Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Class system
I am aware that the plan is 8 by 8 class system, and it sounds really cool. However, looking at the whole picture, with player based world, would it not be more efficient to create a no class system? Of course, much work would be scrapped, but it would appeal to wider audiences that are looking for unusual weapon combos etc. , and trading would have a wider impact due to rather having weapons used by everyone, instead of class specific audience.
Lets say the game has 20 types of weapons. Those 20 weapons vary, in terms of damage, speed, weight etc, but be able to be used by each class. Of course, maybe stats come in play and dictate the user capability of using that weapon, because we can not have an archer based player use a bastard sword! Passives can have a stand too, and increase certain stats on weapons, instead of having to enchant or modify weapons, like increased agility would help with handling light based weapons, and strength help with the attacking speed of heavy based weapons. Some weapons will have certain advantages, such as a spear could be used while on a mount, and be effective in contrast with a dagger.
Skill trees on the other hand, should (in my opinion) be primarily chosen by the player himself, as if we create so much freedom in combat, they would be tired of so many choices.
Speaking of combat, this is the biggest hurdle in my dream system: the combat would have to be calibrated to all situations, taking in the players stats, the animations and skills for weapons, and other. The problem in general would be the time taken to make such a combat system, because it would mean that more time goes in the time frame before the release of the game, while there would less time in the time frame after the release of the game. By having a weapon based class system instead of actual classes, the standard of content would increase, due to needing a decent variety to start with, instead of progressing classes over time.
I myself love to use gauntlets, fists, claws, any type of weapon that relies around hand control that can be in sync with the players movement, tough its rare. But in the end, I would still play this game to its fullest, as I can see great potential to spark a whole new era of gaming.
Lets say the game has 20 types of weapons. Those 20 weapons vary, in terms of damage, speed, weight etc, but be able to be used by each class. Of course, maybe stats come in play and dictate the user capability of using that weapon, because we can not have an archer based player use a bastard sword! Passives can have a stand too, and increase certain stats on weapons, instead of having to enchant or modify weapons, like increased agility would help with handling light based weapons, and strength help with the attacking speed of heavy based weapons. Some weapons will have certain advantages, such as a spear could be used while on a mount, and be effective in contrast with a dagger.
Skill trees on the other hand, should (in my opinion) be primarily chosen by the player himself, as if we create so much freedom in combat, they would be tired of so many choices.
Speaking of combat, this is the biggest hurdle in my dream system: the combat would have to be calibrated to all situations, taking in the players stats, the animations and skills for weapons, and other. The problem in general would be the time taken to make such a combat system, because it would mean that more time goes in the time frame before the release of the game, while there would less time in the time frame after the release of the game. By having a weapon based class system instead of actual classes, the standard of content would increase, due to needing a decent variety to start with, instead of progressing classes over time.
I myself love to use gauntlets, fists, claws, any type of weapon that relies around hand control that can be in sync with the players movement, tough its rare. But in the end, I would still play this game to its fullest, as I can see great potential to spark a whole new era of gaming.
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(the huge one) success out side the gaming industry from a disapointed gamer
(another big one) backed by pros
(the biggest one of all) ALOT of work done before even alpha, and before even asking for $$ on a kickstarter
planning on a release soon - they must have alot of the game developed already
old school concepts that have been lost but were fan favorites
focus on community building
new concepts
sub base - hackers, gold spammers, will be dealt with + likely reliable maintenance and steady new content
for all we know classes can use any weapon / gear but we dont know so well have to see
the videos show some good quality progress, im confident theyll pull it off and interested to see it in action. however this is based off of my digging, id wait to see tthe dev blogs before judging whole heartedly
With no thought, I'd think to split the 8 archetypes into 4 combat focused and 4 non-combat.
Non-combat would obviously be Trader, Researcher, Explorer, and Industry (carpentry, blacksmithing, mining, etc). Diplomacy would be handled via freeform and non-factious player interactions.
Combat would be Magic-based (mage, sorcerer), Stealth-based (ranger, thief), Weapon-based (soldier, fighter), and Healing-based (cleric, alchemist).
Of course choosing an archetype wouldn't lock you out of other professions, it'll just affect your proficiency at them. Perhaps "capping" (not shutting down progress completely, just making snail paced progress) the skill level of a skill that your archetype doesn't cover. But after working with that cap for so long, you'd be able to break through it; so perhaps it should be called a "lid" instead because the skill could still be "opened." Maybe there'd be multiple caps and in a non-specialized skill and periods of uninhibited development. Moreover, there could be "lids" even in specialized skills, albeit a lot fewer; the idea of these lids would be like belts in martial arts. You'd go through a rough patch, but unlock the next "valley after the mountain."
