Forums » Pantheon Classes

When more choices isn't better

    • 453 posts
    January 10, 2015 2:41 AM PST

    In general people like to have choices. In a fantasy MMO game it can be nice to branch off into different areas of specialization of your choice. There are times though that having more choices isn't better. Example: In EQ1 enchanters got both mez and charm both plus lots of other abilities. In EQ2 when it was young you had to make a choice, you either could play the enchanter type that had mez or the type that had charm . They did the same thing with bards, giving some of EQ's abilities to one type of bard and some of EQ's abilities to another type. What ended up happening is you made watered down less powerful and less fun versions of the old EQ counterpart. Whether or not EQ2 is still like that I cannot say, I only played beta and a couple months after that.

     

    Having specialized spells and abilities is both acceptable and fun *if* your "base class" you are starting with has ample power and diversity for what you would expect from that class. However, if you are a dev and have a lack of creativity you will take a class that people have grown to love and cherish from one game and divide the abilities that class had into multiple classes. This is just my opinion, but that's no good. Imagine if you played a necro in EQ and then in Pantheon they made a necro where you had to choose between three necros : One with a pet, one with lifetap and one with fear. Forget that, I want all three abilities ! 

     

    Like I said, specialization is great but only if your base class is solid before you start branching off *or* the class you branch off to itself will have tons of solid abiities. I want to be able to do alot, to have tons of abilities but then to be given challenges and make life a bit difficult so that I actually need to use most of those abilities on a regular basis  versus having a wizard who only has one button (nuke) but then everything dying fast so that all you have to do is button mash . I want real strategy in combat, not button mashing where I could just randomly choose damaging abilities and mash them and the outcome being the same regardless. 

     

    Well off to work I go. Have a good weekend all ! 

    • 753 posts
    January 10, 2015 5:11 AM PST

    I think SOE would tell you that all of their classes in EQ2 had lots of options - I called it spell bloat.  Do damage and debuff physical, do damage and debuff magic, do damage and debuff poison, do damage and debuff disease... one class could have all of these.

     

    I hated it.

     

    Extending what you said - I would like to see classes have ability sets that make them versatile, powerful, and unique (I don't want to be this type of ranger or that type of ranger - I want to be THE ranger for example)....

     

    But for me - versatility means more than do I have a pet, fear, or a tap versus do I have all 3.  Versatility means (to me) I have abilities that I can use differently in different situations - and that synergize differently when used with different other abilities.

     

    The prime example I always give:  As a ranger, JOLT was my pull spell.  Jolt was an agro reducer.  It's intent was to REDUCE agro - not gain it.  But using it to pull would get you on a mob's agro list and had the benefit of allowing my tank to get a mob off of me by looking at it just a little too sternly.

     

    That is NOT what the intention of JOLT was - but it worked beautifully for that purpose.

     

    Synergizing differently is also important to me.  This doesn't mean every ability needs to be such an ability.  If I have an arrow attack that does X damage for example - then it should do X damage.  Really super bad example - bad to keep it simple and make the point:  Say I have an ability that increases the effect of the next ability used on the target of that ability... Now say I cast it on a group member who is low on health so that the next heal landed by the healer is increased in strength... then say I use it on a mob my enchanter needs to mez, and it increases the duration of that mez.

     

    Again, bad example to make the point.  I'd love to have abilities that have different effects based on what they are used with.  I could also see such an ability having (as in my crappy example above) - some interesting group dynamics.

     

    I would also like to say (as I hinted at above) that versatility does not mean 80 billion spells.  In fact, to me, it might be a relatively small set of spells that can be used in a variety of ways. 


    This post was edited by Wandidar at March 23, 2015 11:44 AM PDT
    • 432 posts
    January 10, 2015 6:45 AM PST

    I think we are slightly beating a dead horse here.

    The Pantheon tenets and the many threads dedicated to class diversification here made sufficiently clear (at least to me) that the strategical target of the development is to have VERY diversified and uniquely feeling classes. So no watered down "sub classes" and no large sharing of abilities.

