Should Secondary Archetypes be More Permanent?

We know that you can change secondary archetype and that Intrepid are trying to design it so that you can't change often. What do you guys think about the permanency of picking a secondary class? Do you think class identity or primary archetype identity will be more important?

I had an idea where if you wanted to change your secondary archetype, you would revert your character level to the level where you initially pick your secondary archetype. This way you can't change it on a whim and have full character power of the new secondary archetype instantly when you switch, but you would have to develop your character as that of that specific class. However, we know that leveling will take a long time and it would suck to lose literal months of character development just to stop changing class quickly.

I was thinking of this when pondering Looking for Guild advertisements. Would you advertise yourself as a particular class or a particular primary archetype, since you can change your secondary but you cannot change your primary?

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daveywavey

I'm expecting that, by only Level 25, I won't have learnt enough about the game to make a definitive and final choice about my long-term class. In games like this, my first character(s) tend to be the ones where I make my mistakes while I'm learning what works. It'd be a shame to pick a class at Level 25, only to find it's not what you thought it would be, and then have to completely re-roll a new character to correct it. The ability to switch out a secondary archetype saves having to re-roll when you've made a mistake.

SirChancelot

Marcet wrote: »

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

Marcet wrote: »

For me I would like it to be permanent.

If you want to change it, make another character.

I'm curious
Why do you think that would be better? How would that be good for the game?

I like when people is locked on a class, I feel it gains much more meaning to your choice and you feel more bound to your character, you learn to make the best of what you have and truly maxing out your potential instead of reinventing yourself every time, "swapping some talent points around" and going on what you percieve is stronger or whatever. And btw, youtube will be filled with these meta-slave videos about what is the best combination and then everyone will swap to the current "trend". No personality or meaning to your toon at all.
The true masters are made when you have to stick to one thing and really squeeze the juice out and max to the possible limit.

But do I not get to test drive the different combinations first? If I can, that's switching. if not why not just choose it at the beginning? Why would I want to level a character to 25, choose a secondary hate how it plays, and then what, start over?
Should you be able to Respec skill points? Or should those be permanent too?

It sounds like you're promoting that if you made a choice and you hate it you should be stuck with it? Maybe you enjoy that, but I don't think that's going to be a majority feeling.

My understanding is that the secondary archetype is a choice like your skill points you're supposed to be able to change the flavor of your character, without having to change your character.

But if your goal is to avoid min max current trend builds and videos... Good luck that's going to happen no matter what, it's just gamer culture these days.

Dygz

Sounds to me like Marcet is describing the current game design:
Primary Archetype is a permanent choice.
Secondary Archetype can be changed, but not on a whim. And progression in the Secondary Archetype is lost when you switch.

Secondary Archetype choice is a "more permanent" choice than skill point allocation.
Even swapping augments has to be done with an NPC, in town.

beaushinkle

Disclaimer: I know that this is not how the game is going to be, and I know that this is not what a lot of folks want, so the following is me just more-or-less just idealistically venting

I greatly dislike the following scenario:

I play x class for y hours. x class is fun and desirable in the current meta, and so I'm having fun, and also effective. Then, the developers decide that x class needs to be nerfed, and y class needs to be buffed, and so they take my tools away. Now, playing x class is less fun (because the thing that made my build work potentially doesn't even exist), and x class is no longer desirable. My high-end raiding/pvp team wants to replace me with y class.

I have seen this exact thing, at varying levels of abstraction, at varying levels of commitment, happen countless times in different games.

For people with enough time, they're able to avoid losing their spot on the roster by making sure that no matter what balance changes happen, they're able to play whatever class turns out to be the top in the balance patch. This is exhausting and involves leveling tons of alts and farming tons of gear sets. For folks with less time, this often means selling your account to buy someone else's account that has the now-meta class.

Here's my ideal: when you level to 45 as a mage, you can, at any time, just swap over to being a level 45 summoner. Maybe you're given a sprout leaf icon to indicate that you don't know what you're doing on summoner yet, and you can clear that icon by going into the "proving grounds", and beating some benchmark challenges related to your level and role:

dps have to kill stuff quickly, cc ads, etc
tanks have to maintain aggro, pick up mobs, cc
healers have to heal multiple targets, avoid threat, etc

maybe switching involves going into the proving grounds and doing that first. But the idea is that it should hopefully just take a few hours instead of hundreds if you're a relatively skilled MMO player.

"but muh class identity"

Yeah. The immersion is getting in the way of class supply and demand. It causes tank shortages, dps surpluses and folks to get frustrated. It causes people to be extremely annoyed when the class they've invested 10000 hours in isn't performing well enough in the current balance patch, and they don't have any real choice but to keep playing it, because rerolling would be another 240 hour investment with no guarantee that as soon as you're done there won't be another patch.

