Alright, simple. You get 4 skills during the game. 1 class skill, 2 general skills, 1 squad skill. Squad skill will be something that is only active in the squad aura (not sure what this could be yet, maybe stick a specialized area skill like enhanced senses here, or stamina regeneration.) Possibly have it let you choose which of the current squad aura's (damage, regen, stamina, or armor) you want while in a squad's aura. That's it. so, to recap: Most commonly brought up objection to squad skills is that it rewards players who are already doing better. This will make all players have the same skills all game. 1 class skill and 2 general skills is the important part here. This means that an engineer can't have repair upgrade, revive, AND turret upgrade all at the same time. This is definitely one reason that engineer is overpowered, and only gets MORE overpowered as the game progresses. The largest effect this would have would probably be making riflemen a tad bit more effective early game, though I think that the benefits to all classes help reduce this effect.
I had written out a response, but you aren't worth it. What class does this help more than what other class? EXPLAIN IT OUT.
*snip ~Kylegar When do you see engineers with all 4 skills? Certainly not at the beginning. They don't get any combat advantage from any of the 4 skills you mention. They are all support skills for their teammates. The engineer you are fighting is still going to be the same as if the engineer had no skills. BUT OH NOES tehy might spend tehir class skill on revive and revive their teammates, but guess what, it still happens now. Say one engineer did get up to 40 points ( if they have a majority of staff Sargent in their team, and your teammates haven't even reached 20, your team fails). By they time you should have tanks already. One level 3 turret isn't going to help much. Even revive takes 50 points, meaning only 2 revives with one full charge. And then the rifleman gets super boinic enhancements in start game. Digin is the only useful class skill. They have every skill they need already. Grenidiers with 40 points should have tank advantages. They don't help much as infantry. There is nothing wrong with the current system. Blaming incompetence on skill points is moot, because any combat advantages are minor they would not have any significance unless in an exactly equal situation. Even then, the random spread variable has a larger role than 30 extra health. Your guns are the same, and they matter the most. Almost funny. not quite. Actually, not at all ~Kylegar
Dude, did you even read the idea? or did you just see that I wanted to change the skills system, and you immediately went onto the defensive flame fest? I can't figure out what you are arguing against. The only thing that I've been able to figure is that riflemen might be overpowered. and then you go on to say that 30 extra HP won't make a difference? Let me put it this way: Engineer is overpowered in squad skills. It is also the easiest class to get skill points in. You can build 20 skill points easy. That's enough to get repair upgrade and turret upgrade. In other word, in the first 10 minutes of the game, you can drop a lvl 3 turret almost anywhere. It's a very overpowered combination. Revive is also a skill that can extend game time on a map by hours on end. Riflemen are overpowered with digin? what other skills make riflemen over powered? Digin with carbine or .50 cal. how is that different regardless of this? How much does that 30 hp help? How much would accuracy help? This isn't a problem with my system, it's a problem with how digin works and with the accuracy and power of those two weapons. Grenadier should have a tank advantage? wouldn't having armor detection and ammo and speed help grenadiers fight tanks? Not being run over and enough ammo to actually kill a tank? hot damn, they might be useful. And scout? you didn't mention the scout at all. But whatever. Now which of the classes gets too overpowered and which gets nerfed BECAUSE of what I suggested. The current system runs by making good players better. That doesn't help new players. It also opens up the skill system to be more diverse instead of getting skills in a specific order. Some skills would help early game but are not as important as other skills. Speed upgrade, stamina upgrade. They are almost obsolete once vehicles roll out. But early game they would be very useful, but often aren't chosen over stuff like repair upgrade or ammo increase or digin or hide. Refrain from flameing. Also, do not take the bait. ~Kylegar
Well riflemen don't need any of their skills other than dig in, otherwise they just take accuracy and health or speed, so they'd be pretty much the same. Scouts would be somewhat the same seeing as hide is all they really need from their skills, then add accuracy and melee, should be pretty good, although silencer would be pointless without hide to accompany it. Grenadiers would be a bit castrated, they benefit hugely from both defusal and armor detection for tanking, as well as arty feedback because tanks can be used like arty and you would probably use defusal with arty due to weak armor, not to mention the small benefit of using armor bonus on tanks simply because you have the space. Infantry wise they would be OK I think, armor detection and ammo, maybe health or speed. Engineers would be completely assfucked, turret upgrade is pretty crap without repair because they die too easily and take too long to build, revive at the expense of repair upgrade would rarely make sense outside of district, and what does an engineer need with two general skills? Take accuracy to boost combat effectiveness if you must but everything else should be engineer class skills. All that aside however I don't see any reason to change. If you think the current system is bad because it rewards people who do well individually, make it work differently, give points as your team earns res rather than as you kill people, although the loss of the kill benefits would make the game less fun, there's no motivation to kill people really if it doesn't give you bonuses. Skills add progression to the game, they are there for the same reason we don't just start everyone with half map control and all research done, they add variety in the form of power progression, playing with no skills is different from playing with many, pacing and steady change in the gameplay is what makes the game stay fun over a round and stops it being a stalemate from the word go.
