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.
Comments
I am not sure how this class will be yet, but I like the idea of using more my brain + fast reactions.
I want to create chaos on the field, I don't want to tank everyone or have a super hyper power. I just want to play with people and monsters and attack on the right time.
Illusions, traps, baits or anything that can confuse the enemy will be fun, also some kind of escape in case it fails but can't be all the time or will be too easy and I will attack every time the enemy open its guard. And I know I won't be the only one with this kind of power so... somehow a trickster need to be able to outsmart another trickster and let the best "bait chess" player wins.
Lineage-2 had bits of it in that it didn't forbid out-of-class or out-of-level gear, which was occasionally useful:
- tanks with a bow - to gain ranged attack while in the stationary Ultimade Defense mode.
- power-levelling chars with a weapon higher than their appropriate level (char loses speed, but has a much higher DPS output)
EVE online is a completely different genre (spaceships) - but much loved for being PURELY skill and equipment-based, (not having any concept of "class" or even "player lvl" per se), and giving players full freedom in how to equip and use their ship.
AoC will be the first game in the fantasy genre to have build flexibility of this level! :-)
Important distinction about EVE - it takes the burden of ensuring that a particular build makes sense off of the devs. Whereas in AoC - ALL of the 64 classes are expected to make sense, and have a purpose. But, I bet a few of them will end up as underdogs no matter how much tweaking and balancing takes place :-|
Personally look forward to playing the Predator class - as I like stealth gameplay, but also bows/crossbows.
My thought on tank basics
Mobility : Onslaught
Single target cc: Javelin
Defensive mitigation skill: Ultimate Defense
Aoe cc: Aoe Taunt (taunt in pvp, slow in pvp)
or
Aoe fear ( Incapacite, aoe debuff or something tasteful)
One aoe cc, and one alternative for single target cc other than Javelin. Maybe a Silence or Disarm? For a bit of complexity in decision paths.
If you have Onslaught and 3 different cc, you are always making the decision about in what time and space you should use what cc. The mastery of positioning and timing of cc is a tank player self-found fun.
It creates priorities, therefore become tactical and leads to interesting and dynamic decision paths, I think.
Knights
Tactical movement. More shockers than lockers, and more opportunistic. Distinctive mobility from other tanks.
Knights having shock cavalry type of gameplay and feeling more mobile and burst/skirmisher than Guardians and infantry based tanks.
Gap-closer with disrupt, or disrupt at arrival. Knightly and metal.
Guardians would be the anvil, and Knights the hammer.
Wishful thinking
Something fast, devastating and spectacular with physics and disruption over an area of effect.
Like an ultimate decisive unstoppable force.
Phisics make things more visceral but is a challenge to script. I know we are at Alpha stage, but one can dream.
I like to play rogues in MMO's and the thing I love the most about them is their ability to stay out of sight in the battle, but still remain relevant, going in and out of the battle with invisibility and cutting backliners with swift blows. For Ashes, I really hope to see rouge class have some kind of spells that can make backliners life miserable without killing them, something like stealing their mana or putting some kind of debuff on them that makes their abilities have a longer recharge time.
Also for Assasin specifically my thoughts are - this should be an ultimate stealth killer that jumps in and out of sight swiftly and kicks hard even on tanks, bypassing their armor and poisoning/slowing them to make them want to kill you more than anything else in the world (We all know - if they can't see you they cant catch you
A small disclaimer before we start: I'm not a game designer, but I love MMOs and games in general and though I have played them all my life this still doesn't make me an expert. I have no clue how to code for the life of me, so if these ideas seem wild and impossible then that's probably because they are.That being said I still feel like I want to add my thoughts in case it inspires further elaborations that may one day become applied in practice.
PvX
As Ashes of Creation is a PvX-experience, class design must be approached in a manner that serves all aspects of gameplay. This means there must be congruency between what you experience your class to be in all areas of gameplay. I always found it extremely jarring to play a devout Paladin who has sworn an Oath of Justice, only to sack an entire village of some perceived "lesser" species five minutes after, because that's the only way the game allows me to progress. With that in mind lets talk about:
Making player choice matter again
Its been extremely encouraging to see the "risk vs reward"-mantra from Steven and the devs. I hope this mantra will make it into the class design of Ashes. What if the Paladin had to keep his Oath to keep his buffs? What if he had to have an actual inspiring presence on the battlefield? What if the tank was an actual threat on the battlefield?
