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I like the saying
"easy to learn hard to master".
With an off-line game you can choose difficulty levels easy medium
hard. With an mmorpg you cant, everyone
plays at the same difficulty.
Any level 10 Warlock can kill two level 10 bandits, but can you manage your Voidwalker to distract four dinosaurs while you grab that near impossible relic that’s otherwise guarded.
Any level 45 Rogue can kill a level 47 Orc using backstab first, but can you venture deep atop Jintha'Alor in the Hunterlands BY YOURSELF and snatch The Mallet of Zul'Farrak otherwise done with a group of five.
Any Hunter can Kill a hard Merloc, but can you kill Murkdeep that nasty one surrounded by a bunch of regular merlocs in Darkshore. By selectively picking each one off using concussive shot arrows and timing your pet to engage half way.
I remember creating my first character in Vanguard. Wanting to heal so I chose a Cleric, a heavy armor solo class that can heal.
My first dungeon run I stood in the back passing out heals to anyone in need. Easy right ?.... Well a group member asked me what I'm doing ?... Simple answer " I'm healing, why ?... Well you have heavy armor, you should be fighting too !!!!........ That day I learned how to fight and heal
We used to be creative remember ?
The good old days
Tell us a story ?
Comments
I could tell you that story, but Shadowbringers happened.
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
Intellectual class design takes into account several variables.
1. How does the class design engage and interact with NPC Encounters and NPC AI. (Traditional trinity gameplay model, non traditional gameplay model, etc.
2. How does the class design compliment the combat mechanics?
3. How does the class design interact with the world/environment in combat and not combat ways.
There are a ton more variables to consider and take in account. I would say those are the three major elements to consider.
The mmorpg with 'intellectual class design" right now is Pantheon. They're taking into account these three elements with depth and substance.
I want to be able to make thousands of different builds, but I also don't want to be punished for getting it wrong. Respecs should be free, convenient, and quick.
BOSS
Again, not perfect. Just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
Great quality post Delete.
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
Something that I feel like gets lost in many cases in seeking uniqueness within a class is the focus on class skills rather than class mechanics. IE, how it feel to play a given class more so than just fulfilling a classical role of having a lot of heals, cc, health, or otherwise.
Even within the context of a game like EQ or WoW for example, you can have two characters that are ostensibly the same role, such as tanking, and theoretically they could play entirely differently. One may work better for a slow/methodical player, spending time to focus on facing and canceling out enemy movements/actions. Another might be all about lots of back and forth action between different mobs to interrupt and harass mobs while positioning them for team mates.
Lahnmir's comment regarding the Astrologian is an example of such. Having meaningful mechanics that are not just a gimmick, but an actual change of playstyle that affects how you interact with the game as compared to another "class". It's good to have some roles to fulfill, but if everything plays the same in an overarching sense, it can lead to homogeneity in user experience all the same.
Seems to work out well for the industry......
I should have an mmorpg player party at my house.... everyone please bring money
If you actually want something or a certain playstyle, you'll be willing to give up some features (like having graphics at all in the case above). If there aren't numbers shoved at a game type, it'll never be made by bigger publishers. For instance the survival fad has gotten Funcom/Bethesda/Amazon all making their own version of the game type. The looter shooter Fad has been successful enough to even get EA to make their own version. The Battle Royale genre has gotten EVERYONE making their own of it every year as well. In all cases it was after the success of very small studios that drew the attention to the genre (let's be honest pubg/similar fail so many AAA check boxes).
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
I do like City of Heroes' "archetype" design, where the archetypes had many variations to choose from. Originally, there were 5 archetypes: Blaster, Controller, Defender, Scrapper, and Tank. City of Villains added a few more like Dominator and Mastermind. Within these archetypes were so many variations that rarely did 2 of one archetype mirror another. Then they added "enhancements" on top of this and the powers changed even more.
I'd like to see some of what delete suggested, but then I think of the workload to accomplish such things and my dream dies... not anytime soon
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
For example, the mesmer class in GW2. It is filled with interesting choices, twists and turns. They are better appreciated in PvP, imo, but fun all around.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Here are the elements I believe that must be integrated into the class design to have successful, intelligent class design.
1. Develop a structured class system that gives players limitations (such as, a limited combat bar) to make meaningful choices.
2. Correspond fluid combat mechanics with classes that keep combat engaging that also exploits fear of the player to increase player awareness. (a moderate to high death penalty)
3. Design thematic core mechanics that increase the immersion of the class, don't stream line the now popular (builder + spender or spender + dump mechanics).
4. Do not homogenize your class abilities with a mass distribution of utility.
5. Use the "Weight of Power" method to balancing and ability type distribution. (IE: If abilities are assigned a high Weight of Power value, balance that with weaknesses of the class via role and thematic core mechanics. Also, the distribution of abilities with a high Weight of Power value should be spread thin.
6. Come up with a reinvention of the trinity combat model without omitting trinity roles and devaluing trinity roles; that classes can correspond to this system.
7. Classes have clear thematic, and role weaknesses and strengths.
8. Don't implement class trees or specs that bottleneck the class into a specific linear role. Allow the player to have access to their full class but with limitations in combat but can freely change their playstyle out of combat.
9 For PVE gameplay, design a more dynamic NPC AI that players can adapt to different encounters based off several key variables. (IE: NPC Race, NPC Class and NPC AI Rank). Allow for players to adapt to different encounters by simply limiting combat bar space while choosing what abilities would work best for the npc encounter based off, class composition and NPCs.
10. Make sure each class has a specific feel to it, some may have a rhythm, some may be more choatic and some may have a balance of both depending on specific variables.