Post by omegacontagion on Apr 25, 2020 3:52:05 GMT -5
Ahh If only Necromancers had won the most recent vote for next class to be developed 
Damn those enchanters! Haha jokes aside I am very interested in the Enchanter now after that open round table. But lets talk Necromancer!
To me when I picture a Necromancer, my mind goes straight to Diablo 2. It was my first exposure to a video game Necromancer, probably the first time I even heard the term haha. But so much about it is very iconic for me.
All the skeletons and dead things you could raise, totally broke the game lol. Just massive army, a Golem of some type and AE curses going out all the time, Baal never had a chance. Poison skills, Bone armor, bone spear! TEETH! Loved all of it.
Now in terms of how that could work for an MMO, essentially just tone down the amount of potential summons and I'd be a happy guy.
In a perfect world a Necromancer would only be able to summon things back to life that are already dead in front of it. What ever that creature may be. I understand that lots of people just like to summon skellys from the ground and be done with it but, I like the idea of only being able to revive whats freshly dead. I think it'd be great that freshly summoned creatures would have all the same attributes as the creature had when it died. So if its a humanoid, it'd have same STR, DEX, CON etc. It'd have the same armor and weapons that the NPC had as well. But over time, your summoned creature would start to break down. How long that took would be dependant on your level or acquired power. This power could also be tied to the number of creatures summoned, and would scale accordingly. So example. Lvl 20 Necro can summon 1 humanoid of the same level for lets just say 10 mins. At 5 mins, it loses some of its main attribute depending what it was. So if it was a fighter style, it loses STR. Mage, INT, etc. At 7 mins it loses the ability to use its skills but can still use a weapon. 9 mins in, it can't hold a weapon at all and just swings its arms wildly. 10 mins its crumbles to the ground. All along those time increments it'll also lose more stats, and walking speed. When summoning more than 1 creature, that over all time they can stay fresh is taken down by %. So that if you did have the chance to summon like 10 things, they'd all only last 1 minute. System like this leaves lots of room for cool passives or other skills to augment this summoned time. Maybe even consumables or craftables could be involved in prolonging their life span.
Now, also at character creation I'd like to see some sort of undead vanity pet you get to choose. Something small that will be with you as an observer. So like an undead cat, or bird, or dog, what ever not important. This dead creature wont fight but will give funny commentary on your gameplay. So if you wipe, it'll be waiting for you when you res and make fun of you. Or if you do something amazing it'll have a little speech bubble pop saying "my master is so strong" etc. The companions personality can change all the time. Now after a certain amount of levels, lets just say 10, the necro will get a special quest or task. This quest will send you on a journey to discover a ritual or maybe an artifact. This ritual/artifact, through a short series of quest and lore stuff, will grant you the power to give your little pet the ability to soak up the souls of the creatures you bring back to life. In that final moment when your summon creature dies, or crumbles from that 10 min timer, your little pet will passively grab up a small piece of it soul. Now, Fast Forward many levels later...lets say 15 levels away from level cap ish. Or maybe its a number thing, after your pet has soaked up 3000 soul chunks...anyways, when it reaches that limit the necro will get another quest line. This one will be more involved, longer and harder to beat. A sort of Epic style quest. After an epic story and many battles the Necromancer is lead to one final battle where they have to take on a variety of NPCs in a group. It'd be like a player group, with a tank/healer/dps/control etc. Upon defeating this group, likely with the help of your own friends, you'll achieve the final step in this ritual/artifact thing you started at lvl 10. That final step is to somehow have the ability to now move the collected soul fragments, and the consciousness of your little pet into a larger physical body. Permanently. The one catch is, you have to use this power transfer in this specific location at this exact time for...reasons. What ever makes sense for the over arching story. Now the players will have a choice to put that pet consciousness into any of the fallen NPCs they just fought. So they could have a tank, or healer, dps, or control, that once they did the transfer would become a permanent summon combat pet. They can dismiss it of course and re summon it but, now they have an undead combat summon