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Class Talent Trees/Specs
Khronus
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
One of the things that forces me to leave a game is the simplistic cookie cutter specs. As a main tank I realize that I will not have many options in terms of being a top tier tank. There will be a meta for pve/pve and then probably others will be for fun. This will likely change when balance patches happen and that is great.
My hope is that Intrepid Studio will find the balance between the cookie cutter specs that WOW eventually offered and Path of Exiles extremely in depth and high learning curve. I LOVE what POE has done with their talent trees but I can't stand the game play haha. What are your thoughts on what would work best for AOC to create a fun/unique style of spec choices?
My hope is that Intrepid Studio will find the balance between the cookie cutter specs that WOW eventually offered and Path of Exiles extremely in depth and high learning curve. I LOVE what POE has done with their talent trees but I can't stand the game play haha. What are your thoughts on what would work best for AOC to create a fun/unique style of spec choices?
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https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Augments
The POE tree is incredibly deep, and I’m a fan of the spectrum from ‘pure’ to ‘hybrid’ builds it allows. Also gives the PoE community a constant conversation about the most optimal builds.
1. Weaponskills. Shieldblock? Weaponskill most likely. Inflict bleed with a sword or rend armor with an axe? Weaponskill. Everyone has the same weapontree i think.
2. Classskills. You can invest points into classskills to make them do more stuff. Tier one Benediction for Clerics could only heal 3 people, Tier 2 could maybe heal 5 and Tier 3 could leave a HoT.
3. Passives. Passive damage mitigation for wearing plate. Damage increase for melee. Movementspeed etc.
In addition to that, Intrepid is extremely anti DPS meter. As much as I disagree with this position. A benefit of it is that it may take longer for a meta to emerge, and that meta may have weaker adoption by the community. This would be good for anyone like yourself who is looking to experiment around.
I always say that the best two games for building characters are Dungeons and Dragons Online and Path of Exile. I don't expect AoC to be as complex as those games, but I would like to see AoC lean more in their directions.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
Also we need to wait to see what secondary archetypes and augments are gonna be like, I am super hyped to see what Intrepid has in mind for that.
It does sound boring but I will do what needs to be done for my guild to complete content. If I am graced with the opportunity to be able to heavily CC enemies on the battlefield, I will be extremely happy. If I am able to compete in DPS.....I think it would be kind of dumb and i don't expect this.
AoC is more classless than you think. I have stated before that Class names in AoC are pointless nomenclature. You are not going to be gear locked to any specific gear basses on class. Choosing a class is going to be more like choosing a starting path in PoE. I don't expect AoC to be as complex as PoE, but I do expect a step up in customization from other MMOs. With this system you are basically picking two parts of the PoE tree by level 25. Sure the paths don't link. A step down in customization from PoE/DDO, but a few steps up from FFXIV/WOW.
If you want a better feel for classes being pointless nomenclature. Look at the 220 classes in ArcheAge.
https://archeage.gamepedia.com/Classes
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
Different classes for specific roles makes things more "risk/reward" when specializing and makes players of niche classes to feel more attached to their character, IMO, and makes things more social.
I hope so. I am a big table top D&D guy myself. One thing I hated about 4th edition is that It really tried to force class identity on to you. Coming from where I started in 3E where you could cross-class and prestige class to create a truly unique character, 4E was an outright slap in the face. Sure you could still mix and match in 4E, but it was not the same.
In regards to AoC, and the potential less strict fantasy/identity. I would say it is much more freeing to not be super concerned with what Intrepid is telling you that your character is. You decide that you are a wizard when you wear all cloth caster gear and choose all caster abilitys/augments. The system AoC has set up makes a lot of sense, but people look at the 64 classes and say yikes that's too much! They are not thinking about the possibility's to freely mix things up to make a unique character. The reason I keep saying it is pointless nomenclature is because even in D&D, what I would consider the grandfather of all RPGs, classes have been pointless nomenclature for a long time.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
A class/build should be a set of skills.
The identity of the character should be up to the person that plays it, not based on the class they pick.
The reason why I'm worried about that "freedom of builds" is that everyone would be checking the meta cookie cutter FoTM builds, reducing the entire player base to a few identical characters.
Edit: @Vhaeyne Agree on the freedom on D&D, but there people don't have to deal with meta OP specs destroying them in open world. An action game like PoE is also not a good comparison IMO.
