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More classes or more talents?

ToferioToferio Member UncommonPosts: 1,411

Here's a question for the gaming community. What do you prefer in MMOs, emphasis on more unique classes with less different talent trees for each, or less classes but very different talent trees for each?

To elaborate:

Unique classes; WAR. They have very unique and specialized classes, ignoring the tank/healing focused talent trees for DPS the trees mainly change if your abilities are AoE or single target focused, leaving little difference in how class is played.

Unique talents; WoW. They have more generic classes, however very different talent trees. Such as Warlock for example, who can focus on burst damage in destruction, summoning and depending on demons, or slow over time damage with curses in affliction, and essentially could be split into three different classes, warlock(affliction) / summoner(demonology) / pyromancer(destruction).

So again, what do you prefer, given scenario like GW2 where there are no dedicated healers or tanks. Having one generic class with quite different talent trees, or instead having more unique classes with less different talent trees. Feel free to elaborate in a reply!

If you had to chose between the two, ignoring the skill based system.

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Comments

  • KelthiusKelthius Member UncommonPosts: 298

    I like classless systems.

    image
  • IsaneIsane Member UncommonPosts: 2,630

    No Classes just a massive pool of skills and abilities.

    ________________________________________________________
    Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel 

  • tochicooltochicool Member Posts: 153

    Originally posted by Isane

    No Classes; just a massive pool of skills and abilities.

    What he said. But with better grammer.

    FEEL THE FULL
    FREE-TO-FLAME
    FANTASY.

  • ToferioToferio Member UncommonPosts: 1,411

    Originally posted by Isane

    No Classes just a massive pool of skills and abilities.

     


    Originally posted by Kelthius

    I like classless systems.

    And if you had to chose the lesser evil between classes or talents? I was more of a fan of skill based progression too, but now I feel that classes allow developers design better gameplay in terms of boss encounters, content and immersion, when you feel that you are a Warlock, not just some random self named magic user.

    But, that's personal preference after all. I think that classes could be designed with lot more freedom and alternatives then in let's say WoW, in order to appeal to a more.. sandbox oriented crowd.

  • aquafusiondnaquafusiondn Member Posts: 27

    I prefer Class and/or Talent. It is easier to design around dungeoning and raiding and everything based on class and talent. Sometime giving too much customization to the user can be confusing for them, this is where class and talent help to ease this confusion. It can be problem for new player with too much customization, they don't know where to start which I can understand why this can be a problem.

    Even I been playing many kind of MMO for 10 years, I still prefer the class and the talent. I still would give a skill-based mmo a try and see what happen

  • FoomerangFoomerang Member UncommonPosts: 5,628

    are we talking just combat classes and combat talents? because if so then Id say one ranged class, one melee class and tons of talents you can mix n match.

  • NekkuroNekkuro Member Posts: 162

    Originally posted by tochicool

    Originally posted by Isane

    No Classes; just a massive pool of skills and abilities.

    What he said. But with better grammer.

    "Grammar". Oh the irony...

     

    And If you want to make a mabinogi-esque game, that would take a lot of time and effort to do right and not sloppy.

    Too many things could go wrong with a talent system like that.

     

    On topic:

    I think Talents would be the correct choice.

    Instead of just making a whole bunch of different classes, Why not make a few classes and then allow talents to branch out several different ways allowing players to spec into what they desire from that certain class.

    This allows for more trial and error instead of "Ohshit, I chose the wrong class. Time to make a new toon and start from the ground up."

     

    For example:

    Let's say two players want to play as the cleric.

    The cleric is a hybrid of party support and holy magic damage.

    Player A wants to be a healer and player B wants to be a holy mage.

    When they reach a certain level, they can talk to their profession instructor or w/e and spec into a different branch for their talent.

    image

  • Sanity888Sanity888 Member UncommonPosts: 185

    I voted for talents. To me talents offers higher degree of freedom (or used to, in the case of World of Warcraft), than simply choosing a different class. As well, you can change your talent spec any time whereas classes you cannot. Talents to me are somewhere inbetweener the theme park-model and the sandbox-model. I would prefer the full-on sandbox model, but you can't have everything, can you?

  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504

    If we're somehow defining WAR as "unique classes" and WOW as "unique talents", then unique talents.

    Although I struggle to see how WAR's 12 classes (28, half of which are near-duplicates) are that much more unique from one another compared with WOW classes.  Especially nowadays with each of WOW's three talent trees for any given class having their own unique mechanics.  WAR's talents certainly add a little noise to the mix, but they're some of the least exciting character customization options I've experienced in an MMORPG.