I know that I'm in the minority here, and I know that ashes won't be designed this way

/rant

McShave

I don't think class balancing will be as big of an issue in Ashes as with other games. Firstly, we know that Intrepid is not balancing for the 1v1, and that it will be very much like rock-paper-scissors. One class has an advantage over another class which has the advantage over the first class.

Now, I must say that we don't know the extent of the full combat system of Ashes and how the augments will play their role in combat, but I am speculating here based on what Steven and Intrepid have said. I think group composition will be much more open-ended than in previous mmos we have seen. With secondary archetype augments, different classes will be able to synergize like we have never seen before, and there will be as many ways to synergize as there are secondary archetypes (theoretically).

We know that, for example, a class can spec into weapon tree to get bleeding damage, and then spec into their abilities to increase damage to bleeding targets. So what if multiple people in a party specialize the same way using specific augments and weapons so that many people may cause the bleed, and many people now do bonus damage because of the bleed? Now, what if instead of bleed, there are many options, like knockdown, freeze, ignite, poison? Sure there might be a "best" debilitation at a certain time, but as long as your party has specialized into the same one, then does it ultimately matter?

As a side note to last paragraph, I assume a party would want many different debilitations so that if one of them is removed (or protection to it occurs), then there will be a backup option or 2.

Atama

Marcet wrote: »

I like when people is locked on a class, I feel it gains much more meaning to your choice and you feel more bound to your character, you learn to make the best of what you have and truly maxing out your potential instead of reinventing yourself every time, "swapping some talent points around" and going on what you percieve is stronger or whatever. And btw, youtube will be filled with these meta-slave videos about what is the best combination and then everyone will swap to the current "trend". No personality or meaning to your toon at all.

Then rejoice because you aren't going to be able to change your archetype (which is what every MMO other than Ashes calls a "class".) Changing your secondary archetype will modify the way you play your class but a Tank will always be a Tank, a Cleric will always be a Cleric, a Ranger will always be a Ranger, etc. And that will be the most important aspect of a character. You can't even change the skills you have.

Let's put it this way... I fully expect that swapping your weapon will be more impactful than swapping your secondary class. Because you have an entire skill tree devoted to a weapon, while your secondary class just gives different augments. Putting down a sword and picking up a mace will likely change you more than going from Rogue/Mage to Rogue/Summoner. (Speculation on my part since we haven't been able to see how this stuff actually works, but this isn't blind speculation either.) Would you suggest that once you pick up a weapon you shouldn't be able to change it?

Conrad

I think primary and secondary being changeable, should only be possible if devs decide to rebalance or change the gameplay on an archetype or whatever its called. Let's say F/F gets reworked and many players don't enjoy either or both combos, I think we should be allowed a free change either or both. Let's be honest here. Imagine 1-2 years in you have this awesome character you made, but devs decide to rebuild a class or something. You're fucked, stuck with a build completely different to before and no longer able to change it. This usually feels shit af in mmos and with how Ashes works compared to others, I think this sort of change should be allowed when major reworks or rebalancen happen. And only then.

Atama

@Conrad

If the developers screw up an archetype so badly that it’s not worth playing anymore then this game will be so bad that it won’t succeed. That’s not a reasonable thing to request or expect.

Also keep in mind that each one will have a very specific and distinct role in the game. You’re saying that you should be able to swap from being a tank to being a healer because they change how tanking works to the point where it’s not worth tanking anymore?

SirChancelot

@conrad
Changing primary archtype sounds a bit much.

I'm all for changing secondaries in town, and having certain secondaries change a primary archtype's role... But just freely changing primary sounds like FFXIV and u less they're going to do it the same exact way where you have to level each primary archtype separately too, that's gonna be a hard no for me.

Bot

Kinda defeats the entire purpose of having a secondary to me if it's too permanent of a choice. Ideally I'd like to choose my primary, have the ability to do a questline and some sort of gold sink to change primary, although I can live without that. Then have changing my secondary be something that can easily be done in any sort of town/key part of a map like a camp. Secondary should be something easy to change, just not easy to the point that you can just change it on the fly to me. It freshens up the gameplay and gives you options for how to approach a situation while still making the decision-making aspect of choosing your build important.

McShave

bot wrote: »

Kinda defeats the entire purpose of having a secondary to me if it's too permanent of a choice. Ideally I'd like to choose my primary, have the ability to do a questline and some sort of gold sink to change primary, although I can live without that. Then have changing my secondary be something that can easily be done in any sort of town/key part of a map like a camp. Secondary should be something easy to change, just not easy to the point that you can just change it on the fly to me. It freshens up the gameplay and gives you options for how to approach a situation while still making the decision-making aspect of choosing your build important.

