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
Yeah, because dual wield was there after they yeeted 2h enhancement. I think they just couldn't be bothered to add it baseline till rework
I think this is why MMO class implementation requires a strong creative director that knows when to solicit feedback, when to listen to that feedback, and when to ignore feedback.
Yeah, Ion really got a fluke with legion. But blizzard has been full of shit for too long and now it's time for us to shit on them xD
But where they just point out what is it, and why it is bad, here, now, i point you why it did happen. It did happen because people wanted to be all class strong DPS or healer (or tank also) having all same big numbers. ... Having the game the more balance possible... BUT the more your classes are different, with specific identity, the more the balance is hard to reach. So to do it, you have... to reduce differences.
Then come about "not being in party because you are useless" ... Where did i tell class would be useless ? i said bad at DPS and bad at healing (and also not a tank). There are a third use of classes : support (buff/debuff) Like were red mage or bard in FFXIV, but also some of those class you consider "were useless" on wow (see it later).
Lets set a simple situation : a party of 1 tank, 2 heal, 5 DPS (8 man, so a full party in AOC) ignore damages from tank or autoattack from healers. so you have 100% damages. now, put a bard, consider its damages to 0% and so your damages at first seems to fall to 80% right ? ... But overall because the bard is a support, buffing friends, and debuffing ennemies, it will improve the party DPS by about 35%...
What is the best situation ? the one with the "no heal, no DPS" or the one with the 5 DPS ?
About buff not from healers (or rarely healers) on wow classic :
Druids :
+3% magical crit mage and warlock loved (up to 5% in BC)
+3% physical crit from bear/cat (up to 5% in BC)
Also good feral druids it was more innervate for healers. (really usefull) and some small offtanking anytime.
About paladin : needing 4 blessing for some class (king, power, mana and less hate), you needed at least 4 paladin. while in vanilla, the palatank was not good, having 4 palaheal wouldn't the best idea (except going mass heal ... only some fight needed it) so this was a first reason having paladin DPS, also, one of them taking talent too boost the power blessing allow healers to take other 5 point. Also each paladin give one aura to its party. so it helps also there (mainly in defensiv way because most aura is buffing armor or elemental resist... elemental resist from aura allowed to have less from stuff, so... more DPS for all the team)
Shaman :
totems... enhance got better totems than healer and rogue, or any physical melee DPS could love the totems.
Again like paladin's aura, the totem were limited to your group and not raid.
Shadowpriest in vanilla were the poor children and so priest were healer or... fuckoff.
For most all i said is even more true in BC, with the druids aura improving, also sham elemental being more helpfull and priest ... some guild did have hard time finding one priest to their raid but shadow priest were lovedby their 4 healers team... Far better than any sham, even with manatide. (Also, it was one reason shadowlock were 2nd top DPS in BC with shadow damages debuff on boss ^^')
To balance this, you have 2 solution : reduce support and up damages. (first uniformisation step). Or up support reduce damages. This second one makes the class harder to do its shit in open world alone. on FFXIV some class you just couldn't play alone. (Second step of uniformisation : an even share of utility skills between all class... which is pointed out by youtuber. but when all class have same damages, those with the better utilities are the best
And back in vanilla, we rarely said "no" to enhance sham, or oomkin. (was horde)
Also, it was clear their buff should have been
And about your last words : people hoped doing big DPS with enhance sham ? The problem was not the game not allowing them to do big DPS like they hoped. But considering this would do big DPS.
In WoW vanilla, it was clear : if you wanted big DPS, you had to go to mage, hunter, rogue, warlock. The simple fact those class were only able to be DPS while other were not focused on it, was a sign anyone back in 2004 that was clear. The problem was more about paladin/druid tank which did really sucked in vanilla... Even more for paladin who had the "protection spec" same name than the warrior one.
"But no one wanted to play them, prove they suck" . . .
There is a difference about what people dislike and what sucks. Lot of mmorpg players want to do big numbers. Majority of people. And they really, totally don't care anything about helping others doing big numbers. I played aion a lot before the 3.0, i played chanter. it had a build efficient for PvP, with a decent DPS (smaller than the 4 pure DPS class but remains good) and a build support, with low DPS, but with really really strong buff. Some chanter complained a huge difficulty to have party to some content. I never had this kind of problem... Because i was the "low DPS chanter". The support build was a small DPS, but could help healer during hard fight (or even help him to correct some mistake avoiding a wipe) and other DPS got many more damages with a good support chanter in their party.
