Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Remove classes and add attributes and skills instead
ArchivedUser
Guest
Playing a class is too restricted and I always liked having the attributes body, mind, spirit, and stuff in games to change how effective my skills were or what skills I could use. Classes with skills already chosen are boring and there is never any variety, but if you can choose the skills you use yourself and get rid of all the classes and be able to learn any skill, it would be a lot more interesting to pvp. I think path of exile has something like this, but I'm not sure because I dont play it, but I've heard that you can replay the game to make different builds and still have fun. Some skills should be learned from factions, and using those skills might have penalties for enemy factions. For example, if you learned dark magic you will lose favor with the paladin guilds, but you may be invited to some dark magic user guild and unlock quests and items only dark magic users can use.
If you use points in the strength attribute, you should do higher damage and have the option to make your character look physically bigger. If you use points for the spirit attribute, you should be able to make bigger fireball magic than someone with a lower attribute. The animations of skills should change depending on how you spend your attribute points. If you have a high strength attribute than smashing onto the ground should make the ground break apart, but someone with low strength smashing into the ground wont have a cool animation like someone with high strength ability.
If you want to add different species to play as, then they should have different base attributes. A demon should have different base attributes than a human.
If you use points in the strength attribute, you should do higher damage and have the option to make your character look physically bigger. If you use points for the spirit attribute, you should be able to make bigger fireball magic than someone with a lower attribute. The animations of skills should change depending on how you spend your attribute points. If you have a high strength attribute than smashing onto the ground should make the ground break apart, but someone with low strength smashing into the ground wont have a cool animation like someone with high strength ability.
If you want to add different species to play as, then they should have different base attributes. A demon should have different base attributes than a human.
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However. You said you want to specialize your skills? That's why they are implementing secondary class system in which you can augment (change/support) your primary skills. There are also racial and regional skills to my knowledge so in this game you have a lot of customization possibilities for your class.
Yep. Too late. Not going to happen.
The first part is an autonomous profession/class-ability leveling system that takes into account the successful use of each ability. The more is used successfully, the better it works. A combat attack ability, for example, would be lack-luster in the beginning but over time the "to-hit", damage and critical hit precision would all improve making the ability essential to a character's combat repertoire.
The second part is the weapon/tool types used could possess achievement levels that grant better use of their particular type. Not all weapons or tools are graded alike. For example, a light sword and heavy sword are used differently and the use of one shouldn't automatically create the mastery of another. Each would be leveled individually toward an achievement of mastery and along the way offer greater boons/benefits. This requires early decision making and a challenging trial by fire to determine if your choices were sound or do you need to try something else and work quickly to master new weapons or tools.
Ultimately, this is do-able within the current state of development and could even be added after launch if the devs are so inclined.
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Don't be a dream crusher man! He proposed the ESO approach was all. I'm sure everyone realizes the logistics of a complete revamp. He's just putting it out for discussion.
Actually, my preferred games are more sandbox character development.
Games that uses stat point system where you can allocate where you want to put your stats (str/int/dex/etc).
I also like the ability to choose from a skill tree, but that is really rare nowadays. The ultimate game for me would be one skill tree that everyone uses, but depending on how you move down the branch, you will be given a 'class'.
But I know something like this will probably never happen unless I develop it myself.
I just hope AoC will have enough variety in the character development to allow for endless theory-crafting and unique builds that are viable and fun to play. What would kill it for me is if there is only one viable build per class, and if you decided to step outside the meta, you will gimp yourself. Even worst, if they only make the trinity viable and the other class would be useless, I will definitely rage quit.
The devs are not going to fundamentally change the core design just because a few players want skills to work differently. The devs are not going to remove classes. That doesn't mean you can't discuss why you don't like classes and/or why you would prefer a classless system.
Autonomous leveling system seems more likely to lead to cookie cutter builds than what the devs have already designed.
The current system means we basically have 64 dual-classes. But, even within each dual-class, players have some options for how they wish to augment their skills.
And that's not even including gear, items and racial augments, yet.
Suppose, hibryd"skill-bassed+class/subclass" system are better. NOT like in TESO (it's bad example)-more like Crowfall/Shadowbane/SWG+big list of disciplines beyond classes to learn/specialize (like in Arcanum) or big skill tree like Devotion skills from Grim Dawn(don't like design PoE skill tree: for me it no so god systematized/structured). Of course it' only my opinion.
This doesn't sound like it will be our traditional class system. One thing to remember is that classes will have a decent number of abilities and you will have to choose which ones to use to make your build. On top of choosing your skills you have to choose your augmentations which you get from your secondary class, race, religion and possibly other sources. These systems combined should give players plenty of room to theorycraft and customize there characters. The devs have already talked about how 2 characters who share the same class can play completely different.
I prefer skill systems but i like how this class system is supposed to give us a lot flexibility similar to a skill system while allowing our character to keep an aesthetic.
What I wrote was constructive as well as "destructive". Most importantly, it's a reality check.
Clearly we do have a class system in the game -the devs call their classes Archetypes. And it sounds quite a bit like a traditional RPG multi-class system.