I'd like to see this philosophy make it into the abilities we see as well and especially so when it comes to buffs / debuffs. There is nothing more boring than pressing a button once and then you have a 15-20 minute timer and then you do it again for a static increase. I mean where is the creativity? There should be risk vs reward.
The reward is obvious. Its the buff. The stat increase - or whatever it offers. I'd personally like to see buffs that does something other than just increase base stats. Think outside the box - spell reflects, speed bonus, cooldown reduction, what have you. As long as you keep them short you can make them powerful. Even better is if you add:
RISK:
Risk can be many things, but most critical is that the player agency must be at the forefront. The risk must be calculable and should also correspond to the buff size. I.e. if it is a powerful buff it should take conciderable effort to either maintain or to be applied in the first place. And this can be applied to any class philosophy you wish, I'll give an example for each class in the trinity as well as a hybrid suggestion to finish off this post as it is becoming quite long already. I'll try to include all of the above philosophies into them.
Examples:
Tank:
Skill: [Taunt] - Effect; Gives the player status [Confidence] if not hit within 3 seconds. Confidence increase attack speed. Lasts 10 seconds.
After 10 seconds gain Ability: [Forced Attention] Effect: Forces the targeted player to target you and limits their abilities to TAB/Target abilities only for 5 seconds.
If hit within 3 seconds: Gains debuff [Over-confident]. Over-confident players is stunned upon impact for 0,5 seconds for 2 seconds. Unlocks ability: [Gotcha] Effect: If activated during a stun, knock down enemy targets and gain [Confidence].
Cleric:
Skill: [Sermon of Peace] Effect: Channeling: Sets status in an AoE around the caster. Any player within this radius will receive a status depending on their combat situation. If outside of Combat they get status [At Peace] which will passively increase health, stamina, and mana generation by a small amount while also decreasing the cooldown off all skills by a percentage based on their proximity to the Cleric. If in combat get status [Self-doubt] which will decrease attack speed and increase skill cooldown.
If the Cleric takes any physical damage every non-combatant receives status [Retribution] increasing their damage for 5 seconds. The channel is disrupted and is unable to be retriggered untill having been out of combat for 1 minute.
If the Cleric at any time aborts the channel to take offensive action or takes any offensive action within the cooldown period of [Sermon of Peace] they will receive a Debuff: [Hypocracy] which will increase the cost of all healing spells by 100% and and decrease healing effectiveness by 10% for each cast. Spell speed is also increased by 5% per cast stackable up to 10 times. Lasts 1 minute and 30 seconds.
Mage:
Skill [Incantation of Elements]: Replaces your skill bar with 4 evocations that must be evoked in correct succesion for the desired effect. Different combinations will yield different results. To learn what combination does what you must either experiment or learn through books found in the in-game world or by talking to other learned scholars of the magic arts. But beware, a wrong word in the wrong order could prove disasterous. And don't think you will ever know the true mysteries of these magic words as the magical Essence shifts around Verra so does the incantations required.
Once you have discovered an incantation it will show the current combination of evocations needed in order to succesfully achieve the desired outcome. The more powerful the incantation the more difficult of a sequence you will have to memorise (like a combo in a fighting game). If you fail you will receive an appropriate debuff.
Hybrids
I love hybrids, but I feel like they have always been the butt of a lot of jokes when it comes to MMOs quite simply due to their jack of all trades, master of none- nature. As such I'd like to present the alternative that the hybrids of this game should fall into exactly this kind of mentality when it comes to risk vs reward.
Make the Paladin have to live up to his Oath of Righteousness.
Make spending time in animal form have consequences for the other states and forms of the Druid. Spend a lot of time as a bear? Shouldn't that have consequences for the mental state of the transformee? It would be lovely to see the roleplaying aspects of mmoRPG come back into focus again.
This post has become long enough as it is so I'll leave it at that, thanks again for taking our feedback and I hope that this gives you something to think about when designing your classes !
My ideal class would be a time-mage! Or better named as a chronomage.
Someone who freezes foes and speeds up allies, a support type class that prioritizes buffs and heals by winding back time on the wounds. Maybe this is a bit vague, but i believe this is an awesome idea!