     

    Actually so much so that I remember several threads where people were demanding that unique class/race abilities (like enchant metal etc) were largely shared among the classes.

    If I was asked to give a single point where Pantheon will be most strongly differentiated from other MMOs I would precisely say : very strong class and race differentiation. No use to whine that your cleric can't dot and your Ogre can't be enchanter :)

     

    On one hand that will scare off the big crowd of those players who want it all and at once and who get a fit when THEIR class can't do something that another class can  because I don't really care to play a game that this crowd likes.

    And on the other hand as immersion and identification with the game's world is priority according to Pantheon tenets, I am convinced that this class/race diversification factor is one of those that contribute most strongly to immersion and identification.

     

    • 311 posts
    January 10, 2015 8:43 AM PST

    I like Brads' statements so far that all classes and races will be unique and needed. Could things change along the way maybe, but for me he has already made my favorite game (until he left it to others and they did good until the lvl increase though didn't like the nerf bats) I trust him with this one as long as he stays with it and keeps it his vision. I also believe we have the ability to express our concerns to help keep him on track, but then again I have full confidence in him to make a great game and he has the track record to prove it, EQ/VG. 

    • 453 posts
    January 10, 2015 10:06 AM PST
    Deadshade said:

    The Pantheon tenets and the many threads dedicated to class diversification here made sufficiently clear (at least to me) that the strategical target of the development is to have VERY diversified and uniquely feeling classes. So no watered down "sub classes" and no large sharing of abilities.

     

     

     

     Based on Brad's track record in EQ1 and VG I have no fear of weak watered down classes in Pantheon. I was simply thinking out loud and am thankful that there won't be the watered down classes of eq2 nor will there be the crap we see in Rift where now every class can do every role. Rift was well made,polished and mostly bug free but having all classes do all things killed it for me. 

    • 179 posts
    January 10, 2015 11:41 AM PST

    I agree and I fully believe we won't have watered down classes. EQ1 and Vanguard had very good classes. I also agree initially Rift was a very polished game and mostly bug free. I enjoyed leveling up and raiding the first few zones but after awhile I learned I hated the class system. Simply put people found out which class combinations did the most DPS and expected you to play one of these combinations on raids. The other DPS combinations would do half the damage as the best combo's. This kind of happened also with AA's in other games like EQ2 and WoW I believe. Everyone figures out what are the best combinations and everyone becomes cookie cutter builds. I'm really off topic but I think EQ1 still has the best AA system to ever come out. :)

    • 453 posts
    January 10, 2015 11:56 AM PST
    Anasyn said:

     I'm really off topic but I think EQ1 still has the best AA system to ever come out. :)

     

     

    Jason the Studly said:

    I fully agree. No other game did AAs in the same way, and I wish Pantheon would eventually have AAs as well, perhaps with their own spin to it. Sure, eventually over a long period of time you will have all the aas and thus be the same as everyone else in your class with them ability wise, but I liked that aas gave you something to accomplish when you were maxed out that made you more powerful and it was nice being more powerful if you have been maxed out for a long time versus someone who just dinged your level yesterday with no aas .

     


    This post was edited by Jason at January 10, 2015 3:02 PM PST
    • 753 posts
    January 10, 2015 12:47 PM PST

    It didn't matter in EQ that eventually you could be the same as everyone else in your class once you got all the AA - because the simple truth was that doing so took forever - and by the time 99.9 (pulled from thin air stat) could get everything - they already had added more. 

     

    For example - when I left the game - I had something like 350+ AA... and that was considered a lot (people would be advertising for people with 300+ AA for high end content groups... and at the time, there were over 3000 per class.

     

    The beauty of the AA system was that it basically meant you were never "done" - it was the ultimate content extender for your avatar.  Have every piece of gear you could currently get?  No matter - you still had improving to do via AA - and you could work on it hunting anything, anywhere.

     

    It was brilliant - I hope they bring it back in Pantheon.