This class system gives us a lot of flexibility. The devs are not going remove that system simply because some gamers prefer a classless skill system.
The best at what??
We can have the concept of "the best" when the only thing to do is kill stuff.
AoC nodes have a wider variety of tasks, events and narratives than typical MMORPGs of the past.
When we have mages that can use magic to disarm traps - there is no "the best".
Your not trying to give them a reality check you are trying to bring them down with a statement you have no proof of because you don't like their idea.
You want a reality check, you don't know what the devs are thinking and probably shouldn't talk for them.
BTW this is tyrogon from eqnext forum/subreddit. Welcome to community.
And its dangerous to expect devs to abandon finalised designs and start again.
Its what they call design creep. You end up going around and around in circle, constantly changing, with nothing ever accomplished
You need focus. You need a plan. You need to stick to that plan.
You can review it after and decide if it really was the best way to do it.
But you must never forget, you need to get a product out the door.... on time.
I worked in the HVAC coordination business for many years.
Coordinating all the plant, electrical and mechanical systems within archictectural and structural models.
Clients would repeatedly change their minds midbuild and decide they didnt like their original choice.
Then cry and choke on the doubled price and the broken deadlines.
Because all the work done to date had to be scrapped and the whole job almost restarted from scratch.
Even then all the contractors had to work double time to try and catch up with as much lost time as they could.
EVERYTHING HAS A PRICE! Do you really want to pay it ?
Now. That qualifier aside. I would also prefer a true and unbound system but not as has been expounded here in this thread.
Class systems are good to enforce a required group size by giving each class unique AND required skills.
Thats the whole point. To force people to play together for the most part.
If you let players be anything they want at anytime they want.....they dont require anyone else.
[Great for solo play]
Unless you give challenges where one persons power is simply not enough.
[Great for group play]
Some people argue that, that kills variety though.....which is true but can be fixed.
Many people are stuck in a mindset of hard and fast playstyles though, instead of a team of versatile hybrids.
Both require teamwork/community to solve the group problems at the end of the day.
But only the versatile classless system allows true solo play.
The greatest fear with the classless system, is that there is always a best skill, best armour, best weapon.
Every possible combination is eventually evaluated by min maxers until they obtain the optimal build(s).
And there will be just one optimal build until the next balancing pass.
You end up with everyone adopting the latest FoTM build instead.
At least with 'required' group classes, the need for 8 builds/species is compulsory.
Variety is thus compulsory.
So how do you fix that ? You get to the root of the problem. The FoTM problem.
The FoTM problem exists because there is always a 'best'.
A best exists because something is more powerful/effective than something else.
Its an imbalance issue that allows the 'best' to exist in the first place.
And as long as something is even minutely better.....it is still the best.
Peer pressure and competitiveness then ensures that setup must be used.
Now how do you compare a DoT weapon against an instant damage weapon or an RNG weapon ?
What about a disease or poison weapon vs an elemental weapon that have different conditional situational effects ?
Which is best then, depends on the environment they are deployed or the enemy used against.
And what of a slow high damage weapon vs a fast low damage weapon.
You would say they are balanced....until you introduce animation cancelling so that slow weapon suddenly becomes fast. Making the low damage weapon obsolete.
So how to fix this imbalance issue.
The problem is you cant compare apples with oranges so they are impossible to balance against each other.
So what you have to do is balance the orange against itself and the apple against itself.
In efect, you ensure that everyting always remains neutral.
Every modern MMO breaks this convention.
Every skill, weapon, item will add buffs and buffs only.
For some reason, every player expects positives and only positives.
And here in lies the issue.
Thus you always have an orange or an apple thats always better and never balanced.
You can say soft caps fixes the issue. But does it ?
Variety often depends on these items getting more powerful as you progress.
Their power becomes the differentiating factor between the weapons.
When you cap them, you kill the differentitating factor and in the process kill the variety.
You also spread the capped power in the case of skills and make everyone...the same instead.
So the fix ? Duality.
Ever single item/skill is internally balanced with itself as it levels up.
For every bonus that is added there is an equal and opposite penalty.
This makes the fact it is an apple or an orange irrelevant..its balanced against itself.
Now everything is truly balanced in the equation sense...their can never be a best in the power sense.
The apple might be more situational than the orange or vice versa, but not more powerful.
How does this relate to classes ?
When you go from level 1-50 you normally get more powerful by sticking points into attributes.
You associate those archetypes with a specific attribute which regulates the power.
[This is what classes originally use to be.. a predefined selection of attributes]
Think of them as star signs if you will, with each having control over an individuals aspects.
As long as those apects are paired into opposites.
As long as each aspect is considered a fraction of the whole.
You allow unlimited variety and unlimited progression and perfect balance.
TL;DR ...never mind. Go get a beer ;)
Rift had the whole "Mix and match anything you want!" but in the end you HAD to pair like classes together to get skills to synergize and be of any use. Fighter/Tank type classes had to be paired, magic classes had to be paired, rogue-like classes had to be paired, etc.
I really hope the devs really do stick to the motto of combine whatever you want.