Ideal way to instantiate abilities in a class give a dynamic list of abilities to use?

Question

I have a PlayerClass class that is used to set my Player's class. For instance, this will make him a warrior:

 PlayerClass warrior = new WarriorClass();

WarriorClass will instantiate abilities like so:

 Ability ability1 = new LeapAbility();

Now my problem is that I will eventually dynamically update my Warrior's abilities (think talent trees or perks).

So say I give warrior a list of abilities to use. How do I do this in code? Right now I need to know the Abilities before hand and hard code their instantiation in.

Put another way, how do I instantiate a dynamic list of objects? I'm open to other solutions too if this doesn't make sense or is impossible.

Answer 1

You could have a function that takes in a string, which can be loaded dynamically, and returns a new ability.

Ability createAbilityById(String s) {
    switch (s) {
        case “leap”: return new LeapAbility();
        case “foo”: return new FooAbility();
        ...
    }
}

You can also look into reflection if your language supports it, but it may be overkill or too complicated.