Secondary Archetype - Feature Idea

During our podcast tonight, we were discussing the discussion thread on here about the tutorials and I had been inspired in the conversation with @Virtek and @Lyiat about having an option to go through a tutorial/ trial of that secondary through the eyes of someone -- either in history or current -- who you could then control and effectively live out a small story while also getting a feel for what that archetype would feel like at current max level before choosing to go down that route. Then afterward you could be prompted to accept the archetype or try out another secondary.

All in all it would be something along the lines of:
Reach level 25
Get choices of a secondary archetype where you can get a taste - perhaps - of the lore behind the new class option
Prompt after like: "Would this be the path that you chose to adventure down?" then options: "Yes, this is the path I'd like" or "This doesn't quite suit me..." to then be able to try out a different archetype.

What are your thoughts?

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CROW3

Love the idea. Quantum Leap ftw.

Birthday

I too was wondering how I would choose my secondary archetype when there is so much to choose from. I hoped that there would be a way to see how the archetypes augment my spells at least in text. Trying out every archetype + secondary archetype combo just to see which one feels the best for me sounds like way too many alts. The way Lost Arc approached this: allowing you to check out all your top tier spells before committing to a class by putting you in an arena with waves of monsters and elites spawning was a good approach.

What I'd like to see is a lore variant of this with every race being different. So for example you choose Vek race and you are instantly transferred to a race-unique zone for class choosing. The way I see class choosing with Vek lore is a cinematic first person view of you spawning in an ongoing ritual surrounded by your Vek people with torches and drums beating which is your "coming of age" ritual, a seer/oracle/shaman/priest comes to you and gives you a potion you drink it and he says "Look at the stars and feel the constellation that is calling to you". Then you have to choose between constellations which symbolize each archetype class, choosing an constellation spawns you in surreal Vek-themed environment(the potion you drank is giving you visions and hallucinations) with the archetype's spells and abilities, some armor and weapons and you can now start testing out how this archetype feels by battling the npcs inside this environment. If you don't like it then you can press ESC and return into the first person view of choosing an archetype. Once you've selected your archetype then it transfers you to the character creator where you can modify your hair color and all that jazz.

This same thing can be used for when you choose your second archetype but you have to do a race-specific quest to unlock your secondary archetype.

For Renkai I imagine that for the first and second archetype you choose a master to follow who'll teach you in the ways of a specific archetype under the narrative that he'll be helping you to get control over your strenght(tank archetype)/speed(Rogue)/mind(Mage)/focus(Priest?)/Senses(Ranger)etc and you then test out your class inside a dojo or bamboo field but through controlling your master's model which has access to all the archetype's skills, abilities and spells.(you are playing him)(the renkai give me a samurai japanese vibe that's why). Then for the secondary archetype you have to do a race-specific quest so how I imagine it for renkai - you go into an arena and have to defeat your master afterwards you get to choose a new master for your secondary archetype and you test out your prime+secondary archetype combos in the arena again using your new master's model vs monsters and fellow Renkai in a non-death combat.

Noaani

I'm not a huge fan of the idea, to be honest.

When I look at the way Intrepid are building classes, players will have options in relation to how many abilities they have, which ones are augmented or leveled up, and the ratio of action vs tab abilities. This all means that any one class will play vastly different based on player preference - and there is no real way a player can understand that preference until they have spent time with that class.

What this would then do, is make players chose their secondary based on incomplete data - and form opinions of other classes their primary allows for based on similar incomplete data. It will give many players a narrow, singular view of what each class is.

On top of that, since our secondary class can be changed, it is doing the above for no real gain. I'd potentially have a different opinion if our seconday class choice were permanent - I could see a much greater need for players understanding each class before selecting one if that were the case.

Birthday

Noaani wrote: »

I'm not a huge fan of the idea, to be honest.

When I look at the way Intrepid are building classes, players will have options in relation to how many abilities they have, which ones are augmented or leveled up, and the ratio of action vs tab abilities. This all means that any one class will play vastly different based on player preference - and there is no real way a player can understand that preference until they have spent time with that class.

What this would then do, is make players chose their secondary based on incomplete data - and form opinions of other classes their primary allows for based on similar incomplete data. It will give many players a narrow, singular view of what each class is.

On top of that, since our secondary class can be changed, it is doing the above for no real gain. I'd potentially have a different opinion if our seconday class choice were permanent - I could see a much greater need for players understanding each class before selecting one if that were the case.

