Log Horizon: Create Your Own Character

[agetreme]

Originally Posted by Keroko

That would actually go against the spirit of the series though. One of the cornerstones of this series is that things that used to be impossible (such as, to use your example, killing quest givers) is now entirely possible, and the consequences that come with that.

Different spin on the idea: He's a quest mob designed to be impossible to defeat because of its quest chain. Players take offense to the idea if "impossible to defeat" and keep trying to take him down.

Or should I make it a tragic.... The NPC is a heroic quest mob who revive because of his Quest involved him being betrayed and killed by the player at the end of the quest chain.

Because his soul is bind to a Dungeon Boss. He revived at the same time as the Dungeon Boss.... to kill the boss, you need to kill him first.

Hmm, tricky but... not entirely impossible, as long as stuff like cooldowns and mana costs are decided by the skill itself rather than the player to prevent the "but why don't they make bajillion damage skills for one mana and no cooldown?"

Just... don't call it cheat. That's just begging for problems.

Well, it is cheating because game-balance-wise, it is not fair to have Cross-class ability..... (100% Ban-hammer if returned to game-world)

The damages is determined by the Skill itself. Because it is determined by the Skill, Zillion damage skill would not work because you need insanely high grade Ink that exceed Phantasmal Level (impossible even with overskill).

However, damage aside, it is possible to define Number of attack, Cooldown time, Cast time and Mana Cost. But if the skill is too overpowered, the Skill will add additional cost to the skill: Like HP cost, Item requirement...etc. Anything undefined is fair game. At the worst case scenario where player manage to define everything: Overwrite the earlier entry with higher cost.

Using previous Example:
Damage: Zillion
Mp Cost: 1 (+ Zillion mp)
Cooldown time: 1 second
Cast time: 1 second
+ Hp Cost: Zillion
+ Exp Lost: Zillion
+ Inflict Poison status effect all allies
+ (Continued for Zillion time)


Addition cost can be reduced/even removed if Player willing to add penalty to the skill (Like higher MP cost, longer recast time...etc).

So the Cost is still ultimately determined by the Skill and rather than the Player.

How lenient the Skill would be depend on the grade of the Ink used. Higher Grade Ink is less strict than low grade Ink.

E.g.

Phantasmal Grade Ink:
Damage (determined by the skill): 100% of attack + 50
Number of attack: 3
Mp cost: 200mp
Cooldown time: 5 second
Cast-time: 1 second

Really Low grade Ink: (Low probability of working anyway)
Damage(determined by the skill):: 60%
Number of attack: 3
Mp cost: 200mp
Cooldown time: 5 second
Cast-time: 1 second
+ HP cost: 100 Hp
+ Inflict 30 second [Slow] status effect on player.
+ Inflict 10 second [poison] effect.

=

The Player who had the Overskill see it as a challenge to create a Game-Breaker skill that can bypass these rules.

At the current level, it is only Balance-Breaker (due to allowing Cross-Class ability.)

On side note: This Overskill, [Skill Acquisition] is only Tactical level magic (Change the flow of battlefield but game-balance kept it at that level)... but has potential to reach (albeit lowest level and last only few second) of Dungeon-level Magic (Territorial Creation but at this level, this skill is not a few pieces of paper but a 500-page text-book. As a tribute: You must use Phantasmal Ink and Paper for the skill...It's the "I have a Boner for sword" thing).

[Soul Overwrite] (more advanced version) is the same but has even greater potential altering fate of an individual.....

Multiple Individuals (Via multiple copies) = Nation-grade.

But only if it is allowed to develop further....(Further development of this overskill is difficult if not downright impossible because at that level, the Skill-book can now be used as a Door-stopper....)

[Lazgrane]

Originally Posted by agetreme

Well, it is cheating because game-balance-wise, it is not fair to have Cross-class ability..... (100% Ban-hammer if returned to game-world)

Foxes can copy skills from any other class/race. What now?