I discovered playing a support with chanter support build. it was clearly not with it i could fight in 1v1 in PvP. But i really didn't care, i just had to not play alone, join people, a guild, making friends, etc. And they really were happy to have me to whisp to do content.
I totally understand people who likes to do big numbers, i played warlock in naxx, and BC... i know the feel to be top DPS with the build firelock. I played BLM, Ninja andDragoon in FFXIV a lot. In GW2 i played a lot the build with the biggest burst of the game (chronopower)... But i changed with the recent support build, cutting around 30% of DPS i did before... but filling the role i like ! I also played healer and tank. liked it, but i know what i prefer to play.
You consider a majority to be "the reality". or "the truth". but it is just the majority. And even more, you speak about wow, were most people discovered mmorpg, And so much people playing wow never really tried other MMORPG, lack of time, or simply don't care discovering other. They were all in this mentality to "have big numbers" and "did you see my big numbers ?"
But some people, a minority, also don't care about big numbers, but loves being support. don't care about being first in the combat tracker, but happy to know that 25% of damages of each other team members comes from the buff/debuff you did during fights.
And people should quit the game if they don't have fun like your topic says. Big numbers is the source of fun for only some people.
Ion is a really good raid designer. But it is all he knows to do. And now in wow lead, he design wow like he designed raid boss fights. With pure combo "new mechanic + mathematic" => New farm for new system + amount of farm and when to nerf it.
And for class, they are meant around "how can they have their specific gameplay, while having big DPS in boss fights" never he thinks outside of boss fights
MMORPG are the most complex games. and need a team able to design really, totally, different things. each needing their own way to be build. . . And the dev director have to be sure all puzzle pieces are able to fit with all other. . . Ion knows only 1 kind of puzzle piece.
In terms of simplicity are you referring to classes and raids? I only started playing WoW in cata, but from what I have seen early WoW classes and raids were extremely simple compared to modern WoW. Not arguing whether one is more fun or not though.
I think one thing modern WoW's class design does well is the idea of a priority list instead of a rotation. Rotations can be memorized, while priority lists encourage skill expression and spec mastery.
Not sure if I am interpreting what you said correctly tho, so let me know and I can change it!
(I've raided on Mistweaver Monk in Cutting Edge/Mythic prog for a while, so I know all about being out of meta haha).
You're right with classes being harder to balance the more they're unique.
The problem I find is that developers, especially with time, start to not see the forest because of the trees and instead of trying to make the classes fun (making sure the gameplay is fun and everyone can do fun stuff that makes them satisfied) they try to make the numbers right.
I hope the AoC devs wont fall for this trap.
As I said, the best solution is for everyone to be good at the path he chose.
Don't allow people to choose a dps path for a hybrid and then have then find out the dps path they chose was a lie (it doesn't work in practice, despite being designed and implemented as part of the game)
Don't allow people to choose a buffing path for a hybrid and then have them find out the buffing path they chose was a lie (it doesn't work in practice, despite being designed and implemented as part of the game).
Yet in practice it was just very rare.
Maybe 1-2 feral tanks but thats the most you would see in raiding guilds main raids unless someone was someone's friend.
I raided as paladin for most of classic.
Yeah 4 pala heal was the best idea if you really wanted all 4 buffs which wasn't mandatory at all.
The ret sadly didn't do any damage (I mean, it was just humiliating for the ret to look at his dps, even if nobody said anything and they took you raiding because they liked you as a person) and it didn't do any healing.
Might as well have a paladin who would do something if you want all 4 blessings (which aren't mandatory to begin with).
Didn't raid as Horde ever so I won't comment but I know from friends who did play/youtube that it was rare. Maybe you're right, maybe it wasn't that rare, I don't really know.
Wait, wasn't shadow priest one of the rare cases where a hybrid worked in raids... if there were enough warlocks?
As I said, allow the hybrid to choose his own path.
If he is a paladin in wow for example.
