What does make sense are racial uniqueness to each class
Example Human monk and Ogre monk would not fight the same. They can both be monks but the set of skills would be different - like a human monk could do flying kicks while an ogre monk could do body slams.
But both could punch and have the same mechanics such as feign death, only light armor, etc...
Ogre would have higher caps on STR and HP, but human would have higher DEX and AGI.
This is much more work than racial restrictions. We're talking about a game that already has limited funding (i.e. crowd sourcing/funding).
While this sort of thing is, ideally, a better way of addressing this sort of issue (for those races with similar enough societal backgrounds to have shared classes), sometimes you have be realistic in what can and can't be done with the available resources. Also there is the fact that not all races would necessarily have all classes represented in their varying societies.
An urban society with an established religion is far more likely to have a class like a priest and/or templar/paladin whereas nomadic societies would be more likely to have shamans and those wilderness oriented societies may be more likely to have druids who commune with the elements and take on aspects of that sort of pantheon.
Racial restrictions make plenty of sense in a roleplaying setting where there are many diverse and varying races.
I've always like the idea of racial restrictions. Adds another sense of uniqueness to your character and more thought in your choices. I also like the idea of one race being better at a certain class (ea. Wood Elf is a better Ranger) than others that can also use it.
Skar - Dire Lord, Monk, Necromancer, Rogue, Shaman, Warrior
So comparing with my old list (which got quoted more below):
Archai - I had no idea. I still dont know why they think THE class of Archai is Monk. With this elemental logic, I would think Druid and Shaman are THE Archai classes. And I would have given them Cleric, since those can be elemental too. Probably also Dire Lord instead of Warrior. Why the heck can everybody be Warrior, anyway. Warrior isnt a generic common denominator class in EQ/VG/Pantheon, they are tanks !
Dark Myr - The Dark Elf/Mermaid combo got all but a few classes, including all I thought they would.
Dwarf - No Dwarf Shaman, dont remember why I thought they would get that, maybe it was in that new list for Pantheon ? No loss either way.
Elf - Here I was REALLY off. Neither Paladin nor Cleric !
Halfling - Again, no Cleric. How weird ! But at least Shaman. Why was I so sure they would get Druid, anyway ? Probably was in the lists.
Human - Well duh. If they get ALL classes then it was impossible to be off with the "guaranteed" classes.
Gnomes - No Gnome Clerics ! Well, if they get Blood Mage later, I'm cool with that.
Ogre - Well, I was right there, but I didnt do much guesses. I'm a bit surprised that Ogres arent Rogues. Shouldnt backstabbing be one of their their favorite pastimes ?
Skar - I had no idea either.
All in all: I was wrong with: Dwarf Shaman, Elf Paladin, Elf Cleric, Halfling Cleric, Gnome Cleric. Of these I only really miss Elf Paladin. Though I had planned for a Halfling Cleric, too, but I could just make a Shaman instead.
I hope there will be racial restrictions, so there is a reason to select other races than your favourite race.
Well that part is OUT. Fans of humans can be ANY class. Dark Myr also have very few restrictions, too.
Also, well, no I dont think thats the idea. I have no issue with Elf cant do Dire Lord. I am annoyed that Elf cant be Paladin, though, since I want my Paladin do be Elf.
Official forum posting:
>>Where Have all the Crusaders Gone?
Given that "crusaders" have a standing among muslims almost as bad as "nazis" have among jews, I am pretty happy they revereted that stupid class name back to Paladin.
>>Dark Myr Can Sing?
I'm mostly just puzzled why thats an issue. Dark Myr are some kind of Dark Elf / Mermaid combo inspired, so yes they would have singers ? Both from the Elf as well as the Mermaid side.
Race/class restrictions just make sure that every Elf is a Bard or Mage....
They promote less diversity, not more. They are boring, quite frankly.
Edit: Also pretty sure that the most beloved characters from the forgotten realms are those who break away from the racial norms. Pikel Bouldershoulder, the dwarven druid for example. The argument that a dwarf can't be a mage "just because" is lazy. It takes much more brain power to figure out how your character came to be than it does to simply deny the possibility. So, sure...if you're too simple-minded to create a narrative that doesn't fit the cookie-cutter, racial restrictions are totally necessary.
While I'd be happy in a gnome-free environment, gnome warriors were quite popular in EQ1. I really have no reason why.
If there are not going to be racial attributes, what function does the race/class restriction actually serve? Lore? What about the ogre that fancies themselves a wizard, or a graceful rogue, or the smart warrior that knows the difference between a trench and a latrine? Fiction is filled with all manner of 'against-all-types' characters, so a race/class restriction only serves to force players into developer-approved roles. Don't I have a say in what abilities/personality my ogre should have?