[Sheba]

In the case of Foxtails, those are randomized and they loses one skill as trade off.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by agetreme

Or should I make it a tragic.... The NPC is a heroic quest mob who revive because of his Quest involved him being betrayed and killed by the player at the end of the quest chain.

Because his soul is bind to a Dungeon Boss. He revived at the same time as the Dungeon Boss.... to kill the boss, you need to kill him first.

Soulbound to a dungeon boss. He's all that keeps it from escaping and wrecking havoc, but he's all that keeps you from killing it too.

Yeah, that could work.

Originally Posted by agetreme

Well, it is cheating because game-balance-wise, it is not fair to have Cross-class ability..... (100% Ban-hammer if returned to game-world)

The damages is determined by the Skill itself. Because it is determined by the Skill, Zillion damage skill would not work because you need insanely high grade Ink that exceed Phantasmal Level (impossible even with overskill).

However, damage aside, it is possible to define Number of attack, Cooldown time, Cast time and Mana Cost. But if the skill is too overpowered, the Skill will add additional cost to the skill: Like HP cost, Item requirement...etc. Anything undefined is fair game. At the worst case scenario where player manage to define everything: Overwrite the earlier entry with higher cost.

Using previous Example:
Damage: Zillion
Mp Cost: 1 (+ Zillion mp)
Cooldown time: 1 second
Cast time: 1 second
+ Hp Cost: Zillion
+ Exp Lost: Zillion
+ Inflict Poison status effect all allies
+ (Continued for Zillion time)


Addition cost can be reduced/even removed if Player willing to add penalty to the skill (Like higher MP cost, longer recast time...etc).

So the Cost is still ultimately determined by the Skill and rather than the Player.

How lenient the Skill would be depend on the grade of the Ink used. Higher Grade Ink is less strict than low grade Ink.

I really think you should make the internal balance the true stumbleblock here. For two reasons:

A: Money can be worked around. Players have always found ways to make money hand over fist in MMO's.

B: Internal balance would reflect the whole "it's no longer a game" aspect of the series. A powerful spell in any other fantasy setting would either take a ridiculously long time to cast (long cast timer) can't be cast in succession (long cooldown) and/or will drain the caster of energy (high mana cost).

Forcing the player to balance these issues sounds like a much more consistent and less abusive method of creating skills. It becomes a game of min-maxing rather than "lets pile all our money together and create an über skill."

[agetreme]

Foxes can copy skills from any other class/race. What now?

Just as Sheba mentioned: The difference is in choices, you get to pick and choose which skill to keep while being a Foxtail is randomized.

Even if Foxtail can transform, the skill level is fixed but in the Overskill's case: You can level up the Cross-Class Skill normally by spending mastery point.

=

Soulbound to a dungeon boss. He's all that keeps it from escaping and wrecking havoc, but he's all that keeps you from killing it too.

Yeah, that could work.

According to the game lore anyway. Reality is the other way round: The Boss is what made him an immortal. To be fair, the Hero give stats bonus to the Boss making him nigh-impossible to defeat without killing the hero at certain stage of the quest.

I really think you should make the internal balance the true stumbleblock here. For two reasons:

A: Money can be worked around. Players have always found ways to make money hand over fist in MMO's.

B: Internal balance would reflect the whole "it's no longer a game" aspect of the series. A powerful spell in any other fantasy setting would either take a ridiculously long time to cast (long cast timer) can't be cast in succession (long cooldown) and/or will drain the caster of energy (high mana cost).

Forcing the player to balance these issues sounds like a much more consistent and less abusive method of creating skills. It becomes a game of min-maxing rather than "lets pile all our money together and create an über skill."

You are right, I think I will remove player's ability to define the exact amount of time and Mana needed.

The player can only vaguely describe the amount of time and Mana needed while logic take over.

Powerful Spell will drain lots of Mana because it is needed to fuel the power.