As far as grenadiers, I think they should not gain such huge benefits from their skills as to be impervious to mines and able to detect enemy armor. I believe that they should have to make that decision. On that note, i think that engineers should be forced to decide upon something as well. How often to engineers build level 3 turrets after early game anyhow? How often do they revive? They usually don't. But having all 3 engy skills at once seems overpowered. The idea is that you have to make a choice. It also gives you the option to get some of those skills that are only valuable early game, but are obsolete compared to other skills you could use as your first skill. Speed upgrade, stamina upgrade are the 2 that come to mind immediately. Underused and under rated simply because they are useless unless used in conjunction with other skills. Also, half of the skill combinations that are available will never be seen by a new player who is struggling with the learning curve. It would also make the squad aura, as a selectable item, right up there. Currently, it's not explained anywhere what the squad aura does, or that it exists. but in this type of setting, it would be staring you right in the face. The other way to implement it is to have all the skills open, but only allow 1 class skill per rank you have achieved. I didn't think there was anything wrong with the system at first. But since then I've played other games where they use systems of in game promotion to gain an edge over others. It really is unfair to not be able to get those combinations of awesome skills until they are obsolete. I would rather see them not available than only available to 25-50% of the players per game on average. To say that the 25-50% of the numbers is only due to the teams "lack of skill" is also a terrible example of how elitist some people in the community have become(not you chris, was from something that hamster said). it's not fun in a game where someone else has an absolute advantage over you and you can't do much about it, other than whore points. Pretty soon, you start engineer whoring the early game. You start playing ONLY so that you can whore and dominate every other player and brag about it. It's not about team work as much as it is about getting skills so that you can pwn the newbz. To be perfectly honest, I thought this up mainly to shaft the engineer class. The idea that in an infantry combat situation, a single engineer can hold back armies by himself, and then he can do everything he was doing to hold back that army, and revive and support his team at the same time as well. It just seems a bit much, and I think that the engineer needs to choose between holding an army back on his own or being the only one helping his team.
:< I'm not elitist. If people wanted to whore points, they could hop into the water with their buddy and heal each other, but they don't. A recent flash game poll sponsored by NG FGL and all the big names in the flash industry showed that most players would do what is efficiently the easiest way to win, instead of actively seeking entertainment. Well, actively seeking to win in Empires manages to get you a lot of points. Single engineer do not hold back entire armies. Or you are playing on the wrong servers. Skills should be earned. Not only is it a way to reward achievement, it also provides incentive for doing stuff. Hey kid, don't repeat my mistake. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB18x2atDSo&feature=related
It hurts me to say this, but I agree completely with hamster. This idea is pretty stupid, would take away one of the most attractive elements Empires has to offer, and changes gameplay in no proven way, just in speculation.
it removes part of the freedom in choosing skills and limits tactical possibilities as for the "benefits other classes more" i agree, engys have 2 gameplay vital skills (rev+rep) and other classes have only one really usefull skill" it also nerfs grens as drivers because they have 3 driving buff skills
It actually makes you free to choose more skills and increases the tactical importance of skills. I'm a firm believer in the over usefulness of engineer, but also it would be a pain to split the engineer into 2 classes which it might actually be better as. In this case, by forcing the engineer to only choose 1 class skill, it suddenly becomes important to be able to not only change your skills, but also to carefully choose them when going into a combative area. Right now, class skills for the grenadier and engineer shouldn't be overlapped, because they turn a player into a 1 man wrecking ball. And as a side note, this gives you 3 skills at the game start, as opposed to 1 skill. This opens up the start of the game rush for more possibilities and less expectations on what could happen. Right now, the only tactical skills for anyone to get at the beginning is either hide, ammo upgrade, or repair upgrade. That is the only tactical option that any has, in other words, it's not an option. If you don't go with one of those 3, you become almost completely useless, because you either repair at half the speed, or you don't have enough ammunition to kill anything. Give me 10 minutes and I'll write up some scenarios where this would benefit the tactical options of the game, and how it would happen in the current system. Normally a game goes something like this: Early game, round just started. You are going to run out and grab solo refineries and work on setting up extentions. you go Engineer with repair upgrade. Early game, you want to hold off some infantry to help your team push into the enemy's territory early and push close to their base. You get riflemen with ammo upgrade. Early game, you want to lay out some mines in common apc rush locations, like on bridges or in a choke point. You go gren with ammo upgrade. Early game, you want