Let him do good dps if he choose ret, the rest of his performance can come from heals (healer aspect) and shields (tank aspect). If the performance overall is balanced, all's good. The hybrid is still a hybrid, he works well, the player enjoys it.
Similarly, let him do good healing if he chose holy, the rest of his performance can come from his judgements (offensive aspect) and shields (tank aspect.
Same with prot.
I don't know how people back then perceived it (I only played classic, sorry for not making it clear, and watched quite a few of vids about vanilla).
But personally I didn't find it clear at all.
Hybrid classes had dps paths and/or tank paths and I found it very unfair that those paths existed but they just didn't work in practice for anyone in any way.
paladin and druid dps specs also sucked similarly
I agree but I think its a strong indicator.
Good, so you were doing well with the path you chose.
Now imagine you wanted to play support, chose this path in game, and it turned out not to work.
Pertty sure they care about having ''good numbers'' when it comes to support and/or having actually relevant buffs.
I mean, people will have fun in many ways.
If they lose world pvp non-stop or wipe their group in instances because their class just isn't capable of any performance in the path they chose (they chose healer = their class just doesn't heal much / they chose tanks = their class doesn't really survive for that long, etc) they're not going to have fun, don't you think?
If players chose bad, they are bad.
There is 2 way to chose a class in MMORPG : the role, the place in the party. Or the aesthetic.
If you chose about the aesthetic (like you could do with "templar") you just have to play it, enjoy it, and find were your place is. When i picked mage in EQ, then warlock in WoW, i was there. didnt care if big damages, didnt care if i finally took the top healer while being illogic. i would do my job if i really liked the aesthetic and the gameplay. This is also how most people chose their class in GW2 because of its system
If you chose about the role (doing big DPS for example) you try to get information before. It was there i did pick priest in BC, or the chanter as second character in Aion. I also began warrior on FFXIV because i wanted to tank and before playing it (because didnt play v1) i already knew how warrior work.
If you take an aesthetic and want it to fill a role that the game doesnt allow it to fill, you will have bad result, frustration. Even if you have a fun gameplay. But the problem is not the game not allowing you to do what you want, but you who did a bad choice
I never expected a class to be what i wanted it to be. If the mage uses its magic and the rogue like to hide. i am ok. When people, without trying to get information about classes in the game, picks "bard" hoping to deal monstrous sound damage to their ennemy, they take a risk... risk that the bard is low damage but big support. Also people taking bard for support get more chance to be happy, but there is risk that, on the game they jump in, the bard is a top damage dealer. If you don't get information you get deceived
Now about people choices, and wow evolution, because you focus on it.
back in 2004, MMORPG was a niche. with a niche community. people coming a lot from Everquest, some from DAOC. also, many knew RPG, played baldur's gate, played neverwinter night, or even pen&paper. In D&D (baldur's gate, neverwinter night) shaman, paladin, druid, priest were totally not the best DPS. paladin was more a tank + support. priest tank+heal, druid was heal with some support and offensiv spell, so does for shaman. (then there is all prestige class and all this become far more complicated ^^') And on other mmorpgs, we knew that because a class does either heal and dps, it didnt do the DPS of a bowman doing only damages.
then came many people with their hope but without this knowledge. In vanilla was not so a problem. it became mainly in BC when combat tracker became more popular and all people saw how bad/good their DPS were.
Another game didnt have this problem while same period (2005 in western) : FFXI... it remains in "niche" category. only people knowing mmorpg or FF franchise fan came. and Both knew that a bard = bad heal, bad DPS, but usefull in a team in another way.
On mmorpg there is the big problem about "balance". it was far better in BC than in vanilla, but the support were not "support enough" (even if... we loved elemental sham + oomkin druid with 3 warlock/mage
WoW devs had 2 choices :
1) following what this mass wanted. So here comes all same DPS, all same bonuses well shared between all. This and casualisation made wow this massively game, being top1 untill recently. Both became with WOTLK
2) staying proud and sure of their choice, making support part even stronger. And on the same time, being more pedagogic. learning people what each class, each spec is tthink for.
