That would not be a perfect world.
64 true Classes (the D&D definition) would be too difficult for the devs to balance - even in the best world.
I'm not sure how true this often used statement is. I play Pathfinder 2e, and you'd be surprised at how many character options and complexity you can have, and still be balanced, so long as you put in the effort into the system in the beginning and get your damn math right.
It's absolutely doable, it's just not easy.
But honestly, I don't balance is really that important. I think it's more important for the secondary archetype options to be distinct and interesting, otherwise what is the point?
Why have a system like this if your not going to do anything with it. But it seems like they very may be doing something interesting, so I'm willing to wait and see.
2
DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited September 5
The Pathfinder 2E you mention is the table-top version; not the MMORPG?
The point is for Primary Archetypes to have opportunities to move the dial closer to one of the other Archetypes (or double down on their own) - without creating a balancing nightmare for the devs.
Also helps make 8-person Groups fairly consistent - since Ashes encounters are balanced for an 8-person Group with one of each Primary Archetype.
Theres always going to be a meta. Having less options is certainly not going to fix that.
How is 15-20 properpy fleshed out, solid and unique classes, with matching animations and ability schemes, as well as non combat functions and boons, with each class specializing in 2 to 4 weapons (let's take the extremes, mage 2 and fighter 4 weapons) "less options"?
They are true options with lots to choose from.
You think this so called customization of the 64 classes and unrestricted weapon/skill usage will offer you true freedom of choice?
You wont have a choice when the majority of the classes like cleric/rogue and ranger/tank and fighter/summoner lose to those that make sense.
You wont have choice when you realise that yes you can slot any weapon you want but they wont matter. There is no plan in this design. Only a vision in potential.
Not to mention that the animations will be lack luster to make it so that all weapon usage barely fits with the abilities, making most of them looking unsatisfying.
I actually disagree with this and there has been proof to why you are wrong in games like Ragnarok Online pre-transcendent classes.
Did certain classes have skills that gave them bonuses to use some weapons over others? Yes. But it did not mean you could not put together a viable build taking another route. There were plenty of successful thief class players, who wanted a mix of magic or to use a bow that chose the Rogue class over Assaasian. As a result you had a class which did something very good skill wise (providing debuffs), that mixed in with the theme of the original class (hiding, sneaking, stalking, backstab damage) as well as opened up a number of opportunities to explore other play styles. Stalkers could be magic users who were int based, yet still be viable with core mechanics of the class. They could go bow based and be formidable at medium range. They could play traditionally with a dagger and shield and it never overpowered the other play styles. With just one class, you had 3-4 play styles to choose from. If you account for the overall tree, we're talking about nearly 10 just from 1 starting class. I don't see it being impossible in the modern day for Ashes to be able to achieve that with sub classes. If a game like Ragnaork Online could do it back then with matching animations per skill, it's really not impossible.
If the secondary class is mostly just for flavor and some minor graphics tweaks, there's not really any point in them existing. Might as well just call them cosmetics. If they're not significantly impacting on the main class, then there aren't really 64 classes, there's only 8 and the game never should have been put forth as having 64 classes. The differences should be major and profoundly affect the way the main class is played. 8 classes with in game chosen visual tweaks is nothing. I agree with the person who said that it will come back to bite them in the ass in reviews.
It will definitely affect if I continue to play when the game launches. Decisions as dumb as having them just be flavoring of the main class, when promoting it as 64 classes, would be an indicator of a whole lot of really dumb decisions everywhere else.
it looks like the ONLY META that exists in Ashes of Creation will be - > that there will hardly be any META at all. Alone from the fact that Eight whole Classes can choose various, different Secondary Archetypes.
What for a wonderful, beautiful System. Very flexible and fresh every single time.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
I just hope the cleric secondary is not absurdly powerful in PvP. It should take away a lot of damage or other capabilities. Otherwise heres not 64, theres 8 classes. X / cleric
I wouldn't even mind them getting decent heals or tank skills. As long as they loose most of what made them powerful originally. Otherwise, there will be 1 secondary that everyone uses. X / Cleric.
Buffing the amount of heals or tanks on the market is cool in my opinion. Then, maybe the dps should just get some extra stuff from the secondary, rather than a significant rework.
