooldown should be minimized. And as the reader might have already guessed, not every stat is probably worth investing in depending on the class. This has been a rather longwinded for an update, so as usual, I am thankful for those of you who have taken the time to read through this thread or my previous one. If there's anything you feel I've gotten wrong, or if there's anything you would like me to clarify, please speak up! My sense of design and communication will only improve through confrontation. Remember that this is entirely speculation, I simply want to come up with a vision for how the game might turn out based on what little we know so I can compare my sense of design with Bungie's sense of design and perhaps figure out why they did some things the way they did. As DeeJ has been hinting in the mailsack, the next salvo of information will be coming soon, and we'll hopefully be able to speculate a little more specifically based on that. Until then, keep the discussion going! ~Hylebos

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  • I've seen OP's image around since the game's "concept art" phase...anybody else think it's weird to see the fallen and cabal working side by side? Maybe, eventually, we'll see that?

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    • So are the modules super or passive?

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      • Well thought out. I really wish a class system like this would be implemented in a future destiny game

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        • "A Discipline Hunter is a build that focuses your Modules towards improving the accuracy and precision of the Hunter's marksmanship. You've itemized for discipline over energy, shield, and agility, so you aren't particularly stealthy, durable, and fast. However, you are the strongest Sniper on Destiny's battlefields, taking your opponent out long before they have a chance to spot you. You are an embodiment of death and fear, you slowly but methodically move closer to your enemy, rock by rock, vantage point by vantage point, until you can line them up in your crosshairs and take them out with a single shot to the head." Sign me up.

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        • Hey come check out our pre-destiny clan!! Here's the link: http://vanguardians.enjin.com/home We welcome you with open arms! Please make sure to give a shout out to Corrosive Honor for getting you there! Chancellors names appear in red on the site so feel free to ask them any questions you may have!

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        • Man, these could actually be real class builds. *amazed*

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        • Edited by x Sir G Omer x: 5/28/2013 2:16:57 AM
          I really like this idea because it allows for lots of diversity while also keeping a balance on the battlefield. One thing I loved about Armor Abilities (most did not enjoy them in Reach, for some reason) is that it allowed for very diverse battles. If you had a team that communicated well, you could really do some amazing things in Reach that no previous Halo game did. Not only was it great for the FPS genre (again, my opinion), but it also was a PERFECT testing ground for Destiny. They had years of feedback and game trend data to look over so they can perfect the model in their new IP. I have ZERO doubt that Bungie will, in fact, turn the FPS genre on its head again with Destiny.

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        • The way I see it, if Jason Jones is coming out of his cave to tell the world about this game then there is something truly special in store. I want to believe they are doing something more innovative yet simple, unexpected, and fresh for the genre like they did with Halo 1. Yours are tried and true ideas, but it's time for an out-of-the-box idea to reinvigorate the fps once again, isn't it?

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          • Hey guys, I know a ton of you replied to my thread, and I never got around to responding because the end of Winter Quarter was a little crazy for me between my Concurrency and Game Programming classes. I'll see what I can do to address some of the people who put the time to suggest ideas but didn't get any feedback.

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          • Edited by M4ttchoo: 3/13/2013 4:50:47 AM
            One issue I have here is "discipline increasing your accuracy". Isnt my own aiming-accuracy the determing factor of whether or not i hit something in an fps? How would a skill make me aim accurate, unless these guns will be more like COD, BF, and Borderlands where there is all sorts of gun mechanics that make a gun's aiming "random" (motion sway, spread, reticle bloom, flinch, etc etc). I really hope the gun mechanics are more like the arena/arcade style ala Halo.

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            • Great speculative post! Can't wait to hear more details about this game so that we can start putting the pieces together.

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              • good post

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              • Edited by ToxicruM: 3/12/2013 5:18:42 PM
                If I am understanding this correctly we choose from one of the classes varying due to statistical division of base abilities. The player is further allowed to choose from one of the class abilities for specialization towards a certain role but at the same time allowed to equip modules to keep the base abilities upgraded or buffed so as not to completely push the player onto a single skill tree path devoid of other abilities. Also keep up the good work Hylebos. I really enjoy reading your articles.

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                • Good writing! It's nothing too far flung. Almost like they took the 5 major stats in D&D and re-worked and streamlined them. Can't wait to see how this game balances things out, and hopefully things wont get too muddy if/when everyone's end up somewhere in the middle. I guess groups could help with that. Also, the paragraph underneath the "The Discipline Hunter" section, second sentence. "certainetly" certainly* (This is for posterity only.)

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                  • Thanks for throwing those ideas out there and starting a great discussion. It's food for thought and it's always fun to postulate on the largely unknown and see how closely the final framework matches one's theory. I am interested to see where the Bungie twist is in regards to character customization. I just want to believe they have revolutionzed and made it better than what we can currently conceive. High expectations but it is Bungie we are talking about here.

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                  • The class divisions being based directly on the class' statistics (agility hunter, energy hunter, etc) would not be cool. Too basic and not enough room for the type of intricate customization that Bungie will be going for. Besides the Hunter will likely be the highest DPS; there will be no shield hunter, that is absurd.

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                    • Ugh i can't wait to be a hunter.

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                    • Nostalgia when you mentioned Megaman Legends and buster parts, funny thing is, that's exactly what I thought of when I was reading, then like a few seconds later, bam: Megaman Legends.

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                      • That's a lot of assuming.

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                        • I hope we can invest into multiple stats without suffering for it. This would be contrary to a game like WoW, where you can only have a good build by investing into a single skill-tree (not that we're talking about skill-trees, but you get my point).

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                        • I don't understand why people are telling him "good Idea". It is a pretty basic explanation of skill systems in many games. This is not too revolutionary, it is in most rpgs.

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                          • Great ideas. I think they should put this system in the game.

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                          • Good ideas and sounds like like a system that may actually be in the game will be in the game and I'm hoping for details like this for the Titan and Warlock it would really give good examples for what might be on the Titan class I plan on picking

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                          • Edited by Urgency: 3/12/2013 12:37:01 AM
                            I think the shield or agility hunter should incorporate some support abilities. ie. Smoke bombs, stun darts, emp etc. For example: in Global Agenda, Recon's focused on bombs would stealth up to a group of enemies on an adjective then put down a stun/poison aura combo and it let the single target based characters clear out the room.

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                          • Edited by Metabyte: 3/11/2013 11:11:30 PM
                            A very interesting read. I quite like your idea about armor increasing stats, rather than just cut and dry one armor being better than the other. While I do hope that destiny does not rely on leveling up to increase stats, I would like it if you unlocked more abilities as you continued on. I think it would be strange to start out in a class already a master of it, if you know what I mean. Edit: To be more specific, I think I would like to see a perk tree of sorts, possibly with the ability to receive small stat increases in it.

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                            • I'm worried about everyone being a hunter with a sniper.

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