Many people complained because they were not doing enough damages mostly because they didnt understand they were support and considered to be useless. Even in top world guild, all were present. Top guild in big servers had all. Shadowpriest were worst DPS (even worse than retadin), rare to find, and precious jewels. If you learn those people what in reality they have to do, they will stop watching the bad indicators, and begin consider them (or their friend) to be finally a good addition to the raid.
Then would remain those "i don't care about how much other does more DPS because of me, i speak about my personnal DPS" ... But those are pieces of shits i only disdain. They reroll and shut their mouth. This is the one picking aesthetic hoping a specific result.
If they don't have fun ? it is not my matter, not devs matter. it is their own personnal matter.
About losing world pvp non-stop : as said it was my life as support chanter. i did have an easy counter ! A guild, some friends, and being social to unknown people. I was weak alone, because my strength was to make other people far strongher than they were, so i worked on not being alone.
If you don't want to play alone ? support class are not for you, don't play it. simply.
I know you aim to play templar, and you fear templar to be weak. . . find your role and if the templar is weak in its role, ask devs to improve it in its role, not the role you hope to play.
If you want a specific role ? Maybe don't focus too much on templar if it doesn't do this work, think about any other 7 classes fighter allow. After all, even if not a one-click system, the second archetype is not a chose you do for the life of the character, you can change it.
Ill go conjurer or necromancer (at least if game releases tomorrow) maybe their place won't be what i hope, and while we play more, i discover broodwarden to fit more what i want to play ... I will leave my skeletton... Or adapt to the role my undead minion want me to do
My point is that people are dumb if they quit or don't play because a class is underpowered.
Another point I'd raise is that people are babies if they have one class that absolutely has to be good or done "right" for them to play. No class will ever be perfect for everyone. One person may want Ranger to be completely different from another person. Some people like Ranger's to be a "pet" class. I fucking hate games that make the Ranger the pet class, I want Rangers to be like ArcheAge where they're heavily mobile. But if Ranger's don't turn out the way I want I'll just play another archetype like Mage or Rogue.
If you only ever play 1 class in every MMO and if that specific class isn't perfect for you then you just don't play that MMO then you must have not played many MMOs.
You talk a lot like someone who has either never played a low tier class with no identity beyond 'winning' or a 'got mine git gud' try hard.
As a pet class main all my life I don't blame you for hoping Ranger isn't a pet class because we always tend to end up bottom tier in PvP lol. Makes me think you fall more in the 'always pick a top tier' category though.
Would it be cliche for me to say 'check your privilege'? Yes. Is it going to be fucking hilarious when you get hard triggered by me merely stating that some of us don't have the luxury to play a class that didn't intrest us because games are meant to be fun and some of us have a definition of that other than winning? Absolutely.
Must suck to be a one-trick in every game ever. I usually play either Ranger, Mage, or Rogue/Sin (usually in that order). If one isn't fun, I go onto the next. If none of them interest me (though that's rare) I'll play another class. B&S I played Blade Master when Sin and Force Master didn't interest me.
And its sad how wow apologists keep defending Ion and the rest of the wow team. The devs are bad because they come up with these ideas, Ion is shit because he approves
Wow your comments are real sad. You sound like someone who never played games for fun lol.
If a player picked a weak class/spec he will ''be bad'' as far as performance is concerned no matter how well he plays.
I like retribution paladin style classes in rpgs because of their theme (spirit) and because of their gameplay (I like dps hybrids). I guess aestethics are part of that but yeah, not all.
But would you have had fun if everyone facerolled you in world pvp (imagine also stealing your stuff like its going to be in AoC) and people kicked you out of dungeon groups because you didn't do enough damage?
I'm talking about the scenario where the game offers you a role and then it turns out what was offered was a lie because after much investemnt you find out it was all for nothing as the promissed path doesn't lead to you fulfilling that role due to bad game design.
Aelana, I'm talking about the scenario where the game offers you to be X and but it doesn't really allow you to be X because the class is badly designed.
As was the case for hybrids in classic.
1. No matter how well you learned your retribution paladin or kitty druid or boomkin or enhancement shaman in classic your performance would still be very bad compared to other working classes.
2. Giving a class/spec thats supposed to do X the ability to do X is not bad design and its not uniformization.
As I said, there is nothing extra that a feral kitty or retribution paladin bought to the table that a healer didn't.
