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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Changing your primary class
ArchivedUser
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Steven mentioned they’re toying with the idea of allowing players to change their primary class (I’ll make a separate poll for secondary classes, which can be changed regardless).
Should you be allowed to change your primary class?
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The reasoning I've heard from other players with regards to choices 1 and 2 from the list are:
1) The choice of your primary should be permanent due to consequence and to encourage people to make alts.
2) A quest would allow players who don’t have the time to level an Alt to lvl 50 (if it takes months of continuous playtime) to try a different role while still encouraging players to make alts if they want to be able to quickly swap roles for a raid or siege (e.g. you’d still need a cleric alt if your group needs a healer immediately).
This is less about Ashes and the devs because they'll do their own thing (maybe responding to the community where they're really uncertain on a given mechanism).
This is more about us to gauge how past games have shaped our views. For all we know, Ashes might have a mind blowing system that'll make this poll moot. Most of the threads are speculation and liable to change anyway, with the exception of topics on the core pillars.
I would also like to add to that, the need to perform a quest to change to another primary class. The quest differing, depending on the class you desire to change to. The fee would be the completion of the quest, and the "essence" of your previous primary class completely driven from your soul (PJ_Rydecker's "mind wipe"). The higher your characer/class level, the more difficult the quest.
Also, a player can only perform these arduous feats, but so often. "Cleansing" taxes the soul, considerably. After the first primary class switch, another switch can only be performed after a 6 month wait period (real life time).
Is re-rolling a healthy thing for an MMO though? What are good reasons to disallow class changing? A lot of people seem to dislike the idea, but I don't understand why.
To me it seems to be a option better suited for single player console games or a game that is on its way out the door because the player base isn't there, or the classes were poorly designed so they all couldn't be self sufficient in most aspects in their own way.
That said, I suppose a person can change. What if a fighter decides to walk away from the life of a sword and decides to spend his days poring over arcane books? The only thing that would make this immersion-breaking is if in the Ashes lore, magic wielding classes have to be born with some inherent magic in their blood.
But, seeing as how there can be fighter-mage combinations, I assume all characters in this high fantasy setting will have the inherent ability to wield magic. I guess the only way to retain the sense of traveling down a character path would be to make sure you have to re-earn your greatness. You might have been a legendary warrior on the battlefield, but you'd have to go back to square one as a mage.
@freespiryt
Interesting ideas. I'm also against being able to change willy-nilly to the flavor of the month (aka current meta). The notion of a challenging quest and a cooldown penalty would make players think about it carefully, and it would still encourage people to make alts if they want to swap to a different role immediately (e.g. your current party is lacking a tank or healer).
Also, the "mind wipe" would help you recapture the sense of journey that your character had to take with his or her other primary class, so it could benefit those who want to be immersed in their characters without re-rolling entirely.
That said, I would prefer not to be allowed to swap primary classes in the first place, unless the game system turns out to be radically different from what we're expecting.
But, on the flip side, I don't see the benefit from totally excluding the idea of giving players a limited opportunity to have a "re-do" if they find the class they thought they would like, not fun.
I've been there. Rolled a class, played to lvl 10...didn't like it. Reroll. Play the next class to lvl 10...didn't like it either. Reroll. Continuing until I found what I liked. Now, this may be less of an impediment for experienced gamers, because we already have a good idea, from playing past mmo's, of the kind of gameplay we like, and make our choices after careful consideration. More novice player don't have such wealth of knowledge to rely on.
Even if a proposed class change was only allowed once, maybe twice, a lifetime, I think that would be ok. And, to make things simple, the character would start over from scratch at level 1, losing all previous experience in primary/secondary adventure classes, artisan classes, and whatever social organizations they joined.
(no please don't.)
Let people build their reputation and identity as a primary class. I think it fosters community as well. We have multiple character slots anyway, if we want to play a different class just roll a new alt?
The problem with allowing people to change their class without any drawback (no loss in level or similar) is they will pick whatever is flavor of the month, or if more available, whenever it would be beneficial to them. I don't want it to be real money based because then it opens a whole can of worms nobody is going to want to deal with ever.
Changing your class should be no different than deleting your character and remaking from square one. This is to prevent the system from being abused.
BUT!!! This is Ashes of Creation...there are so many other things tied to a single character. Let's say that someone spent a few months really giving it the "old college try." If they really don't like the primary class they chose in the end (class identity itself might be great, but the mechanics are terrible to them), they may or may not have the RL time to level a new character AND:
- Religious standing
- Position in the local politics (trying to work up to being mayor, right?)
- Crafting class/gathering class
- Sailing class
- Fishing class (can't remember if separate from crafting/gathering)
- Social path (thieves guild, etc)
- Find a new freehold location
- Hope to get back into the nifty non-instanced house in town
- Whatever other secret niftiness Intrepid hasn't shared with us (reputation?)
- Possibly other stuff I forgot
Other games don't have quite that much that someone could have invested time into, let alone that many things tied to individual characters that you might not be able to get again (lookin at you freehold location and in-town non-instanced housing). It's a lot of stuff to throw away just to *try* a different primary class, which they may still end up disliking.I would be OK if each character (or maybe account?) were given a finite number of times they can change their primary class. No cash shop option and no quest lines that would allow you to start as a new primary class at max level, though! Many people would just buy a respec or do a quest every time their primary class is nerfed. There needs to be some actual blood, sweat, and tears put into the change.
I *DO* kinda like the idea @PJ_Rydecker suggested though. Starting your primary class over from lvl 1 would be a nice middle-ground, even if your character level remains where it was before. It could work somewhat similar to the experience deficit Intrepid is already programming for deaths. You could keep all of your social progression stuff, your freehoold, your in-town non-instanced housing, and start training at lvl 1 for your new life as whatever else you wanted to be.
And, as @Solarion stated: Maybe you just want to give up the sword to pursue a life as a mage, after witnessing something amazing while running with one. As long as you need to actually put in some serious work to do it
EDIT: Unless you meant literally change in an instant to run through a raid with 3 or 4 different classes used by a single person.... Then...no. I can't think of one, lol.
To be sure, every online game ever has had a meta, and the meta changes over time with balancing patches, experimentation, and so forth.
But, let's say it takes 2 months to hit Lvl 50 for a hard core no-lifer, and more like 4-6 months for someone who can only play a few hours a day. You could level up an Alt to the current meta, but by the time you hit max level, maybe the meta would change with a patch update. Therefore, the meta won't have such a tyrannic hold over the player base. Friends might recommend a particular build to newcomer friends based on the meta, but that is to be expect.
Another factor to consider is the rewarding feeling players experience when it's finally their build's time to shine in the meta rotation, especially if your build becomes the first meta at launch before any balancing patches (you'd realize your hunch for an awesome combination was correct).