Also, do beans count as PEDs for ogres?
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Dang there goes my Ogre Bard . I can understand some races not having some inborn ability like magic. Of course they could just make certain races just bad at some classes but not totally block them. People would complain if they did that though. Although I could see some people picking such a combination for an alt just for the challenge.
I think I will be rolling an Ogre Druid for an alt. Love Ogres and thats the one class I always wanted to max out in EQ1 that I never did. /ooc SOW 1gp PST
Elf/Bard will be my main. I just hope it makes launch as Bards are still a working progress and as they said "We want to get them right" Not sure what that means? Do they know what direction they want to take the class yet? I need to know lol
Elf/Bard will be my main. I just hope it makes launch as Bards are still a working progress and as they said "We want to get them right" Not sure what that means? Do they know what direction they want to take the class yet? I need to know lol
Yeah bard is kind of weird in games when it comes to the approach of it. I played bard for a few years in FFXI which was just full support (no real attacks) so it was pretty much a group class. Then did rift's bard which I enjoyed as well which was more of an attack type which did have support songs that you could eventually keep up by doing your attacks. So either or works for me. I just miss being a support/cc type
Elf/Bard will be my main. I just hope it makes launch as Bards are still a working progress and as they said "We want to get them right" Not sure what that means? Do they know what direction they want to take the class yet? I need to know lol
I wouldn't be worried about how the bard will turn out. The best bard classes I've played in any mmo both come from Brad's mmo's.
Elf/Bard will be my main. I just hope it makes launch as Bards are still a working progress and as they said "We want to get them right" Not sure what that means? Do they know what direction they want to take the class yet? I need to know lol
I wouldn't be worried about how the bard will turn out. The best bard classes I've played in any mmo both come from Brad's mmo's.
EQ and Vanguard.
I was just commenting on a thread in the pantheon forums about bards lol. We need to know if they will be combatants or buff batteries before we can really provide any input.
Yeah If the bard makes release which is not likely, I will play an elf bard as I did in EQ. I liked the bard in EQ,Vanguard and the minstrel in DAoC. So something along those would be fine with me.
Elf/Bard will be my main. I just hope it makes launch as Bards are still a working progress and as they said "We want to get them right" Not sure what that means? Do they know what direction they want to take the class yet? I need to know lol
I wouldn't be worried about how the bard will turn out. The best bard classes I've played in any mmo both come from Brad's mmo's.
EQ and Vanguard.
I was just commenting on a thread in the pantheon forums about bards lol. We need to know if they will be combatants or buff batteries before we can really provide any input.
Main roll most likely will be support. My guess is they maybe trying to add more DPS to the role. Finding a balance between EQ1 Bards (what people mostly are asking for) and not making them a twisting mess. Means finding something to do so they dont become a jukebox that anyone can play. People have expressed that twisting songs needs to be less arduous. We will see where the Bard lands but as someone has already said. Best Bards I have played were designed by Brad.
Traditionally I have favored racial restrictions. But people are making some good points. Less restrictions leads to greater diversity.
You could argue that some combinations of race and class make no sense. But when you have a 6 foot tall warrior "tanking" a 5 story tall giant by repeatedly stabbing it in the toe, how much ever makes sense?
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
What does make sense are racial uniqueness to each class
Example Human monk and Ogre monk would not fight the same. They can both be monks but the set of skills would be different - like a human monk could do flying kicks while an ogre monk could do body slams.
But both could punch and have the same mechanics such as feign death, only light armor, etc...
Ogre would have higher caps on STR and HP, but human would have higher DEX and AGI.
I prefer race class restrictions but i remember my Mordebi Tuugin shaman played differently to the other two Shaman classes. The most obvious was he was a bear and could take a lot of punishment, he also had great tanking buffs for the tanks.
My Rakuur could stealth and was about regeneration and combat speed with high dex and agility, loved my wolf. I never played the caster shammy, didn't like the pet which could do immense damage but died quickly.
I had similar Shaman combos (I had Varanjaar for my Bear Shammy) and loved them both, I also didn't like the Hayatet much but the Tuurgin and Rakuur were awesome and the racial differences helped with defining your class and adding more specialised stats to help the class perform better
Race/class restrictions just make sure that every Elf is a Bard or Mage....
They promote less diversity, not more. They are boring, quite frankly.