Also, I disagree, those classes were never designed to be ''support'' they were clearly designed (based on in game description, talents, etc) to be damagers.
Either due to people bringing them because of personal relations or because people didn't get addons that much back then.
The templar is being advertised as a hybrid dps.
I'm saying it should actually be a hybrid dps.
I'm saying that they shouldn't do the mistake 2004-2007 blizz did and advertise hybrid dps which then turns out to not be able to do dps.
I'm saying they shouldn't do false advertising.
There's just nothing we can talk about when you're throwing insults left and right at those who disagree while calling them ''babies''.
Talk to me when you master basic levels of decency.
Ahhhh, so Intrepid should make a FUN game. That feedback will revolutionise their design strategies. Good job!
I don't see any of the classes being bad per say because the system makes it very hard for any class to be bad with this design. It's basically cookie cutting every ability in the game to specific class skills. Then choosing which combinations you want to use. The base archetypes will all be the same for people using that archetype. They won't change until they form a class aka choosing a second archetype. so from the get go there are not many possible balance issues with the game when you are just dealing with 1 archetype.
The problems with balance start when you start combining them. They probably won't actually be balance problems only either, but community problems too. The problem I see being bigger are the toxicity revolving around classes because it runs rampant in other modern mmos, but it doesn't in older ones. Some of those old ones are kinda extreme examples though. Some classes in the old Everquest were not meant to do their job as effectively as others with the same job. That is because every class mix had it's own strengths and weaknesses.
That is how Ashes will most likely be. There won't be a meta because they made it impossible for there to be a meta to begin with. I don't see them screwing up enough to the point where 1-3 skill fusions stand out so far ahead that it creates a meta. I mean there will probably be a pvp meta because of how meticulous pvp is in general. Things like instant teleports have value in pvp, but don't in pve. So if there is a meta it has to be a pvp one because of an oversight with how strong certain abilities are.
I don't see those being a problem with the PvE content at least. That said if you apply this to classes it just means that classes will likely have different roles in pvp than they do pve. The best tank in the game for pve may be useless in pvp compared to a better combination. Since what makes good tanks are generally things that don't effect players in most games. The best tank is just a basic descriptor of an idea anyway because there may not be one in this game. Each tank is likely to have very unique strengths and weaknesses, but that doesn't always mean that one is going to be better in all circumstances than others.
You may actually see value in having tanks of all kinds in a guild because certain dungeons are easier with 1 than another. If that's the case then it means that pvp will be unique in every dungeon because if you want to bring the best stuff for the dungeon. You may have to make pvp sacrifices to do that. I don't mean this on a level either that there are 2 best tanks and they switch off. There may be like 7 best tanks and they all work differently in each dungeon.
Hybrids are likely to be very different in this game than a game like WoW for instance. There will be things they probably will just flat out not be able to do at all and in exchange for that they will probably do 3 different things better than average. That is more likely how it'll end up working out. They will probably have the most versatility in the game. In Ashes Versatility will probably be rare as hell. So it adds more value than in WoW. Where even among specialist classes there is so much versatility for everyone.
Like they are probably going to force higher dps classes to completely forgo any and all versatility to make up for that damage. Where the slightly lower damage classes will gain other boons in exchange for their missing damage. That kind of thing is very easy to control if the entire game is basically a giant skill pool of varying fusions.
There aren't many ways this can work out in general based on the system they use. The system they use doesn't give the kind of freedom WoW's does to make changes however you want, but it does make it easy to snip problematic skills immediately before they become big problems.
U.S. East
“Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better.” - Dijikstra. Holds more relevance to my trade, but I find it profound in any system / design.
Simplicity without substracting depth is difficult to get. Hence players often refer to streamlining or cutting fat as "dumbing down". Now often that turns to be true, because making something simple yet still deep is no easy task. To add to the injury, complexity is often taken as mark of depth by the players even when there is none to be found, hence it's still seen as "better" by default.
To give practical example, I wish for game's challenge to come from in game environment, in game problems, other players pushing through the world. Not me not being able to play the keyboard as a piano and break my fingers or buy additional input devices to make it more convenient with tons of scripts "macros" to make it all work.
