Class Changes

From what I can gather, it would seem as though the way to change subclasses is to go through a process of unknown time to be able to change to a different class. While the idea of the process seems good, one thing that may be beneficial in the long run is to make the change back quicker. For example, I'm playing a Tank/Mage for the benefits in pvp. I want to go raid now. I do a quest that is 3 hours to change to Tank/Tank then I can go raid optimally. I want to go back to pvp. I do a similar quest, back to Tank/Mage, another 3 hours and I'm pvping again. The only thing I may recommend is that once you have already done the sub-class quest once, changing between classes might not want to seem like a chore in order to play optimally. I'm not recommending at-will changes anywhere in the world but maybe just revisit the subclass quest-giver again to change back.

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daveywavey

Is it going to be a 3 hour quest to do, each time? I don't remember seeing that.

DatLamp

He said it will be "a long process". I just threw a "long" number on it.

daveywavey

DatLamp wrote: »

He said it will be "a long process". I just threw a "long" number on it.

Heh, ok. Probably best to wait and see what the actual implementation is before getting ahead of ourselves!

DatLamp

No matter how long the quest is, the main point is that after the quest has been done once it would feel bad to do it again.

Snyx

DatLamp wrote: »

No matter how long the quest is, the main point is that after the quest has been done once it would feel bad to do it again.

i don't think this is a good idea for the game. your secondary class should be a choice you give some consideration to, I like the idea that you can change it through a long/expensive process given you the chance to try other play styles but you shouldn't be able to have the secondary classes "saved" so you can change them by talking to an NPC only.. having to choose/swap your secondary class should be a lot more impactfull than changing your gear which is exactly like what this sounds..

mcstackerson

This kind of defeats the purpose.

The point of having it a long process is so it's hard to change so you are encouraged to stick with one class.

If you make the process a one-time thing then that changes it into an unlock mechanic that people have to do before they have access to all their class variations.

Sathrago

Im torn on this. On one hand ease of access after completing a questline already feels right, but making your secondary archetype choice harder to change gives it a weight and makes it more meaningful...

If there was a way to do both I would choose that instead. I don't think you should have to repeat a questline you have already done to get an archetype after the first time doing it. But how do we make the archetype choice meaningful if there is no extensive cost to changing it? putting a gold value doesn't do anything and a pure time-gate seems lame. Idk how to solve this issue.

Potential idea: What if instead of the same questline to unlock it, you get a lesser quest that you do to basically redeem yourself in that archetype trainer's eyes. So a cleric would have to go and heal/resurrect x amount of combatants and a ranger would have to hunt down x goblin poachers. Very rough idea but this should take at least half the time needed in the initial quest used to unlock the archetype.

Ravudha

DatLamp wrote: »

changing between classes might not want to seem like a chore in order to play optimally

The ability to change secondary class isn't really meant to facilitate people playing optimally like this; it sound like more of a 'hmm after some testing maybe I made the wrong choice and want to change' option.

It's an RPG after all, character shouldn't be able to change class just to do everything well. We should have to work with the strengths and weaknesses of the class we choose imho.

DatLamp

Ideally, I would be onboard with you 100%. But in a practical sense, there are going to be hardcore guilds/players where playing optimally will be required or you get kicked out/lose access to resources you may need to progress once you hit the endgame. I.E. requiring world buffs in WoW for one raid and needing to get them again every time. If you don't you get kicked. After getting world buffs multiple times, its just a chore. (For the record, not a WoW player but this is how it has been described to me by friends who are)

Since this is something that will be essentially required later on, this is just a potential fix. I do also like the

Sathrago wrote: »

Potential idea: What if instead of the same questline to unlock it, you get a lesser quest that you do to basically redeem yourself in that archetype trainer's eyes. So a cleric would have to go and heal/resurrect x amount of combatants and a ranger would have to hunt down x goblin poachers. Very rough idea but this should take at least half the time needed in the initial quest used to unlock the archetype.

Because you would need to do new(ish) content rather than the same quest over and over to change between.

Maezriel

DatLamp wrote: »

Ideally, I would be onboard with you 100%. But in a practical sense, there are going to be hardcore guilds/players where playing optimally will be required or you get kicked out/lose access to resources you may need to progress once you hit the endgame. I.E. requiring world buffs in WoW for one raid and needing to get them again every time. If you don't you get kicked. After getting world buffs multiple times, its just a chore. (For the record, not a WoW player but this is how it has been described to me by friends who are)

Since this is something that will be essentially required later on, this is just a potential fix.