>If it doesn't drain a lot of MP, it will either has less power (consume less Mana) or take longer time to cast (gathering mana from surrounding)

> If it does not take a long time to cast, it will have longer recast time (due to fatigue from casting the spell) or less power (unable to gather a lot of Mana from surrounding)

> If it has short recast time, it means less power (due to player subconsciously limiting the power to make it less exhausting) or take more Mp to cast (due to using mana to speed up cooldown time)

[MeisterBabylon]

I avoid TRPG book problems by not elaborating on main class skills. I'll just grab everything off the book once its translated.

Also, am too lazy to calculate the HP and MP values atm. I don't think I need those to tell a good story...

[Sheba]

I also think that you don't need to elaborate too much on skills, overskills and powerlists, the characters and the story comes first.

[kingofkows]

Hi, I created another character. I focused much less on the skills and more on the play style and background on the character. What does everyone think?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3E...it?usp=sharing

[agetreme]

Originally Posted by kingofkows

Hi, I created another character. I focused much less on the skills and more on the play style and background on the character. What does everyone think?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3E...it?usp=sharing

Sorry if I end up sounding harsh because I am really bad at tone of words.

Question:
Why would Magi of Lake think that it is a good idea to discuss such topic with a Cleric? To make thing worse: with build of a knight/Paladin?

Achievement of solo-ing dungeon actually doesn't mean much compared to Knowledge of the game. Beside, there are some Dungeon which can't be solo-ed:
Look at Naotsugu's armor, then read up on the Boss that drop the item.

Why Regun talked to Shiroe because
1. He has been playing the game for a long time (historical record)

2. He is an Enchanter (AKA Archmage....as in Character with High Stats in Int. presumably Summoner and Sorcerer would suffice)

3. Shiroe seemed to be knowledgeable about the Game Lore.

Though because your character is a Cleric, it is still possible for them to discuss about Faith and God (Probably include some Boss Monster (Evil Gods?.... I think there would be one of two boss described as Evil God in a game)).

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by kingofkows

Hi, I created another character. I focused much less on the skills and more on the play style and background on the character. What does everyone think?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3E...it?usp=sharing

If you plan on writing a story on your chars, focus less on his skills and gamestyle. Instead, focus more on his quirks, relationships with fellow players. In short, the fluff.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by kingofkows

Hi, I created another character. I focused much less on the skills and more on the play style and background on the character. What does everyone think?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3E...it?usp=sharing

Ehum, a lot of things are a bit extreme about him. To list:

• Leveling in Elder Tale is hard. Leveling while constantly dying and incurring XP penalties? Even harder.
• Fighting in Elder tale is hard. Even lower-level mobs in the open world present a danger. Dungeons are even worse. Soloing equal-level dungeons in Elder Tale would be impossible.
• He just "gathered" 20 million gold? Even though it took 3 merchant guilds to put together 5 million? Highly unlikely. Remember that you lose items and gold upon death, so he wouldn't have earned much from his adventuring exploits either.
• He just fought his way through a raid? What? How? These are fights made for dozens of players, you don't just solo raids.

Honestly? I'm getting a lot of Kirito vibes from your character. Little piece of advice: Sword Art Online is a terrible representation of MMO's. Many of the things Kirito got away with were only possible because the author ignored the impossibility. The best advice I can give is "tone it down." Elder Tale is an MMO. MMO's are made to be played with other people, and soloing means that there will be a lot of things you simply won't be able to do. Dungeons being one of them. Leveling swiftly another.

[agetreme]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Leveling in Elder Tale is hard. Leveling while constantly dying and incurring XP penalties? Even harder.

I just remember something to add on to the difficulty of Leveling up:

Now that the game is real.... time passes 12x slower.

Assuming that you can level up a character in an hour while Elder tale is game, that will take you about 12 hours to level up in the New World.

=====

Absurdity Maximum:


CAST OFF!
Sub-class: Nudist
As if the game isn't hard enough for you.