that is always at their side. It won't rot and crumble like regular summoned creatures. Now depending on which class of NPC the players choose to infuse with their pet brain will have other benefits too. I'd like there to be different buffs for your regular summons as this new Super Summon is kinda like a squad leader for them. So if they choose the tank, all other summons get a bonus to defence. If they choose a Ranger, bonus to Dex or something. Control, maybe the base summons get a defence against mind spells or something. Those are all pretty generic ideas but, you get what I mean. I think for players to really buy into these NPC's as a vessel, they can't be random ones that they only just met at this last stage of the quest. Who ever this party is needs to be a larger part of the overarching story of this Ritual/Artifact idea. That way it'll give the players choice some real weight. Maybe up until this moment they were mostly friendly NPCs for the necro? Or through out the Necros story line they've gone on quests with some of them, gotten to know their personal stories or some such. So maybe when they make their choice of what body to summon back, the motivation might not just be "well I want a tank." Maybe they really got to enjoy the scrappy rogue over the course of the journey so they bring them back. Maybe they hated the cleric so they want to have them as their eternal servant. Maybe they pick the sexy mage just because she's sexy. Who knows what people what their undead companions to be....we all have our reasons Depending how indepth the writing will get for the game, maybe the personalities of the pet and the host can merge. Or maybe they just have 2 voices and talk to them selves lol. Lots of weird comedy could come from that, especially in down time. Give the summon a routine to go through if the character is inactive for x minutes. If the player takes a bio break, after awhile the pet will start to do a slap stick comedy routine with itself to entertain the party while they wait lol.
Out side of all that summony fidgey widgeyness, I really like Bone spells and curses. Bone armor is a must have skill for any necromancer. I like random magic as much as the next guy, but for me when a game can make something believable in its function is when it really has me...and lets face it, that's almost never lol. So this next idea might be a bit much. But for any Bone type spells in the game, I want there to be a consumed item related to it. I'd like to see bone ripping to be a thing. Maybe theres a spell for it? or an action? Or better yet, your little dead animal pet! After you kill stuff that has bones in it, or when your summons crumble to dust your little pet will quickly bite into its corpse and pull out some bones. All that might become a little tedious though, so maybe its as easy as stopping by a butcher and stocking up. Kinda like arrows for a Ranger or something. And then any corpse you loot theres just a grey item in there of "bones" some ppl sell it, but necros can use. I dunno, just a thought. Bone Spear was an amazing spell, and teeth was funny but my fav bone spells were the utility ones. Bone Armor, and Bone Wall. With Defend the Night having an emphasis on tactical utility, Bone Wall could be a great skill for making choke points or blocking enemies off entirely.
Curses, to me the thing that really hit my memory for curses were the sound fx, and I think some neat stuff could be done with that through some lore too. Curses are such vocal things, very sharp phrases. So when i picture sound fx for curses, I hear a lot of vocal stuff in there. A fear curse could be a horrifying scream as you cast it. Weakness could be the sound of shattering glass with a moan of despair over top. I imagine curses being things that the Necromancer calls upon the help of spirits to accomplish. So when they cast one the player should really get the sense of they are just opening the lid on a bottle ya know? And this spirit they've unleashed is cursing everything around them as they fly away leaving everyone who witnessed it in shock about what they just saw or heard. Some cool animations could be made with that in mind. Maybe as you cast a curse, a rift to the spirit world is open for just a moment and a vague shape pops out to scream its horror on the field. Or drop some ectoplasm on the ground for a slow spell. Or fly at the enemy and pass through them, and as they do they snatch away some armor value. These spirit animations should happen pretty quick, but the casting of them could be 1.5-2 seconds long to build up. Long cast because yes they are a powerful debuff, but also give the animation time to form the rift and look awesome. Then when the cast timer finishes, the spirit does its thing. Also, in that time the Necromancer could chant something. Guess those sorts of flavors really depend on the lore of the world and what makes sense.