    But the real issue for me are re-rolls.  With 10 re-rolls in WOW I get 30 playstyles to play with.  With 4 re-rolls in RIFT, I get ~32. FFXI seems like the ideal, as you unlock access to all ~20 playstyles with the same character (it's just too bad the game played so poorly that I quit it faster than any other MMORPG.)

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

  • nate1980nate1980 Member UncommonPosts: 2,063

    I personally prefer a good selection of classes. Let me elaborate.

    A class should only be made if there's a good theme behind them. When I say theme, I mean that there is background for that class and a role for them in the world. For instance, the class Viking would be a good class for a northern icelandic type area, assuming there's a system of government and faction to support having that class. Paladins and Clerics are also themed classes. The more general a class is, such as warrior and rogue, the less appealing that class is.

    As for talents, I believe the talents should be influenced by that classes culture. For instance, lets say that there is a college of arcane arts in the game and one class choice is the Battlemage, who begins at the college. You could allow the battlemage to be great with spells, both touch and ranged spells, while allowing them only mediocre melee abilities. Or they can be heavily melee specialized, with magic being mediocre, only augmenting melee combat. Or you could specialize to be balanced in magic and melee, making them average at both.

    A class should be broad enough in scope, so that there are multiple viable and really different ways to spec them. For instance, going back to the College of Arcan Arts, the base class could be called a Mage. They start of wearing cloth and a basic knowledge of elemental and arcane magic. When they reach the right level, they can specialize in a number of trees to where if they advance to the final tier of that tree, they'll earn a title to represent their specialization. For instance, the Mage could become an Earth, Fire, Water, Arcane or Wind Mage, or they could learn to use weapons and become a BattleMage. That's 6 different specializations, with the Battlemage being a hybrind who learns to wear armor.

    Another example is a Technologist. They'd be able to specialize in long range mechanical weapons, close range mechanical weapons, explosive weaponry, or alchemy.

  • ToferioToferio Member UncommonPosts: 1,411

    Originally posted by Axehilt

    Although I struggle to see how WAR's 12 classes (28, half of which are near-duplicates) are that much more unique from one another compared with WOW classes.  Especially nowadays with each of WOW's three talent trees for any given class having their own unique mechanics.  WAR's talents certainly add a little noise to the mix, but they're some of the least exciting character customization options I've experienced in an MMORPG.

    Exactly. WoWs talents are so different from eachother, that they coule make up a class on their own, that is what I meant by unique talents. As for WAR, number of classes aside, as you pointed out the talents bring very little variation to your game style (tanks and healers aside).

    After giving it some thoughts, I think I'd personally prefer having more unique classes with less diverse talents, then other way around, if I don't have to chose between tank/healer/dps, but am in such a game as Guild Wars. However, some other kind of character gameplay variation would need to be added then, in order to give more options to experience new type of gameplay then reroll.

  • WolfenprideWolfenpride Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 3,988

    I think I prefer more classes, though I like the idea of the customization freedom given in talent-based advancement, I find they tend to end up boiling down to 1 or 2 FOTM builds that everyone uses.

    In class based games like EQ/Vanguard/DAOC, I can pick the class for the role I want and not feel bad/weak for picking it. Generally I can also switch playstyles with my character much more easily than in a talent-based game. As a warrior in class based games, generally I can equip a sword and shield to take up a defensive/tank role, or switch to dual weild/two handers to push for more damage, without worrying much about a talent spec.

  • SuperXero89SuperXero89 Member UncommonPosts: 2,551

    Quality is usually more important than quantity but for some reason that concept doesn't seem to apply to MMORPG, hence why you see people fawning over class systems like Rift where one has a million different talent combination but only a handful of useful ones that actually feel all that different from the others.

    WoW had the right idea by shortening its talent trees as the various specs are much more distinct at a much earlier time than they were previously thanks to players no longer having to put so many points into useless filler abilities.

  • nate1980nate1980 Member UncommonPosts: 2,063

    Originally posted by Toferio

    Originally posted by Axehilt

    Although I struggle to see how WAR's 12 classes (28, half of which are near-duplicates) are that much more unique from one another compared with WOW classes.  Especially nowadays with each of WOW's three talent trees for any given class having their own unique mechanics.  WAR's talents certainly add a little noise to the mix, but they're some of the least exciting character customization options I've experienced in an MMORPG.

