Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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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.
Comments
Obviously this shouldn't be something you can just stack but something that once you start learning it you can commit it as your "new" class primary or secondary. Ideally it's like being a highly skilled adventurer, you eventually become a jack of all trades so to speak. Just not all at once, more like you can commit to 1 combo at a time.
That however, opens an entirely new can of worms.
Change class as you please, with limitations such as cant change in dungeons, combat etc
I'd be okay with primary swapping if a strict system was in place. There should be a long cooldown and/or a limit to the number of primary swaps.
The character should retain certain in-world progress such as land and Freehold templates, reputation, and so forth. However, you should lose your class-based progress and level.
The exception here would be if the devs make it so your secondary class augments also need to be leveled up through exp or point allocation, in which case it'd be okay if you could demote your primary to a secondary with some debuffs in place until your new primary catches up to your secondary in level.
My initial response is to be against such a system, but I'll have to think about this option some more before judging it fairly. If they went with something like this, I'd want them to implement the same penalty system another poster recommended in my secondary class thread: slow level decay for the class that you don't have currently selected. Not all skills in life are like riding a bicycle - you have to use it or you lose it.
I still see your original post if you're talking about the Ultima Online one. I've had posts completely disappear too after editing them though. It looks like the post eating monster is still alive, but he now has to act more stealthily
Then again, maybe I don't need to post all that again. Others have said similar info, so anyone reading will get the idea that more is attached to a single character in Ashes versus other games. Either way, I'm usually against changing primary class in a game, but Ashes seems like it will have a lot of investment in a character and i'd hate to see someone have to choose between that and playing a class they don't enjoy any longer.
Yeah, initially I was adamantly against primary class swapping, but after considering the other viewpoints presented here, I don't mind a partial re-roll system to avoid players having to completely re-roll. I do think the consequences should be severe though (as I mention in one of my posts above).
Yet alts can still be highly enjoyable if you are creating a totally new personality and life path with a new primary class (or the same, for that matter) as a clean slate.
I totally see your view point on this and I agree, to a degree. It's partially a view of mine as well. It's why I'm kinda conflicted on liking or disliking the option.
I keep thinking back to my days in Ultima Online though...
It was great to be able to learn and unlearn/relearn different skills and change your stats to fine tune yourself to perfection. It took a LOT of effort, time, and money to do so, but it felt more immersive, rather than less. It felt like I was continually training myself to be better, as I learned more about the world, how it works, and what I wanted to achieve out there. I never thought of class changing as beneficial in any other game since, but I have a feeling that type of system would be right at home in such an evolving world as Ashes. Not the *exact* same system, but at least one you can mold to your liking over time and after learning more about the world.
Think of your combat primary class like your crafting class. You don't get locked into being a blacksmith forever in any game I've ever played, yet that takes just as long to properly master as it does to level your combat class and you may have grown to be known as THE blacksmith to visit.
What I was curious about though, is if we will have multiple characters slots... Why not just roll another class on an alt. That way you don't lose whatever effort you had in your main character.
It'll allow you explore different religions, social progression, or even a different guild/node.
I'm more concerned for the people that play more casually. If they get to max level and dislike how the final product turns out in combat situations, even after they try all the secondary combinations, it could be a massive disappointment.
If it does indeed take months to max in Ashes, players could already have a freehold established exactly where they want it, a non-instanced home in town, some social progression paths boosted a bit, some crafting boosted a bit, and they would literally be throwing that all away by jumping ship to an alt. If they can change their primary class, they wouldn't have to worry about losing those prime housing and freehold spots nor the social or crafting progression. The character with the class they don't like would become their market and storage mule that never leaves town except to travel to their freehold. A "daily" machine...
It would be a whole different matter if Intrepid said "Leveling? Oh yeah, like...3 weeks and you're done, man." Then easy peasy, make a new toon and be done with it.