Like swinging is staff to reflect skills or some amount of damage when attacked
An tantrum ability that make switch position with an ally or enemy
An attack that swing really fast the staff near the floor and lift dust to your opponent eye doing blind for a few seconds
Other class that i love for example is bdo hashashin, an assassin that control sand
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/44046/dev-discussion-15-favorite-ideal-classes
Chloromancer - Rift
Bonedancer - DaoC
Champion - Lotro
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I spent around 10 years playing Lineage II & Spellsinger was always my main & most favorite class, I just love this class, if there is anything similar to AoC then that's what I'm gonna play, if I don't find a class I'm interested to play then this will be more than enough reason for me to skip the game altogether.
As a PyRai Predator Crafter, I look forward to bounty hunter progression and dungeon dives as a critical dps team member and PvP scouting & back-up. LogHorizon had a lot of great content.
I think your first class choice should have primary abilities that are unavailable to other classes and secondary abilities that when chosen as your second class choice (defining your class) have a limited number which can be used by the subclasses. Only pure classes (fighter-fighter) would have all subclass skills for that class. This augments skills class selection is something I'm interested in seeing as things proceed.
its too much, maybe it can be adjust by using colddown for each time they summon and merge). Something like "Shaman King anime". With katana/samurai looks cool.
An another summoner class that i like to use is something that can tame monster / make a contract with underworld creatures for using it in the battle. But instead having multiple minions, it only can use 1 type each time(either atk phy/mag or def phy/mag) and it will be hp base ( you need to kill it to make it disappear) and the summoner can resurrect or heal the minion. Something similar to perfect world venomancer. ( i hope with the good balance stats and skills it can become a good class).
SKILLS EXAMPLES:
Way of the Wind - atk. speed, dodge chance and movement buff (lose effectivenes while wearing heavy armor by 40%/ leather 15%)
Way of the Stone - damage resist buff+ proc on your attacks with small damage shield effect/ - movement speed penalty(cant wear heavy armor while this buff is active)
Way of the Water - regeneration buff + proc on your attacks with small healing effect (lose effectivenes while wearing heavy armor by 50%/ leather 25%)
Only one "way" can be active at the same time .
Singularity - you receive effects of all "Ways" buffs, but cant get chakra point while Singularity is active/consume 1 chakra point/1 sec.
Iron skin - greatly inscrease dodge, armor rating and resist chance : consume chakra point 1/s.(lose effectivenes while wearing heavy armor by 65%/ leather 30%).
Closed mind - greatly reduce duration of all negative effects(esp. mind effects)/consume 1 chakra point/2s
Phase Walk - shift to your opponent location and disarm him for 2 sec.(has additional effect depend on what "Way" is active. Reuse time inscrease by 30% while wearing heavy armor ).
Phase strike - series of 3 fast attacks: inflict magical damage and reduce enemy damage by 5% for 6 sec/generate 1 chakra point (bypass 10% of enemy resist while player not wearing heavy armor).
Ice Claw - inflict cold damage, inscrease reuse time of enemy's skills and reduce movement speed/generate 1 chakra point.
Inner fire - conical attack: inflict fire damage with DOT effect(while wearing only light armor/clothes + reduce enemy healing effectiveness and geterate 2 chakra points)
Wind strike - AOE: electro/air damage with stun effect/ consume 2 chakra point( effectiveness +30% against heavy armored enemy)
Empty pody - while player receive lethal wound - heal yourself for 15% of HP(25% if "Way of the Water is active) and reduce reuse time of skills by 10%/consume 5 chakra point
Double puncture - minor phys. damage +magic DOT+ bleeding effect/generate 3 chakra point.
Rotating Swipe - front-flip/charge attack with knockback effect/consume 1 chakra point(while "Way of the Stone" active player transform into armored ball and receave damage shield effect/ inscrease knockback effect by 1 sec).
Blind Counter - while active(6-8sec) player can see all hidden objects around and next enemy attack/spell from stealth will be reflected/consume 1 chakra point/2sec.
° First because you need one for every Dungeon/Raid also a tank. And in most games a healer is the only player that can revive others.