What I find to be a little disappointing is that in advocating for "Strong Class Identity", you are advocating for a set meta. To go back to D&D as an example. If you have a DM who puts down the table rules "No cross classing" and "PHB classes/races only". The DM has created a game with strong class identity, but the DM has also created a fixed meta. A Barbarian can never take Sorcerer or Warlock levels to become some sort of Shaman of sorts. With the fixed meta a Barbarian has a few ability's that are unique to it, but we lose out on all of the possibility's that could be.
I also think that PoE is a perfectly valid comparison. It is not apples to apples, but there are many similarities. The customization in PoE is something I feel that every type of RPG should strive for.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
The way I like it to be is not being able to do everything (or almost) by yourself. Having to rely on other specialized people to cooperate with. Characters having flaws and strenghts.
Don't get me wrong, I like your idea, but I'm afraid of people being forced to min/max to a set, generic path.
Everyone who follows the game, including myself, knows the 'class' names are pointless. But this is nothing like PoE, again the key difference here is being locked into your skills with your secondary archetype only providing augments. If you played PoE locked into a skill, you are locked into what scales that skill. If you are locked into physical skill gems for example, you would never touch the part of the tree revolving around spell damage, spell crit, cast speed, etc. The breadth of PoE's tree is only possible when you have access to all options with all characters. In AoC you do not, you are locked into your primary archetype and only get augments. Plus we already see talent trees in early builds of the game (there is a picture on the wiki if you want to check it out and Damokles describes it above).
What happened you ask? Well, let me tell you a story:
The developers made a game "without" any of the three clearly defined roles of tank, healer and dps.
And it was chaos. People died in dungeons left, right and center. Combat was fun. Roles like a melee tank healer came to light and people fought for those few water elementalists that graced us with their presence.
It. Was. Beautifull.
But then the developers attacked and patched the game, which brought hideous creatures to the light, unearthed from the deepest depths of "What-The-F*ck" land.
Mesmer tanks, Necromancer healers, Warrior buff slaves and rogue "4 attack" combatrotation monsters.
(No kidding, one of the best rogue dps builds is: equip a staff, open with cooldowns, charge in, then spam autoattack until charge buff goes down, then charge again)
Warriors and guardians (those that normally wear plate, have one of the smallest standard health pools of all classes. Necromancers can give shields that are as big as your normal hp bar and can mass battle ress.
Mesmer tanks can nearly block/reflect/mitigate all attacks if they are good.
Having a strict meta does not magically create class identity or vise versa. I think we just disagree here. I think what you want is a reliable meta with rich established lore built around it to strengthen the class fantasy and meaning behind what characters are and can do. I personally just don't want anything to do with that anymore.
I agree 100% about not being able to do everything yourself. More accurately, not being able to do everything "well" by yourself.
As for the min/maxing... We are going to have that 100% no matter who gets their way on this topic. This is going to be a time investment of a game. That means people are going to spreadsheet and theory craft it into the ground.
I thought I said as much in an above post. AoC is not exactly like PoE, no game is... maybe D4 willl try? XD
To clarify what I meant was that in AoC you will have a level of customization closer to PoE than something like FFXIV. I bring up these two games because that are both the opposing extremes of customization spectrum. I would use DDO instead of PoE, but I don't expect anyone has played it. I am not literally saying AoC will have a skill tree like PoE.
I will always advocate for more customization over less.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
Hopefully having our favorite/fun/astatically-pleasing Secondary Archetype doesn't make us pariahs in group dynamics.
Steven Sharif is my James Halliday (Anorak)
“That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.”
-HPL
It is refreshing that as a community we get to have faith in this company. Too many games are coming out that immediately make me think "yeah that's going to be garbage because XXXXX company" and sure enough, it comes out and fails. Intrepid has the opportunity not ust to create this amazing game but also to do what is right for their fans and HOPEFULLY create new IP's from the content they successfully deliver here.
I just want to see all the classes in action.
I can see your concern with Pure builds. I just feel like pure builds would be very niche in the sense. What happens when you roll into a dungeon that has heavily physical resistant NPCs and all your dps are physical dps. I'd like to think the dungeon will still be completed just at a slower pace than if everyone was rocking elemental augmented abilities. Really, all the concerns with cookie cutter builds is entirely dependant on how you gear and augment your character. I think there's too many factors to try to create cookie cutter builds because no one truly knows what "cookie cutter" looks like. Many many months down the road after release, we'll see.