Class specific content
- Thread starter Feren
- Start date
A very small number of missions/events/options/blurbs are affected by class choice, but in the bigger scope of things, class choice has little affect to the gameplay. The same can be said about personality and gender alignments (though these things tend to be character fluff anyway). For now, a lot of concentration has been placed on keeping the game as balanced as possible for all classes, which also affects most final outcomes being more or less the same. I would imagine the game will be more varied down the line once most of the core game's aspects and gameplay properties have been ironed out and balanced to a reasonable level.
Aside from that, I know there were conceptual talks about things such as random bounty hunts, smuggling/anti-smuggling jobs, and mining/repair/rescue mission ideas being bounced around. Such things seem like they may be more class-oriented, or at least benefit from a class-specific advantage, so when and if these things ever come about, they may be another outlet to exercise the class choice you've made for your character.
Aside from that, I know there were conceptual talks about things such as random bounty hunts, smuggling/anti-smuggling jobs, and mining/repair/rescue mission ideas being bounced around. Such things seem like they may be more class-oriented, or at least benefit from a class-specific advantage, so when and if these things ever come about, they may be another outlet to exercise the class choice you've made for your character.
Hmm must have missed that in my smuggler play through (never got a merc Steele past early Tarkus).
Anyways for OP's question some minor events and extra dialog options are different, the vast majority are cosmetic while others have fairly minor gameplay options (smugglers and techies can sneak around or hack some turrets in the stellar tether mission).
Pretty sure the tarkus missile drone option(non Mercs can avoid the fight) and the extra gun from Anno(Techs can't get) are the only things that really affect gameplay at the moment. Deck 13 allows smugglers to pick a lock, but it's pretty much just flavour as Anno will unlock it if you can't. During the Hand-So quest Techies get a boost in the attempt to save her; high Int/reload for chance mitigates the advantage.
The future(?) Hand-So integration and deck 13 combat drones feel like they will make use of this. Techies will probably have it easier, though I doubt it would be exclusive to them. Non techs could probably bug an engineer/scientist/Anno for help.
I recall the general being: Smugglers and Techs get more class flavour to balance Mercs being the intended top dog combat-wise.
The future(?) Hand-So integration and deck 13 combat drones feel like they will make use of this. Techies will probably have it easier, though I doubt it would be exclusive to them. Non techs could probably bug an engineer/scientist/Anno for help.
I recall the general being: Smugglers and Techs get more class flavour to balance Mercs being the intended top dog combat-wise.
That seems rather odd given that mercenaries have quite a lot of flavour (geeking out on Carl's guns, or being on the same page as Lieve with the realities of war), the other classes are pretty good at combat, and using something like that as a balancing factor seems rather silly.
It's more that Merc-specific things are kind of hard to come up with compared to Smuggler/Tech-specific things, because Mercs as a concept specialize in combat and by definition this doesn't usually apply to non-combat things. I don't think they're intended specifically to be the best at combat, it just happens that they're the class with the best overall design approach (lots of passives that stack, only a few active abilities and the ones they have all just work with no gimmickry), so they work very well because they're designed very well.
The other problem is that a lot of the stuff you might come up with for the mercs also ends up being grey area with the other classes too. A lot of what you'd traditionally associate with a mercenary, you'd also associate with a smuggler.
Well yes, but you wouldn't see a smuggler hauling around a mini-gun or in heavy armor
I was thinking of what bars they go to or who they tend to associate with. What they're likely to do with them is the difference (like arm wrestling and doing drinking contests vs meeting up with business partners in dark corners and putting the moves on some impressionable individual). On the other hand, a tech specialist would tend to hang out in an entirely different place with completely different people.
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+1
It's pretty difficult to come up with fluff or convincing pathways for mercenaries. In a situation where you've got to break into someplace, the tech specialist might deactivate an alarm, the smuggler might get in with the laundry, and the mercenary might... kick the door down and go in guns blazing. The problem is that there's no reason at all why the other two wouldn't be able to take the third option as well, gameplay-wise. Maybe if the mercenary was deliberately designed so he really was better at combat, whilst the other two were given outside-combat stealth/tech trees to pursue. But as Couch says, mercenaries being better in battle isn't intentional.
Well, in the example you've described, a Mercenary could possibly use his prior experience to decipher the pattern of patrols so he would be able to avoid/neutralize them; or plant a demolition charge on the side and do a proper breach&assault. Problem is, the description Mercenary class has atm doesn't point out to any skills beside being good at shooting/hitting things, 'having a battle plan'.and beind a stubborn, tough son of a bitch.
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This does make more sense. My mistake then.
The impression the Merc always gave me was that they take the most straightforward route. The initial description supports as much.
Doesn't sound like they'd be pussyfooting around any situation. Though now that I think about it, also giving mercs special options for scenes that the other classes already have feels like it would take away more than it adds. Unless it's a funny mode scene where the merc eschews picking a lock to repeatedly headbutt it until it crumples before him.