Wotlk shaman was a clunky mess. You don't need 20+ abilities to make something not shallow to play. Neither you need 5 things about class be split into 70 different "talents" and spread out across all levels to create an illusion of choice or depth, when there is none to be found.
Hence my take is that .. get the subclasses right. There is plenty of room for modification there. Subclasses differ from each other in ways which augments you choose to use. Make those choices feel meaningful at least to the best shape possible. When think about talents and how it synergize as a system which integrates together with subclass choice supplementing each other, with the goal to do that. Now that's something I can stand behind.
But shit like "oh these other games had talents, we must also have them, because RPG".. that's complexity for complexities sake hoping to randomly stumble on great design. That's buying snake oil.
Templar for example: Templar is a Cleric for the first 24 levels it will always be a cleric. It will only ever have Cleric abilities. At level 25 you get to pick Fighter as a secondary archetype giving you the class of Templar. You will NOT be getting any fighter abilities. The fighter archetype will give you the ability to augment your Cleric abilities to make them behave different. Getting the augments from many places social orgs and so forth will allow you to customize your character to your play style.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Classes
A player may choose a secondary archetype when they reach level 25.[3] The combination of primary and secondary archetypes is referred to as a class.[3][1][4]
The secondary archetype does not provide additional skills.[10]
Balancing
The sixty four (64) classes are partitioned into eight primary archetypes. Balancing of active skills only relates to these eight primary archetypes.[2][15]
All classes should have strong strengths and weak weakness. The idea that all classes should have the same out come leads to homogenization of the classes. Hybrid classes that have the ability to perform in multiple aspects should never be as good as any class that can only perform in one. A class that can heal and DPS should not be able to DPS as good as a straight up mage or Rogue. Best they should be able to do is 70% of the DPS. One of the shit things they did in WoW was try to make every one capable of doing DPS have the same out come regardless of what else they can do. If a hybrid class does 7/10 dps and 3/10 heal or vice versa I would say that is a good design.
Why should a class that has multiple skills in various areas be able to compete with a specialist in any one area?
Kevin makes a lot of good points here.
and here
Lastly where did the idea the Templar is being marketed as a hybrid class and not a Cleric come from?
Such way of power bank split only is relative to 1v1 fights. In group fighting specialization has an advantage due to division of labor and team members covering for weaknesses. Additional specialization at one thing, should come at bigger penalties all across the board to everything else.
Agreed. Thus they are designing around 8v8 and not 1v1. I agree with this design choice.
*sarcasm intended
You misunderstood me sir.
This is not an ultimatum.
It's me pointing out a reality.
That this game is an RPG, a roleplaying game.
People play the class with a theme and a gameplay style (usually two very connected elements) that fits them.
Some people, not the majority but still a notable number of people have only one preference.
A very notable one apparently if we go by Blizard statistics which have long pointed out people tend to quit the game when a patch cycle/expansion makes their main non-functional/crippeled/not fun/not fitting the theme.
As I said, this isn't only about actual gameplay performance.
If your class has top performance but you feel that its gameplay is boring/stressful or if its theme doesnt fit.... well, that's pretty much as bad if not worse than it being bad when it comes to in-game performance.
My whole point with this thread is for the devs to not assume people will just reroll if a sub-class didn't get enough love and ended up... meh.
And you know what, this isn't only for the guys who really love a class/sub-class and wont play something else, but rather quit instead.
This game will be on the hardcore side of mmo-rpgs (truth be told, nowdays anything that doesn't hold your hand while taking you through a theme park experience closer to a movie than an actual interractive world with dangers and challenges, is considered hard nowdays).
People who don't have that much time will put great effort and love into leveling their characters.
If they level their chars to max level and then find out it's a class/sub-class other players point the finger at and laugh.... they're going to quit.
They're going to quit even if they have 0 roleplay element in mind.
They're going to quit because the game wasted their time.
They're going to quit because the game made them feel bad.
So yeah.
I realize there's no way the game will be balanced at start.
It probably won't be close to any serious balance in the first year.
But what the game can do is make sure that every class and sub-class is distinct enough, that the gameplay is fluid and fun, that the class theme fits the gameplay well and that each class can do something fun that will make others go like ''wtf, how did you go that''.
