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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Class Archetypes
Brolveth
Member, Alpha Two
So with Ashes displaying more and more about the base classes of AoC I start to wonder.
Those classes seem like they are greatly balanced and interesting to play, with Talents that alter your abilities in different ways. However, it makes me think how archetypes are gonna work with classes those classes. Steven originally spoke about archetypes altering your base abilities in some way (using fighter charge as example which would turn into teleport with mage archetype).
However with the way abilities were developed until now one would think if that's the best road to go, as we can see with throne and liberty where your class is defined by your weapon combination perhaps Intrepid would like to go into similar direction, or maybe instead of automatically altering your abilities, 2nd class would just unlock new talents that will let you choose which abilities will be affected by your 2nd class.
Ultimately I believe the best choice is to use both options instead of one. Just giving you additional abilities from 2nd class would make it too close to TnL and perhaps too boring, unlocking new traits with 2nd class would be the easiest choice also heavily limiting, with an additional level of complexity and meta.
A little bit of both would be a perfect world, small number of new traits for your old abilities wouldn't put much pressure on Intrepit and new skills from 2nd class would give those combinations their unique identity while also not being too boring.
Fight who can occasionally create some space for him to cast a spell like fireball and then engage back in with blink charge or mage who can weaken his foe with spells burning away his hp to finish him with a sword attack or using his warrior archetype to give him some survivability/talkativeness.
The only thing I fear is Intrepid going lazy with this interesting concept by just making mage magic missle into a couple of flying sword with no change whatsoever, or fighter getting a light effect on his sword while using priest archetype without any buffs
Those classes seem like they are greatly balanced and interesting to play, with Talents that alter your abilities in different ways. However, it makes me think how archetypes are gonna work with classes those classes. Steven originally spoke about archetypes altering your base abilities in some way (using fighter charge as example which would turn into teleport with mage archetype).
However with the way abilities were developed until now one would think if that's the best road to go, as we can see with throne and liberty where your class is defined by your weapon combination perhaps Intrepid would like to go into similar direction, or maybe instead of automatically altering your abilities, 2nd class would just unlock new talents that will let you choose which abilities will be affected by your 2nd class.
Ultimately I believe the best choice is to use both options instead of one. Just giving you additional abilities from 2nd class would make it too close to TnL and perhaps too boring, unlocking new traits with 2nd class would be the easiest choice also heavily limiting, with an additional level of complexity and meta.
A little bit of both would be a perfect world, small number of new traits for your old abilities wouldn't put much pressure on Intrepit and new skills from 2nd class would give those combinations their unique identity while also not being too boring.
Fight who can occasionally create some space for him to cast a spell like fireball and then engage back in with blink charge or mage who can weaken his foe with spells burning away his hp to finish him with a sword attack or using his warrior archetype to give him some survivability/talkativeness.
The only thing I fear is Intrepid going lazy with this interesting concept by just making mage magic missle into a couple of flying sword with no change whatsoever, or fighter getting a light effect on his sword while using priest archetype without any buffs
1
Comments
I'm curious because I'm the type of person that views everything abstractly, and for me, pretty much every possible skill in MMOs is 'already covered' for most games now.
I don't often see what you can do beyond 'making the magic missile into a couple of flying swords' (does Physical damage instead or something).
From my understanding of Intrepids design, the point of the augment system is to increase your wiggle room within the Rock-Paper-Scissors system (Bruiser beats Assassin; Assassin beats Magician; Magician beats Bruiser) and to adapt your base skills more towards your desired playstyle.
Under that premise adding completely new skills would be counterproductive, because you wouldn't be able to further adapt your skills to the playstyle you already have, you'd get new skills that you'd then be somehow be required to adapt to, just to "make the most" of picking that class in the first place.
And the same goes with weapon choice - you as a player have a certain playstyle in mind and being able to choose any weapon does not mean "You can fulfill any role with any weapon" but "There is a perfect weapon for your preferred playstyle and we want you to be able to pick it."
Yes.
We really just have to wait until they announce what their design principles are for this concept. Hopefully coming soon, too, since Alpha 2 is right around the corner.
Same - particularly for tanks and heals.
Seconded. I usually play tanks and it's going to feel real bad if there is only one effective tank play style.
Yep - most important quality of a good class: it's fun to play.
Oh yeah! It's a game.