Since the game has become real, may be it was due to the lack of intelligence to comprehend what happen (though highly doubt it would help), when Nudist decide to unleash their Sub-classs ability (via stripping) in the middle of a battle, it leave most Demi-humans (including most players) stunned.

May be it is due to the special effect that keep the game in 'T' rating (Censor).

[Estavali]

IIRC raids have a member-count requirement. For example, a 24-man raid means two things:
1. you can only have 24 members in your raiding party, and
2. you must have a 24-man team in order to undertake the raid.

Originally Posted by agetreme

Absurdity Maximum:


CAST OFF!
Sub-class: Nudist
As if the game isn't hard enough for you.

Since the game has become real, may be it was due to the lack of intelligence to comprehend what happen (though highly doubt it would help), when Nudist decide to unleash their Sub-classs ability (via stripping) in the middle of a battle, it leave most Demi-humans (including most players) stunned.

May be it is due to the special effect that keep the game in 'T' rating (Censor).

Not sure if you've seen it but there is a fan-made Nudist subclass (裸族) in the Japanese subclass G-Doc =3.

From what I understand, its philosophy is basically "Embrace your birthday suit! Let your pure, natural nakedness (literally) empower you!"

Kinda silly if seemingly useful imho. It seems to me that whoever that contributed to that entry probably have a fine sense of humor =3

[agetreme]

Originally Posted by Estavali

Not sure if you've seen it but there is a fan-made Nudist subclass (裸族) in the Japanese subclass G-Doc =3.

From what I understand, its philosophy is basically "Embrace your birthday suit! Let your pure, natural nakedness (literally) empower you!"

Kinda silly if seemingly useful imho. It seems to me that whoever that contributed to that entry probably have a fine sense of humor =3

Seen it.

There is no further description other than Real world effect because it is actually based on that.

Also based on the fact that there are Players who do nude run for self-imposed challenge. Being able to brag that you completed a dungeon naked...... is actually kind of awesome.

[MeisterBabylon]

The Nudist is a clever reference to the SWTOR PVP debacle called Boost. Where players wearing NOTHING were artificially boosted to ABOVE the highest tier of gear in game because the game applied the modifier on to the player's base stats while naked. LOL

(I really play too many MMOs...)

Also, I will roll a Nudist and join the faction I belong to, for obvious reasons.

[Sheba]

Kannagi who appears in Crossplayers chapter 3. Not a G.I.R.L. And one of Vlad's first friends in Japan.

[agetreme]

A little early but just want to have fun screwing people a little:

"To think that Adventurers can overpower Lander is sheer arrogance on Adventurer's part."

The effect of the First World Fraction actually still linger in the world and it is actually possible for Landers to transform into Boss monster when they perform a certain Dark Ritual that gathers fallen souls.

Strong Desire or Despair can further power-up the Boss Monsters, transforming them into powerful boss that only powerful Adventurers or Ancients can defeat.

But make no mistake, Boss Monsters are pathetic existence, fated only to kill and waiting to be killed.

Edit: Since the Dark Ritual add to the problem (increase number of Demi-humans/Boss), Lander who know how to perform the ritual, will not use this Magic unless desperate.

Moar Edit: Judging from my current character class ratio.... Main Lead is Synthetic Summoner with Support Build (which make it hard to defend his case as Non-pervert). He doesn't usually play Summoner but is end up trapped in the class when he is transferring items from his main.

[NorthernFallout]

Some more characters free to use. Might have them interact with Weisten...

Spoiler for Profiles:

xXEXCELLIONXx

Character Name: Serayna L
Level: 90
Race: Human
Class: Guardian
Subclass: Artisan
Guild: xXExcellionXx

Items
• Wyvern Helmet - A semi-rare drop from a a Wyvern named “Sliver”, perched on top of a mountain in the Northern Peninsula. Provides defense and HP.
• Blockade of the Torrent - Rare shield with a huge bonus to defense. It’s appearance is that of a circle with jewels arranged in a circular pattern on its surface.
• Sheared Pauldrons of Severance- Provides a bonus to defense and HP.

