Im glad Im not in Jeff's Shoes

[Death Knight]

Mostly because I was playing gene forge 4 and realized something that jeff will most likely have to do when he changes the Geneforge games over and remakes them. I was looking at Avernum's blade master skill which gives a 3% bonus of melee damage and thought to myself about when he remakes the gene forges.

 

He will probably have to make some direct changes that not everyone will like. Especially regarding the bonuses between classes. It can't be like avernum where everyone gets the same bonuses between each as there are classes.

 

So for quick action as an example, Jeff will likely have to give a higher chance for guardians to get an extra attack. So if agents get 3%, Guardians will get 5% and I don't even know how the shaper is gonna turn out.

 

What will likely happen is melee will be overpowered, ranged weapons will still be good, but compete directly with melee, shaping will no doubt always be good, and magic might take a hit.

 

This is the only way I can see him handling it as gene forge is like avernum but the classes will be thus like a skill tree.

 

People like me won't be affected as he would have to really screw up the gene forge series for me to be annoyed. But I'm sure that the new system will tick quite a few people off. One of the things he does have in his favor though is adding the traits system, imo one of the best additions made via the avernum series.

[Enraged Slith]

There's going to be hell to pay for those unicorns. They're not supposed to be in Geneforge, but there they are in the field grazing that grass like they own the place.

[nikki.]

Erm, am I missing something? Why would Jeff *have* to change the balance of the classes?

 

I'm really not sure where this is coming from...

[RaustBlackDragon]

Honestly, I hope by then he'll have a better handle on remaking series. Avernum: Escape From The Pit was great, but looking back at the old system, I like that one more, because it was better at discouraging people from putting everything into one stat. I hope the next one will have a better system that similarly discourages such game mechanic abuses. However, I do agree with his reasoning for changing the system to begin with: he WAS indeed putting a ton of high-impact decisions in the hands of a newbie, which is quite stressful, I do agree. I just hope he doesn't go and run with the existing remake system, as it still needs quite a bit of work, particularly in the area of hit rate.

[Cairo Jim]

Originally Posted By: Death Knight

What will likely happen is melee will be overpowered, ranged weapons will still be good, but compete directly with melee, shaping will no doubt always be good, and magic might take a hit.

Melee can never be overpowered. Ranged weapons on the other hand, well I don't know why Jeff still bothers putting them in.

[Lilith]

i'm not sure why you automatically assume melee will be overpowered. melee was strong in a:eftp but it was weaker than ranged combat in avadon, which used a similar skill system

[Triumph]

Ranged weapons were an effective option in multiple Geneforge games, too (Reaper Baton FTW). It *is* possible to make a game where both ranged and melee fighting are viable and effective. Jeff has done it.

[Death Knight]

Originally Posted By: RaustBlackDragon

Honestly, I hope by then he'll have a better handle on remaking series. Avernum: Escape From The Pit was great, but looking back at the old system, I like that one more, because it was better at discouraging people from putting everything into one stat. I hope the next one will have a better system that similarly discourages such game mechanic abuses. However, I do agree with his reasoning for changing the system to begin with: he WAS indeed putting a ton of high-impact decisions in the hands of a newbie, which is quite stressful, I do agree. I just hope he doesn't go and run with the existing remake system, as it still needs quite a bit of work, particularly in the area of hit rate.

I liked the system that the new Avernum was put in. I think that while you had more freedom with the old, with the new its much harder to screw up big time with your char and you can reach skills normally inaccessible now much easier.

[Alorael at Large]

Even if Geneforge is remade, and even if it's remade with the new system, why would it be Avernum-like? Avadon already has a perfect system: skill trees differing by class. Guardians get the melee damage boost and no one else does. Instead, agents get to do better with spells and shapers have better creations.

 

Result: Something will probably be better than the other classes, because that's the nature of the games. It'll probably be shapers, because that's what Jeff aims for.

 

—Alorael, who is bemused by the bemoaning of future problems that rely on a series of unlikely leaps of intuition. He could also lament how the remake won't have guardians or agents at all because Jeff will decide a series about shapers should only let you be a shaper.

[Lilith]

ooh ooh you know what'd be neat if the geneforge remakes go for an avadon-like skill system? if each class had a completely different set of creations available to them. the shaper gets the most versatile selection of creations plus the healing and buffs to support them but has limited personal damage-dealing capacity, the guardian gets powerful melee creations and has the power and durability to fight alongside them (and maybe has passive buff skills that strengthen nearby creations?) and the agent gets powerful but fragile ranged creations and has mental magic to lock down enemies and battle magic to draw their fire so that her creations don't get killed quite so easily

[Alorael at Large]

That would actually make the fact that people who don't have any particular use for creations get lumped in as Shapers make sense.

 

—Alorael, who never knows how to handle what seems to be good, reasonable things coming out of Lilith in lowercase. It might be a trap.

[Randomizer]

its getting harder to tell if lilith is being sarcastic or too lazy to use the shift key anymore.