This is all, of course, assuming that you don't fully unlock every combat ability for your class/subclass setup until you get to max level or near it. It would not be quite so bad in other games, where it would take you a handful of weeks with limited quality content outside of the quests to level up. Ashes looks like it will be abundant in quality content and you might not fully unlock your character's abilities for quite a while.
So difficult to really gauge something like this with so little info, but the discussion is fun!
I think by forcing a main to stick to a primary class it could really make players rely on one another more.
I.e. A black smith main will probably be able to create better weapons than an Alt blacksmith due to all the class/society/progression gates.
Or looking for that awesome bard *ahem* you teamed with yesterday to party up again instead of just thinking you could just bring an alt get the same quality play.
Putting the massive back in mmos would also mean having things like Player dependencies be a thing again. If a player could master everything on one character, that takes away from the experience of an mmo in my opinion.
To me, it all depends on how the crafting and transferring items to other characters is handled.
If I focus everything in to a craft, but I find out later I need to change roles for whatever reason to craft a super special recipe – I’d rather take the new class than give the recipe to an alt.
If you think about the levelling process in terms of time – whether leveling the character, the profession, side-jobs, religion, etc – everything will take lots of time (in theory). As much as I like the idea of never-ever changing primary classes, I like the idea of swapping classes with a huge cost, as to not lose all the time you put in to everything else.
If you think in terms of roleplaying or whatnot, you will essentially have to “start over” at another class, so I don’t mind if you essentially de-level yourself in many ways to start a new class. So a huge quest would seem like the right way to go so you don’t lose everything in the process.
Then again, it would be pretty funny to see a master enchanter of cloth as a heavy-armor Tank… though I would prefer that wasn’t the case. I also generally believe that many crafting roles should be class-specific as well. Like, if “enchanting” is a profession, it should be restricted to only magic-based classes. Possibly even mage-only or bard-only.
Yet alts can still be highly enjoyable if you are creating a totally new personality and life path with a new primary class (or the same, for that matter) as a clean slate.
I totally see your view point on this and I agree, to a degree. It's partially a view of mine as well. It's why I'm kinda conflicted on liking or disliking the option.
I keep thinking back to my days in Ultima Online though...
It was great to be able to learn and unlearn/relearn different skills and change your stats to fine tune yourself to perfection. It took a LOT of effort, time, and money to do so, but it felt more immersive, rather than less. It felt like I was continually training myself to be better, as I learned more about the world, how it works, and what I wanted to achieve out there. I never thought of class changing as beneficial in any other game since, but I have a feeling that type of system would be right at home in such an evolving world as Ashes. Not the *exact* same system, but at least one you can mold to your liking over time and after learning more about the world.
Think of your combat primary class like your crafting class. You don't get locked into being a blacksmith forever in any game I've ever played, yet that takes just as long to properly master as it does to level your combat class and you may have grown to be known as THE blacksmith to visit.
Yet alts can still be highly enjoyable if you are creating a totally new personality and life path with a new primary class (or the same, for that matter) as a clean slate.
I totally see your view point on this and I agree, to a degree. It's partially a view of mine as well. It's why I'm kinda conflicted on liking or disliking the option.
I keep thinking back to my days in Ultima Online though...
It was great to be able to learn and unlearn/relearn different skills and change your stats to fine tune yourself to perfection. It took a LOT of effort, time, and money to do so, but it felt more immersive, rather than less. It felt like I was continually training myself to be better, as I learned more about the world, how it works, and what I wanted to achieve out there. I never thought of class changing as beneficial in any other game since, but I have a feeling that type of system would be right at home in such an evolving world as Ashes. Not the *exact* same system, but at least one you can mold to your liking over time and after learning more about the world.
Think of your combat primary class like your crafting class. You don't get locked into being a blacksmith forever in any game I've ever played, yet that takes just as long to properly master as it does to level your combat class and you may have grown to be known as THE blacksmith to visit.
Also...it seems the forums decided to post for me while I was away, repeating a post from way early in the AM. I would blank them out, but not sure if it would impact the original...