This is sort of like WoW classic Season of Discovery is doing. I've tried mage healer and rogue tank. The mage healer does not keep up with the other mages in damage, at all. The rogue tank is pretty powerful and could potentially lose a bit of dps. However, in PvP neither are the "Meta" spec. The mage carries 1 heal (this makes them pretty tough) but the rogue removes everything tank. Warlock tanks on the otherhand are insane in PvP. You may as well just banish and walk away. Their damage is pretty good, but their tankyness and self heals make them very tough. There's a fine line to making a class way more powerful than the rest when you involve healing and tanking secondaries. This is a game breaker in my opinion.
"The gods do not fear death. They greet death as an old friend. When your time comes to return to the ashes, move forward knowing death is merely one of many paths to a new adventure."
Theres always going to be a meta. Having less options is certainly not going to fix that.
meta in games like dota , LOL , valorant , overwatch , these type of games is fine , but meta in a game where you spend months investing in a class then literally go to sleep , wake up , read the patch notes , find out that ur class nerfed and other class outshines u and u are not needed in competitive pvp because u are replaced by other more needed roles , that is just horrible experience , it leads to two outcomes , people taking break quitting , or ppl grinding new class , both outcomes happen , in game design if u are not able to balance 64 classes then literally don't do it , u are just wasting resources
To be fair you can swap your secondary class with a lengthy class quest which will help with that situation.
Meta could mean all classes are good (or bad) or what ever. This is why there is always a "meta". And unless everything will be the same, some classes / combo will be better for certain fights. If my class does not have any AOE damage then any AOE fight i am less optimal.
See I think people will shift the focus of the META from the individual and instead have whole group comps, complete with builds for each of the 4/8 slots. Assigning a role and build for each slot making the META even more restrictive.
0
DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
If we're using D&D terms: Ashes has 8 Classes and 64 Sub-Classes.
Intrepid has defined what their jargon for Class means and have always acknowlged that their terms for Class and Archetype are unique to Ashes.
True a Cleric can never be a replacement for a base class rogue. Much like a Rogue \ Cleric could never play group healer. But secondary archetypes can also change a skill to something else. Steven said as much. I could see Cleric \ Rogue even getting stealth of some type. Maybe even some damage improvements. And a Rogue \ Cleric could also do some backup heals in some way. And to his point a Cleric \ Rogue could spec deep enough that their heal spells could suffer being a main healer but could be a fun class to run with some rangers and rogues in some stealth missions.
If I understand what you wrote above...
(Keep in mind that Secondary Archetypes do not provide brand new Active Skills - I think "change into something else" is paraphrase that could be a bit misleading depending on what, exactly, that is intended to mean.)
I think I said all that...
Sorry 100% dyslexic here and words are not my friends. lol. Something else. Is from what I got from Steven's words. Bard skill that trades your health with a player, could be Augmented to instead trade your mana pool. This could lead to some options being more impactful then just changing damage types.
True a Cleric can never be a replacement for a base class rogue. Much like a Rogue \ Cleric could never play group healer. But secondary archetypes can also change a skill to something else. Steven said as much. I could see Cleric \ Rogue even getting stealth of some type. Maybe even some damage improvements. And a Rogue \ Cleric could also do some backup heals in some way. And to his point a Cleric \ Rogue could spec deep enough that their heal spells could suffer being a main healer but could be a fun class to run with some rangers and rogues in some stealth missions.
If I understand what you wrote above...
(Keep in mind that Secondary Archetypes do not provide brand new Active Skills - I think "change into something else" is paraphrase that could be a bit misleading depending on what, exactly, that is intended to mean.)
I think I said all that...
Sorry 100% dyslexic here and words are not my friends. lol. Something else. Is from what I got from Steven, maybe I misunderstood him.. Bard skill that trades your health with a player, could be Augmented to instead trade your mana pool. This could lead to some options being more impactful then just changing damage types.
0
DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Sorry 100% dyslexic here and words are not my friends. lol. Something else. Is from what I got from Steven's words. Bard skill that trades your health with a player, could be Augmented to instead trade your mana pool. This could lead to some options being more impactful then just changing damage types.
Cleric/Bard ??
I think it's more likely that a Bard Augment for Mana Restoration placed on a Healing Active Skill would Restore Mana in addition to Healing, rather than removing Healing.
