Should Secondary Archetypes be More Permanent?

We know that you can change secondary archetype and that Intrepid are trying to design it so that you can't change often. What do you guys think about the permanency of picking a secondary class? Do you think class identity or primary archetype identity will be more important?

I had an idea where if you wanted to change your secondary archetype, you would revert your character level to the level where you initially pick your secondary archetype. This way you can't change it on a whim and have full character power of the new secondary archetype instantly when you switch, but you would have to develop your character as that of that specific class. However, we know that leveling will take a long time and it would suck to lose literal months of character development just to stop changing class quickly.

I was thinking of this when pondering Looking for Guild advertisements. Would you advertise yourself as a particular class or a particular primary archetype, since you can change your secondary but you cannot change your primary?

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SirChancelot

Conrad wrote: »

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

@conrad
Changing primary archtype sounds a bit much.

I'm all for changing secondaries in town, and having certain secondaries change a primary archtype's role... But just freely changing primary sounds like FFXIV and u less they're going to do it the same exact way where you have to level each primary archtype separately too, that's gonna be a hard no for me.

.... did you even read what I wrote? I never mentioned freely at any point.

Freely may have been a bad word choice. But the punch line is I think shifting primary is too much, even if a big nerf/buff patch came through.
You saying if your character has been nerfed so hard you want to switch to something else, but this would also give min-maxers the ability to switch to the new most powerful archtype meta every time something changed as well. I think it would just be too extra to have people switching every major patch update.

Marcet

Okay, maybe completely permanent would be too much, I have to admit, but it should still be hard to change, not like going to your city and reseting all your secondary points because your guild needs another class for the raid.

About the primary class.. I think we can agree on making that permanent at least.

And the secondary should be a serious decision, I would say take a week to level your secondary to the way it was. So it takes time and some mastering of it, you have to stick to your choice for a little bit, maybe that week you can't raid because you are leveling your secondary? Well, you chose to reset it, so you better be sure.

If you taste every flavour in one day for free and without any limitation that becomes boring, unoriginal, with 0 personality. People keep playing for the unknowns of the game, for the rewards that were very hard to get.

TheDarkPaladin

McShave wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

No.
And... already can't change Secondary Archetype on a whim.

I would not LFG. I would go find the people in my Node who play at the same time I do.

Ok, but when you join with the people in your Node, if you play together often, you all will want to coordinate your character builds so that they benefit each other. This will require a change in secondary as well as maybe new gear/ weapons, etc. We know you can change your secondary, so a lot of people will (like myself).

to be honest I really doubt I'll change it at all once I find which class or two I like

Percimes

I proposed this, months ago, mostly as a joke, but the concept has its merits...

You can always abandon your secondary archetype but when you do so you can't pick it up again. Either permanently (having shamed the masters of that path they snob you forever) or only after waiting a long period of being barred from it (12 months penalty for leaving the way of the bow!) or after performing a long and tedious quest to buy back your right into the circle of initiated.

Your main archetype will always accept you for the secondary, no matter how often you've renounced it, so you can't gimp yourself into having only a main archetype and no option of the secondary.

Tyranthraxus

Zeyd Arthurn wrote: »

to be honest I really doubt I'll change it at all once I find which class or two I like

Haha! Me too, probably.

Yours truly has traditionally been quite lazy in exploring all the classes of an MMO. Right now I'm looking at Cleric/Cleric, and am only feeling as adventurous as to perhaps try Cleric/Bard - just to see the difference in cleanses and boosters; I always play a Healer-main, and the other classes will largely be invisible to me with the exception of group-building to run content.

insomnia

No. Considering there are 64 combinations, and that is not even taking race into the factor. How many characters do you think people should have, to try it different things

3Snap

Secondaries were always non permanent. I'd like the ability to change how my character plays. Thematically it's still focused around your primary classes abilities, just with new options.

insomnia wrote: »

No. Considering there are 64 combinations, and that is not even taking race into the factor. How many characters do you think people should have, to try it different things

I definitely agree with this.