    • 453 posts
    January 10, 2015 1:18 PM PST
    Wandidar said:

    The beauty of the AA system was that it basically meant you were never "done" - it was the ultimate content extender for your avatar.  Have every piece of gear you could currently get?  No matter - you still had improving to do via AA - and you could work on it hunting anything, anywhere.

     

    It was brilliant - I hope they bring it back in Pantheon.

     

     

     

    Jason the Studly said:
    /agree 100%
    • VR Staff
    • 50 posts
    January 10, 2015 1:52 PM PST

    I couldn't agree more about EQ2.  There are only 3 classes that I enjoyed in that game and they were SK, Warden (hated the Druid split into Fury and Warden though) and Necromancer.  On my Warden, I was useless in raids for the most part.  The way they made heal priorities work was awful.  If I recall correctly, Shaman wards were calculated first, then cleric reactive heals and then the poor ole druids got the useless "over heals" because we had direct heals and HoTs, which were calculated last.  My SK wasn't very useful in raids either so most of my time was spent doing heritage quests and gathering trinkets for my house.   I did raid on my Necro through Kingdom of Sky and had a ton of fun doing so.

     

    I have confidence in the vision of this game.  I am sure Brad and team will come up with a class system where everyone is useful and unique in their own right. 


    This post was edited by Zoeii at January 10, 2015 3:02 PM PST
    • 308 posts
    January 10, 2015 2:00 PM PST

    I somewhat agree with you jason in that if a dev doesnt know what they are doing specializations could be ahorrible thing. but i think brad and the rest have enough mmo experience to keep that from happening.

    • 311 posts
    January 10, 2015 2:11 PM PST

    Like I said it's always good to express our concerns and think it needs to be done so we don't get another wow or rift. I'm glad we all do it cause who knows they could run off track. I'm just saying I don't think they will and have total confidence in them cause we do have Brad and a special team.

    • 208 posts
    January 10, 2015 3:21 PM PST

    I hated the AA system in EQ.. It basically boiled down to Developers running out of attention and creativity.  Instead of creating/giving new high end skills or disciplines/stances they created the AA system.  Creative and Meaningful skill updates stopped at that point.  If a class needed to be enhanced to make it on par with another class it seemed that  the Devs would just create a new AA set of skills to either Increase Damage or Increase Mitigation or Increase Aggro or Increase Dodge etc etc etc... Instead of giving the specific classes new skills/abilities to increase what is/was wrong with a specific class.  To me that just screams LAZY.. IMO Once the Devs and designers get lazy/lacidazical about the game that in turn affects the Playerbase and Community and then ultimately the game itself begins to become watered down and subscriptions/players begin to leave..

    • 432 posts
    January 11, 2015 3:08 AM PST
    Sogotp said:

    I hated the AA system in EQ.. It basically boiled down to Developers running out of attention and creativity. 

     

    Same here.

    After all people were calling it "AA grind". As a tolerant person, I have nothing against people who like to "grind". But concerning me, I can bear only a certain dose of it and beyond that threshold I just get bored and irritated.

    Obviously every MMO has to design a certain number of time sinks to avoid that people leave too fast but when a game starts to look like work it looses the enjoyment factor.

    I found the AA idea interesting in the beginning when only a few AAs were available and most of them were meaningful but it went fast overboard.

    If I am told that I will need 2 years to get all the available AAs provided that I "grind" several hours a day every day, then I will either ignore this feature or go away.

     

    • 753 posts
    January 11, 2015 6:17 AM PST

    I never really felt like it was a grind - I felt like I was working toward the next thing in AA I had targeted. I guess that means they disguised the grind in a way that was amenable to me!  Having said that, I do like grinding sometimes - but that's also because I don't really get caught up in things like watching my exp bar - I get caught up in learning a camp, in playing with friends, etc...

     

    Or probably more correctly - I choose to find ways to enjoy what I'm doing.

     

    Here's an example:  There was one time where I decided I needed money - and I knew Shrunken Goblin Skull Earrings sold for quite a bit - so off to Warslik Woods I went.  I had never hunted Gnachrist before - and by the time I went there, the gobbie forts were at best green to me (with some gray mixed in).