So, in WoW I'd support what you're saying b/c WoW's raids and PvP was designed w/ the expectation that you'd frequently be swapping back and forth. Now we have Shadowlands that hard goes against that and it feels miserable in the context of that game.

However, Ashes isn't WoW and top guilds will know better than most that changing your secondary just isn't a viable option and there's no LFG so they'll need to get used to working w/ the people they have on hand. WoW's LFG is the primary reason you can get kicked from a guild/group if you're not playing a Meta spec b/c it makes it incredibly easy to replace you...and that won't be true in AoC.

To summarize, in a game built from the ground up w/ natural time gates on your class (takes a long time to level, long quest to change secondaries, gear is always in constant demand, etc) and w/ natural gates on min-maxing your party/raid due to no LFG and massive distances required to travel, we'll have to rely far more on mechanical skill than meta picks and guilds need to get used to that.

DatLamp

If I'm someone who raids a lot and want to try an arena or BG but my subclass is not optimal for pvp my only choice is to either do a long quest to fix it OR cripple myself against people who spec'd specifically for pvp. If I do the long quest then I have another time-gate to get back to raiding. This just feels bad and it seems as though it will create a huge rift between the pvp and pve communities. Where pve players wont want to pvp because they will get slapped by better spec'd pvpers and pvpers won't either be added to raids or want to raid due to inefficiency.

Warth

DatLamp wrote: »

If I'm someone who raids a lot and want to try an arena or BG but my subclass is not optimal for pvp my only choice is to either do a long quest to fix it OR cripple myself against people who spec'd specifically for pvp. If I do the long quest then I have another time-gate to get back to raiding. This just feels bad and it seems as though it will create a huge rift between the pvp and pve communities. Where pve players wont want to pvp because they will get slapped by better spec'd pvpers and pvpers won't either be added to raids or want to raid due to inefficiency.

A: if you just occasionally PvP, the you will be nowhere close to the rating where your specc actually matters in a Arena setting.

B: Instanced raiding and battlegrounds aren't really a thing. It's a PvX game. You want the ability to pvp in a purely pve setting or you most likely won't even get to kill the boss.

C: The class choice should matter for that exact reason. Not everybody should be able to do everything at every time at equivalent proficiency. This is not a themepark MMO. This never will be a themepark MMO. Stop trying to apply things that would make sense for games like WoW/FFXIV to Ashes. They are inherently different.

It's designed to be a meaningful choice. It's designed to be something you can't do on the fly. If a hardcore player feels like its necessary to waste 2-3 hours to deal the 2% additional DPS on the boss, then he should have to jump through the hoopes to do so.

DatLamp

Warth wrote: »

A: if you just occasionally PvP, the you will be nowhere close to the rating where your specc actually matters in a Arena setting.

And I will never be able to get to that rating ever if I have to jump through insane hoops to get there. Just due to practical constraints of how many hours there are in a day. Having an entire section of game gated behind doing the same boring content over and over again to just switch and switch back between the actual good content is just lame.

Warth wrote: »

B: Instanced raiding and battlegrounds aren't really a thing. It's a PvX game. You want the ability to pvp in a purely pve setting or you most likely won't even get to kill the boss.

What does this even mean? There will still be instanced raids and bgs are confirmed? Even if other players are there your worse pve spec should still be good enough to hold off against random people trying to gank you but it probably wouldn't hold as well in an arena setting.

Warth wrote: »

C: The class choice should matter for that exact reason. Not everybody should be able to do everything at every time at equivalent proficiency. This is not a themepark MMO. This never will be a themepark MMO. Stop trying to apply things that would make sense for games like WoW/FFXIV to Ashes. They are inherently different.

I completely agree. The class choice should matter. So don't even give an option to change your subclass. It should be a meaningful choice. But if there is going to be the ability to change then why just make it tedious and unnecessarily boring just to gate the actual content behind a time-sink?

Secondly, are games like WoW and Ashes inherently different? Steven even refers to the game as a "themebox" mmo which implies a 50/50 split while WoW seems more like a 75/25 split towards themepark. They both have systems that would overlap even if Ashes has different or better systems in some cases, needing to waste time on a quest you have already done to switch classes seems like a worse system than its counterpart in WoW.

Warth wrote: »

It's designed to be a meaningful choice. It's designed to be something you can't do on the fly. If a hardcore player feels like its necessary to waste 2-3 hours to deal the 2% additional DPS on the boss, then he should have to jump through the hoopes to do so.