Edit: Also pretty sure that the most beloved characters from the forgotten realms are those who break away from the racial norms. Pikel Bouldershoulder, the dwarven druid for example. The argument that a dwarf can't be a mage "just because" is lazy. It takes much more brain power to figure out how your character came to be than it does to simply deny the possibility. So, sure...if you're too simple-minded to create a narrative that doesn't fit the cookie-cutter, racial restrictions are totally necessary.
That works when it is a unique story, but what happens in games is that everyone wants to be Drizt (or Drist, Driizt, Dryzt, etc.). I've heard it referred to as "Special Snowflake Syndrome".
This fits fine into a single player experience, but not so good in an MMO when half the dwarves you meet are wizards
I would bet that some of the race / class combos are going to be adjusted. No elf cleric or pally is just odd to me. Or how about ogre necro gotta have that don't ya?
Still a long ways before release and I truly believe some of the combos will get looked at again.
I have to wonder about people that complain about race or sex specific classes. Do any of you even know what lore is? Have you read any fantasy books? Do you know what it means to role play? Hell, there's even racial restrictions in WoW, albeit fewer and fewer with each new expansion, but there are still some. As long as I can remember, Dwarven races were against magic, yet here we are, looking at a game that is doing the exact opposite by given Dwarves access to magic.
I have to agree though, that a game without restrictions can be just as boring as a game with restrictions. Because rules or a lack of do not determine the quality of the game. I find a lot of MMOs boring simply because of asshole griefers who have no concept of immersion. That is far more detrimental to a game's entertainment value then whether or not I can play a Drow princess who was raised in a church and became a Paladin. Learn to be creative. All I see are people with very limited forms of imagination.
Race locking is fine. Gender locking is just lazy and never a good "lore" reason behind it. Not saying this game will have gender locked classes but games that go that route tend to do it because its just cheaper to do it (looking at you BDO and TERA).
Race locking is fine. Gender locking is just lazy and never a good "lore" reason behind it. Not saying this game will have gender locked classes but games that go that route tend to do it because its just cheaper to do it (looking at you BDO and TERA).
While BDO and such are examples of "lazy-locking", there are some situations where gender-locking makes sense.
Such as mythological settings. Minotaur was male, Amazonians were obviously female, etc. There's alot of real world examples like this. For instance, tribal Shaman, in most cases, were always male. The oracle-types being female is a common theme.
I don't have a problem with gender-locking in a sensible fashion like that, but in most of these games we see(particularly the Asian MMOs,like BDO, etc.), it just makes no sense and has no purpose.
So, to say there is "never a good lore reason behind it" is going a little overboard.
We could play an MMO that let you pick any class with any race. Where you could pick any skill you wanted... But Pantheon is about choices matter so then people would not be getting the game they backed.
Comments
While this sort of thing is, ideally, a better way of addressing this sort of issue (for those races with similar enough societal backgrounds to have shared classes), sometimes you have be realistic in what can and can't be done with the available resources. Also there is the fact that not all races would necessarily have all classes represented in their varying societies.
An urban society with an established religion is far more likely to have a class like a priest and/or templar/paladin whereas nomadic societies would be more likely to have shamans and those wilderness oriented societies may be more likely to have druids who commune with the elements and take on aspects of that sort of pantheon.
Racial restrictions make plenty of sense in a roleplaying setting where there are many diverse and varying races.
Main thing that interests me is how exactly they will look like, really.
Whow.
I was SOOO off !
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5228/pantheon-class-and-race-combinations
http://www.mmorpg.com/pantheon-rise-of-the-fallen/news/race-class-combo-matrix-and-looking-for-odd-ones-1000043088
http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/460739/race-class-combo-matrix-looking-for-odd-ones-pantheon-rise-of-the-fallen-mmorpg-com/p1
So the actual list is:
Archai - Bard, Druid, Monk, Shaman, Warrior, Wizard
Dark Myr - Bard, Cleric, Dire Lord, Druid, Enchanter, Monk, Necromancer, Rogue, Summoner, Warrior, Wizard
Dwarf - Bard, Cleric, Enchanter, Paladin, Rogue, Warrior
Elf - Bard, Druid, Enchanter, Ranger, Rogue, Shaman, Summoner, Warrior, Wizard
Halfling - Bard, Druid, Ranger, Rogue, Warrior
Human - Bard, Cleric, Dire Lord, Druid, Enchanter, Monk, Necromancer, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Shaman, Summoner, Warrior, Wizard
Gnome - Enchanter, Necromancer, Rogue, Summoner, Wizard
Ogre - Dire Lord, Druid, Shaman, Warrior
Skar - Dire Lord, Monk, Necromancer, Rogue, Shaman, Warrior
So comparing with my old list (which got quoted more below):
Archai - I had no idea. I still dont know why they think THE class of Archai is Monk. With this elemental logic, I would think Druid and Shaman are THE Archai classes. And I would have given them Cleric, since those can be elemental too. Probably also Dire Lord instead of Warrior. Why the heck can everybody be Warrior, anyway. Warrior isnt a generic common denominator class in EQ/VG/Pantheon, they are tanks !