So say a Mage wants to also build houses: They'd be slow to progress from building ramshackle huts to a decent single person home. But they'd be capped at building a...let's say a family sized home. After building so many houses or related tasks, they'd find themselves building nicer family homes. Eventually they'd be able to work on bigger projects after going through the "valley" and reach another "mountain" they'd have to break through.
I hope we can expand upon this.
The weapon system you're talking about is kind of similar in Albion. Give that a try, it's really fun and has a fantastic system in place for it; however, the MMO balancing is very difficult for such a thing like that and leads to several builds which absolutely dominant the meta, and then when people change it people get salty. You see in games like Albion where that is possible even if meta is changed you can easily switch a few items around, train a bit, and be back fighting until something gets buffed/nerfed. In an MMO you will need to stick with your class so that you can not have 80% mages running around at any given time simply because that weapon/build is currently meta. Will there be balance issues early on? Absolutely but people are less likely to go "I'm going to make this op build then spend 50+ hours getting it leveled and geared EVEN THOUGH I know it will get nerfed and rebalanced soon." In Albion it's more of a changing meta you adapt to. I personally do not want that in an MMO, and I know that a system like that needs to be designed from the ground up with the game's combat systems in mind to work.
On the topic of stats it'll most likely not affect attack speed, as that can quickly change DPS levels and heavily affect what is good and what is not. Take for example Perfect World: 5 attack per seconds builds dominated PvE and some PvP for a very long time.
Side note: Combat skill trees work in unique ways. The second archetype you choose affects the way your first archetype skills function. It's quite an interesting system, and I'm excited to see how far they take it.
Tl;dr about weapons - Cool system, highly doubt it will be implemented in any way in this game. Though I'm sure it will to some extent.
As for professions I see it going one of three ways. Access to all professions at any time, but you can only hit certain ranks with each one based on how many others you have. E.G. You can only have 2 mastered skills, 4 expert, then maybe the rest adept max. Second way is you choose some X number out of the professions to use similar to other MMO's where everyone has a limit of say 2-3 "Leatherworking, construction, smithing" etc. My personal favorite would just be completely freeform though with no restrictions. That way if people really love crafting and that's all they want to do, they can spend all their time going down the different avenues of crafting WITHOUT having to make new characters, possibly lose ranks in another, or be limited to a set amount.
From a balance perspective this would work long term. If an item is flooded on the market then people will stop creating it and continue to another item. Whereas if you were stuck with a chosen profession or forced to switch, then all the time you spent getting experience in your profession has been wasted because everyone else likes doing that profession as well.
Question: if there are going to be 4 physical and 4 magical archetypes, they would not add any time soon other archetypes, due to letting the player base get used to what it means to be physical and magical. The combat system reminds me of Chivalry: Medieval Warfare type of action. Here;s the catch though, being a mmorpg, it would imply that classes would have an upper hand towards others, and vice versa. So having a rock paper scissors combat that seems pretty realistic would seem as a decent idea, but then what happens when there is middle ground? Are they going to counter both sides or? Are they going to be easily dominating the meta or?
Side note: I am an enthusiast towards pure melee weapons like gauntlets and claws. I would take a guess that there will not be such weapon, considering that, having 4 physical archetypes would mean fighter, tank, ranger, and assassin, and from what I've seen in the combat video, fighter would most likely be using swords. This begs questions: would there be other weapons to use per archetype, or re-skin the weapon to what we want? I would think no, as seeing the skills in the video greatly imply that weapons must be a certain category.
P.S. I thank everyone that replied to this thread, and I thank the support in them :D
was this announced? im unable to find anything on classes, but damn was hoping for something a bit more creative than your a warrior + healer, if i cant get guns on my dwarf i wanted to run an almost enhanced shammy type build. Then again im worried about whats keeping hybrid classes balanced, id assume full magic / full martial 2 mans would wreck 2 man hybrid teams without extreme coordination.
Edit: then again the racially diverse stats may make up the difference between classes depends on how stats and all that work
<blockquote> “I’m going to make this op build then spend 50+ hours getting it leveled and geared EVEN THOUGH I know it will get nerfed and rebalanced soon.”</blockquote>
sadly this is what eso became for me, by the end of all the skill grinds i was so bored, its a good way to kill a game especially since you pretty much need all passives anymore.