to sneak into the enemy base and destroy all of the defensive structures to open it up for a rush, but all of this without alerting the enemy. you go scout and hide. Early game, you want to set up a level 3 MG to hold off an enemy rush. you get engineer with turret upgrade. Early game, you are an engineer in a squad to provide support. you grab revive. As the game progresses, most people get a general skill as a second skill, Ammo upgrade, Speed upgrade, health upgrade, stamina upgrade, whatever. The only class that has a second early to mid game useful squad skill is engineer. Also, let me point out that only 2 classes drive tanks in empires 90% of the time. Grenadier and Engineer. Regardless of what is going on, they will have repair upgrade or defusal. Grenadier is the only class which gets a good second class skill for driving a tank, or for being on foot, that being armor detection. Personally, I'd love to see this replace the mine detector, as having defusal makes whether the mines are there or not, irrelevant. Now, how many games last past the mid game point? 50%? 20%? 10%? I'd guess it's around 1/3. That means, 1/3 games, half your team won't see more than 2 squad skills. Everyone that has objected at this point has told me that this system limits tactical choices of the players. Not really. This limits the tactical choices of about half the server in 66% of the games. Mind you, this is the half of the server that is already doing quite well. Take those examples of the use of the first skill I provided above. Now, add 2 general skills to each of them. Whichever skills you want. Do you get health regen so you don't get you health slowly shaved away while you are providing support for your comrades? Do you get accuracy upgrade and digin to provide better cover fire for your team? Do you get speed and armor detection to help you place mines quicker and possibly fend off an early game AFV or light tank? Do you get speed and stamina upgrade to help you get to those base extensions faster, in order to set up defenses before the enemy rushes in? And then if you could choose your squad aura, would you grab stamina recover or would you get accuracy upgrade? Would you take increased armor or increased damage? Maybe you would take a new squad aura or a different squad skill that could be added to the game. And the best part is, you know that the enemy has just as many choices as you 100% of the time. This last point is, in my opinion, the most important one.
Engi: Rep, rev, turret, {healing, health, accuracy} rofl: acc, dmg, dig, health gren (only use as tank driver): deff, det, armour+, {health, ammo, feedback} scout: hide, lol, lol, lol I use at least 2 class specifics per class. I use 3/4 on engi and gren. rofl with anything other than those 4 skills (although some people do swap out damage for health regen, ammo or speed) is shit. You're basicly shitting up things for no reason. Also, time to drop it when you're the only one in support. Also, I know not what crazy man you are, but you are rather unique in choosing only general skills other than 1. Also, 'most people' means 'over 50%'. You alone are not, I'm afraid, over 50%, despite *insert unfunny fat joke here*. And why, why, are there so many suggestions going around atm that say REMOVE REMOVE REMOVE. stop fucking removing things, it took long enough to fucking put them there in the first place. you want more usefull class skills for rifle+scout+gren? GO MAKE SOME. Stop fucking up customisation which is so important to empires because you're too fucking lazy to actually think of any, but not lazy enough to not post text walls.
So, People who do well should continue to do even better, and people who do worse better pray to god they can feed off the other persons success? That's what it is currently. You are telling me it removed choices under the assumption that people actually get that choice in the first place. You may, but most games, not even half the team has broken 30 points by the time the game has ended. Pardon me, I forgot that empires games have, as of late, seem to degraded into "Stall the game for 20-30 minutes so we can lolnuke them". The issue here isn't whether it's a good idea to restrict class skill. I simply thought it might work well with forcing people to make a choice as to how they are going to play. It would also relieve some issues with engineer being able to do anything in a matter of seconds. If that's the issue, drop the idea, just have the slots be open. Either way, the tactical option of choosing skills should be available from the start, and available to anyone and everyone. Also, as a side note, about 99% of the forum members can play empires well enough to get 40-60 points by the end of the average game. Telling me this limits choices under the assumption that you can use 4 squad skills isn't going to convince me that I'm wrong either, which is all anyone has done so far. I want to know how exactly you can assume every single player will always score 40+ points and have that 40+ points for a long enough period of time to enjoy them.
I don't see a problem, level 60 people don't roll level 1 people at the moment, maybe you're just bad at the game.
i like this suggestion. the only problem is that vets who know the good combos will win the game in the pre-early game while the newbs get frustrated and leave. the upshot is that it can be used to further balance classes: engy = 1 general, 2 class, 1 aura; result: limits their combat roll, makes them be a little more specialized than they are now but without gimping them rifleman = 1 general, 1 class, 1 open [general or class], 1 aura; result: stay about the same as they are now gren = 2 general, 1 class, 1 aura; result: armor detection + ammo up + speed means they can actually do their job scout = 3 open, 1 aura; result: becomes a "jack of all trades" class
