I have been thinking a lot about games that start out with far to many classes and they begin to water down the other class abilities.
Thoughts on if Pantheon will address this, as of now it looks like we have to many to begin with and it may impact the abiltiy of the devs to really user test them before launch. It makes more sense to start out with less and add more over time.
Be interested to know what others think.
Unless you're going to let players select their own skills and completely customize their role that way, it's probably better to have more than four classes.
It seems VR is going for the nerf/buff style of race/class balance, so it's probably best to get ready for flavor-of-the-month and all the joy and sorrow that brings. :)
vjek said:Unless you're going to let players select their own skills and completely customize their role that way, it's probably better to have more than four classes.
It seems VR is going for the nerf/buff style of race/class balance, so it's probably best to get ready for flavor-of-the-month and all the joy and sorrow that brings. :)
Agreed that we want more then 4, but 13 sounds a bit much to start.. But hopefully they can flush them out before launch. Will be fun to test them either way :)
BelgrimIcereaver said:Everquest came out with just as many if not more classes. They all had abilities unique to them. I find more options to be a good thing. We'll have plenty of time for testing before launch I'm sure.
Yeah. Testing is going to be all about making sure that each of the classes work well and that they are all wanted in groups for various jobs. I imagine each of us will all end up trying all the different classes just so we understand what each one can do. I'm glad there is plenty of choice.
BelgrimIcereaver said:Everquest came out with just as many if not more classes. They all had abilities unique to them. I find more options to be a good thing. We'll have plenty of time for testing before launch I'm sure.
In fairness, some were worthless. Rangers come to mind.
There's pro's and cons to both sides, but I think having more classes suits the lead designers vision a bit better. This game is gonna have a bit more sandbox feel to it, and I think it will feel quite different to the younger generation of MMO players so it will take some adjustment.
Not much is out there on individual classes at the momemt. I do hope that each class will bring their own unique skills to a group, and not just similar ablities to others but with different names. I would say an MMO player in general, likes to feel that there is no one else like them out there, so having more options gives the developers a lot to work with. I personally like the number of classes.
One of the reasons classes watered down is because most modern MMOs allow every character to do enough of everything. A lot of games everyone can heal themselves to some extent. Everyone gets decent DPS. Everyone can take a hit for a good period of time.
In games where there is a well defined set of class roles it's easier to spread out the love between them.
jpedrote said:Liav said:In fairness, some were worthless. Rangers come to mind.
RIP EQ Rangers, your many sacrifices will have not been in vain if the ranger class is more than a meme in Pantheon!
Rangers weren't a meme in Vanguard so hopefully they follow that trend. I loved the Ranger class in Vanguard. Would likely have been my main alt if they hadn't shut it down.
Earlier on, Everquest I did a fine job with their suite of classes. I am actually still hoping to see Necros, Bards, and Beastlords added to Pantheon.
From my experience, classes do not need to be 'balanced', they only need to offer unqiue contributions to both group and raid encounters.
Examples of unique class contributions:
1) Enchanter -- Master of the mind (Mana Regen, Charm, Mez)
2) Summoner -- Master of summoned creatures and items
3) Wizard -- Master of spell damage, teleportation (Wizard Spires)
4) Paladin -- Master of slay undead, Lay Hands
5) Ranger -- Master of ranged dps, survival techniques (Camouflage, Foraging, Tracking)
6) Druid -- Master of nature, shapeshifting (Weather, Spirit of the Wolf/Eagle, Druid Rings)
7) Cleric -- Master of defensive spells, invisibility to the undead
8) Warrior -- Master of armor class, aggro retention
9) Monk -- Master of feign death, mending
10) Rogue -- Master of melee dps, sneak/hide
11) Dire Lord -- Master of Lifetap, Harm Touch
12) Shaman -- Master of Slows, Poisons
Might some similar abilties be shared between 2 classes. Sure. The Everquest Druid and Ranger had some overlap as they both were linked to nature and the outdoors. But both the Druid and Ranger still felt entirely unqiue.
Part of the fun of putting together a group is figuring out how to create a successful combination of classes. Different dungeons or quests may require a different group to be successful. So maybe you have a Dire Lord, Monk, Rogue, Ranger, and Druid with one spot left. Well a group like that is already slanted towards DpS without a lot of crowd control. So to keep things managable for the Druid, you might seek either another healing class, such as a Shaman to help with slows and heals, or perhaps an enchanter to keep adds mezzed and the druid with mana regen.
When you consider all the potential skills, spells, and abilities that might be part of Pantheon, it is not hard to see how they will make classes feel very unqiue, valuable, and fund to play.
Demostorm said:I have been thinking a lot about games that start out with far to many classes and they begin to water down the other class abilities.
Thoughts on if Pantheon will address this, as of now it looks like we have to many to begin with and it may impact the abiltiy of the devs to really user test them before launch. It makes more sense to start out with less and add more over time.
Be interested to know what others think.
I wouldn't look at this from a 'too many classes' view because what is more important are the archetypes of which we have 4. Each will perform the same primary function of its archetype but in a different flavor. So really we aren't dealing with too many classes.