<blockquote>This begs questions: would there be other weapons to use per archetype, or re-skin the weapon to what we want? I would think no, as seeing the skills in the video greatly imply that weapons must be a certain category.</blockquote>
1) i really hope so games kinda lose the immersion factor when your see 9,000 copies of yourself running around
2)i really hope not, my guess is it'll be (ranged) (1/2h) (DW) if anything
So I like the system they're going with; you still have the classes with some freedom to what you want.
I played a lot of MMO(RPG)'s and in my opinion, the developers need to keep one thing in mind "What is the goal of the game?" and which people they want to attract?
<strong>A PvP environment </strong>
PvP'ers (me) want a lot of diversity, we want to make a unique build with unique abilities. For example; you got the game 'Albion Online' this game has a Destinyboard; here you can decide your own route. If you want to create a tank mage, this is always possible. A game like 'Elder Scrolls Online' has almost the same concept but they restricted it to classes. So you can be diverse within your class. But you can still use every weapon and every armor type in the game.
<strong>A PvE environment</strong>
PvE'ers care about the world, about questing and about collecting materials; be self-sufficient. They want to kill monsters, gathering resources and they do not want to look over their shoulder every single time wondering if there is someone there to kill them.
<strong>Balancing</strong>
So to get to the point; you need to find a balance between those aspects. Maybe some resources you need to gather in dangerous places, places where PvP'ers come in actions and the PvE'ers need some protections from friends/guildies. As of the class system; in my opinion, you need to consider PvP'ers, PvP'ers are a big part in every MMO(RPG).
Cheers! Kutweer, your companion!
you have a full healer bar the same as everyone else or you dont
your full dps or your not
it doesnt leave much room for being unique or unique classes
but i shouldnt judge it before i see it in videos, the problem with most games that did it this way is implementation was terrible and as a consiquence the progression was boring on the class side. the games later died, or just never boosted pop back up, this is one advantage some class based rpgs have that make out more creative classes, it alows you to put your own "spin" as you put it. (since they have multiple types of abilities you can specialize in)
as kutweer said : "what type of players do you want to attract?"
1)clearly long term players - mmos based on community = revenue - a good community keeps people longer = more revenue
2) non carebear types - carebears generally pick of a game play it for a wile get bored and leave, lets face it winning all the time gets boring
3) the ideal clientel falls to hardcore pvpers, and hardcore pvers(especially the master crafters out there), and the retiree croud, ohh and rpers. those guys seem to spend years in game, but they like thier own identity between thier factions(god it was soo annoying playing along with them to infiltrate a guild with my buddys to murder them for trying to recruit cross server, we didnt like them poaching recruits xD) customization is almost vital to long term survival especially in western mmos, take black desert for example, excelent combat, decent quests, diverse unique classes, player housing, but no customization, little diversity in progression. in the western world its all but dead.
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[quote quote=990] [...] Of course choosing an archetype wouldn’t lock you out of other professions, it’ll just affect your proficiency at them.
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I really hope to see a system when you can change classes and professions, with this I'm not saying a total multi-classing where you can mix skills and abilities from different classes without any restriction but a system that gives players the possibility to change their "class" (archetype) without forcing them to create a new character from scratch.
I had always thought that limiting the player to one class or one crafting specialization was bad, I know in a MMO doing so can somehow improve the overall players interaction, but I think there are better ways.
So far FFXIV made the best multi-classing system I have tried and a coherent and rewarding crafting system, I'd like to see something similar in AoC.
Nowadays all games you play, you have a predefined role starting of character creation,
You selected a mage and will always or initially stick to that role
what i would love to see is not making a character based on the role
But rather a character that is able to decided overtime what he becomes
If i wanna dualwield sword and heal that should be possible, i just have to train and get the experience to do so
could be a questlines or a matter of becoming a student of a master
this would make the class system more unique and special (to me)
Each "role" would have his predefined skillset
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for example, i made my character and in the starting town there are multiple teachers(masters)
But when i was doing a start quest line i was lucky and a weapon drop 2h blunt weapon
I could decided to role with that, so i go to the master for Melee 2h and start my training
This would unlock a skillset, of initially four skills
<pre><code>- Charge (gap closer)
- Slam (stun)
- Generic Attack (more dps, but slower)
- Counter (block)</code></pre>
Later i group up with a clan and they really in need of a healer, so i go to the temple and decided to become an apprentice
combining what i learned i would be a 2h Melee Healer...