Anyways, i know this was a real long post. Thanks to anyone who reads it and would love to read some thoughts if anyone has some. Whats your Necromancer look like!?
Damn those enchanters! Haha jokes aside I am very interested in the Enchanter now after that open round table. But lets talk Necromancer!To me when I picture a Necromancer, my mind goes straight to Diablo 2. It was my first exposure to a video game Necromancer, probably the first time I even heard the term haha. But so much about it is very iconic for me.
All the skeletons and dead things you could raise, totally broke the game lol. Just massive army, a Golem of some type and AE curses going out all the time, Baal never had a chance. Poison skills, Bone armor, bone spear! TEETH! Loved all of it.
Now in terms of how that could work for an MMO, essentially just tone down the amount of potential summons and I'd be a happy guy.
In a perfect world a Necromancer would only be able to summon things back to life that are already dead in front of it. What ever that creature may be. I understand that lots of people just like to summon skellys from the ground and be done with it but, I like the idea of only being able to revive whats freshly dead. I think it'd be great that freshly summoned creatures would have all the same attributes as the creature had when it died. So if its a humanoid, it'd have same STR, DEX, CON etc. It'd have the same armor and weapons that the NPC had as well. But over time, your summoned creature would start to break down. How long that took would be dependant on your level or acquired power. This power could also be tied to the number of creatures summoned, and would scale accordingly. So example. Lvl 20 Necro can summon 1 humanoid of the same level for lets just say 10 mins. At 5 mins, it loses some of its main attribute depending what it was. So if it was a fighter style, it loses STR. Mage, INT, etc. At 7 mins it loses the ability to use its skills but can still use a weapon. 9 mins in, it can't hold a weapon at all and just swings its arms wildly. 10 mins its crumbles to the ground. All along those time increments it'll also lose more stats, and walking speed. When summoning more than 1 creature, that over all time they can stay fresh is taken down by %. So that if you did have the chance to summon like 10 things, they'd all only last 1 minute. System like this leaves lots of room for cool passives or other skills to augment this summoned time. Maybe even consumables or craftables could be involved in prolonging their life span.
Now, also at character creation I'd like to see some sort of undead vanity pet you get to choose. Something small that will be with you as an observer. So like an undead cat, or bird, or dog, what ever not important. This dead creature wont fight but will give funny commentary on your gameplay. So if you wipe, it'll be waiting for you when you res and make fun of you. Or if you do something amazing it'll have a little speech bubble pop saying "my master is so strong" etc. The companions personality can change all the time. Now after a certain amount of levels, lets just say 10, the necro will get a special quest or task. This quest will send you on a journey to discover a ritual or maybe an artifact. This ritual/artifact, through a short series of quest and lore stuff, will grant you the power to give your little pet the ability to soak up the souls of the creatures you bring back to life. In that final moment when your summon creature dies, or crumbles from that 10 min timer, your little pet will passively grab up a small piece of it soul. Now, Fast Forward many levels later...lets say 15 levels away from level cap ish. Or maybe its a number thing, after your pet has soaked up 3000 soul chunks...anyways, when it reaches that limit the necro will get another quest line. This one will be more involved, longer and harder to beat. A sort of Epic style quest. After an epic story and many battles the Necromancer is lead to one final battle where they have to take on a variety of NPCs in a group. It'd be like a player group, with a tank/healer/dps/control etc. Upon defeating this group, likely with the help of your own friends, you'll achieve the final step in this ritual/artifact thing you started at lvl 10. That final step is to somehow have the ability to now move the collected soul fragments, and the consciousness of your little pet into a larger physical body. Permanently. The one catch is, you have to use this power transfer in this specific location at this exact time for...reasons. What ever makes sense for the over arching story. Now the players will have a choice to put that pet consciousness into any of the fallen NPCs they just fought. So they could have a tank, or healer, dps, or control, that once they did the transfer would become a permanent summon combat pet. They can dismiss it of course and re summon it but, now they have an undead combat summon that is always at their side. It won't rot and crumble like regular