Apr 18, 2017 12:24:02 GMT -5
Post by mark on Apr 18, 2017 12:24:02 GMT -5
[attr="class","bw-border"]
[attr="class","bw-bg"]
[attr="class","bw-title"]skill guidelines
[attr="class","bw-desc"]▸ you cannot stop death
death is a major factor on bwo, and we plan to keep it that way. when someone dies during hard mode, they're dead for good so there's no bringing them back. heals are fine, but revives are not. while you may not be able to revive players, classes that play with undead mechanics can easily bring back other things in the world (npcs or monsters) or even bring back essences of players lost. as long as it's never the player, because that player is now dead in the real world too.
To prevent people from going against the system again, any kind of mechanic that prevents death in hard mode is also not allowed. If you're concerned about not dying, use items out of the marketplace!
▸ you cannot change rolls
this should go without saying, but it goes along with the top here. you cannot change your own or someone else's rolls with your own skills unless specifically stated otherwise by staff. this includes raids, dungeons and other events. PVP follows its own specific rules and those cannot be affected either. you'll either find or buy items in the game that'll handle this task for you so keep it out of the skills!
▸ never nullify the importance of gear
weapons, armor, mounts and trinkets are all very important to the characters on bwo. When it comes to making skills on bwo, you should never try to undermine that concept. That means creating skills where mounts aren't required for your character anymore. Skills that allows your character to wield two weapons at the same time in a system that already supports it. Neither of those things are acceptable.
It is however acceptable to create a new skill-based weapon or piece of gear that scales off your currently equipped one. Maybe a skill gives you an extra set of energy armor in combat. It will need to scale off your current armor (with extra if you'd like), and carry some sort of restriction (you can't use it forever). That way armor stays relevant, but you get the freedom of using that cool skill you always wanted to.
▸ there's a difference between passive and active
passives are skills that are currently always on, and do not require any kind of manual activation. Sometimes passives activate when a certain requirements are met (stated in the passive), but they're never activated manually. These can range from constant bonuses, extra feats (like flight) or changes to the human appearance (a mermaid tail or wings). Anything that makes you different from another player, that's not an active, needs to be listed as a passive somewhere.
Actives on the other hand are your typical skills. Anything that you manually do or requires manual activation is an active. Shooting fireballs, slashing your sword or transforming (turning into an animal when activated) are all active skills. All pretty basic. You should never have a skill that's borderline. It's either an active or a passive.
▸ never have skills in your class description
not really something you need to know about skills, but it helps. You can't list any kind of bonuses or skills inside the class description. That stuff is meant for your skills, or to be exact; your passive skills (most of the time). Class description is just there to give an idea of how your class works and the mechanics. Sometimes that includes baseline skills, and that's fine, but they need to be listed below as well.
▸ no godmodding or powerplaying
this should go without saying, but it doesn't for some people. don't make skills that force others players into anything. heals and shields are normally avoidable, but these are usually not the problem. things that force other players into physical situations is never a good thing. if you really need to go this route, try putting up some restrictions like being in a party or some sort of range requirement. this puts the other players in a situation where they put themselves in a position to accept it in another way.
▸ skills that level but with no extra information
skills that level with the player are acceptable. however, if you choose to go down this path, you need to mention what the skill is capable of at all levels. the reason for this is that you can only use what's written in your skill description. if you don't have what your skill does at level three, then you won't be able to do that special thing in your head. the only way to reset skills or change skill text is through skill resets in the general good store. so unless you want to lay down 150 bucks every time you level, I suggest putting all the major changes to your skill from levels at the beginning.
▸ basic attacks exist in the game
bwo's got basic attacks, like others games! This means you don't need a skill to complete basic attacks like swiping your sword, kicking or shooting the basic of fireballs (if you're like a pyromancer wizard or something). These basic attacks should correlate to your currently equipped weapon as well, so it really fills a void that you may of thought you had to yourself. What's really cool is that you're free to create skills that apply bonuses or buffs to your basic attacks. Think about things like attack speed or critical hits. It really opens a new door to skill ideas.
▸ you're in a video game, not a fantasy world
simple as that. You're making magic in a video game setting, not a fantasy world. You can't do things like make players fall in love with you. You can however, make an attraction or taunt ability that specifically attracts players or monsters. When applied to monsters (or npcs) in the game, they may actually fall in love with you but never the players as this is a video game.
Always remember to apply real video game mechanics to your skills. You're free to be as abstract as you want as long as it fits that standard. There's hundreds of games that you can take reference from hat have mechanics that give you the idea of these fantasy world concepts without ever actually allowing you to do them. Things like time travel or mind control are made possible when following the rules of a video game.