Because the 8-person Group is relying on the Active Skills of the Primary Archetype to do what they do.
Augments allow the Active Skill to also do something else.
I dunno why you say "more impactful than just changing Damage Types".
Changing Damage Types allows my Oracle to stack Elemental Damage with the Spell Hunter in my Group.
Sorry 100% dyslexic here and words are not my friends. lol. Something else. Is from what I got from Steven's words. Bard skill that trades your health with a player, could be Augmented to instead trade your mana pool. This could lead to some options being more impactful then just changing damage types.
I think it's more likely that a Bard Augment for Mana Restoration placed on a Healing Active Skill would Restore Mana in addition to Healing, rather than removing Healing.
Because the 8-person Group is relying on the Active Skills of the Primary Archetype to do what they do.
Augments allow the Active Skill to also do something else.
I dunno why you say "more impactful than just changing Damage Types".
Changing Damage Types allows my Oracle to stack Elemental Damage with the Spell Hunter in my Group.
I think I understood Steven saying that some changes you could select with the augment skill is that skill could change the damage type, add to the skill, or change the skill entirely. These type of changes could be more impactful if say a skill that gives a HoT was changed to a DoT that added a debuff, that when attacked returned X% amount of healing when you damage that target.
0
DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
You don't really select the effects of the Augment.
You apply the Augment to an Active Skill. The same Augment could do different stuff depending on which Active Skill it's on.
But, players are not selecting what the Augments do. We are just choosing which Active Skills we want to apply the Augment onto.
"A HoT changed to a DoT that added a debuff, that when attacked returned X% amount of healing when you damage that target..." is basically a HoT that also deals damage and maybe adds a debuff.
That seems possible since the Healing Active Skill is still providing Heals.
I think the quote does not say an Active Skill can be changed entirely. I think the exact words used were "radically" and "fundamentally". And that doesn't mean that the changed Active Skill is not going to fullfill the original impact of the Active Skill. Rather, same original result overall - might have some extra stuff added to it.
You don't really select the effects of the Augment.
You apply the Augment to an Active Skill. The same Augment could do different stuff depending on which Active Skill it's on.
But, players are not selecting what the Augments do. We are just choosing which Active Skills we want to apply the Augment onto.
"A HoT changed to a DoT that added a debuff, that when attacked returned X% amount of healing when you damage that target..." is basically a HoT that also deals damage and maybe adds a debuff.
That seems possible since the Healing Active Skill is still providing Heals.
I think the quote does not say an Active Skill can be changed entirely. I think the exact words used were "radically" and "fundamentally". And that doesn't mean that the changed Active Skill is not going to fullfill the original impact of the Active Skill. Rather, same original result overall - might have some extra stuff added to it.
Ya his wording could be taken many different ways. Cant wait for the Augment update. My guess it will be some time after May 1st when we get the last Base Archetype. This is one of the areas has me most intrigued. Between how questing/Events/Story Arcs works in this game and the skills. Its much of what EQ Next wanted to make. I cant wait to see IS pull this off.
Radical would imply that some original purpose is preserved but most of how it achives it is different. But Fundamental is absolutly a word which would imply a skill has been changed to now fuffill a different purpose. The only stronger word which could be applied would be 'totaly changed' which would implay nothing, not even the flavor of the original skill remained.
That would not be a perfect world.
64 true Classes (the D&D definition) would be too difficult for the devs to balance - even in the best world.
I'm not sure how true this often used statement is. I play Pathfinder 2e, and you'd be surprised at how many character options and complexity you can have, and still be balanced, so long as you put in the effort into the system in the beginning and get your damn math right.
It's absolutely doable, it's just not easy.
But honestly, I don't balance is really that important. I think it's more important for the secondary archetype options to be distinct and interesting, otherwise what is the point?
Why have a system like this if your not going to do anything with it. But it seems like they very may be doing something interesting, so I'm willing to wait and see.
I have never played the paper version of Pathfinder, but I played a fair bit of Pathfinder Kingmaker and Wrath. Both obviously utilise the paper Pathfinder system as their inspiration. A lot of active abilities are shared across multiple different classes, yet those games manage to provide a solid class identity, thanks to skills which are unique for specific classes, their passives and general skill combinations etc.