summoned creatures. Now depending on which class of NPC the players choose to infuse with their pet brain will have other benefits too. I'd like there to be different buffs for your regular summons as this new Super Summon is kinda like a squad leader for them. So if they choose the tank, all other summons get a bonus to defence. If they choose a Ranger, bonus to Dex or something. Control, maybe the base summons get a defence against mind spells or something. Those are all pretty generic ideas but, you get what I mean. I think for players to really buy into these NPC's as a vessel, they can't be random ones that they only just met at this last stage of the quest. Who ever this party is needs to be a larger part of the overarching story of this Ritual/Artifact idea. That way it'll give the players choice some real weight. Maybe up until this moment they were mostly friendly NPCs for the necro? Or through out the Necros story line they've gone on quests with some of them, gotten to know their personal stories or some such. So maybe when they make their choice of what body to summon back, the motivation might not just be "well I want a tank." Maybe they really got to enjoy the scrappy rogue over the course of the journey so they bring them back. Maybe they hated the cleric so they want to have them as their eternal servant. Maybe they pick the sexy mage just because she's sexy. Who knows what people what their undead companions to be....we all have our reasons
Depending how indepth the writing will get for the game, maybe the personalities of the pet and the host can merge. Or maybe they just have 2 voices and talk to them selves lol. Lots of weird comedy could come from that, especially in down time. Give the summon a routine to go through if the character is inactive for x minutes. If the player takes a bio break, after awhile the pet will start to do a slap stick comedy routine with itself to entertain the party while they wait lol. Out side of all that summony fidgey widgeyness, I really like Bone spells and curses. Bone armor is a must have skill for any necromancer. I like random magic as much as the next guy, but for me when a game can make something believable in its function is when it really has me...and lets face it, that's almost never lol. So this next idea might be a bit much. But for any Bone type spells in the game, I want there to be a consumed item related to it. I'd like to see bone ripping to be a thing. Maybe theres a spell for it? or an action? Or better yet, your little dead animal pet! After you kill stuff that has bones in it, or when your summons crumble to dust your little pet will quickly bite into its corpse and pull out some bones. All that might become a little tedious though, so maybe its as easy as stopping by a butcher and stocking up. Kinda like arrows for a Ranger or something. And then any corpse you loot theres just a grey item in there of "bones" some ppl sell it, but necros can use. I dunno, just a thought. Bone Spear was an amazing spell, and teeth was funny but my fav bone spells were the utility ones. Bone Armor, and Bone Wall. With Defend the Night having an emphasis on tactical utility, Bone Wall could be a great skill for making choke points or blocking enemies off entirely.
Curses, to me the thing that really hit my memory for curses were the sound fx, and I think some neat stuff could be done with that through some lore too. Curses are such vocal things, very sharp phrases. So when i picture sound fx for curses, I hear a lot of vocal stuff in there. A fear curse could be a horrifying scream as you cast it. Weakness could be the sound of shattering glass with a moan of despair over top. I imagine curses being things that the Necromancer calls upon the help of spirits to accomplish. So when they cast one the player should really get the sense of they are just opening the lid on a bottle ya know? And this spirit they've unleashed is cursing everything around them as they fly away leaving everyone who witnessed it in shock about what they just saw or heard. Some cool animations could be made with that in mind. Maybe as you cast a curse, a rift to the spirit world is open for just a moment and a vague shape pops out to scream its horror on the field. Or drop some ectoplasm on the ground for a slow spell. Or fly at the enemy and pass through them, and as they do they snatch away some armor value. These spirit animations should happen pretty quick, but the casting of them could be 1.5-2 seconds long to build up. Long cast because yes they are a powerful debuff, but also give the animation time to form the rift and look awesome. Then when the cast timer finishes, the spirit does its thing. Also, in that time the Necromancer could chant something. Guess those sorts of flavors really depend on the lore of the world and what makes sense.
Anyways, i know this was a real long post. Thanks to anyone who reads it and would love to read some thoughts if anyone has some. Whats your Necromancer look like!?