The value of 64 classes

According to wiki

You can pre-plan out for a lot of the raid like how many DPS do you need and healers and support; where the key position and all that kind of stuff

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Raids

So if players will know this, then of course they will not take 6 tanks if only 5 are needed, isn't it?
But then is this true for all kind of tanks?

Why do we have 64 classes?
Is the secondary archetype important?

Will players ignore certain classes in dungeons and raids, like Guardian-Bard and Guardian-Rogue?

If in future they'll want to add one more class, that means we get automatically 17, to keep the matrix representation?

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WHIT3ROS3

This "64 classes" thing is really not representative of the class system from what I can see and seems to be deliberately misrepresented by people looking for click-bait titles for Youtube chaff content. There are 8 classes. With 8 possible secondary augments.

Considering "future additions" at this point is completely futile IMO. The game is still years and years away from release. Additional content like that is at least a decade + away.

Azherae

I still personally have the utmost faith in their ability to do this and make at LEAST 40 of them seem distinct, until I see some serious cracks.

And you don't want every single one to feel completely distinct either.

Maybe I'm deluded about my own experiences/skill at design, but I have not generally understood why people think 64 classes is difficult. With the approach Intrepid seems to be taking, I definitely don't expect it to be difficult. And yes, I still expect them to be both 'distinct' and 'useful'. My last attempt at simulating/calculating this based on just names only gave me 12 'potential duds'.

There will definitely be builds and definitely 'common ones', but 'avoiding incompatible aspects of mechanics' is not the same as 'this class combination is worthless'.

Warth

I personally expect 8 real classes with 8 variants each.

Id be happy if they were to prove me wrong

LordPax

Y'all are fretting over nothing. We've got plenty of time, including an entire Alpha2 server that will run until game launch, to figure out all the kinks.

Games from Guild Wars 1, WoW, and FF14 all the way to regular ol tabletop D&D, have all had dozens of class/subclass potential. This will be the same thing. There's not "64 classes", rather 8 classes with 8 additional "secondary" or "sub" classes. I'm sure Intrepid will be listening to player feedback and change accordingly. Steven and crew want this game to be perfect, and I believe it will be....in time

akabear

WHIT3ROS3 wrote: »

This "64 classes" thing is really not representative of the class system from what I can see and seems to be deliberately misrepresented by people looking for click-bait titles for Youtube chaff content. There are 8 classes. With 8 possible secondary augments.

Considering "future additions" at this point is completely futile IMO. The game is still years and years away from release. Additional content like that is at least a decade + away.

Nailed it

I see your primary class as your "class" and secondary as merely a "minor refinement"

GrandHarfang

I expect second archetypes to be sidegrades. There will be 8 classes and 8 sidegrades per classes.

Azherae

GrandHarfang wrote: »

I expect second archetypes to be sidegrades. There will be 8 classes and 8 sidegrades per classes.

True but even so, some of the core concepts of the Archetype are supposed to come through as the Secondary, and quite often, that will outright add some options to the Primary that it doesn't have, which I consider to be a big deal.

Adding Detargets or Stealth to a Cleric is my intention. I expect this to be very meaningful based on multiple other games where I have these experiences. A fast moving evasive or stealth-capable healer plays completely differently to a 'maxed out effectiveness' Healer or a 'Sometimes Smites The Enemy' Healer.

It may not be worth calling it 'a different class' to some people, but the option to change your kit quite heavily can definitely make it feel like more than just 8.

cosmichedgehog

I've been looking at as 8 classes with 8 "flavor" subclasses. Eight of the same class just with different aspects highlighted (in a sense) for flavor. I'm looking forward to see how they play. I normally play "warrior" types, and I'm really looking forward to see what the shadowblade (fighter/rogue) will do.

Sapiverenus

I really don't think anything productive can come from discussion about classes with desperate MMO enthusiasts lol

I tried getting people to work with me to create 8 classes and 8 secondaries in a week for fun and productivity, on the Narc discord, but people were very negative and avoidant. Only ones talking was one guy who seemed to be praying to Sharif, and another guy was like a rabid dog just attacking me (like those little dogs that always bear teeth and attack big dogs for no reason).

My dick is too big for this pussy shit

Ludullu

L2 had 33 (+2 crafter and gatherer) classes. All were really unique (with maybe 3 elemental mages being the closest ones to the "same class" functionality). A few were on the less used side, but still had their benefits in some cases. And imo they were as well-balanced as an mmo can expect to be (outside of a few updates where some were OP

).

Intrepid is trying to balance their design around each archetype being in the party. If they succeed at that, the game will already be way more balanced towards the general class trends in games (that being "more people pick dps than supports"). 4 archs being dps with another one as a potential dps too and 3 supports seems like a good distribution of archetypes to me.

And then you add the augments that could help players lean to the other side of the spectrum and you could potentially support parties that have doubles or even triples of the same archetype, but with some of those players playing an off-archetype role. This would promote party play even more.

And if the majority of people are playing in parties, to me, that seems like all classes being valuable (cause people will still have preferences for classes, so each party setup will differ amongst themselves). Obviously we'll have less popular classes, but at that point it'll be on Intrepid do design pve (and potentially pvp too) in such a way that those classes have more uses in the game. And with classes being switchable, all the minmaxers will be able to adjust however they want.