This is why, I would not mind if some active skills from the secondary archetype were made available as you progress your character. Not just passive augments, or primary archetype skill modifiers based on the augments. This would definitely provide more flexibility in how you could build your character and more gameplay variety. Obviously at the cost of larger balancing headaches for Intrepid
0
DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Radical would imply that some original purpose is preserved but most of how it achives it is different. But Fundamental is absolutly a word which would imply a skill has been changed to now fuffill a different purpose. The only stronger word which could be applied would be 'totaly changed' which would imply nothing, not even the flavor of the original skill remained.
"Fundamentally change" could mean that an Active Skill which Summons many Minions is modified to Summon one big Minion.
A Healing Active Skill might change from Single Target to AoE (or vice versa) and also include a DoT.
"Radically" and "fundamentally" are used to counter the claims of "just flavor" and "just cosmetic".
We'll have to see how radical the changes actually are, but an Augmented Active Skill still fulfills its original purpose.
"The intent behind the Augment system is not to provide new Active Abilities. They're intended to augment existing Active Abilities that are provided through your Primary Archetype; and so your Secondary Archetype selection completes your Class selection, of which there's 64 types and you get Augment skills that can apply certain attributes and mechanics to your existing Active Skills.
So, if you have certain abilities, like a Backstab as a Rogue Primary Archetype, and you take that Healer Secondary Archetype selection, now the properties of your Backstab will still remain the same as an Active Ability, however it might include things like Life Steal, or it might include things like susceptible weakness to the target, and reduces their healing because the definition of what those Augments are intended to provide based on the Archetype selected for the Augments is within the Schools of magic that live for that Archetype: so a Cleric is about balancing Life and Death and the control of those types of Hit Points."
---- Steven
"Fundamentally change" could mean that an Active Skill which Summons many Minions is modified to Summon one big Minion.
A Healing Active Skill might change from Single Target to AoE (or vice versa) and also include a DoT.
"Radically" and "fundamentally" are used to counter the claims of "just flavor" and "just cosmetic".
We'll have to see how radical the changes actually are, but an Augmented Active Skill still fulfills its original purpose.
Both thouse examples would only be Radical changes at best, not Fundamental ones. You seem to have a habit of interpreting Steven's statements in ways which are biased towards continuity with prior statements even when that breaks the normal definition of words. The statement your quoting from Steven is indeed not a Fundamental change, but he did not claim it was. So their is no basis to think Steven has a broken understanding of the word Fundamental.
Steven used that term "very fundamental changes" for the first time recently in response to the continued questioing of how much change augments can/would do. It was clearly couched in the implication that this would not be the norm, that only a few skills would get that level of change and most would be lesser. You could even interpret it as speculation or ambition rather then a promise, but saying that it's not a material change the game design he is communicating to us and that it is identical to past statements is not tennable.
0
DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited September 6
It's Steven's vision of what "radical" and "fundamental" mean; not anyone else's, because he is the Creative Director of the game.
I'm not aware of Steven providing examples of the traits he attributes to the radical category as something separate from the traits he attributes to the fundamental category. For all we know, he uses those terms interchangeably.
What he has tried to be consistent about is that the Active Skills have the greatest impact.
That is how the devs will balance so that typical encounters are designed for an 8-person Group with one of each Primary Archetype.
It's all speculation and ambition until the design is implemented.
You can interpret anyway you want to.
We will test Augments in A2 and learn what radical and fundamental truly mean.
The Bard showcase showed that it is likely for most, if not all Archetypes will, not just weapon tree, but in the talent tree the player will specialize in a "stance" and "tool/weapon" that will effect how the playstyle of the talent tree is expressed.
We have seen this with the Ranger, as well.
This type of talent tree style will likely carry over to the class talent trees in more noticeable ways than the Archetype trees.
There will always be something considered meta, no matter what you do. They should even out the classes the best they can and then not worry about it. As the game changes and the years go on, every class will have its time in the sun. It's a non issue, and not something you can solve anyway.
With that being a reality, they should give us as much class diversity as they possibly can through the augments. The variations should feel like completely different experiences. That makes for a far better video game than boring, perfect and impossible to achieve balance.
Comments
I'm not sure how true this often used statement is. I play Pathfinder 2e, and you'd be surprised at how many character options and complexity you can have, and still be balanced, so long as you put in the effort into the system in the beginning and get your damn math right.