° if you have skills that heal/damage depending on target like in "war of the immortal" (old mmo) you can attack your target with your healskill so you can use them for party and solo farming and didn't waste a slot because in most games you only have to heal in a party [ for templar]
° if you can focus single partymembers with F1/F2/... or by clicking on there party icon ;
single target healskills if not use Aoe heals
°Hot - (Heal over Time) are cheap and powerfull skills in most games [for shaman]
° a funny skill would be a big Aoe whitch protect you party from dieing when they are for 30 sek or so even if they dropp to 0 HP [highpriest]
° a aktive skill for selv reviving with a long cooldown (10 min)and a long Durable time (30 min) you can give yourself (if you fighting aktiv) or someone from your party (tank - if you only support in backgrond)
° heal*dispell for poisen and skills like revive skill from enemys
° also a armor pricing skill is great (pvp/bosses)
° in allmost all games you can learn how to use your healskills right when you play several hours and do your first party activitys - why no sommon a NPC that fight for you and get 50% of your own life so you can support (like in astellia )
° Buff for increase maximum HP and life regenaration
° buff for increase incomming heal
° a aktive skill were you can freese yourself to advoid incomming dmg but also inable to use skills for a moment
° buff when target deals dmg - some of this heals himself
° skill for mana regeneration
AS a Tank
° grab all targets which are in front and close enougt -and pull them next to you
° a minimal Aoe stunn in front of you like a shield slash
° a buff to decrease incomming dmg (on yourself/healer/whole party)
° a charge skill so the tank is first at target to advoid bossfokus switching at beginning
° if you can tie up a trashmob at your shield so all invoming dmg also goes to this one would be funny (no bosses) [knight/nightshield]
° maybe summon a iron golem thats also taunt targets [Keeper/Guardian]
° an aktive block skill and a skill thats heals yourself or frends nearby by blocking [Paladin]
° buff for increase amor for everyone nearby [Argent]
° summon a barrier to stop/ interrupt enemys follow your healer as example [Keeper]
° skill for ignoring CC for a short time to advoit to be kicked away
my favorite class would probably be the combination of "Fighter" and "Magician" making it to "Spellsword".
I rly hope but also believe in you guys to make a great class out of it
What would I have in mind about this class and would like to share?
Ok lets start like this...
I personally enjoy classes that have the ability to fight with elements. In this case that could be flame, water, air, sand, lightning skills. Animations will make this class tbh. If you make it very good, they will look awesome (just remember maybe some elemental fire skills you see in BDO from striker or Musa to make an example). If we get a bit more creative - there could also be maybe light based / shadow based skills. But I dont want to make it too complicated - that just as a off topic idea that I would enjoy.
Back to the Spellsword: If you want to fight with elemental skills in an mmo your way to go is mostly the mage/magician/sorcerer however. In most cases you end up with an absolute immobile staff user who is barely moving and is punished with long cast times. Sorry but this is every time absolutely frustrating and makes this character so boring.
I have the hope that with the combination of fighter and Magician we will finally get a mobile, fast and exciting elemental arts fighter to play. Dont give this class a staff plz! One idea would be to make this class use elemental skills with his hands/arms (hand signs/Fist) and his body. If you remember the series Naruto or Avatar - The last airbender, you maybe get an idea of what I mean. I personally absolutely enjoyed those fights. The only class that I can remember that came close to a fighter like this was the Striker from BDO. But for me it was too clunky tbh at least in awakening mode.
Conclusion:
- mobile, fast, light-weighted, agile, exciting elemental arts fighter (not clunky!)
- could go into direction kung-fu (like the Striker from BDO for example)
- Weapon: None - make some cool hand signs or arm / body movements / breath (blow) fire maybe
- elements: fire, water + X
- give it some expression plz (I want to feel the fire in the characters fist if he uses a fire skill)
- good animations + skill sounds
Tbh I cannot rly give you good ideas for skill realisations at this moment. This would be too much orientated to BDO's Striker, Naruto and Avatar.
Thanks for the time you took to read this.
Greeting,
Khito.
Looking forward to the release of AoC
I envision a class with a high skill ceiling where good micro of my pet(s) and their abilities combined with my own abilities provide interesting utlity in terms of debuffs, kiting and pressure on my enemies.
I can envision both melee beastmasters with axes or ranged beastmaster with any ranged weapon really, and 1-2 tamed pets of my own choice. Perhaps theres a tradeoff in my spec whether I get one or more beasts or maybe its simply part of of levelling up. Other general thoughts include traps, poisons, varieties of training for my beasts, weapon specializations, overpowering bursts of pressure through cooldowns where both me and my beasts go for the throat.