    Exactly. WoWs talents are so different from eachother, that they coule make up a class on their own, that is what I meant by unique talents. As for WAR, number of classes aside, as you pointed out the talents bring very little variation to your game style (tanks and healers aside).

    After giving it some thoughts, I think I'd personally prefer having more unique classes with less diverse talents, then other way around, if I don't have to chose between tank/healer/dps, but am in such a game as Guild Wars. However, some other kind of character gameplay variation would need to be added then, in order to give more options to experience new type of gameplay then reroll.

     What if there was a tiered class system. Everyone starts out as a lvl 1 Adventurer. From levels 1-5, the Adventurer is introduced to the basic gameplay mechanics, world lore, and everything a person would need to know to make a well informed base class choice. During these 5 levels, they have a basic melee attack, ranged attack, heal, and magic attack to get used to the combat mechanics for each class, which I'd hope would be different enough to warrant needing a tutorial for it.

    At level 5, the Adventurer receives a quest to choose their base class: Laborer, Fighter, Novice. The base class would teach the players deeper mechanics and such for the next 5 levels (until level 10). The Laborer will learn basic gathering and crafting skills. The Fighter would learn more advanced melee and ranged skills. The Novice would learn basic elemental, arcane, and divine magic. At level 10, each base class will choose to join a NPC Guild/Faction.

    Laborers will choose to join a guild that represents a broad set of skills. For example, a player could become a Blacksmith by joining the Metal Workers Guild. At level 30, they'd pick their final class, which for a Blacksmith would be either a Weaponsmith or Armorsmith.

    The Fighter will choose a guild that represents a broad set of skills. For example, a player could become a Soldier in the Royal Army. At level 30, they'd choose an advanced class, such as Spearman, Knight, Bowman, and etc.

    The Novice will choose a guild that represents a broad set of skills. For example, a player could become Mage at the College of Arcane Arts. At level 30 the Mage can choose an advanced class, such as Elementalist, Wizard, and Alchemist.

    Using this train of thought, there could be many Guilds/Factions. Such as Fighter>Paladin with the Cathedral or Novice>Cleric with the Cathedral. Or the Novice>Druid with a Nature based faction or Fighter>Ranger with a Nature based Faction. Or Fighter>Assassin with the Shadow Guild or Novice>Night Blade with the Shadow Guild.

    The possibilities are endless and the draw with this system is that it immerses the player into the game. A player will think about which factions ideals and purpose in the world best reflects their personal goals in the world from a role-play point-of-view. Each faction will have their own particular story line.

    Also, before you choose a class, you can save that characters progress by making a copy of that character. That way you're not redoing 30 levels with the same base and sub-base classes, just to try a different advanced class. 

  • Sanity888Sanity888 Member UncommonPosts: 185

    They pigeon-holed every class in World of Warcraft into three specs. I don't mind getting rid of the more passive abilities, but they should have added more active ones and allowed players to diversify and choose any talent from all three talent trees at any time.

  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504

    Originally posted by nate1980

    Originally posted by Toferio


    Originally posted by Axehilt

    Although I struggle to see how WAR's 12 classes (28, half of which are near-duplicates) are that much more unique from one another compared with WOW classes.  Especially nowadays with each of WOW's three talent trees for any given class having their own unique mechanics.  WAR's talents certainly add a little noise to the mix, but they're some of the least exciting character customization options I've experienced in an MMORPG.

    Exactly. WoWs talents are so different from eachother, that they coule make up a class on their own, that is what I meant by unique talents. As for WAR, number of classes aside, as you pointed out the talents bring very little variation to your game style (tanks and healers aside).

    After giving it some thoughts, I think I'd personally prefer having more unique classes with less diverse talents, then other way around, if I don't have to chose between tank/healer/dps, but am in such a game as Guild Wars. However, some other kind of character gameplay variation would need to be added then, in order to give more options to experience new type of gameplay then reroll.

     What if there was a tiered class system. Everyone starts out as a lvl 1 Adventurer. From levels 1-5, the Adventurer is introduced to the basic gameplay mechanics, world lore, and everything a person would need to know to make a well informed base class choice. During these 5 levels, they have a basic melee attack, ranged attack, heal, and magic attack to get used to the combat mechanics for each class, which I'd hope would be different enough to warrant needing a tutorial for it.

    At level 5, the Adventurer receives a quest to choose their base class: Laborer, Fighter, Novice. The base class would teach the players deeper mechanics and such for the next 5 levels (until level 10). The Laborer will learn basic gathering and crafting skills. The Fighter would learn more advanced melee and ranged skills. The Novice would learn basic elemental, arcane, and divine magic. At level 10, each base class will choose to join a NPC Guild/Faction.