Percimes

insomnia wrote: »

No. Considering there are 64 combinations, and that is not even taking race into the factor. How many characters do you think people should have, to try it different things

What you're saying, whether you intended it or not, is basically: "I don't want to go through the levelling process more than once." Considering the time required to reach max levels, it's an understandable point of view.

It's one of the strange things about MMOs: people want continual, eternal, progression, but they dread levelling. Go figure... I would propose to forgo levels completely or to make levelling the equivalent of a 1-2 hours tutorial, but that's too radical for most people. MMORPGs, so, levels. No other approaches acceptable. It is forbidden by traditions now. Silly, but that's how it is.

Josie1577

McShave wrote: »

We know that you can change secondary archetype and that Intrepid are trying to design it so that you can't change often. What do you guys think about the permanency of picking a secondary class? Do you think class identity or primary archetype identity will be more important?

I had an idea where if you wanted to change your secondary archetype, you would revert your character level to the level where you initially pick your secondary archetype. This way you can't change it on a whim and have full character power of the new secondary archetype instantly when you switch, but you would have to develop your character as that of that specific class. However, we know that leveling will take a long time and it would suck to lose literal months of character development just to stop changing class quickly.

I was thinking of this when pondering Looking for Guild advertisements. Would you advertise yourself as a particular class or a particular primary archetype, since you can change your secondary but you cannot change your primary?

I believe the second archetype should be more permanent and simply amplify or change playstyle and theme. That would be cool

insomnia

Percimes wrote: »

insomnia wrote: »

No. Considering there are 64 combinations, and that is not even taking race into the factor. How many characters do you think people should have, to try it different things

What you're saying, whether you intended it or not, is basically: "I don't want to go through the levelling process more than once." Considering the time required to reach max levels, it's an understandable point of view.

It's one of the strange things about MMOs: people want continual, eternal, progression, but they dread levelling. Go figure... I would propose to forgo levels completely or to make levelling the equivalent of a 1-2 hours tutorial, but that's too radical for most people. MMORPGs, so, levels. No other approaches acceptable. It is forbidden by traditions now. Silly, but that's how it is.

I never said i didn't want to go through the leveling process more than once. I just don't want to do it for the same class, more than once. Maybe you should learn to read, before you comment. I could still level a character with one of the other classes as base. We are only talking about secondary classes. I prefer leveling. I don't care much for endgame. But what you are suggesting, or OP, is pretty much, that the talent tree you spec in, should be more permanent. Secondary class dosen't give extra abilites. It just lets you augment your abilites. Levels are to prolong content. It gives people a feeling of progressing. It has nothing to do by "traditions".
There will be 8 classes, meaning i could have 8 different chars, and i still wouldn't have tried all the races

insomnia

Josie1577 wrote: »

McShave wrote: »

We know that you can change secondary archetype and that Intrepid are trying to design it so that you can't change often. What do you guys think about the permanency of picking a secondary class? Do you think class identity or primary archetype identity will be more important?

I had an idea where if you wanted to change your secondary archetype, you would revert your character level to the level where you initially pick your secondary archetype. This way you can't change it on a whim and have full character power of the new secondary archetype instantly when you switch, but you would have to develop your character as that of that specific class. However, we know that leveling will take a long time and it would suck to lose literal months of character development just to stop changing class quickly.

I was thinking of this when pondering Looking for Guild advertisements. Would you advertise yourself as a particular class or a particular primary archetype, since you can change your secondary but you cannot change your primary?

I believe the second archetype should be more permanent and simply amplify or change playstyle and theme. That would be cool

That is how the secondary class will work, of what i have understood. It dosen't give you extra abilites. It just lets you augment abilites differently. Consider it an extra spec tree

McShave

Percimes wrote: »

It's one of the strange things about MMOs: people want continual, eternal, progression, but they dread levelling. Go figure... I would propose to forgo levels completely or to make levelling the equivalent of a 1-2 hours tutorial, but that's too radical for most people. MMORPGs, so, levels. No other approaches acceptable. It is forbidden by traditions now. Silly, but that's how it is.