It's absolutely doable, it's just not easy.
But honestly, I don't balance is really that important. I think it's more important for the secondary archetype options to be distinct and interesting, otherwise what is the point?
Why have a system like this if your not going to do anything with it. But it seems like they very may be doing something interesting, so I'm willing to wait and see.
The point is for Primary Archetypes to have opportunities to move the dial closer to one of the other Archetypes (or double down on their own) - without creating a balancing nightmare for the devs.
Also helps make 8-person Groups fairly consistent - since Ashes encounters are balanced for an 8-person Group with one of each Primary Archetype.
I actually disagree with this and there has been proof to why you are wrong in games like Ragnarok Online pre-transcendent classes.
Did certain classes have skills that gave them bonuses to use some weapons over others? Yes. But it did not mean you could not put together a viable build taking another route. There were plenty of successful thief class players, who wanted a mix of magic or to use a bow that chose the Rogue class over Assaasian. As a result you had a class which did something very good skill wise (providing debuffs), that mixed in with the theme of the original class (hiding, sneaking, stalking, backstab damage) as well as opened up a number of opportunities to explore other play styles. Stalkers could be magic users who were int based, yet still be viable with core mechanics of the class. They could go bow based and be formidable at medium range. They could play traditionally with a dagger and shield and it never overpowered the other play styles. With just one class, you had 3-4 play styles to choose from. If you account for the overall tree, we're talking about nearly 10 just from 1 starting class. I don't see it being impossible in the modern day for Ashes to be able to achieve that with sub classes. If a game like Ragnaork Online could do it back then with matching animations per skill, it's really not impossible.
It will definitely affect if I continue to play when the game launches. Decisions as dumb as having them just be flavoring of the main class, when promoting it as 64 classes, would be an indicator of a whole lot of really dumb decisions everywhere else.
To me,
it looks like the ONLY META that exists in Ashes of Creation will be - > that there will hardly be any META at all. Alone from the fact that Eight whole Classes can choose various, different Secondary Archetypes.
What for a wonderful, beautiful System. Very flexible and fresh every single time.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
I wouldn't even mind them getting decent heals or tank skills. As long as they loose most of what made them powerful originally. Otherwise, there will be 1 secondary that everyone uses. X / Cleric.
Buffing the amount of heals or tanks on the market is cool in my opinion. Then, maybe the dps should just get some extra stuff from the secondary, rather than a significant rework.
This is sort of like WoW classic Season of Discovery is doing. I've tried mage healer and rogue tank. The mage healer does not keep up with the other mages in damage, at all. The rogue tank is pretty powerful and could potentially lose a bit of dps. However, in PvP neither are the "Meta" spec. The mage carries 1 heal (this makes them pretty tough) but the rogue removes everything tank. Warlock tanks on the otherhand are insane in PvP. You may as well just banish and walk away. Their damage is pretty good, but their tankyness and self heals make them very tough. There's a fine line to making a class way more powerful than the rest when you involve healing and tanking secondaries. This is a game breaker in my opinion.
To be fair you can swap your secondary class with a lengthy class quest which will help with that situation.
See I think people will shift the focus of the META from the individual and instead have whole group comps, complete with builds for each of the 4/8 slots. Assigning a role and build for each slot making the META even more restrictive.
Intrepid has defined what their jargon for Class means and have always acknowlged that their terms for Class and Archetype are unique to Ashes.
Sorry 100% dyslexic here and words are not my friends. lol. Something else. Is from what I got from Steven's words. Bard skill that trades your health with a player, could be Augmented to instead trade your mana pool. This could lead to some options being more impactful then just changing damage types.
Sorry 100% dyslexic here and words are not my friends. lol. Something else. Is from what I got from Steven, maybe I misunderstood him.. Bard skill that trades your health with a player, could be Augmented to instead trade your mana pool. This could lead to some options being more impactful then just changing damage types.
I think it's more likely that a Bard Augment for Mana Restoration placed on a Healing Active Skill would Restore Mana in addition to Healing, rather than removing Healing.
Because the 8-person Group is relying on the Active Skills of the Primary Archetype to do what they do.
Augments allow the Active Skill to also do something else.