Interesting take, and I can see the allure of being able to swap your secondary archetype augments easily, allowing somewhat greater build options. However, I think this is too open for me. I imagine that a player would partake in a well thought out, interesting, and challenging story questline when picking your secondary archetype, since you are becoming part of the "community" of that secondary archetype (essentially you are both part of primary and secondary archetype). I want some sort of class identity in the sense of the 64 classes, or at least some identity when picking your secondary.

Dygz

Not really.
It's an RPG. And characters like Gandalf don't just easily change back and forth between an Archwizard, a Shadowcaster and a Spellhunter.

Conrad

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

@conrad
Changing primary archtype sounds a bit much.

I'm all for changing secondaries in town, and having certain secondaries change a primary archtype's role... But just freely changing primary sounds like FFXIV and u less they're going to do it the same exact way where you have to level each primary archtype separately too, that's gonna be a hard no for me.

.... did you even read what I wrote? I never mentioned freely at any point.

Atama wrote: »

@Conrad

If the developers screw up an archetype so badly that it’s not worth playing anymore then this game will be so bad that it won’t succeed. That’s not a reasonable thing to request or expect.

Also keep in mind that each one will have a very specific and distinct role in the game. You’re saying that you should be able to swap from being a tank to being a healer because they change how tanking works to the point where it’s not worth tanking anymore?

Not screw up, but reworks and rebalances will happen and at times they will change things that many might not like. There is no perfect resolution

Conrad

Dygz wrote: »

Not really.
It's an RPG. And characters like Gandalf don't just easily change back and forth between an Archwizard, a Shadowcaster and a Spellhunter.

You're talking about a Maia, and I'm pretty sure they don't have any classes. They are just spirits given mortal form. And you're comparing those to players of a different world either way.

Dygz

I'm not comparing Gandalf to players at all.
Middle-Earth has the equivalent of classes.
Classes in RPGs are an attempt to emulate roles like Archwizards and Rangers in fantasy novels.
And, since Ashes of Creation is based on Steven's Pathfinder game, you should expect class choice to have similar consequences.
Meaningful choice.

Tyranthraxus

Dygz wrote: »

I'm not comparing Gandalf to players at all.
Middle-Earth has the equivalent of classes.
Classes in RPGs are an attempt to emulate roles like Archwizards and Rangers in fantasy novels.
And, since Ashes of Creation is based on Steven's Pathfinder game, you should expect class choice to have similar consequences.
Meaningful choice.

I'm fine with the progress-loss when re-selecting a Secondary class - as you've pointed out that it is, in present design-intent. The re-selection should have *some* consequence, after all.

Just wouldn't want to see that change to a "start over from scratch"-level consequence, if we don't like the secondary class; Our first-ever toons would be quite a loss to delete in the case of poor secondary-class selection.

Atama

Conrad wrote: »

Not screw up, but reworks and rebalances will happen and at times they will change things that many might not like. There is no perfect resolution

The "I don't like how you nerfed my skills so make me a wizard now" mindset is not one I'm sympathetic to.

CROW3

My opinion tracks closely to current design: give players the possibility to switch, but don’t make it easy and meaningless.

It would be cool to have a training phase for a secondary, similar to an apprenticeship, to get a feel for the class overall. That might help smooth the class decision, while still curbing the ‘fotm crap’.

Nerror

CROW3 wrote: »

My opinion tracks closely to current design: give players the possibility to switch, but don’t make it easy and meaningless.

It would be cool to have a training phase for a secondary, similar to an apprenticeship, to get a feel for the class overall. That might help smooth the class decision, while still curbing the ‘fotm crap’.

I pretty much agree with this. Make it a process. Perhaps though, if you go from ranger/bard to ranger/mage, but then want to go back to ranger/bard, make the process faster, but not cheaper (if there is a cost)

daveywavey

Atama wrote: »

The "I don't like how you nerfed my skills so make me a wizard now" mindset is not one I'm sympathetic to.

I dunno. I'd spent ages levelling, building, and equipping a Scroll-runner in ESO. It was the only thing I used them for, cos they were completely un-specced for anything else, even dealing damage. They ran fast, and they kept running until they got somewhere. When ESO made their nerfs, it made that character unplayable and unviable, and so I never bothered playing with it again. So, I can understand the desire to save your spent hours by not losing the character to the nerf-gun. I really don't like the idea of changing Primaries, though. Hopefully there's some middle-ground somewhere.

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