Is 64 classes still a good idea?

After seeing the ranger update I'm very confident in IS being able to make some great classes. However, I'm starting to doubt the 64 class model and would rather have around 10-12 well designed and unique classes that is also well balanced (in a group play setting).

64 different classes would be cool, but it will take a lot of work/time and money to make all those classes feel unique, have depth in its gameplay and be a viable option for PvP or PvE. Yes, the biggest hurdle is to create a good base archetype, but making the second archetype feel important and impactful will still be a HUGE hurdle and a big time investment. I'm convinced that IS could make it happen, but I'm not sure if it's worth it?

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Ludullu

There is only 8 "classes". Don't believe the "augments will drastically change abilities" until you see it happen on at least a single archetype.

Ashes is a game with 8 classes and parties of 8 people. It's a perfect fit.

rikardp98

NiKr wrote: »

There is only 8 "classes". Don't believe the "augments will drastically change abilities" until you see it happen on at least a single archetype.

Ashes is a game with 8 classes and parties of 8 people. It's a perfect fit.

Yeah that's why I kind of feel like they shouldn't even bother with the arguments and focus on the base archetype and maybe add one or two more for that extra variety.

Diamaht

rikardp98 wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

There is only 8 "classes". Don't believe the "augments will drastically change abilities" until you see it happen on at least a single archetype.

Ashes is a game with 8 classes and parties of 8 people. It's a perfect fit.

Yeah that's why I kind of feel like they shouldn't even bother with the arguments and focus on the base archetype and maybe add one or two more for that extra variety.

I don't think that will change now. I'm excited to see all the variety of builds that will evolve from it

Ludullu

rikardp98 wrote: »

Yeah that's why I kind of feel like they shouldn't even bother with the arguments and focus on the base archetype and maybe add one or two more for that extra variety.

This is already the case pretty much. All abilities will be based on your archetype, which is why I say that there's only 8 classes.

We'll need some build variety though, which is where the augments come in. Balancing an mmo is an impossible task, so I think expecting that is kinda pointless. But having a good variety of options on your abilities is something that would make the game better.

We've yet to see any proper augments, so it's hard to say how long they'd take to develop. But my main point - no additional archetypes. 8 for 8 is the best way to go, otherwise you're facing a much bigger balancing problem of "how da fuck do we balance our archetypes in such a way where some of them don't just get fucked over and never get invited to parties?".

And that will happen if you have over 8 archetypes in a game with only 8 party slots.

Mag7spy

rikardp98 wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

There is only 8 "classes". Don't believe the "augments will drastically change abilities" until you see it happen on at least a single archetype.

Ashes is a game with 8 classes and parties of 8 people. It's a perfect fit.

Yeah that's why I kind of feel like they shouldn't even bother with the arguments and focus on the base archetype and maybe add one or two more for that extra variety.

Naa that sounds extra boring. They should do their augments and create variety through that. People are to use to WoW style and wanting a simple 8 classes. Only mmorpgs have had many classes / class customization options like shadowbane and rift.

Ranger , warrior, mage, cleric, etc rinse an repeat same boring classes and 0 flavor in every mmorpg.

Enigmatic Sage

It's essentially 8 archetypes modified through augmentation allowances 8 different ways called classes.

Each class can potentially have several augmentation branches to choose from depending on augmentation allowances.

Mag7spy

I also think you are expecting too much thinking its a whole new "class" with how you word it as being important. It will be as important as they design it for, don't expect all your skills to be augmented hugely either. They have mentioned with warrior dash will leave a trail of fire or teleport. Some skills might have bigger changes and some will be easy for them to adjust and take 2 seconds in a sense.

nanfoodle

It's gonna take some skill to balance but 100% it's not 64 classes. With all the other ways you can customize your characters skills. It will be interesting.

rikardp98

NiKr wrote: »

This is already the case pretty much. All abilities will be based on your archetype, which is why I say that there's only 8 classes.

We'll need some build variety though, which is where the augments come in. Balancing an mmo is an impossible task, so I think expecting that is kinda pointless. But having a good variety of options on your abilities is something that would make the game better.

I'm saying that it would be better to focus on the main archetype to make it feel complete, and have variety in gameplay and abilities within this completed base archetype. Instead of feeling the need to implement 8 arguments to every spell (or most of them) for every archetype.

NiKr wrote: »

And that will happen if you have over 8 archetypes in a game with only 8 party slots.

Well this will happen oven of there is 8 classes with 8 party slots. People will class stack if some class is stronger than another. Or some class is just much weaker. But yes, more likely if there is more classes to choose from.

Ludullu

rikardp98 wrote: »

I'm saying that it would be better to focus on the main archetype to make it feel complete, and have variety in gameplay and abilities within this completed base archetype. Instead of feeling the need to implement 8 arguments to every spell (or most of them) for every archetype.