    Laborers will choose to join a guild that represents a broad set of skills. For example, a player could become a Blacksmith by joining the Metal Workers Guild. At level 30, they'd pick their final class, which for a Blacksmith would be either a Weaponsmith or Armorsmith.

    The Fighter will choose a guild that represents a broad set of skills. For example, a player could become a Soldier in the Royal Army. At level 30, they'd choose an advanced class, such as Spearman, Knight, Bowman, and etc.

    The Novice will choose a guild that represents a broad set of skills. For example, a player could become Mage at the College of Arcane Arts. At level 30 the Mage can choose an advanced class, such as Elementalist, Wizard, and Alchemist.

    Using this train of thought, there could be many Guilds/Factions. Such as Fighter>Paladin with the Cathedral or Novice>Cleric with the Cathedral. Or the Novice>Druid with a Nature based faction or Fighter>Ranger with a Nature based Faction. Or Fighter>Assassin with the Shadow Guild or Novice>Night Blade with the Shadow Guild.

    The possibilities are endless and the draw with this system is that it immerses the player into the game. A player will think about which factions ideals and purpose in the world best reflects their personal goals in the world from a role-play point-of-view. Each faction will have their own particular story line.

    Also, before you choose a class, you can save that characters progress by making a copy of that character. That way you're not redoing 30 levels with the same base and sub-base classes, just to try a different advanced class. 

    Well EQ2 was basically that at the start (although they didn't make crafting and adventuring exclusive activities; you could do both.  I think it'd be really unpopular if a game told players "Oh you want to kill stuff?  Then you can't craft," and vice-versa.)

    I imagine there was a reason they switched...and maybe that reason is why my preferance (one character, many specs) isn't ideal.  Perhaps players don't latch onto enough of a character identity or something.  It's also possible the change was ineffectual change for the sake of change, or an outright mistake.

    One advantage that springs to mind is the fact that one of my later EQ2 characters was a Shadow Knight who I remember having a pretty strong aesthetic theme to him.  Whereas my very first EQ2 was some vague magic-user with no real sense of character.

    But that's partially the fault of a transitory system.  In RIFT you immediately jump into one specific role even though your character can eventually do anything.  Very different from EQ2's (and your own proposed) system.

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

  • nate1980nate1980 Member UncommonPosts: 2,063

    Originally posted by Axehilt

    Originally posted by nate1980

    Originally posted by Toferio

    Originally posted by Axehilt

    Although I struggle to see how WAR's 12 classes (28, half of which are near-duplicates) are that much more unique from one another compared with WOW classes.  Especially nowadays with each of WOW's three talent trees for any given class having their own unique mechanics.  WAR's talents certainly add a little noise to the mix, but they're some of the least exciting character customization options I've experienced in an MMORPG.

    Exactly. WoWs talents are so different from eachother, that they coule make up a class on their own, that is what I meant by unique talents. As for WAR, number of classes aside, as you pointed out the talents bring very little variation to your game style (tanks and healers aside).

    After giving it some thoughts, I think I'd personally prefer having more unique classes with less diverse talents, then other way around, if I don't have to chose between tank/healer/dps, but am in such a game as Guild Wars. However, some other kind of character gameplay variation would need to be added then, in order to give more options to experience new type of gameplay then reroll.

     What if there was a tiered class system. Everyone starts out as a lvl 1 Adventurer. From levels 1-5, the Adventurer is introduced to the basic gameplay mechanics, world lore, and everything a person would need to know to make a well informed base class choice. During these 5 levels, they have a basic melee attack, ranged attack, heal, and magic attack to get used to the combat mechanics for each class, which I'd hope would be different enough to warrant needing a tutorial for it.

    At level 5, the Adventurer receives a quest to choose their base class: Laborer, Fighter, Novice. The base class would teach the players deeper mechanics and such for the next 5 levels (until level 10). The Laborer will learn basic gathering and crafting skills. The Fighter would learn more advanced melee and ranged skills. The Novice would learn basic elemental, arcane, and divine magic. At level 10, each base class will choose to join a NPC Guild/Faction.

    Laborers will choose to join a guild that represents a broad set of skills. For example, a player could become a Blacksmith by joining the Metal Workers Guild. At level 30, they'd pick their final class, which for a Blacksmith would be either a Weaponsmith or Armorsmith.