We've seen this (fun > balance = people being happy despite numbers not being ''right'') in MOBA games with hundreds of different ''classes'' (characters) and ''sub-classes'' (talent/item builds).
What do you mean with outcome?
I never said every single healer sub-class should have the same healing output.
I never said every single dps sub-class should have the same dps output.
I actually said several things, but in regard to in-game performance what I said is closer to ''the game shouldn't present the player with a sub-class presented as a healer, for example, that ends up being really bad at its job and the rest of its traits do not compensate for its low healing performance''.
But I did not reduce my point of view to this. A sub-class can be bad for many reasons.
What if the gameplay is clunky and stressful?
What if the theme of the sub-class just doesn't fit the gameplay?
What if its just boring (spam 1 for 15 minutes on each boss, every boss, every instance, every week)?
etc
Being good doesn't come down only to numbers.
Being good means being fun.
Sucking at the path the game offered you because the path is badly designed is not fun.
Regarding homogenization.
Homogenization of classes occours when you give each-class basically all tools or most tools in the game.
So for example, mr.rogue has a stun, a gap-closer, a stealth, a self-heal, a bubble, a root, etc
Then there's mr. mage who also has a stun... and a gap-close.... and a stealth.... and a self-heal... and a bubble... and a root, etc
Then comes mr. cleric who.... damn he also has a stun... and a gap-closer... and stealth?!?!... and self-heal obviously.... and a root.... okay, wait....
Yeah. Thats homogenization.
Not allowing players who chose a path (a dps path for example) which was offered by the game to actually end up where the path advertised in not fun.
I partially disagree.
First of all, classes are not uni-dimensional. They can't literally do one thing.
The rogue deals physical and nature dps. He is usually a melee. He relies strongly on stealth. He has strong stuns and great mobility.
The mage deals magic damage, usually fire, frost and arcane. He is usually a caster. He relies strongly on roots and slows. He relies strongly on strong damage-absorbing shields and anti-magic effects both active and passive.
Now lets look at a hybrid. A paladin/templar/crusader.
He deals both physical AND magical damage. He is melee but also a caster. He relies strongly on his heals and bubbles. He is also known for buffing enemies in all sorts of ways.
3 dps.
They can all do great dps and be as far appart as one can imagine in terms of gameplay and player experience and the game can be very well balanced.
The paladin/templar/crusader won't be overpowered because the performance of his self-heals, blessings, bubbles, etc can easily be balanced to match the performance of the rogue's stelath, poisons, stuns, etc or the mage's roots, slows, damage absorbing shields, anti-magic aspect, etc
Go up to 75-80% and we can find some common grounds if the hybrid's healing/buffing/resilience is 20-25% better in performance compared to the rogue's kit or the mage's kit.
In my post I also speak about player peformance and use a % of ''performance'' but to be noted when I say ''performance'' I also consider team performance.
Either way, in modern mmos.... you are solo ironically. As a dps/healer you're fighting the other raid members for the highest score. Highest score = usually the most appreciated = usually the one who gets geared first.
Honestly, I respect why the devs said NO to addons and dps/healing meters.
I get your point and agree with it to some level but rewarding players every level like that is just magical.
And truth is, if as a developer you do your job well designing the talent tree, things will work out, its not luck (I mean, luck is always a factor in any design that tries to be innovative but ye...).
What do I mean with ''design it well?''.
Make sure there's no cookie-cutters, make sure the talents are not boring (+1% to your firebolt), make sure the talents have cool names and symbols, etc
I also hope people understand that the developers are making the game that they're making and they aren't stupid enough to try to appeal to every single player out there. Because if you try to appeal to everybody, you appeal to nobody.
That's a pretty big strawman you got there. Op wasn't arguing for ashes to not have pvp or to have spaceships. Op was arguing for having enough customization in classes that also wasn't trash in terms of useability.
The game has sold itself as 'every archetype will have a use, will be balanced for 8v8 and a variety of styles available from that archetype.' It's not unreasonable to ask and argue for a play style to be available and to not be useless relative to those archetypes. It's not unreasonable to demand for systems to be set up such that the play style in question be adaptable to certain types of content.
Any other arguments you have with the specifics of ops proposal are between you and them, but your strawman was so big I as a farmer couldn't help but point it out.