by SlyGoat » Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:50 pm
A Skirmisher class would be awesome to see. I imagine the easiest way to do it would be to have vastly differing weight and power measurements on both the ranged and melee weapons.
For example:
Dagger as a primary weapon doesn't decrease your speed at all, but daggers do horrible melee damage.
Short sword decreases your speed by 3% and does subpar melee damage.
Hand-ax decreases your speed by 6% and does average melee damage.
Spear decreases your speed by 10% and does good melee damage.
Throwing knives don't decrease your speed at all but do low ranged damage.
Throwing axes decrease your speed by 5% and do average ranged damage.
Javelins decrease your speed by 10% and do good ranged damage.
And you could add a buckler for an extra 10% speed decrease.
So you can choose between a very agile skirmisher with a dagger/short sword and knives, or a medium or heavy skirmisher with more powerful weapons.
Maybe an even more advanced system where you can choose how many maximum projectiles you carry would even be possible if it wasn't considered too much of a burden of knowledge on the players. For example;
Throwing knives - 3 knives with 0 speed penalty, +1% speed penalty for every knife over the third, up to 10.
Throwing axes - 2 axes with 0 speed penalty, +2% speed penalty for every knife over the second up to 8.
Javelins - 1 javelin with 0 speed penalty, +3% speed penalty for every javelin after the first up to 6.
So you could have a fast class with a light weapon or a relatively fast class with a stronger weapon, while limiting yourself to 1-3 throws before having to pick up/restock your throwables.
These are of course all just examples and not intended to be balanced.
I also strongly believe there should be a skirmisher class. Having the ability to hang back from the fight, engage and disengage and fight on your own terms is a very unique and fun play style which always kept me coming back to the Javelineer in AoC.
You could just say "well we can add a javelin and spear as a weapon kit to X class", but I don't think that'd work out well - like when Archer was a single class in AoC, the Javelineer was just a head above the other archer classes because of its melee strength (except during the Age of Uber Shortsword). A Skirmisher class in Chivalry would need to have the lowest HP of any class except perhaps the Archer to balance out their strength of being able to fight on their own terms, but at the same time they'd have to be faster than the Archer who has the strength of very long range engagements.
99% of what I post is subjective and not representative of Torn Banner or rationality as a whole.
also really good ideas on the number of projectiles held compared to movement speed