    The Fighter will choose a guild that represents a broad set of skills. For example, a player could become a Soldier in the Royal Army. At level 30, they'd choose an advanced class, such as Spearman, Knight, Bowman, and etc.

    The Novice will choose a guild that represents a broad set of skills. For example, a player could become Mage at the College of Arcane Arts. At level 30 the Mage can choose an advanced class, such as Elementalist, Wizard, and Alchemist.

    Using this train of thought, there could be many Guilds/Factions. Such as Fighter>Paladin with the Cathedral or Novice>Cleric with the Cathedral. Or the Novice>Druid with a Nature based faction or Fighter>Ranger with a Nature based Faction. Or Fighter>Assassin with the Shadow Guild or Novice>Night Blade with the Shadow Guild.

    The possibilities are endless and the draw with this system is that it immerses the player into the game. A player will think about which factions ideals and purpose in the world best reflects their personal goals in the world from a role-play point-of-view. Each faction will have their own particular story line.

    Also, before you choose a class, you can save that characters progress by making a copy of that character. That way you're not redoing 30 levels with the same base and sub-base classes, just to try a different advanced class. 

    Well EQ2 was basically that at the start (although they didn't make crafting and adventuring exclusive activities; you could do both.  I think it'd be really unpopular if a game told players "Oh you want to kill stuff?  Then you can't craft," and vice-versa.)

    I imagine there was a reason they switched...and maybe that reason is why my preferance (one character, many specs) isn't ideal.  Perhaps players don't latch onto enough of a character identity or something.  It's also possible the change was ineffectual change for the sake of change, or an outright mistake.

    One advantage that springs to mind is the fact that one of my later EQ2 characters was a Shadow Knight who I remember having a pretty strong aesthetic theme to him.  Whereas my very first EQ2 was some vague magic-user with no real sense of character.

    But that's partially the fault of a transitory system.  In RIFT you immediately jump into one specific role even though your character can eventually do anything.  Very different from EQ2's (and your own proposed) system.

     You're right about the crafting thing, but if a crafting class had the same depth as a combat class, then it'd be worth it. SWG had this and I don't ever recall people complaining about it. Sure, you could do some combat with crafting in SWG if you wanted, but most specialized completely in crafting if that was their thing. Besides, if there was crafting classes, the assumption is that there'd be a way to level to max level in crafting without needing combat. Perhaps they'd spend their time fulfilling crafting quests and such in the many cities that the world would have.

    As for EQ2, I remember them saying they took that system away because people were complaining about having to wait until level 20 to choose their intended class. They would spend 20 levels playing in a base class, only to have to reroll the same base class to try another advanced class. That's why I suggested that your character be saved, so that we would avoid the same reasons EQ2 had for changing.

  • maplestonemaplestone Member UncommonPosts: 3,099

    I prefer classless systems, but if you are going to have classes, then I actually lean away from talents.  They give the illusion of choice, but more often than not, they are merely "more ways of doing it wrong".  So in class-based system, I would rather see "skins" instead of talents - merely role-playing/graphical differences rather than actual stat differences.

  • AdamantineAdamantine Member RarePosts: 5,085

    Meh.

    First of all, there is hardly any actual difference between WAR and WoW. WAR has 24 classes (6 races with 4 classes each), WoW has 21 classes (7 classes with 3 subclasses each). The only real difference is that you can change your subclass in WoW, and thats not much of an issue at all.

    Neither system offers any actual configurability. Yes the WoW player is allowed to screw up his character (most likely) by building a mix of the three options, but hybrids are usually underpowered.

     

    The goal of a rulesystem is to provide the player with a large number of relevant and sufficiently different builds.

    That means that a given class is

    (a) Sufficiently different from other classes in order to actually constitute a different class with its very own gameplay feeling, and not being a subclass or even just a small variant of some other class, which doesnt do much else than the former.

    (b) Relevant means able to compete with other builds in respect to overall performance, i.e. while there are situations where the class performs less well than others, there are also situations where it will perform better.

     

    So how to reach that goal ? You can make the system very static, then everyone plays under the same conditions. This is the Lineage 2 / Warhammer / etc approach.

    Or you can have subclasses. This is the World of Warcraft / Vanguard / Star Wars: The Old Republic approach. Its not much different from the first option.

    Or you can introduce some actual choices. This is how DnD 3.x did it. Not that I would consider DnD much of a great choice for a MMO system.

    Or you can have full skillbased. Personally I feel that leads to less rather than more choices. But yeah, thats also an option.