     

    So I started slaughtering.  And I ultimately made a game of it for myself - the game was to see if I could kill all of the fort before any of it respawned, and keep it that way.  In so doing, I discovered that if I did that -I got an earring from Gnachrist every 3 hours - pretty much like clockwork.  To tell you how long I stayed there in game - STRAIGHT - I had two bags full of earrings before I left that camp... and you know what - because I had made a game of it, and because I had figured out I had a success rate of once every 3 hours - AND because I knew I had a (then huge) payday coming... I enjoyed the daylights out of it.

     

    I think grinding comes in two flavors:

     

    1)  Developer imposed.  This is the thing where you have to get, for example, a certain faction up - and the only way to do so is to kill 5000 mobs of some opposing faction.  Stuff like that, if you want the reward, you just have to grind out.

     

    But more common I think (and this is just my personal opinion - your mileage may vary) is:

     

    2)  Player interpreted grind:  This is where players decide to get so caught up in some measurable in game goal (I want to hit level 50) - that they forget they are supposed to enjoy the stuff they are doing to get to 50.  So they go find whatever they determine is the most efficient way to do that - they have in their mind before they begin that it's going to be boring - and they start slogging through. 

     

    Not everything in an MMO should be "fun" - that too is my personal opinion.  I personally want a world with some degree of well designed simulated realism - enough to make it feel like a real world... and that means that things will sometimes be mundane... but the sense of "OMG, all I'm doing is a boring grind" - is SOMETIMES (But not all the time) - players choosing to decide what they are doing is a grind, and is boring - instead of remembering to have fun.

     

    And again - all of that is just my opinion - with zero% of it based on any degree of fact :) 

    • 87 posts
    January 11, 2015 7:06 AM PST
    Kazingathi said:

    they did good until the lvl increase though didn't like the nerf bats

     

    do I sense a VG monk?

     

     

     

    • 311 posts
    January 11, 2015 8:01 AM PST
    Keiiek said:
    Kazingathi said:

    they did good until the lvl increase though didn't like the nerf bats

     

    do I sense a VG monk?

     

     

     Lol no sorry Keiiek I happen to have had a DK, Druid, Warcleric, Ranga, and 8 other alts. In the first couple of years they used the nerf bats but I hear after I pretty much left they started building every class back up. I think the only 2 class that got upgraded while I played was the sorc and Warrior.

     

    • 724 posts
    January 11, 2015 10:00 AM PST

    You may know this already...in EQ you can now choose to automatically gain all AAs up to the fourth-latest expansion. This was obviously done so players wouldn't be scared off by the mountain of AAs they had to gain to become competitive (after all, the game IS balanced around players having quite a number of AAs), and so they could catch up to their friends more quickly. So these days you only have to grind for the latest AAs.

    Another thought about AAs: When I started a new character a few months back in EQ, I loved how easy and straightforward it was. And then, with increasing level, you suddenly gain dozens of new AA abilities...all working like extra abilities or spells. This really makes the characters play very differently. I understand that the devs in EQ have to do SOMETHING to make it so players can still progress their characters...but with the AA system they have gone way overboard.

    As for specialisation, I'd prefer a system that works like spell specialisation. Specialisation shouldn't get you new abilities, instead it should strengthen some of them. Think of a mage. He may know and cast all sorts of elemental spells, but once he's specialised in fire spells, his fireball will be a lot stronger than that of another mage who specialised in another element.

    • 133 posts
    March 8, 2015 3:09 PM PDT

    When I worry about classes, I then turn to Brad's track record:

     

    EveryQuest:

    Shadowknight - To date the best, coolest evil fighter ever designed, bar none.

    Mage - My second favorite EQ class close behind SK, the best summoner ever, even if they trivialized the summoning items.

    Enchanter - The class that defined the Crowd Control mantra.

     

    Vanguard:

    Dreadknight - Took the SK and made it into its own unique evil knight, a blast to play.

    Ranger -  The best ranger in any MMO, if it only had track...