On some of my other posts, i try to push the idea of getting away from character levels being the be-all-and-end-all of character power. I would like an alternative system to having character power be tied directly to character level, and for not having things in game locked behind character levels.

Some examples would be:
- have combat talent points and character stats be unlocked by participating in more combat
- gear should be restricted by the stats your character have, not by character level
- there isn't much instancing in Ashes, but all characters of all levels should be able to walk into any raid or dungeon (they may die instantly if underleveled, but don't restrict it)
- with the long leveling times, it would be nice if characters from a wide range of levels could participate in the different levels of gameplay, like lvl 40+ characters participating in raids at an effective level, not just lvl 50 players.

I find too often the game puts too much emphasis on character level, and not the other more immersive factors.

Leonerdo

I don't mind if you have to unlock each secondary class individually (could make for some interesting quests). I don't mind working towards long-term goals. And unlocking new classes/gameplay is a pretty good goal/reward, so it's one of the best things to grind for.

But I really don't want to do THE WHOLE LEVELING GRIND for every single class change. Alts or class changes are a good source of extra enjoyment/replayability, but not if the game spits in your face and puts you back at square zero every time you want to try something slightly new.

It sounds like leveling in AoC is gonna be a huge grind already. Really not looking forward to doing it three times, just to have a viable tank, healer, and dps. That's the absolute limit of what I can stomach, so I certainly don't want to do MORE leveling just to switch the secondary flavor of my classes.

Modern MMOs are more and more alt friendly. The logic that it should take extra effort to switch classes to "maintain character identity" (or just to pad out playtime) is dumb and obsolete, and I hope nobody said anything like that in this thread. (Sorry I didn't read all the comments.)

If I just want some variety in the last 20% of the game, but to get that I would have to replay the whole game, or even half of it, I'd rather go play a completely new game. That makes sense, right? I don't mind revisiting old content on a new class, but the grindy part of it has to be almost entirely removed, or it's just not worth it.

(Also, there will almost certainly be a strict class meta at end-game, so regardless of enjoyment, some people will feel forced to change classes. That's a whole other can of worms though, and I don't wanna get off topic.)

Nerror

I like they way the seem to be designing it currently. No change of primary archetype, and some work required to change the secondary. And i don't mean just go to town and pay some money at an NPC and voila.

Vhaeyne

My gut preference is towards not being able to revert any choice. That is just me speaking as a guy who prefers choices to be meaningful. I know the crybaby masses will cry until you can change it on a whim.

I have a feeling intrepid feels the same way I do. The compromise is to make it require some real effort to change your secondary archetype. I am not put off by this compromise.

Since we are already going that way, I would like to see the "token" or whatever that is required to switch jobs be something that is crafted and requires materials from all crafting professions at end-game simultaneously. A "magnum opus" craft that gives value to all crafts equally. This way, economically, all professions could benefit from people constantly respecting.

I would hate for Intrepid to throw away a good opportunity to add value to the player economy by making the respect just be an NPC gold sink.

Mopy King

Percimes wrote: »

insomnia wrote: »

No. Considering there are 64 combinations, and that is not even taking race into the factor. How many characters do you think people should have, to try it different things

What you're saying, whether you intended it or not, is basically: "I don't want to go through the levelling process more than once." Considering the time required to reach max levels, it's an understandable point of view.

It's one of the strange things about MMOs: people want continual, eternal, progression, but they dread levelling. Go figure... I would propose to forgo levels completely or to make levelling the equivalent of a 1-2 hours tutorial, but that's too radical for most people. MMORPGs, so, levels. No other approaches acceptable. It is forbidden by traditions now. Silly, but that's how it is.

I can't say I'd mind a permanent secondary archetype since I usually stick with what I pick, but some people are never satisfied until they've tried everything.