    In the sum however, it doesnt matter which approach you choose - how good your system is still depends upon its variance and balance.

  • Drekker17Drekker17 Member Posts: 296

    Talents because it adds more variety to and individual class. I was thinking about how you thought WAR had unique classes, when they just seem like other versions of WoWs specs. In a game with generic classes like GW2 having  a lot of talents is better in my opinion.

    "Great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, and small minds talk about people." - Eleanor Roosevelt
    "Americans used to roar like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security." -Norman Vincent Peale

  • ruonimruonim Member Posts: 251

    1 class with multiple talents

    aka no class with skills to chose aka uo,gw

  • nate1980nate1980 Member UncommonPosts: 2,063

    Originally posted by Adamantine

    Meh.

    First of all, there is hardly any actual difference between WAR and WoW. WAR has 24 classes (6 races with 4 classes each), WoW has 21 classes (7 classes with 3 subclasses each). The only real difference is that you can change your subclass in WoW, and thats not much of an issue at all.

    Neither system offers any actual configurability. Yes the WoW player is allowed to screw up his character (most likely) by building a mix of the three options, but hybrids are usually underpowered.

     

    The goal of a rulesystem is to provide the player with a large number of relevant and sufficiently different builds.

    That means that a given class is

    (a) Sufficiently different from other classes in order to actually constitute a different class with its very own gameplay feeling, and not being a subclass or even just a small variant of some other class, which doesnt do much else than the former.

    (b) Relevant means able to compete with other builds in respect to overall performance, i.e. while there are situations where the class performs less well than others, there are also situations where it will perform better.

     

    So how to reach that goal ? You can make the system very static, then everyone plays under the same conditions. This is the Lineage 2 / Warhammer / etc approach.

    Or you can have subclasses. This is the World of Warcraft / Vanguard / Star Wars: The Old Republic approach. Its not much different from the first option.

    Or you can introduce some actual choices. This is how DnD 3.x did it. Not that I would consider DnD much of a great choice for a MMO system.

    Or you can have full skillbased. Personally I feel that leads to less rather than more choices. But yeah, thats also an option.

    In the sum however, it doesnt matter which approach you choose - how good your system is still depends upon its variance and balance.

     I wouldn't consider WoW's talent system subclasses. That'd imply that the abilities are significantly different for each talent tree, but the reality is that each talent tree only has a few new active abilities to place on your bar, leaving you mostly with the same abilities every talent spec for that class also has.

    If you want to call something a subclass, I'd rather point out Guild Wars class system. A Warrior who uses a sword will have completely different abilities than one that uses a hammer or axe.

  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504

    Originally posted by nate1980

     You're right about the crafting thing, but if a crafting class had the same depth as a combat class, then it'd be worth it. SWG had this and I don't ever recall people complaining about it. Sure, you could do some combat with crafting in SWG if you wanted, but most specialized completely in crafting if that was their thing. Besides, if there was crafting classes, the assumption is that there'd be a way to level to max level in crafting without needing combat. Perhaps they'd spend their time fulfilling crafting quests and such in the many cities that the world would have.

    As for EQ2, I remember them saying they took that system away because people were complaining about having to wait until level 20 to choose their intended class. They would spend 20 levels playing in a base class, only to have to reroll the same base class to try another advanced class. That's why I suggested that your character be saved, so that we would avoid the same reasons EQ2 had for changing.

    Yeah I guess I'd agree that if a crafting class had the depth of the combat system that it could stand toe-to-toe in terms of fun factor.

    And that definitely makes sense regarding EQ2 too.  Not sure how your saving system really differs from a RIFT respec, though.  Sounds like RIFT's respecs are the more elegant solution to saving progress but letting players switch playstyles.

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

  • BeezerbeezBeezerbeez Member UncommonPosts: 302

    Originally posted by tochicool

    Originally posted by Isane

    No Classes; just a massive pool of skills and abilities.

    What he said. But with better grammer.

    What they said, but with better GRAMMAR ;)

     

    I enjoyed character design in Champions for this reason -- although it did raise some other kinds of problems.

  • ToferioToferio Member UncommonPosts: 1,411

    Originally posted by nate1980

     

    If you want to call something a subclass, I'd rather point out Guild Wars class system. A Warrior who uses a sword will have completely different abilities than one that uses a hammer or axe.

    Is it that much of a subclass, thou? An affliction warlock in WoW too gains new abilities and a different playstyle compared to destruction warlock. Not to mention that a warrior with a mace or an axe seems of little difference to me, ain't he still a melee DPS?

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