Id really like it if my choice of what type of beast i tame has a very clear impact on my character.
Even if its easier to balance I dislike attack speed/stat/skill normalization for all tamed beasts in the game. Go with a deeper assymetrical balance and let players find their own favourites. That makes exploring the world and possible beasts to tame an exciting feature in itself. Different pets could have any number of defining features such as:
Applying stacking movement slows
Applying stscking attackspeed slows
Applying stacking cast speed slows
Very high damage mitigation
Chance to hit ministun
DoT bleed
Taunt (Reducing any dmg dealt by the target by X% on any sources other than the pet in PvP)
Roar that boosts allies around it
Becoming enraged and immune to all negative effects
Charge
Raw good dps through basic attacks
Stacking poisons and amplifying other poisons on the target (synergy with a Beastmaster who can apply poisons)
Lowering enemy armour
Etc etc
I also enjoy the RP element of caring for my beasts as long as its not intruding on the normal gameplay loop. Naming my beasts would also be appreciated.
Thanks for reading.
as i do love heal and support as you could greatly assist friends/allies on your travel
as if you are damage/tank you need to rush in to cc/kill the opposite.
first class that caugt my eye was the enchanter
as the first thing that comes to mind was shiro from Log Horizon
but i also had interest in conjurer purely for great summons and the idea of 10 summoners combine to make a big one if i heard right
thinking of enchanting like strength/ speed so if you buff a 2h warrior he can get a better push back in his swings and speed for a rouge so he can do better dodge/jumps..
wonder much to have 3 classes as one gather/prosses and a crafter and what kind of class was suited for the roles for me
the more thinking the worst my decision go as i love to heal but what if the summons do look cool so maybe a shaman or a paladin as they reminds me of wow but a keeper sounds cool if he is like some kind of roots to guards his allies.
two conjurers escorting a caravan playing chess while two big minions travel on each side of the caravan do sound awesome.
as i ramble all this i just got thinking if there is a tank class that can switch place to allies like a rouge stabbing one in cloth but as he is about to take the finish blow the dagger break on a full plated chest
I like it when I can decide when and how to fight. I hope the class has a high single target damage to deal serious damage to opponents. I know that you focus on grp balance instead of balancing individual classes. So I hope that I have a very difficult class with high skill and high damage potential. so that I can go alone through the world and possibly win 1vs1 duels for a kind of faster robbery.
It could specialize in providing mobility and evasion to mitigate damage taken by the party. like a defensive/utility/cc support.
Pushing enemies away with gusts of winds, or perhaps lifting them up in a tornado. Healing winds, Auras to increase movements passively or great bursts of speeds.
Maybe they could use horns to channel this type of magic.
Think this class would have a lot of fun RP potential as well.
Reminds me of Kvothe from kingkiller chronicles or Luthien singing to the plants.
Mechanically, my ideal class is typically built with the following aspects
- Plate armor
- Big weapons, specifically the Claymore and the Longbow, no shield
- Survivability
- Almost all physical damage
- Anti-magic
- Forestry navigation and lore (herbalism, hunting, etc) - not a class but rather more profession, but still it ties well for me
The idea is like a wandering knight, perhaps wandering in disgrace, whose equipment reflects either the range of his journey or his loyalty to home (so either made up of a conglomeration of armor and weapons from around the world, or only equipment from his homeland, whichever looks better). This is typically the type of character I try to play in most RPG's. Aragorn from LotR is the inspiration, but my character isn't nobility or chosen or anything like that. As a wanderer, he has no home, so my character would hopefully not be required to have a home to play effectively. I'd also hope he wouldn't be railroaded into a chosen one story arc.
On the MMO side of MMORPG, I'd really like to play a character who provides support, but not necessarily as a part of the holy trinity. I think anti-magic party buffs and interrupting or reducing the effectiveness of the targets magical ability would be a fun and interesting part of PvP and PvE. Or perhaps damage mitigation in the form of returning a percentage of the enemies attack damage back to the enemy (ex: retaliation).
I'd also like to be able to switch freely between range and melee, depending on what the situation might call for, so I never have to disengage from combat to complete a mechanic (think of the "run away" mechanics in WoW). Range would be lower risk as I can keep the enemy at range, and so lower reward (dps, support, etc.) perhaps, and melee would be closer and therefore higher risk and higher reward.