Sapiverenus

@NiKr
I don't know much about Lineage 2 classes, but if they begin to do the functionally same thing as other classes they are bleeding into one another.

Different mechanics and different gameplay [such as the Guitaroo Bard with contextual utility I mention elsewhere] are really the only way to, by basically definition, have classes that don't bleed into one another.
Even trying to make every class combat-oriented and useful in raids is going to lead to alot of bleed-through.

Expanding the genre is the only way to get the best of it.

Ludullu

Sapiverenus wrote: »

I don't know much about Lineage 2 classes, but if they begin to do the functionally same thing as other classes they are bleeding into one another.

Yes, they were all absolutely the same. Like, literally did the same thing, so you would've hated it which is why I'm glad you never touched it.

Sapiverenus

@NiKr
oh cool

Sapiverenus

Realize that if you have everything growing in the same direction, on similar premises, and so nearly the same in many ways, reaching for the same few functional purpose, there is less room to expand upon classes.
Less possibility (practically impossible without SACRIFICES) for them to 'grow' and not be crowding out one another, bleeding into one another.

Aerlana

Secundary archetype only gives Augment (4 augment for each skills)
And we will get augment from other sources... it is not impossible so, to get some build totally viable ... without any class augment...

On the other side, the weapon will also have their own impact on gameplay (range vs melee, slow vs fast... and then the weapon skills)

Currently, i don't think that the secundary archetype will be the main thing to define a character, but more a mix secundary-weapon...

What is important is to have lot of viable builds... and we will have long time to test and help for balance...

Veeshan

Its 8 classes but it WoW classic where each secondary class gives like 3 talent tree to affect your skills of you main class in some way.
Thats probaly the best way to describe it but its hit or miss till they actually show it off but that how it sounds like it works

BaSkA_9x2

Strevi wrote: »

Why do we have 64 classes?
Is the secondary archetype important?

Whenever I hear "Ashes has 64 classes" the first thing that comes to my mind is that the word "class" is not very good to describe what Ashes will have. I could be wrong, but from my understanding since I've been following the game Ashes will have 8 base classes (primary archetypes) with 8 different flavors (secondary archetypes) to choose from which totals 64 different combinations, not really classes.

I don't think Intrepid does this intentionally, but the word "class" in Ashes definitely has a different meaning from other MMORPGs we are used to. The classes from other MMOs are Ashes' archetypes, so Ashes "only" really has 8 classes (or archetypes).

Regardless, each archetype will have at least two different skill trees, which we don't know if we'll be able to fully max out or not (meaning you might not have enough skill points for everything available inside a skill tree). In other words, there are 8 primary archetypes with at least two skill trees (i.e. builds) each. On top of that, pick one out of eight possible flavors to further customize your skills and then you have your "class".

That's why the secondary archetype will be important, at least for the sake of build variety. If the secondary archetype isn't important enough, they can always add unique skills to each of the 64 combinations, to further encourage people to play as different classes - or not. It's all about testing and balancing.

P.S.: I say each primary archetype will most likely have at least two skill trees because a while ago Steven said in a video that the Cleric will have to choose from either the "Life" or "Death" paths, so I assume each archetype has two or more skill trees to choose from.

Strevi wrote: »

If in future they'll want to add one more class, that means we get automatically 17, to keep the matrix representation?

I think it's a matter of when, not if. In any case, if they add one more archetype, then yes it would make sense and we'd probably have 81 possible combinations then.

Strevi wrote: »

Will players ignore certain classes in dungeons and raids, like Guardian-Bard and Guardian-Rogue?

I also worry a bit about some combinations never being used, but I think that can easily be solved by buffing unused combinations until they're good or useful enough. I feel like what's important is for every possible combination to be somewhat useful in both PvP and PvE.

Some classes will always be better than others in some specific aspect such as 1v1, mobility, CC, DPS, healing, etc., but as long as the 8 primary archetypes are all well balanced and designed, I would hope that an "unusual" secondary archetype choice won't break a character, but just make it different in some way. To be honest, primary archetype build choice might often be more important than whatever secondary archetype you choose, at least for group PvP or PvE.

Songcaller

The 64 classes are designed for pvp. Not designed for pve which is why a Tank/Bard will be a tank and a Bard/Tank will be a buffer.

Each of the 8 classes have hard counters and the secondary choices will close the gap between hard counters. Thus, there aren't 64 class only 8 hard counters and 64 migrations.

Asgerr

Look at it like in other MMOs.

In Lineage 2 you have a total of 38 classes (variations on the base 8 options).

In WoW, you have 12 classes, and each of them has usually 3 specs. That's 36 "classes" in the AoC lingo.

In AoC you really only have 8 classes (archetype in AoC) and the rest is basically different specs and flavors for those 8, totalling 64 possible variants.

Ultimately people will hire ant Tanks with the primary Tank archetype. And in some case some people will try to minmax and only want certain combinations of primary and secondary.

However for normal PvE players and casual raiders, all classes should be viable short of some massive balancing issues.

From previous polls and threads, there seems to be a good variety of people choosing different Archetypes and secondaries, based simply off class fantasy and ideas.

Depraved

you only have 8 classes, not 64 T_T. the sub just add different build options to your main. for example, a healer who can also buff, or maybe just heal for a lot more, or a healer who can also do some damage, etc

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