Why should a hardcore player need to decide between wasting 3 hours or objectively being worse at the game? That's just taking agency away from the individual for no net benefit on game health.

TL;DR If you truly believe that it is a meaningful decision, then there shouldn't be a way to change it after making the decision OR you can only change it once. If you can change between them freely but you need to do a time-sink, there is no good reason reason to make it a huge time-sink after the initial one.

Bricktop

DatLamp wrote: »

And I will never be able to get to that rating ever if I have to jump through insane hoops to get there. Just due to practical constraints of how many hours there are in a day. Having an entire section of game gated behind doing the same boring content over and over again to just switch and switch back between the actual good content is just lame.

Arenas, BGs, Guild Wars, Sieges, caravans ganks, and pretty much every form of PvP goes towards a PvP rating that is calculated at the end of six months. These rewards include achievements, titles, cosmetics and gear enhancements. No gear. You will be working on your PvP rating every single day almost just by going out and playing the game because you will be PvPing often.

DatLamp wrote: »

What does this even mean? There will still be instanced raids and bgs are confirmed? Even if other players are there your worse pve spec should still be good enough to hold off against random people trying to gank you but it probably wouldn't hold as well in an arena setting.

@Warth is right. This is a PvX open world game and instances aren't going to play a large role in this game at all. There will be very little or probably none at all of instanced raids that drop gear. Arenas wont give gear, neither will BGs. Any gear will be crafted or dropped in the open world. Players will have to fight over world bosses. "Raiding" guilds like from WoW will have an incredibly hard time with this game being a raiding only guild. There will be barely any instancing, and the instancing there is will be related to lore/story quests most likely.

DatLamp wrote: »

Secondly, are games like WoW and Ashes inherently different?

Like you wouldn't believe.

DatLamp

Bricktop wrote: »

Arenas, BGs, Guild Wars, Sieges, caravans ganks, and pretty much every form of PvP goes towards a PvP rating that is calculated at the end of six months. These rewards include achievements, titles, cosmetics and gear enhancements. No gear. You will be working on your PvP rating every single day almost just by going out and playing the game because you will be PvPing often.

This doesn't address the idea that there will be some subclasses that are more optimal for pvp than others. If you wish to participate in a node siege one day, you must do a time sink to switch then a time sink to switch back; or just play sub-optimally. Why is that a necessary choice?

Bricktop wrote: »

@Warth is right. This is a PvX open world game and instances aren't going to play a large role in this game at all. There will be very little or probably none at all of instanced raids that drop gear.

Steven said 80% of a dungeon will be open world the other 20% instanced unless I misunderstood what he meant, why would the boss not be the 20% that is instanced? Even if I am mistaken and there are 0 instanced loot fights its unrealistic to believe that every time a guild gets on to do a raid that the will get counter raided by pvpers. The map scale and player-count ensure a certain level of safety in that regard.

Bricktop wrote: »

"Raiding" guilds like from WoW will have an incredibly hard time with this game being a raiding only guild.

Press "X" to doubt.

Bricktop wrote: »

Like you wouldn't believe.

I don't think you know what inherently means. They are both mmorpgs with open world pvp. They both have raids, arenas, bgs, crafting, grinding, everything that entails in a mmo. Ashes is more open world with more player influence when it comes to the world itself. The main difference is in their systems. Ashes puts more reliance on different systems than WoW and for the most part improves on the systems that it shares. However, this is a system that it shares with WoW that it makes worse. If you want the choice to be meaningful then make it unchangeable. If it can be changed don't make it annoying to do so. WoW does this better in this regard by making it relatively easier to change specs for different content. Its being changed for Shadowlands and people hate it because its an arbitrary time sink that doesn't add anything to the game. Its literally wait x time to get a change. Why? MeAnInGfUl ChOiCeS?!?! A time sink for changing specs for the actual content is NOT content.

Warth

@Bricktop here we go again

What do you think about the following idea:

What if one (or 2 ) of the perks, that guilds could unlock was the perk, that their guild members need 25% (or 50%) less effort to change their Subclass.
Guilds that go for mass instead wouldn't be able to get this perk.

Small PvX guilds with rosters of 30-80 members are more likely to need respeccing compared to a guild of 300 members, that have a pvp and pve subsection of players. So it would make sense from that point of view.

This wouls be a valuable perk for players in small guilds without directly impacting the balance within the fight.