Personally, I shy away from role-playing games that don't let me play the way I want (although not always), and this is sort of the end result (so far) of the characters I like playing in MMORPG's.
Right off, I'd probably say Shaman (Cleric/Summoner) mostly because I love healing but I also like to be able to hold my own in a fight. I don't want to be a useless healer that anytime a rogue jumps on me I'm just dead. Instead, I'd like the class to allow me to summon creatures that could either heal my allies or even take the attention of my attackers away from me.
I thoroughly enjoy classes that take a lot of practice and require a lot of skill to be good with. Classes that most people don't play but the ones that do and are good with it, are a force to be reckoned with.
Would be a mobile burst that would need some set up. Pro: ability to mark your target with a dot, if you attack that person your finishers could spread the dot. Also able to blink away
Cons: no way to restealth and is significantly weaker if your target isn’t marked
The Dark Knight knows that everything is a source of power - his MP, his health, his enemies' and allies' MP and health, buffs, debuffs. He knows how to consume everything and repurpose it to his needs. (Inspirations: Dark Knights in Final Fantasy games, Dark Knight in FFXIV, Linden from Cradle fantasy books)
The best part about playing a Dark Knight is juggling their hp, mp, and buffs to dance on the edge of death while dragging his enemies souls into the underworld.
When confronted by a tank, the Dark Knight can consume his own HP to buff his attacks, then activate a lifesteal ability to shave away his enemy's massive pool of health. A mage attacks him, and he gives up half his own MP for a buff against elemental attacks, then moves in close and attacks with an MP steal ability. A rogue sneaks up behind him with a big dose of damage, and the Dark Knight consumes his current buffs to heal his own hp.
So the Dark Knight constantly consumes his enemies to sate, for a moment, his boundless hunger for power.
Also +1 for fluid combat and having tons of movement. The best MMO combat I've ever experienced was in Black Desert Online, where you can teleport, many attacks involve movement, kicking people up in the air, smashing them back to the ground, move-canceling, manage invulnerability-frames, and in which any move that forces you to stop in place is insanely powerful.
The class I am most interested in is the tank/rogue. I think most games get tank pretty right, take aggro, be tanky, and sometimes give minor buffs/debuff enemies. But I don't think rogues are usually done right.
Rogues are usually dagger wielding melee dps classes with invisibility and debuffs, like poison and bleed(which usually don't even do a lot of damage, it's just a debuff so other attacks deal more damage). However the rogues I'm interested in are from watching people play DnD. From my understanding, rogues are the swiss army knife of classes, with more utility than most other classes, like agility to evade traps, stealth to scout ahead, and having impactful debuffs, like blind, and a poison that actually does damage , which is what I like about them.
So I'm hoping a tank/rogue will be more about mobility, evading, and manipulation of the battlefield via traps, and smoke bombs, all while being an aggro pulling tank. not about just debuffing the enemy and standing still facetanking.
A super long range artillery caster with nice aoe damage . the play style would be like being on a catapult or cannon.
mage+bard= sorcerer
a support class with shields and heals over time but also has a few mega cannon spells kinda like the small
**** girl that has that single over powered attack
Nothing is more boring than an RPG in which all the classes feel the same - just with different visuals. Ideally, there should be differences based on class, faction and race. It helps a lot with figuring out where my character fits, what his role is, what he is supposed to do in the game, etc. It may be a bit complicated to get that kind of granularity, but in the end it will pay off. It helps if you can anchor the race / class combo in the game's lore, helping create a good sense of what the character is about.
The above goes hand in hand with the implementation of the classes and races. This covers everything from the abilities, their visuals and audio, animations, impact and so on. One thing that WoW did exceptionally well from the very beginning were race animations. They are so diverse and they all reflect the races very well, it's a joy to watch your dwarf priest simply run around. One thing that WoW did exceptionally badly was to strip away almost everything that made the classes unique, to the point you now have 3-4 basic categories, with virtually the only difference being the visual effects. In an RPG you must never sacrifice uniqueness and diversity for the sake of balance and esports.
It's not easy to properly figure out what each race and class are about and design the details around it, including the technical bits. But doing it right is essential to making each class feel right.