Persona
Serayna is exclusively a PvE player that relies on her massive HP and diplomacy skill in Elder Tales. Her goal in creating xXExcellenceXx aligns with that of the Crescent Moon Alliance, in that their aim is to help fellow players and at the same time investigate how to get back to the Real World. The latter is a top priority for Serayna herself as she has two daughters and a husband on “the other side”, which implies she’ll go to great lengths in the diplomacy department to acquire the connections needed to move their investigation forward.

There are lingering doubt that Serayna might not be fit to fulfill the role of Guild Leader anymore as she has, at times, become more and more thoughtful and melancholic, which creates tension amongst the members.

Tactics
As the Main Tank of their guild, Serayna’s equipment is focused on HP and Defense to an almost abnormal degree. In PvP, for self-defense, Serayna acts as a sacrificial pawn to let her fellow guild members escape if the battle seems unwinnable. Alternatively, if they can delay their opponents enough, she’ll call in favors from her many contacts.


Character Name: Rz X (pronounced “Razex”)
Level: 90
Race: Wolf Fang
Class: Assassin
Subclass: Animal Trainer
Guild: xXExcellionXx

Items
• The Tomb Mask - A mask consisting of bandages that covers his face. Improves his ability to see cloaked enemies and negatively affects an enemy’s perception of Rz X.
• Chained Void Scythes - Rz X’s main weapons, small scythes chained together. Dropped from a random demon-like creature in the ranks of Yrthraxas. Has bonus for attack speed.
• Rinkagoggo Amulet - Found in the Nerpath Catacombs, it provides bonuses to Rz X’s cloaking and movement speed.

Persona
As Serayna’s brother-in-law in Real Life, Rz X is extremely loyal to his guild leader and will do his best to follow her commands and provide guidance where he deems fit. While he isn’t more hotheaded than Serayna (both of them are very cool-headed and collected) he doesn’t sway away from rushing into battle against monsters or players alike with ruthless intent, especially if a guild member is in trouble. Much like Serayna, he wants to go back to the Real World as soon as possible so he can reunite with Serayna’s family and make amends for what he’s done in his past.

However, he has a tendency to go behind Serayna’s back, dealing with his own shadowy affairs that other guild members aren’t aware of, but that he himself claims are “for the good of a future Excellion”.

Tactics
Rz X doesn’t differ much from your average Assassin, though he tends to invoke more psychological warfare in his offense, talking and misleading his opponent if the situation calls for it. Extremely adaptable, he’s capable of switching gears in a heartbeat and rarely panics in the face of danger.

Due to his subclass, he sometimes uses animals as forward scouts or thieves. He also keeps a pet pig named “Scarlet” at Excellion HQ.


Character Name: Lucie
Level: 63
Race: Elf
Class: Bard
Subclass: Scribe
Guild: xXExcellionXx

Items
• Courtesan’s Violine - A semi-rare drop, it amplifies Lucie’s attack damage boosting spells.
• Entourage Hat - A cosmetic item.

Persona
Acting as the Human Resources Manager, Guild Secretary and Guild Bureaucratic Recorder all in one, Lucie tries to be everywhere at once, which suits her personality that resembles that of an hyperactive chihuahua. Bubbly and talkative, she’s a stark contrast to Serayna and Rz X. She’s also horrible in combat and prefers to stay at their base, writing, recording and investigating.

She met Serayna before the Apocalypse and admired her for being a busy mother that still managed to run a somewhat successful guild, though there is a hint in jealousy in her admiration that has yet to be defined.

Tactics
On the rare occasion that Lucie participates in combat, she’s a standard support Bard with no special tactics, though she has been known to show uncharacteristic courage in the face of danger.



+10 Guild Members

[Sheba]

In term of motivations, Serayna is the opposite of Céline.

[agetreme]

Does Rz X choose the name because it sounds cool or because most names have been taken?