    Psionicist - My favorite VG class, took the enchanter and made it a charming illusionist CC class.  Brilliant.

    Disciple - Melee monk meet cleric healer, loved it! even if it suffered from OP balance issues.

    Bloodmage - Necromantic healer, nothing screams evil then sucking life of the enemy to heal thy friends.

    Necromancer - Took old school necro and added an abomination pet, see you ripped body parts from your foes and "grafted" to the abom.

     

    Now I feel I have nothing to worry about, I am in good hands with Bradstate.

    • 48 posts
    March 15, 2015 2:09 PM PDT
    Jason said:
    Wandidar said:

    The beauty of the AA system was that it basically meant you were never "done" - it was the ultimate content extender for your avatar.  Have every piece of gear you could currently get?  No matter - you still had improving to do via AA - and you could work on it hunting anything, anywhere.

     

    It was brilliant - I hope they bring it back in Pantheon.

     

     

     

    Jason the Studly said:
    /agree 100%

    AA was indeed great! The limits are boundless for growth and just plain fun stuff like currently they have where you can have clicky utility spells without having to memorize them. Not all abilities were/are earth shattering but they change the game for the better. Oh only warriors can crit? Wait now everyone can crit but warriors are still significantly higher. I want my epic paladin or SK mount? Earn those AA! :) those are just a few of the examples I like because they provide growth even minimal but they add up stronger as a whole!
    This post was edited by Borumber at March 16, 2015 4:34 AM PDT
    • 70 posts
    March 18, 2015 5:02 PM PDT

    I'm not personally a fan of AA because I don't like being able to diversify your class beyond its original role.  The more classes gain the abilities of others the more I feel like they all become bland.  I also don't really like the endless grind for what for the most part is trivial benefit.  I also don't really like specialization within a class.  To me this really works out to be the same thing as the split classes of EQ2 listed above.  If I am a necro I want all the abilities a necro has, I don't want to share them with other classes (unless it's a necro hybrid like an SK) and I don't want to be in a position where I have to decide if I want to be the "pet necro" the "dot necro" or the "IGNITE BONES MASTER OF MAKING EVERYONE IN THE RAID HATE YOU NECRO".

     

    I know it probably sounds silly having less options but to me part of the charm of playing any EQ class is knowing your role and where you will excel and deciding how you can take advantage of your strengths to overcome whatever challenge your inherent weaknesses leave you with.  In EQ I might reroll an SK after playing a warrior for some extra utility and cool factor.  In WoW (barring any FOTM moment) I'd be thinking... well...  I could roll a DK for something new...  But really I already have a warrior who can tank and/or DPS.  Why bother?  It's not like either really brings more to the table.  They are balanced to provide basically the same thing and both have enough utility that they essentially cancel each other out on that front.  I want to know that my warrior tanks better than any equally geared SK but that the SK can snare **** and fear kite and other such excitement.

     

    I know it isn't a very modern stance but I'm tired of classes being balanced against each other.  I want rogues to do more damage than anyone but be useless and weak alone because they need someone to make the mob look away from them.  I want warriors to be the best tanks in exchange for having almost zero versatility.  I want clerics to be the best healers in pretty much any situation.  I want necros to have ridiculous versatility that makes them amazing solo or in a wonky group but not so exciting in a more well balanced group.  I want shaman to have debuffs that are virtually required for certain encounters.  I want enchanters to be the masters of CC and bards to be the fastest runners and druids to be able to make any newbies day with amazing buffs and wizards to be able to make everyone feel a bit of peen envy by being able to do the most damage in a single strike and mages to be lazy bastards who's pets do so much damage they can almost sleep through most encounters and....  you get the point.  I want old school class diversity.  Not new classes where everyone is their own unique snowflake...that looks exactly like every other snowflake because everyone can do everything.

    • 753 posts
    March 18, 2015 5:20 PM PDT

    I know that AA in EQ allows you to diversify beyond your original role - but the original AA didn't.  As a ranger I had options that were distinctly RANGER...