If it was just the 64 classes that's already an enormous trask to try everything, but if you take into account that racial augments will alter each of those classes, since the goal is for an elven fighter to feel different than a dwarven fighter, then not being able to change the secondary archetype is insane. Without changing archetypes someone would have to start 572 characters to experience all the options. Even with changing the secondary that would be 72 different characters, each of which would need their secondary archetype reset 7 times.

I don't think anyone is truly complaining about having to level more than 1 character to try different things, but when you start getting to those numbers then yeah, it's a bit much and unnecessary.

Percimes

Vhaeyne wrote: »

My gut preference is towards not being able to revert any choice. That is just me speaking as a guy who prefers choices to be meaningful. I know the crybaby masses will cry until you can change it on a whim.

I have a feeling intrepid feels the same way I do. The compromise is to make it require some real effort to change your secondary archetype. I am not put off by this compromise.

Yeah, I don't know if you played Dark Age of Camelot in its early days, but there was no re-spec options. The only time I had the possibility to respect my friar was when the devs made changes to one of the skill branch significant enough that they judged it fair for the players of the class to re-spec how they wanted. There were guides proposing how to invest your specialization points at each level for each classes. There were websites with levelling simulator for you to test how you wanted to build you class so you wouldn't end up with unspent points when you reached max level. You could tailored your crafted items with the stats you wanted so you would get your skill goals and stats... You had to make choices and live with them, or reroll.

Mopy King wrote: »

I can't say I'd mind a permanent secondary archetype since I usually stick with what I pick, but some people are never satisfied until they've tried everything.

If it was just the 64 classes that's already an enormous trask to try everything, but if you take into account that racial augments will alter each of those classes, since the goal is for an elven fighter to feel different than a dwarven fighter, then not being able to change the secondary archetype is insane. Without changing archetypes someone would have to start 572 characters to experience all the options. Even with changing the secondary that would be 72 different characters, each of which would need their secondary archetype reset 7 times.

I don't think anyone is truly complaining about having to level more than 1 character to try different things, but when you start getting to those numbers then yeah, it's a bit much and unnecessary.

People assume a lot about how meaningful the augments will be. People fill the void of information with their hopes and dreams, and hype themselves to heights no gaming system can live up to. People will be disappointed, I'm afraid.

If you think an elf fighter will be drastically, or even meaningfully, different from a dwarf fighter you are fooling yourself. They may feel a bit different (the grass may appear taller for the dwarf), but not enough to feel the need to experience both. The secondary archetype will probably bring more meaningful changes, but how much is still vapours as far as I'm concerned, I'll wait until they condense to form an opinion of them.

But all and all, I'm more or less like you: I stick with the concept I had for the character when I created it. I also try to keep my characters independent from each other, I rarely pass on gear from the main one to the lower level ones. The people who like to experience many possibilities of gameplay without beginning at the start each time are best served in a skills based system, such Star Wars Galaxies had at launch. There were classes, but they were soft classes and you could only level part of each skill trees if it was your thing. And no, people didn't all end up the same.

@McShave I think you touch on the main point why some people despise the levelling phase, they consider the game only begins at max level and all that comes before that stage is a chore one has to plow throw. It's a phase were you do not participate in what truly counts. You'll replace the gear you get during that time. You'll get better, stronger, versions of all your abilities/skills. The mobs you've vanquished will respawn. If you come from guild of people that hop from game to game you won't even add a lot of new people to your social experience. It has little replay value.

MMOs are like all the shonen animes, fight to get stronger, then fight again to be stronger... Most MMOs are based on this concept, that's the forever progression. But at some point, the little boy needs to mature into an adult: what are you going to do with all this power? The problem is that, in most games of the genre, as the world is fixed, the only things that can change are the player characters.

Ashes is different in this aspect: the world will change, and not at random, but through the choices and actions of the players. The growth and progression are not limited to individual players but are also a collaborative endeavour for the nodes. So what should the endgame be? Character power creep to higher and higher summits or the development of nodes?