Warth

@DatLamp

Intrepid wrote:

Instancing is only going to happen in certain dungeons where the desire is to have greater narrative appeal. Outside of these and arenas there will not be too much instancing anywhere else

They plan the instanced dungeons and raids to be primariely for undisturbed Lore/Story delivery.

datLamp wrote:

I don't think you know what inherently means. They are both mmorpgs with open world pvp. They both have raids, arenas, bgs, crafting, grinding, everything that entails in a mmo. Ashes is more open world with more player influence when it comes to the world itself. The main difference is in their systems. Ashes puts more reliance on different systems than WoW and for the most part improves on the systems that it shares. However, this is a system that it shares with WoW that it makes worse. If you want the choice to be meaningful then make it unchangeable. If it can be changed don't make it annoying to do so. WoW does this better in this regard by making it relatively easier to change specs for different content. Its being changed for Shadowlands and people hate it because its an arbitrary time sink that doesn't add anything to the game. Its literally wait x time to get a change. Why? MeAnInGfUl ChOiCeS?!?! A time sink for changing specs for the actual content is NOT content.

you seem to have a very basic understanding of what Ashes is gling to be. Inherently different is correct way of describing it. Ashes is closer to Eve in a fantasy setting rather than WoW
Crafting, Open World PvP, the economy and depth of the class design are a poor joke in WoW.

BGs and Raids are inherently different as neither of them is primarily instanced

Bricktop

DatLamp wrote: »

Bricktop wrote: »

@Warth is right. This is a PvX open world game and instances aren't going to play a large role in this game at all. There will be very little or probably none at all of instanced raids that drop gear.

Steven said 80% of a dungeon will be open world the other 20% instanced unless I misunderstood what he meant, why would the boss not be the 20% that is instanced? Even if I am mistaken and there are 0 instanced loot fights its unrealistic to believe that every time a guild gets on to do a raid that the will get counter raided by pvpers. The map scale and player-count ensure a certain level of safety in that regard.

Bricktop wrote: »

"Raiding" guilds like from WoW will have an incredibly hard time with this game being a raiding only guild.

Press "X" to doubt.

Yeah so I could see instancing possibly playing out in room lockout mechanics or something like that as far as bosses are concerned. A situation where you would activate a crystal or something of the sorts, have 20 minutes of defending the crystal from other guilds while it activates, then you are able to port inside the boss room, anybody is able to follow you inside for 5-10 minutes and PvP you to challenge the boss. Then after all of that the room would be locked out and the winners could fight the boss. A huge majority of the bosses in this game will be open world however.

I highly highly doubt there will be any instanced WoW styled raids where you can safely stay inside and get gear without being threatened by other players. This would go against the entire vision of the game just like ARENA/BG gear would. You will probably have to do a lot of PvP in this game to be successful unless your guild is diplomatically savvy. PvPing other guilds for control of world bosses, other players/guilds to move caravans around to craft gear, at dungeons to defend your grind spot, etc.

There is a possibility your guild would be "Counter raided by PvPers" at mostly everything you will be doing and this is working as intended, Pure PvErs/raiders will have a hard time in Ashes which is why I said that whether you doubt it or not I can assure you that you can take it to the bank.

DatLamp

That would be "better" but still not "good". That still takes agency out of the hand of individuals. I rather like the previous recommendation of

Sathrago wrote: »

Potential idea: What if instead of the same questline to unlock it, you get a lesser quest that you do to basically redeem yourself in that archetype trainer's eyes. So a cleric would have to go and heal/resurrect x amount of combatants and a ranger would have to hunt down x goblin poachers. Very rough idea but this should take at least half the time needed in the initial quest used to unlock the archetype.

If you truly want it to be a meaningful choice then don't allow for it to be changed. If it can be changed don't make the change be annoying to perform. Why is this a hot take?

Warth

DatLamp wrote: »

That would be "better" but still not "good". That still takes agency out of the hand of individuals. I rather like the previous recommendation of

Sathrago wrote: »

Potential idea: What if instead of the same questline to unlock it, you get a lesser quest that you do to basically redeem yourself in that archetype trainer's eyes. So a cleric would have to go and heal/resurrect x amount of combatants and a ranger would have to hunt down x goblin poachers. Very rough idea but this should take at least half the time needed in the initial quest used to unlock the archetype.

If you truly want it to be a meaningful choice then don't allow for it to be changed. If it can be changed don't make the change be annoying to perform. Why is this a hot take?

I'd be all for limiting the swap to once every month or every 2 weeks. Same to citizenship

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