I dunno why you say "more impactful than just changing Damage Types".
Changing Damage Types allows my Oracle to stack Elemental Damage with the Spell Hunter in my Group.
I think I understood Steven saying that some changes you could select with the augment skill is that skill could change the damage type, add to the skill, or change the skill entirely. These type of changes could be more impactful if say a skill that gives a HoT was changed to a DoT that added a debuff, that when attacked returned X% amount of healing when you damage that target.
You apply the Augment to an Active Skill. The same Augment could do different stuff depending on which Active Skill it's on.
But, players are not selecting what the Augments do. We are just choosing which Active Skills we want to apply the Augment onto.
"A HoT changed to a DoT that added a debuff, that when attacked returned X% amount of healing when you damage that target..." is basically a HoT that also deals damage and maybe adds a debuff.
That seems possible since the Healing Active Skill is still providing Heals.
I think the quote does not say an Active Skill can be changed entirely. I think the exact words used were "radically" and "fundamentally". And that doesn't mean that the changed Active Skill is not going to fullfill the original impact of the Active Skill. Rather, same original result overall - might have some extra stuff added to it.
Ya his wording could be taken many different ways. Cant wait for the Augment update. My guess it will be some time after May 1st when we get the last Base Archetype. This is one of the areas has me most intrigued. Between how questing/Events/Story Arcs works in this game and the skills. Its much of what EQ Next wanted to make. I cant wait to see IS pull this off.
This is why, I would not mind if some active skills from the secondary archetype were made available as you progress your character. Not just passive augments, or primary archetype skill modifiers based on the augments. This would definitely provide more flexibility in how you could build your character and more gameplay variety. Obviously at the cost of larger balancing headaches for Intrepid
A Healing Active Skill might change from Single Target to AoE (or vice versa) and also include a DoT.
"Radically" and "fundamentally" are used to counter the claims of "just flavor" and "just cosmetic".
We'll have to see how radical the changes actually are, but an Augmented Active Skill still fulfills its original purpose.
"The intent behind the Augment system is not to provide new Active Abilities. They're intended to augment existing Active Abilities that are provided through your Primary Archetype; and so your Secondary Archetype selection completes your Class selection, of which there's 64 types and you get Augment skills that can apply certain attributes and mechanics to your existing Active Skills.
So, if you have certain abilities, like a Backstab as a Rogue Primary Archetype, and you take that Healer Secondary Archetype selection, now the properties of your Backstab will still remain the same as an Active Ability, however it might include things like Life Steal, or it might include things like susceptible weakness to the target, and reduces their healing because the definition of what those Augments are intended to provide based on the Archetype selected for the Augments is within the Schools of magic that live for that Archetype: so a Cleric is about balancing Life and Death and the control of those types of Hit Points."
---- Steven
Both thouse examples would only be Radical changes at best, not Fundamental ones. You seem to have a habit of interpreting Steven's statements in ways which are biased towards continuity with prior statements even when that breaks the normal definition of words. The statement your quoting from Steven is indeed not a Fundamental change, but he did not claim it was. So their is no basis to think Steven has a broken understanding of the word Fundamental.
Steven used that term "very fundamental changes" for the first time recently in response to the continued questioing of how much change augments can/would do. It was clearly couched in the implication that this would not be the norm, that only a few skills would get that level of change and most would be lesser. You could even interpret it as speculation or ambition rather then a promise, but saying that it's not a material change the game design he is communicating to us and that it is identical to past statements is not tennable.
I'm not aware of Steven providing examples of the traits he attributes to the radical category as something separate from the traits he attributes to the fundamental category. For all we know, he uses those terms interchangeably.
What he has tried to be consistent about is that the Active Skills have the greatest impact.
That is how the devs will balance so that typical encounters are designed for an 8-person Group with one of each Primary Archetype.
It's all speculation and ambition until the design is implemented.
You can interpret anyway you want to.
We will test Augments in A2 and learn what radical and fundamental truly mean.
We have seen this with the Ranger, as well.
This type of talent tree style will likely carry over to the class talent trees in more noticeable ways than the Archetype trees.
With that being a reality, they should give us as much class diversity as they possibly can through the augments. The variations should feel like completely different experiences. That makes for a far better video game than boring, perfect and impossible to achieve balance.