Dark Myr - The Dark Elf/Mermaid combo got all but a few classes, including all I thought they would.
Dwarf - No Dwarf Shaman, dont remember why I thought they would get that, maybe it was in that new list for Pantheon ? No loss either way.
Elf - Here I was REALLY off. Neither Paladin nor Cleric !
Halfling - Again, no Cleric. How weird ! But at least Shaman. Why was I so sure they would get Druid, anyway ? Probably was in the lists.
Human - Well duh. If they get ALL classes then it was impossible to be off with the "guaranteed" classes.
Gnomes - No Gnome Clerics ! Well, if they get Blood Mage later, I'm cool with that.
Ogre - Well, I was right there, but I didnt do much guesses. I'm a bit surprised that Ogres arent Rogues. Shouldnt backstabbing be one of their their favorite pastimes ?
Skar - I had no idea either.
All in all: I was wrong with: Dwarf Shaman, Elf Paladin, Elf Cleric, Halfling Cleric, Gnome Cleric. Of these I only really miss Elf Paladin. Though I had planned for a Halfling Cleric, too, but I could just make a Shaman instead.
My old guess:
Well that part is OUT. Fans of humans can be ANY class. Dark Myr also have very few restrictions, too.
Also, well, no I dont think thats the idea. I have no issue with Elf cant do Dire Lord. I am annoyed that Elf cant be Paladin, though, since I want my Paladin do be Elf.
Official forum posting:
>>Where Have all the Crusaders Gone?
Given that "crusaders" have a standing among muslims almost as bad as "nazis" have among jews, I am pretty happy they revereted that stupid class name back to Paladin.
>>Dark Myr Can Sing?
I'm mostly just puzzled why thats an issue. Dark Myr are some kind of Dark Elf / Mermaid combo inspired, so yes they would have singers ? Both from the Elf as well as the Mermaid side.
>> No Elf Cleric or Pally?
Then I'm hopeful. Trade Warrior for Paladin ?
They promote less diversity, not more. They are boring, quite frankly.
Edit: Also pretty sure that the most beloved characters from the forgotten realms are those who break away from the racial norms. Pikel Bouldershoulder, the dwarven druid for example.
The argument that a dwarf can't be a mage "just because" is lazy. It takes much more brain power to figure out how your character came to be than it does to simply deny the possibility. So, sure...if you're too simple-minded to create a narrative that doesn't fit the cookie-cutter, racial restrictions are totally necessary.
If there are not going to be racial attributes, what function does the race/class restriction actually serve? Lore? What about the ogre that fancies themselves a wizard, or a graceful rogue, or the smart warrior that knows the difference between a trench and a latrine? Fiction is filled with all manner of 'against-all-types' characters, so a race/class restriction only serves to force players into developer-approved roles. Don't I have a say in what abilities/personality my ogre should have?
Also, do beans count as PEDs for ogres?
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Of course they could just make certain races just bad at some classes but not totally block them. People would complain if they did that though. Although I could see some people picking such a combination for an alt just for the challenge.
I wouldn't be worried about how the bard will turn out. The best bard classes I've played in any mmo both come from Brad's mmo's.
EQ and Vanguard.
I was just commenting on a thread in the pantheon forums about bards lol. We need to know if they will be combatants or buff batteries before we can really provide any input.
You could argue that some combinations of race and class make no sense. But when you have a 6 foot tall warrior "tanking" a 5 story tall giant by repeatedly stabbing it in the toe, how much ever makes sense?
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
This fits fine into a single player experience, but not so good in an MMO when half the dwarves you meet are wizards
Still a long ways before release and I truly believe some of the combos will get looked at again.
Such as mythological settings. Minotaur was male, Amazonians were obviously female, etc. There's alot of real world examples like this.
For instance, tribal Shaman, in most cases, were always male. The oracle-types being female is a common theme.
I don't have a problem with gender-locking in a sensible fashion like that, but in most of these games we see(particularly the Asian MMOs,like BDO, etc.), it just makes no sense and has no purpose.
So, to say there is "never a good lore reason behind it" is going a little overboard.