     

    Innate Camo

    Archery Mastery

    Endless Quiver

    Headshot

    etc...

     

    I've been playing EQ again for a while now though, and I agree - AA currently crosses lines it shouldn't.

    • 70 posts
    March 19, 2015 9:21 AM PDT

    Let me rephrase there a little in that vein.  I am fine with AAs as a form of advancement if they are handled in a fashion where they remain within/enhance the defined class role AND if it's possible to collect them all for everyone.  While me of 5 years ago would hate me for saying this, I am no longer a fan of differing specialization within the same class.  If you have AA's where you can only collect 50 max points but have 500 points worth of possibilities, I think you'll end up with a situation where players spec "incorrectly" and lock their class out of a role they could have filled prior to the addition of Alternate Advancement.

     

    It seems weird being against more options and molding the class the way you want it but to me the 3+ path design of WoW has gone stale, and if I am going to be spending a copious amount of time advancing a la EQ I don't want to have to worry about picking the wrong path.  Respecs can fix this but once you add in respecs you make them part of the game play paradigm.  Don't fit the role a group wants?  Swing by the respec dude on your way!

     

    Make it like EQ so your starting race and stat choices have an effect on your character but make it something that can be overcome by gear or that offers other advantages.  An ogre SHOULD be a better warrior than a Dark Elf in terms of hitting really hard and taking a lot of abuse.  But maybe the dark elf gets hit a little less and hits a little more often even if each hit does less damage.  I don't think it needs to be balanced in the sense that the Dark Elf should be 100% as viable as the Ogre.  It just needs to not be so vastly different that no one would ever group with a Dark Elf warrior.  Sure the best raid guild on the server might exclusively use an Ogre Warrior main tank to min/max but if the Ogre's mom says he can't play tonight because he called his sister fat, they should be able to sub in the Dark Elf and be 95% as effective.

    • 753 posts
    March 19, 2015 12:27 PM PDT

    Agreed!

     

    That was part of the beauty of original EQ AA.  Everyone could get them all - and they all were specific to what you were... Ogre Warrior, Wood Elf Ranger, etc...

     

    When you do "You can only get X of Y" AA - you are right, people will deem that you have "specced wrong" - where with the EQ model, nothing was wrong - because it amounted to WHEN you might get some AA purchased - not IF.  Sure, your play schedule might mean that "when" was a very long time... but you were never excluded because of other AA choices you made.


    This post was edited by Wandidar at March 19, 2015 12:28 PM PDT
    • 118 posts
    March 19, 2015 1:27 PM PDT
    Anasyn said:

    I agree and I fully believe we won't have watered down classes. EQ1 and Vanguard had very good classes. I also agree initially Rift was a very polished game and mostly bug free. I enjoyed leveling up and raiding the first few zones but after awhile I learned I hated the class system. Simply put people found out which class combinations did the most DPS and expected you to play one of these combinations on raids. The other DPS combinations would do half the damage as the best combo's. This kind of happened also with AA's in other games like EQ2 and WoW I believe. Everyone figures out what are the best combinations and everyone becomes cookie cutter builds. I'm really off topic but I think EQ1 still has the best AA system to ever come out. :)

    This post makes me think about the original StarCraft.  It took Blizzard a long time and many patches to get the balance of the game so refined.  In a way they dug themselves into a hole.  I know a few die-hards that much prefer the original over the sequel.  In order for any kind of AA system to be balanced, it will need to be tested, and probably patched multiple times.  As much as possible, it needs to be tested before launch.  The general public is not so forgiving when you take the nerf-bat to their favorite toy.

     

    That is the reason that I quit playing League of Legends after they revamped Soraka.  I understand all the reasons why they did it, but I felt betrayed.  I put years into playing that champion, and, for all my effort, I was rewarded with a complete rework that fundamentally changed its base mechanics so far as to make it into a new champion.  There was no way for me to recoup my loss.  Riot had to do what they had to do.  If Riot had "failed faster" with Soraka, and changed her early on when they first knew she was broken, I might still be a customer today.