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Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Dynamic Archetypes
MindFork
Member, Alpha Two
Thanks all who took part on the discussion. Already the first comments have shown multiple places which were wrong from the first brainstorming. Wiping the initial idea to not lead anyone in wrong direction 
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Comments
No.
Exactly.
There is this WoW Private Server with EXACTLY this premise.
Do you know what happened? Everyone started stacking certain on hit buffs and began onceshotting each other.
This means that when you make a choice, you get a thing. It also means that when you make a choice, you don't get a thing.
When you create a class, you get those abilities. You specifically don't get the abilities of the other classes.
This is good.
However this is not the goal of AoC and I am glad for it, because division of the playerbase into 8 base archetypes is enough diversity. Also from the way it was talked about I suppose that basically any base archetype could tank dungeons (if they took tank as secondary archetype), but you still want a dedicated tank to do the hardest content.
― Plato
― Plato
Would be okay with that as long as you get reset to lvl 1 and it would include a lengthy hellish questline.
Do you realize that any sane person would just delete the character and create a new one with the same name?
― Plato
Of course i do^^
sounds like a solid system. i like it
Yeah, agree and this goes already into details. Normaly the idea is by switch only the weapon you will only get some another skills which are bound only to this weapon. But of cource this weapon should also fit the rest of your gear. Just a streight example if you whole build full intellect and you switch from stuff to sword, you would not be able to deal heavy damage with it.
The rules when exactly and how the switch is posibile can also be specified more strict.
Thanks all for taking time for reading and giving a feedback!
First: its nice for you to engage such a controversial discussion!
Second: there are skills that depend on your weapon. A bard will have the same spear weapon skills as a warrior or a mage.
Third: the "reading the traces stuff" is a special ranger ability which is their "specialty". A tank can see invisible enemies (kind of), a cleric can cleanse poison, a rogue can find invisible doors or treasure, a mage can lift enchantments, etc. Its all about the choice of you choosing that class at the beginning. If you go mage, then you will have to live with the fact that you wont be able to go invisible
Fourth: freedom is okay, but not if it takes away the importance of choice
Alright bro. I know you are catching a lot of crap from everyone for your thread but I am going to break each of your suggestions down from my own perspective. I've noticed a lot of healthy discussion on these forums and I hope to add to that : ).
1) I'm starting as a tank for my guild so we can ensure that raid progression and constant organized play is accessible for the whole guild. If others can easily switch to tank, my value is now lowered. gear will be a nightmare to maintain and acquire as well.
2) We don't and here's why
A)If people can't learn how other classes are played through communication or pvp, they don't deserve to survive.
B)Same answer from A
C)You can easily re-roll your character if you don't like what you have. You should get a general feel for how the gameplay will be in the first few hours.
D)Making something too user friendly IMO is just bad for games that intend to live for a long time. If the game is 5 years old and someone is joining it, it will be because they've seen videos on it or have friends who play. The difficulty for newbies at that point will not be a factor is further success.
E)Where you see class specific talents as a negative, I see it as a positive. Rogues finding hidden loot areas to explore, tanks being able to get their faces smashed in and survive, rangers detecting things and whatever else Intrepid delivers to us are what make our individual characters unique. It will be exciting to decide between a bard for their support or a rogue for its additional loot possibilities as one example of the many we will face.
F)As a main tank, I would never leave a group unless it's an emergency. However, this does happen. Yes the raid or dungeon is over at that point unless you have someone else. The point with this one is to know people, have a presence in the community that will allow for more organized content.
G)I will hate having to master healing if I am planning on tanking. I also don't really want to dps. I want to interrupt, pull people, and get torn to shreds. When I want to meme around I will play my summoner/cleric.
H)I have faith that Intrepid will prevent classes becoming useless from patching. If they continue with the no addon aspect of the game, it will be very hard for people to straight dismiss classes because of patch notes. I plan on mastering all 8 of my sub-types to find out which best fits my style as a tank.
I)I disagree that this would be more fun than what is currently in play. It just adds more things for me to do which I wouldn't do. I have no need to improve other styles. There should be enough content in the game to keep us entertained that doesn't involve us going through the rounds of healing and dpsing and tanking all over again in the same content.
J)I usually play 1-3 characters but my alts are never my raiders. They are more for fun. My brother usually plays one of every class and tries to master them all. He has twinks, he has bank alts, he goes all out in this area. If he was stuck with one character that could play everything, he wouldn't even pick the game up. I do agree that people should focus on one character and not get so addicted that min/maxing several causes them to forget about real life priorities (as no game should allow for this) but forcing everyone to focus on one just doesn't work.
3) Your imagination on archetypes
A)I do like the idea of different weapon types giving different skills but it cannot change the entire kit. Maybe 2-3 skills.
B)I do not like the idea that a weapon will give me a class specific skill. That takes away from that class.
C) I think weapons should be unable to change during combat. I guess I am on the fence here really. Maybe a second weapon that allows for a dynamic style of interchanging abilities but this is a really tough one to implement imo.
D)Makes sense to have a timer limit or something to stop people from abusing the switch. Again with the dungeons, whatever takes away from the community aspect of communication and making friends is a no from me. If a player leaves, be forced to find a replacement or stop the run.
E)It's a good idea to feel progression on many different levels in an mmo. Leveling skills always feels good. It makes sense to level abilities by using abilities and this can be implemented in the game with relative ease.'
At the end of the day, it seems you have a solid idea but it just doesn't fit into the MMO scene that people are wanting right now. New World is proof of this. They allowed 3 different weapon swaps and then ended up removing pvp (dumb). But even then it wasn't smoothed out and the pvp wasn't really praised as something that would last for a long time. Hopefully you don't take my post as negative as I meant all of this as just my side of the discussion.
All that honest mental effort going into writing this out in total defiance of the design principles behind your choice of primary archetype being a meaningful and permanent decision towards the development of your character.
Bro calm down. He changed his mind after listening to the replies. Its ok to have an opinion on something, even if that opinion is wrong.
For point 3 and rest under it - understand and mostly agree Haha^^ No worry I understood it right way
PS: feedback from you and another guys helped me to modify the original post to something which could be maybe better fit the expectations. Nevertheless kept the history under spoilers.