▸ you cannot use emotions in skills
adding back to the previous guideline, skills fueled by emotions are not a thing. however, if you can manage to make them more video game-like in nature, you can use emotions as flavor text for your skills, if that's your kind of thing. broken war online is a video game first and a fantasy world second. while this magic or attack seems real, it's really just bits of coding in the game. now this very same game wouldn't have features that scale off emotions as the requirement for that technology would probably take more time, and the scale for something like that is unimaginable. on top of that concept, it probably isn't a good idea to throw something like that into the game as a feature as it could cause too many issues for the playerbase and stress on the mind.
now this includes skills that make players feral as well. anything that makes the player lose their state of mind is not allowed other than crowd control or other forms of trickery such as illusions. it's a video game, so keep things grounded.
▸ transformations and how they work
skills allow you to essentially do anything you'd like, so it would make sense that some would be interested in transformations. how we choose to handle these are based on the premise that the game makes an avatar based on the user's real life appearance. major transformations to the body should always be done by active skills because your base form should always be human. these transformations should have easy to understand mechanics related to either real life or common video games. anything too outrageous could stress the body and this commercialized game would of failed from the get-go. this means transformations will not bring anything feral out of the user, they're in full control.
minor transformations and effects can be both actives or passives depending on the skill. minor things like changing your arm into a blade or growing wings can be passives that may exist continually. these are all acceptable. just keep in mind what's major and what's minor when creating your skills.
▸ be sure to balance yourself
just like other video games, skills and other techniques have their drawbacks. This means cooldowns, timers or whatever restrictions you've got in your mind. As long as you've got some. While we give you the freedom to do whatever you want when it comes to roleplay, you can't make yourself unrestricted, at least in some areas.
This rule applies to normal active skills too. Making a level 1 skill that wipes out fifty monsters in one blow is probably not the best thing either. It's not even fun for you or for others. It pushes away your chance at creativity when you try your best to make the highest hitting attack. In this case I would suggest that you don't mention how many monsters you kill at all. Keep your style in the roleplay and your technical stuff in the skills.
▸ you don't need real restrictions
cooldowns and other restrictions are good to have, but you don't need to use real restrictions. And when I say real restrictions, I mean post or thread timed cooldowns, dice rolls for accuracy or percentages for damage. Mentioning that your skill's cooldown is a few minutes or your that your skill doesn't always hit works just fine. You don't need to incorporate real post count into it.
That being said, you can still do it if you want to. Sometimes the randomness of a dice roll is fun for an attack. I totally get it. This is just letting you know that you don't have to restrict yourself. The fun of the roleplay comes from the freedom of freeform, but relies heavily on that 'golden rule'. If you feel like you have to restrict yourself this way to have fun, it works. Just make sure to include the normal stuff too.
death is a major factor on bwo, and we plan to keep it that way. when someone dies during hard mode, they're dead for good so there's no bringing them back. heals are fine, but revives are not. while you may not be able to revive players, classes that play with undead mechanics can easily bring back other things in the world (npcs or monsters) or even bring back essences of players lost. as long as it's never the player, because that player is now dead in the real world too.
To prevent people from going against the system again, any kind of mechanic that prevents death in hard mode is also not allowed. If you're concerned about not dying, use items out of the marketplace!
▸ you cannot change rolls
this should go without saying, but it goes along with the top here. you cannot change your own or someone else's rolls with your own skills unless specifically stated otherwise by staff. this includes raids, dungeons and other events. PVP follows its own specific rules and those cannot be affected either. you'll either find or buy items in the game that'll handle this task for you so keep it out of the skills!
▸ never nullify the importance of gear
weapons, armor, mounts and trinkets are all very important to the characters on bwo. When it comes to making skills on bwo, you should never try to undermine that concept. That means creating skills where mounts aren't required for your character anymore. Skills that allows your character to wield two weapons at the same time in a system that already supports it. Neither of those things are acceptable.
It is however acceptable to create a new skill-based weapon or piece of gear that scales off your currently equipped one. Maybe a skill gives you an extra set of energy armor in combat. It will need to scale off your current armor (with extra if you'd like), and carry some sort of restriction (you can't use it forever). That way armor stays relevant, but you get the freedom of using that cool skill you always wanted to.
▸ there's a difference between passive and active
passives are skills that are currently always on, and do not require any kind of manual activation. Sometimes passives activate when a certain requirements are met (stated in the passive), but they're never activated manually. These can range from constant bonuses, extra feats (like flight) or changes to the human appearance (a mermaid tail or wings). Anything that makes you different from another player, that's not an active, needs to be listed as a passive somewhere.
Actives on the other hand are your typical skills. Anything that you manually do or requires manual activation is an active. Shooting fireballs, slashing your sword or transforming (turning into an animal when activated) are all active skills. All pretty basic. You should never have a skill that's borderline. It's either an active or a passive.
