Hey people,
Alex 13 here, with GREAT news!
I'm a type of player who LOVES tinkering with my builds in games. If the game provides enough depth to allow me to think, create, test, and iterate on builds - that's the game right up my valley.
Even more so if the game allows me to multiclass or create custom classes. A good example of this approach is astounding Tales of Maj'Eyal by Darkgod - one of my favorite games, period. After I spent hundreds of hours there playing preset classes, I spend another several hundreds of hours playing my custom classes. They break the balance, yes, but in a sooooo fun way!
While Titans of the Past provides a respectable number of 35 playable classes to experiment with - each with a set of Skills, a unique Class skills, and interesting Class Abilities, and each class either goes into one of the 4 character archetypes (Fighter, Cleric, Mage, Rogue) or blends two or more of them, it wasn't enough. Personally for me, as a player. And as a team we're making a game that drives us crazy in a good way. And as a leader of the team I can force my people to make what I want.
So we thought about what can we do to drastically increase the depth of the game's roleplay system and build-crafting potential. And come up with a Custom Class Constructor (CCC).
Custom Class Constructor
Basically, CCC is an ability to create your own custom class by cherry-picking the Skills a character with this class will have, and defining their maximum Masteries. With a point-buy system, because it's the most logical way of doing this, and also because point-buy system is DND-ish enough to support the tabletop game feel of Titans of the Past.
This already allows you to create and roleplay a huge part of what fantasy characters could be imagined. You can make a swordmaster with Grandmaster in Sword, Two-Handed, True Melee, and Arms Mastery. Give him Expert in Light Armor and you're good to go. Or an Elemental Lord with GMs in all elemental spell schools. Or utilitarian Bard with Disarm Traps and Perception + his auras.
But this still wasn't enough. Because you already saw all these common Skills and played with the characters that utilize them. The most unique and interesting Skills in the game are Class Skills. They provide you fancy stull like casting a Lightning Bolt with a melee attack, or make your melee attacks AOE, or give you a chance to make a second melee/ranged attack for free and instantly, or heal a random ally when you do something, etc. etc. etc. The possibilities are quite endless here.
However, the limitation here is that each Class has its own Class Skill and that's it. It's good for making classes distinctive and for balancing the game. Meanwhile the CCC is meant to be a reward for the most consistent players who have beaten the game's last difficulty. So we see no reasons to not provide such players with a complete toolset to break the game however they like.
So:
CCC is a reward for beating the game's last difficulty.
CCC allows you to pick for your Custom Classes EVERY skill in the game - including Class Skills.
Thus you can 'multiclass' - create spellswords, necromantic clerics, arcane archers, supercharged melee/ranged/caster fighters.
The possibilities are endless, and Class Skills provide fun and engaging mechanics combinations not available to preset classes.
Feel free to make the most imbalanced and crazy-powerful party you can imagine.
But only after 'winning' the game.
You still can't just grab every skill and set it to Grandmaster - the point-buy system won't allow you. So if you want something cohesive, powerful, and interesting - you have to think. I've already spent more than 30 hours just theorycrafting builds for our game - and let me tell you that's one of the best feelings a game developer could experience.
Also, the CCC menu is available from the Grail building - which your townsfolk build for you as a reward for 'saving' them from the evils of the world. Which is a nice easter egg for Heroes of Might and Magic series.
Creating a Custom Class
You walk towards the majestic statue of a proud warrior your people built in the town to celebrate your victories over the evils of the world.
You contemplate on what Adventurer you want to join your party next.
You pick a Base Class - which governs this Class's Base HP/Energy, HP/Energy Per Level (very important!). The Class Skill of this Class will be trainable up to Grandmaster, and it doesn't cost any points.
You spend significant time thinking what Skills you want this new Adventurer to have, and to what extent they will be trainable. It's the most important step, so you are very careful here.
You finalize your decisions and give the new Class a Name, a Description, and an Insignia - a visual representation of this new type of Adventurers who will kill things for you.
You seal the deal, and are now able to create new Characters using this new Custom Class.
You are happy. Monsters await killing in exciting new ways, you know.
The game is now feature complete
CCC implementation concludes the list of big features we planned for the initial release. There will be QoL additions and polishing for sure, but no more significant stuff. The game is ready feature-wise.
The biggest remaining chunk of work for us is finalizing the content - Spells, Enemies, and Maps.
Planned release window
We're aiming for the full release this Autumn.
Thank you,
13 out, went crafting my next wild party of custom-classed characters