New skillset added to my build (4 addition skills)
<pre><code>- Healing wave (arch heal in front of my character)
- Prayer (AOE heal)
- First Aid (helping wounded player)
- Empower (Buff that blesses my weapon or other players with holy power)</code></pre>
Now i have a character i really like to play but i lack a bit of surviability
so i decided to go to the blacksmith and learn the fine art of heavy plate armor
Because of my initial skillset (2h melee) i picked, i have the needed strenght to be able to wear this armor (its heavy)
Unlocks an addition skillset, which bring it to 12 skills
<pre><code>- Bastion (stand ground, high defense, but bound to the spot)
- more reliable in combat (higher defense)
- Slower movement (less dash or speed)
- Divine light (A buff that Increase max hp and regen for anyone in a radius around my character)</code></pre>
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So summary, my character become some sort of Paladin type
Capable of healing and supporting allies
Stand his ground in group content
Has decent dps to defend himself and solo adventures
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This would all work together with the crafting system
My 2h Melee would be a Mace with sockets that increase my magic dmg (higher healing)
My heavy armor would be made of materials that are magic infused (faster castspeed etc)
etc. But thats another whole story :D the modular crafting system i would love to the see in a game
I could write novels about what i want in a game!
It makes me think of merely a foundation for modification.
But it could just be me reading too much into wording.....and wishful thinking.
No one can answer this unless they are on the development team, but I'll take a stab at it based on experience with other MMO's. Actually, one in particular which this game holds many early similarities to, had a class based system with a rock-paper-scissors format. You had some freedom in character development though via state allocation (think Diablo where you add a couple points to constitution every level). Ultimately this led to people either creating very specialized classes or building their character a little more balanced. What this ultimately meant for the balanced character was they were still a rock fighting a pair of scissors, they were just a much smaller rock so the advantage over the scissors wasn't as great. Their disadvantage against Paper wasn't as great either though.
</blockquote>
was this announced? im unable to find anything on classes, but damn was hoping for something a bit more creative than your a warrior + healer(...)
The archtypes were named after the classical classes we know.
-Fighter -Tank -Ranger -Rogue
-Bard -Cleric -Mage
and i forgot the last one
I do not remember hearing anything about what those classes are meant to be, but they do have some obvious sounding names and are labeled as "the typcial archtypes we know" so it's not that far fetched.
The primary - secoundary archtype pick style we get does open up a lot of questions tho so it remains to be seen how it all works out.
Classes will not be locked to a single weapon, we got that much information.
I think this is were they will let us loose and completly throw over what those old archtypes stand for.
While a Cleric with a book recites old, divine texts to strenghten his allies, a Cleric with a sword will smite his enemies with blessed strikes.
Stuff like that.
I really got bored to grind all around the map and know what am I going to create with my crafter. Don't limit players with your own receipes. Otherwise there will be a bunch of same skill players and all the same gear on them. Give a chance to crafters according to their skills to craft unique items and give them runic tools(make it hard to get) to craft items with random properties on it. Do not give crafters RECEIPES that ruin the games.
Thanks for that good game. Looking forward to see the BETA.
The old Command & Conquer series (especially my favourite, the original C&C from '95) is a good example of how to make it work: two factions with drastically different feel to each of them. That's exactly what I would like to see in AoC - the moment you switch to a different class, you <em>feel </em>it in every action.
Another example I like is Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, where each race, class, weapon behaved very differently - some slow moving, powerful characters, others weaker and with lower health, but fast and nimble.
As for balancing out the abilities in order to prevent overpowered ones, I remember the old Daggerfall spell creator system. You had a certain 'budget' determined by your level, skill and mana pool, which could be distributed across various aspects of your new spell. You chose the school of magic, the effect type, range, magnitude, duration, etc. and every move of a slider had immediate effect on the cost of the spell (both in money needed to purchase it and in mana pool and skill you needed to cast it).
Such a system gives you a lot of creative freedom within your overall 'budget' determined by, say, your level, magic / combat skill, etc. Raise any of its effects too high and you won't be able to cast the spell.
It's not to say such spell creator system should be in AoC, it's just a way how to keep balance, while having a large number of classes in the game.