▸ never have skills in your class description
not really something you need to know about skills, but it helps. You can't list any kind of bonuses or skills inside the class description. That stuff is meant for your skills, or to be exact; your passive skills (most of the time). Class description is just there to give an idea of how your class works and the mechanics. Sometimes that includes baseline skills, and that's fine, but they need to be listed below as well.
▸ no godmodding or powerplaying
this should go without saying, but it doesn't for some people. don't make skills that force others players into anything. heals and shields are normally avoidable, but these are usually not the problem. things that force other players into physical situations is never a good thing. if you really need to go this route, try putting up some restrictions like being in a party or some sort of range requirement. this puts the other players in a situation where they put themselves in a position to accept it in another way.
▸ skills that level but with no extra information
skills that level with the player are acceptable. however, if you choose to go down this path, you need to mention what the skill is capable of at all levels. the reason for this is that you can only use what's written in your skill description. if you don't have what your skill does at level three, then you won't be able to do that special thing in your head. the only way to reset skills or change skill text is through skill resets in the general good store. so unless you want to lay down 150 bucks every time you level, I suggest putting all the major changes to your skill from levels at the beginning.
▸ basic attacks exist in the game
bwo's got basic attacks, like others games! This means you don't need a skill to complete basic attacks like swiping your sword, kicking or shooting the basic of fireballs (if you're like a pyromancer wizard or something). These basic attacks should correlate to your currently equipped weapon as well, so it really fills a void that you may of thought you had to yourself. What's really cool is that you're free to create skills that apply bonuses or buffs to your basic attacks. Think about things like attack speed or critical hits. It really opens a new door to skill ideas.
▸ you're in a video game, not a fantasy world
simple as that. You're making magic in a video game setting, not a fantasy world. You can't do things like make players fall in love with you. You can however, make an attraction or taunt ability that specifically attracts players or monsters. When applied to monsters (or npcs) in the game, they may actually fall in love with you but never the players as this is a video game.
Always remember to apply real video game mechanics to your skills. You're free to be as abstract as you want as long as it fits that standard. There's hundreds of games that you can take reference from hat have mechanics that give you the idea of these fantasy world concepts without ever actually allowing you to do them. Things like time travel or mind control are made possible when following the rules of a video game.
▸ you cannot use emotions in skills
adding back to the previous guideline, skills fueled by emotions are not a thing. however, if you can manage to make them more video game-like in nature, you can use emotions as flavor text for your skills, if that's your kind of thing. broken war online is a video game first and a fantasy world second. while this magic or attack seems real, it's really just bits of coding in the game. now this very same game wouldn't have features that scale off emotions as the requirement for that technology would probably take more time, and the scale for something like that is unimaginable. on top of that concept, it probably isn't a good idea to throw something like that into the game as a feature as it could cause too many issues for the playerbase and stress on the mind.
now this includes skills that make players feral as well. anything that makes the player lose their state of mind is not allowed other than crowd control or other forms of trickery such as illusions. it's a video game, so keep things grounded.
▸ transformations and how they work
skills allow you to essentially do anything you'd like, so it would make sense that some would be interested in transformations. how we choose to handle these are based on the premise that the game makes an avatar based on the user's real life appearance. major transformations to the body should always be done by active skills because your base form should always be human. these transformations should have easy to understand mechanics related to either real life or common video games. anything too outrageous could stress the body and this commercialized game would of failed from the get-go. this means transformations will not bring anything feral out of the user, they're in full control.
minor transformations and effects can be both actives or passives depending on the skill. minor things like changing your arm into a blade or growing wings can be passives that may exist continually. these are all acceptable. just keep in mind what's major and what's minor when creating your skills.
▸ be sure to balance yourself
just like other video games, skills and other techniques have their drawbacks. This means cooldowns, timers or whatever restrictions you've got in your mind. As long as you've got some. While we give you the freedom to do whatever you want when it comes to roleplay, you can't make yourself unrestricted, at least in some areas.
This rule applies to normal active skills too. Making a level 1 skill that wipes out fifty monsters in one blow is probably not the best thing either. It's not even fun for you or for others. It pushes away your chance at creativity when you try your best to make the highest hitting attack. In this case I would suggest that you don't mention how many monsters you kill at all. Keep your style in the roleplay and your technical stuff in the skills.
▸ you don't need real restrictions
cooldowns and other restrictions are good to have, but you don't need to use real restrictions. And when I say real restrictions, I mean post or thread timed cooldowns, dice rolls for accuracy or percentages for damage. Mentioning that your skill's cooldown is a few minutes or your that your skill doesn't always hit works just fine. You don't need to incorporate real post count into it.
That being said, you can still do it if you want to. Sometimes the randomness of a dice roll is fun for an attack. I totally get it. This is just letting you know that you don't have to restrict yourself. The fun of the roleplay comes from the freedom of freeform, but relies heavily on that 'golden rule'. If you feel like you have to restrict yourself this way to have fun, it works. Just make sure to include the normal stuff too.