I've watched too many shonen and I can't stomach them as well anymore. I can say the same for MMOs, the last new one I've try was Guild Wars 2 when it launched. I've play Classic WoW for 6 months to try out the classes I hadn't in the vanilla/BC era, but I haven't bothered with anything else since... 2012? Ashes is the first one that looks promising because it propose something new-ish. I wanted to try New World but with all the technical problems it has I'm not so sure. But enough rambling...

insomnia wrote: »

I never said i didn't want to go through the leveling process more than once. I just don't want to do it for the same class, more than once. Maybe you should learn to read, before you comment.

Yeah... believe it or not, but I'm also the kind of player that has little to no interest in the endgame and re-rolls character instead. I hesitated at that "once" world, struggling if I should add (or replace it by) "or a few time". I thought people could read between the lines and didn't expect an emotional reaction for it. I guess I underestimated the effects of sleep deprivation... I know the devil is in the details, but geez, I swear some of you have made a pact with him. Still, I stand by what I wrote: you, as others have express (me included), don't consider the augments to be significant enough to warrant a complete play through. While you seem to consider them only one part of the specialization of character, I fear that's all it will be, and won't be that meaningful.

There. Hope it makes you sleep better.

insomnia

Vhaeyne wrote: »

My gut preference is towards not being able to revert any choice. That is just me speaking as a guy who prefers choices to be meaningful. I know the crybaby masses will cry until you can change it on a whim.

I have a feeling intrepid feels the same way I do. The compromise is to make it require some real effort to change your secondary archetype. I am not put off by this compromise.

Since we are already going that way, I would like to see the "token" or whatever that is required to switch jobs be something that is crafted and requires materials from all crafting professions at end-game simultaneously. A "magnum opus" craft that gives value to all crafts equally. This way, economically, all professions could benefit from people constantly respecting.

I would hate for Intrepid to throw away a good opportunity to add value to the player economy by making the respect just be an NPC gold sink.

Choices does matter in this game. Steven has said that on numerous cases. Just because people will be able to change their secondary class, dosen't mean they won't. You can't change the primary, the race.

Saying that secondary class should be permanent, is like saying talents should be permanent. That every single decision, should be permanent

Mopy King

Percimes wrote: »

People assume a lot about how meaningful the augments will be. People fill the void of information with their hopes and dreams, and hype themselves to heights no gaming system can live up to. People will be disappointed, I'm afraid.

If you think an elf fighter will be drastically, or even meaningfully, different from a dwarf fighter you are fooling yourself. They may feel a bit different (the grass may appear taller for the dwarf), but not enough to feel the need to experience both. The secondary archetype will probably bring more meaningful changes, but how much is still vapours as far as I'm concerned, I'll wait until they condense to form an opinion of them.

But all and all, I'm more or less like you: I stick with the concept I had for the character when I created it. I also try to keep my characters independent from each other, I rarely pass on gear from the main one to the lower level ones. The people who like to experience many possibilities of gameplay without beginning at the start each time are best served in a skills based system, such Star Wars Galaxies had at launch. There were classes, but they were soft classes and you could only level part of each skill trees if it was your thing. And no, people didn't all end up the same.

I'm with you there. I'll be very surprised if the racial augments in particular turn out be truly impactful for each class as that would be mean 9 meaningfully different variants of each of the 64 classes. Just having the 64 classes be unique from each other is a tall enough order that will probably not turn out as good as many hope.

But like you said, impossible to know at this point. Until we get any kind of glimpse into how impactful all these augments are really gonna be, I'll just be assuming that Steven's visions will become reality and that different races playing the same class will have noticeable differences.

Vhaeyne

@insomnia It's like you ignored the whole point of my post. To point out: "Choices does matter".

As if I explicitly said choices don't matter. Which I did not. I stated my personal preference and how this is a good opportunity to do something meaningful economically with the game.

The point of my post is that this is a good opportunity to do something good for the economy.

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