Rangers were only worthless if you didn't know how to play one. I mained one until luclin. I could kite, cc, pull, dps, track, sow, levitate, buff a little and heal a little. We didn't have one designated specialty but we were a Swiss army knife. It's all about learning your class and making the best of it. I see no issue with 13 classes if they each have their role/are fleshed out well.
P.s. we were also really good at eating dt's lol
Don't get me wrong. I love the classic EQ classes. I will likely be Enchanter or Cleric at launch. will also have necro, wizard, and maybe a ranger as well.
I was REALLY hoping that we would see a little innovation so that they wouldn't be cookie-cutter EQ copies.
I feel like the Ranger class should be More like ( not a carbon copy ) the Hunter in WoW. Ranged with Pet.
Wizard could have been more "Elemental" like GW2 Elementalist. Or even Be an Off healer like Chloromancer from Rift. "specialization"
or the Enchanter having some ablities like the Mezmer in GW2.
Again, not copies of class from WoW/GW2/Rift, just taking ideas and making something unique instead of cookie cutter.
but oh, well. still playing. I will be necro at launch if they are in the game. I'm good with EQ3.
I'm not really worried about the testing. As of now, there are at least 3 (semi) public testing phases in the works: pre-alpha, alpha and beta. There seem to be quite a lot of backers lining up to take part in these, and I've seen interest in many race/class combinations. I also think it's very likely there will be one or more open betas closer to launch to further test balancing and stress test the servers. So I think there will be plenty of opportunity to adjust any class-related aspects of the game.
That said, I wouldn't mind seeing a game that did away with classes altogether and relied on players choosing their specialization freely, much like UO did at the time. You had a given skill point cap and these were assigned to different skills as you practiced them - no manually "investing skill points". If you spread your skills too wide and hit the global skill point cap, the least practiced ones would go down for the others to go up, so you might lose your "grandmaster" status in a skill if you started doing too much of others. To prevent unwanted deleveling of skills, you could lock your favourite specializations. I thought this was very organic and balanced. While it does break away from the D&D canon of race/class combinations, I appreciate the diversity it allows. It could also be an additional challenge if players want to play an unorthodox race/class combo, for instance by making progress easier in "class skills" that are typical of the player's chosen race and harder for those that are not so typical.
Mind you, I don't want to derail VR's chosen race/class system. I can live happily with fixed races and classes. This was just a little bit of daydreaming on a topic that interests me.
I personally like the amount of classes, it makes for more diversity rather than a few classes that mix and match skills from a tree as seems to be the standard these days.
Not only that but no matter how many options you are given by way of multiple skill paths and trees, there is ALWAYS a Preferred/Best way to build your char's skill tree and if you don’t have the correct skills and rotations you get abuse from your group for not doing it the EXACT way that has been decided is the Best way, so why bother having the choice in the first place if choices mean nothing and a designated/ordained way has already been dictated.
Also I love the idea of having unique classes that are not changed on the fly to be something the player wishes and possibly has less experience in. If you want to be a Healer, start from the ground up is my philosophy.
To finish, still waiting for my Necro ;-)
When I left Dark Ages of Camelot we were allowed to have 18 character slots on the pve server, Gaheris. I had 18 characters - each a different class, each at maximum level - so I declared victory and moved on. Had there been more character slots, there were more classes I could have worked on. So too many classes in Pantheon - no!
Liav said:In fairness, some were worthless. Rangers come to mind.but they were also one of those classes, people liked to play the most. so i think the balance was right!
besides, value is always a personal thing. if you want something tracked (camping a moving named? is that named deep in the dungeon up?) rangers were priceless.
letsdance said:Liav said:In fairness, some were worthless. Rangers come to mind.but they were also one of those classes, people liked to play the most. so i think the balance was right!besides, value is always a personal thing. if you want something tracked (camping a moving named? is that named deep in the dungeon up?) rangers were priceless.
Rangers were normally somewhat worthless til PoP came out and than they were one of the bigger damage dealers in certain fights, and honestly they were only that bad at the beginning becuase of bad design not becuase the class in itself was pointless, there were a ton of things they could of done to them to make them so much better, and i trust VR will figure out what that will be, hoping that rangers wil have like maybe 20% druids spell and 80% unique spells and syuch cause honestly them having the 90% druid spells were there biggest flaw
Sunmistress said: Druids were another one, decent in Vanilla, but by the time we got to Velious lol no. Paladins were so terribly balanced pre POP, it was painful (that's what I played back then) I think I am still sore about that particular mess. Wizards and to a lesser degree mages were near useless in fast paced groups Warriors were absolute crap since taunt was broke. There weren't really alot of decent aggro weapons. Vanguard at launch and beyond was light years better than early EQ balance of classes wise. Vanguard was everything EQ should have been IMO.
Vanguard class design was a masterpiece.
I really hope we don't end up with EQ class design and combat.
Vanguard was the genius level evolution to the foundation that EQ layed down. It's just too bad that it ran into the development problems that it did.
Thanks,
Kiz~