Again, this is already the case. They'll work on all the basic abilities. Everything we've seen is basic archetype abilities.

Steven keeps saying that augments will somehow bring big changes to abilities, but I'll believe that when I see it. But even if they will - that's gonna be happening waaaay later in A2.

rikardp98 wrote: »

Well this will happen oven of there is 8 classes with 8 party slots. People will class stack if some class is stronger than another. Or some class is just much weaker. But yes, more likely if there is more classes to choose from.

Yes, that possibility is true, but that is a choice of players, while having 9 archetypes but 8 slots is a dev-forced choice, because you physically can't fit 1 of each into a party.

Enigmatic Sage

nanfoodle wrote: »

It's gonna take some skill to balance but 100% it's not 64 classes. With all the other ways you can your characters skills. It will be interesting.

I like to loosely relate it to Diablo 3 Skill Runes.

rikardp98

NiKr wrote: »

Yes, that possibility is true, but that is a choice of players, while having 9 archetypes but 8 slots is a dev-forced choice, because you physically can't fit 1 of each into a party.

I do however believe that people will most likely play their class (2 archetype combo) and not their base archetype. And then respect their second archetype to fit what is needed. So technically now you need to fit 64 "classes" into a 8 slots party.

Maybe I'm just miss understanding the small/big impact the argumentations will have.

Ludullu

rikardp98 wrote: »

I do however believe that people will most likely play their class (2 archetype combo) and not their base archetype. And then respect their second archetype to fit what is needed. So technically now you need to fit 64 "classes" into a 8 slots party.

Maybe I'm just miss understanding the small/big impact the argumentations will have.

Again, your abilities don't change. Their core functionality doesn't change. Obviously some groups will be looking for very specific builds, but that will always be the case, and that is also why repseccing your class is possible.

Voxtrium

In reality if they flesh out the 8 core classes first then the 8 additional combinations should be relatively easy considering that each combo would merely be 2 abilities meshed together. Plus I think they have finally turned a corner on realistic expectations and I feel Steven yielding more, I am willing to bet class augments will be a healthy mixture of ability changes and just additional stats to the ability.

George_Black

I wanna point out that there is a sizable number of people that dont stop to think the insanity of having 64 combos as part of "great customozation", access to any weapon any armor + universal abilities, from all of which the viable playstyles will be a fraction of the offered combos.

Yet when it comes to the actual archetype abilities, actual archetype playstyle, there are restrictions on which abilities you can learn due to in innapropriate system for mmos, the skill tree. The same people who want no restrictions on unrealistic combinations are happy with restrictions on core archetypes.

WHIT3ROS3

As others have said. The game has 8 Classes. Each of those will (eventually) have 8 variations. Those variations may be very slight. Until we actually see augmentations the "64 classes" thing is kind of meaningless.

Noaani

We're not really talking about 64 true classes, we're talking about eight classes with 64 variants... There isn't as much variance between the 64 classes as you might expect. It's not like there are 64 different versions of... radically different classes.[3] – Jeffrey Bard

To me, that should set any expectations right.

KingDDD

Noaani wrote: »

We're not really talking about 64 true classes, we're talking about eight classes with 64 variants... There isn't as much variance between the 64 classes as you might expect. It's not like there are 64 different versions of... radically different classes.[3] – Jeffrey Bard

To me, that should set any expectations right.

That quote is so old it really carries no weight.

However, you'll more than likely see each secondary pick function like a wow talent specialization.

Diamaht

Mag7spy wrote: »

rikardp98 wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

There is only 8 "classes". Don't believe the "augments will drastically change abilities" until you see it happen on at least a single archetype.

Ashes is a game with 8 classes and parties of 8 people. It's a perfect fit.

Yeah that's why I kind of feel like they shouldn't even bother with the arguments and focus on the base archetype and maybe add one or two more for that extra variety.

Naa that sounds extra boring. They should do their augments and create variety through that. People are to use to WoW style and wanting a simple 8 classes. Only mmorpgs have had many classes / class customization options like shadowbane and rift.

Ranger , warrior, mage, cleric, etc rinse an repeat same boring classes and 0 flavor in every mmorpg.

I agree with this. Think of it this way, WoW has 3 talent trees per class that change the way the base classes are played. We will have 8 per class. Thats an upgrade for the MMO formula. If it takes time, so be it.

Noaani

KingDDD wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

We're not really talking about 64 true classes, we're talking about eight classes with 64 variants... There isn't as much variance between the 64 classes as you might expect. It's not like there are 64 different versions of... radically different classes.[3] – Jeffrey Bard

To me, that should set any expectations right.

That quote is so old it really carries no weight.

It carries all the weight in the world until Intrepid say otherwise. We have literally zero reason to assume there has been any consideration of a change to the basic idea of Ashes classes.

The minute someone says anything that is contrary to the above quote, we can freely dismiss it. However, that has not happened as yet.

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