[Feature Request] Hero abilities

[tmoze315]

Feature request

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• [x] I confirm that I have checked the issue tracker and a this feature request doesn't already exist.

Select the type of feature you are requesting:

• [x] Command
• [x] Functionality

Describe your requested feature

Firstly, I appreciate you've been adding a lot to this game recently and have strong views on the direction you want to take this cog.

Some feedback that I hear from our server is that the adventures (battles) themselves often feel very 1-dimentional. For example: I am a Berserker, so I must stab and -rage (or occasionally talk).

The aim of this feature request is to propose some ways in which players have to make an additional choice when battling. I've broken my suggestions down into 2 main solutions - however these are ideas and hopefully conversation starters around what is possible / what you're willing to implement. I personally feel these would add A LOT more depth to the game but I also understand they come with their own balancing issues and would need more in-depth thought before being implementable. It's very likely that some of my suggestions are unbalanced, but as I mentioned before they are mainly here to give some ideas to you guys.

Suggestion 1 - Allow heroes to "Charge up" their skills

We keep all the existing battle skills (rage, focus, music, bless), but when they are used the player has to decide how much to charge them. For example:

Player: -rage
Gog: Player is starting to froth at the mouth. How long do you want to charge your attack for?
| 1 | 2 | 3 |

The player then reacts with 1, 2 or 3 where: 1: Gives less damage than the current rage implementation, but has a slightly lower cooldown 2: Exactly the same as the current rage implementation 3: Gives more damage than the current rage implementation, but has a much higher cooldown. Mainly used for bosses, but means you can't use rage again for a while during other adventures

Alternately, the player can use -rage 1 and skip the reaction step. You could also start the game with only charge 1, and you unlock charge 2 at 15 rebirths and charge 3 at 30 rebirths (for example). I do like the idea of the gameplay changing and advancing as you get to a higher level.

Suggestion 2 - Add 1 hero ability for each hero

I personally believe this will add a load of depth to the game. I'm also totally up for having these abilities locked and you have to unlock them by levelling up (e.g. they unlock at 15 rebirths).

I've outlined some example abilities to each hero below. Again these may be REALLY hard to implement or really unbalanced. That's fine! I've also tried to keep true to each hero's current strengths while also (hopefully) adding some versatility to some of the classes.

Wizard

• focus (deals more magic damage)
• impair (reduces the monster's stab defence slightly)

The idea behind impair is that wizards can use their magic to support the other heroes attacking. You'll need to know what monsters are weak/strong against magic and chose your ability wisely. If they are weak against magic, you're better off using focus. And if they have strong magic defence, then you can support your other classes (like berserker). Pairs really well with Psychic.

Berserker

• rage (more attack damage)
• tackle (No damage bonus. Gives a chance (e.g. 1 in 3) at loot even if you lose and increases loot if you win)

Currently the benefit to being a berserker are increased damage and slightly higher gold rewards (as your total attack is taken into account when calculating the gold drop). So I tried to keep that true here and make berserkers decide between gold or damage.

Cleric

• bless (buff heroes)
• ritual (no buffs. Gives a chance at increased XP (e.g. dice roll decides the % bonus up to +20%) for group if you win)

Similar to Berserker, the cleric now has to decide between increasing the odds of winning a battle by buffing everybody or to give everyone a chance at increased XP at the risk of losing the battle.

Bard

• Remove: music (increased diplo)
• Add: mock (decreases monster's diplo defence, but you lose more gold if you lose)
• callout attack/spell (chance to call upon help from a nearby adventurer - picks someone similar to negaverse)

We've found the bard to be very under-powered so this is a bit of a re-work. I changed music to mock as it fitted better with the drawbacks of the ability. The idea is that it helps other classes do more persuasion rather than it just impacting yourself. But it has a chance to go wrong and you could personally lose more gold if you lose.

I also wanted to add some versatility to the bard when attacking so they can more consistently impact fights that don't require persuasion. callout has a chance (1 in 5?) of getting help from another adventurer (one that has not participated). It picks someone, similar to the way the Negaverse does, and it will make that player attack or spell depending on what was used in callout. For example: callout spell will pick a random player and add them to the spell participants. This could also backfire if that player has a negative stat (e.g. callout attack may pick a wizard with -100 attack).

Ranger

• Pet already has a small chance at doing damage.
• Pet already has a small chance of giving bonus loot.
• New: Allow the ranger to increase the odds of one of these, at the cost of the other. For example: -pet attack to increase chance of pet doing damage. But you have a 0% chance of loot bonus -pet loot to increase chance of loot bonus. But you do less damage and your pet has 0% chance of doing damage

This class already seemed very good. The only change I think it needed was to allow the ranger to have some control over what the pet did during a battle. If they need a damage boost, they can increase their chances of winning at the cost of no bonus loot. Or they can reduce the chances of winning by sacrificing their pet's bonus damage in favour of increasing their chances of the pet's bonus loot.

Tinkerer

• forge (make items)
• trap (Traps the enemy. Increases the chance of landing a critical hit (for all players?) by 10%. Risks damaging your forged item. 3 damages = forged item breaks)

Again, this class seemed good. I wanted to give them some utility during battles with trap. They can increase the chances of critical hits, but they must weigh up the risk of doing so as it could damage/destroy their tinkered item. Tinkerers could use less valuable forged items and trap often - or use a high stat forged item and only trap on bosses.

Psychic

• insight (see info about enemy)
• reverse (reverses the enemy's attack and magic defences. e.g. attack defence: 1.2, magic defence 0.8 would be changed to attack defence: 0.8, magic defence 1.2)

I see insight being a buff to other heroes as it allows them to pick the best option to attack. After a while, an experienced physic will get less value from insight as they get familiar with enemy attributes etc. So I added reverse as an ability, which flips the enemy's attack and magic defence stats. The idea here is that the psychic needs to know what they are doing in order for this to be beneficial to the group. Using this incorrectly can have real negative effects on the battle.

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Let me know your thoughts. Happy to brainstorm some other ideas or flesh out any of these examples more if that is useful. It would also be interesting to hear whether you have any other plans related to battling and hero-classes.

Thanks for taking the time to read my suggestions 👍