So you prefer to choose your secondary based on zero data instead on incomplete data. That doesn't make sense. At the very least I'd like to have incomplete data over zero data and this has been shown to be what most people prefer because every MMO so far gives you some data when you have to choose your secondary archetype. In WoW the secondary archetype equivalent is your talent tree spec. It gives you a lot of numbers and text which give you a fair size data to help you choose where you want to invest your talent points. Yes your first attempt at allocating your talent points probably wont be the best but you still have an idea what you are building up towards and what your building blocks are. If we don't give incomplete data to the player about his secondary archetype then he has no idea what he is getting into and this will result in a lot of cases where the player wants to reset his archetype 2 minutes after locking in which isn't fun, especially when according to the wiki he'll have to spend ingame resources and time to complete a quest to reset his archetype. This will happen for a lot of the cases because when the player is given zero data he'll form his own expectations of what he'll get. So for example he chooses to be a necromancer. The player might expect that this will allow him to summon and control large armies of undead. He chooses it and finds out that what it actually did was add to his spells some small life drain and debuffs that affect the opposing player. Then the player will want to reset his archetype immediately because the outcome was so far away from his expectation. There is no point in forcing the players to go through this type of whack-a-mole process in order to find the playstyle he wants. Its much better to give him data even if incomplete so that the player can use it to guide himself at least a little instead of giving him zero data and making him go through a whack-a-mole samsara.

Sylvanar

My understanding of secondary archetype is that, for every class there will be 4 schools from which we have to choose one, right? Once chosen we can augment some skills using only that school of that archetype.

The tutorial idea has NO cons, so I dnt see a reason for any opposition. Its a great option for casual players to avoid making mistakes and give some information on what each archetypes brings what to the table for their characters. The only downside is the incomplete picture we will have at the time, which is a petty argument tbh as secondary archetype is not permanent.

What I would like to know is whether the information about how these spells would get modified wrt to different archetype would be available pre-release on the wiki or would we have to figure it out in-game? I am referring to information regarding only archetype augments and not augments related to religion, social org, etc.

Noaani

Birthday wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

I'm not a huge fan of the idea, to be honest.

When I look at the way Intrepid are building classes, players will have options in relation to how many abilities they have, which ones are augmented or leveled up, and the ratio of action vs tab abilities. This all means that any one class will play vastly different based on player preference - and there is no real way a player can understand that preference until they have spent time with that class.

What this would then do, is make players chose their secondary based on incomplete data - and form opinions of other classes their primary allows for based on similar incomplete data. It will give many players a narrow, singular view of what each class is.

On top of that, since our secondary class can be changed, it is doing the above for no real gain. I'd potentially have a different opinion if our seconday class choice were permanent - I could see a much greater need for players understanding each class before selecting one if that were the case.

So you prefer to choose your secondary based on zero data instead on incomplete data.

Yeah, that way I don't have any pre-concieved notion as to how the class should be played, and can build up my understanding of it organically.

Not giving players a limited trial of a limited aspect of a limited build (which is realistically all that would be possible) is not the same as no information.

Also, your notion that a player would want to immediately change their secondary is not applicable to Ashes. Your secondary class doesn't alter anything at all - the augments you get from it do.

As such, changes to your character from your secondary class will be slow. You will not go from a summoner to immediately summoning hoards of undead when you become a Necromancer, and people will not expect that to happen.

I do agree with giving players data, I always agree with that. However, that isn't what the proposed idea does. The proposed idea will give a subjective opinion on a class, not objective, data based facts on it.

As long as there is adequateinformation available on abilities, skill ranks of those abilities and augments, players have all the actual data they need.

Birthday

Noaani wrote: »

As long as there is adequateinformation available on abilities, skill ranks of those abilities and augments, players have all the actual data they need.

If that is truly the case, like the talent tree system information you are given for example in WoW, I prefer that too over Lost Ark style class demonstration tutorial because that type of demonstration for me personally destroyed a big part of my motivation to play the game. Once I knew what my class could do with all it's abilities, how it looked and what it felt like, I lost a large portion of my intrigue to play the game because the part of exploration which is exploring my class was already 100% complete.

A classic style text-based explanation of what all abilities, skill ranks and augments do is well more than enough data. The point I was making is that I'd like to have that information before committing to a secondary archetype.

Caww

If it stays within a tutorial setting, fine, but how would you know the PvP aspect of the class? I don't think a max level toon (Lv 25 or whatever) flexing in open world is gonna make too many people happy getting ganked while some person figures out their life path.

Virulent

Pointless waste of resources to develop this. Secondary Archetype can be changed. It's not permanent. There will be more then enough information available at game release that any new player will not be stuck scratching their chin, for hours, unsure what Secondary Archetype to choose. Just pick one and see how you like it, try them all.

CROW3

I think it’s still up in the air how easy it will be to switch secondary archetypes. It’s been said explicitly - several times - it will not be an ‘on the fly’ change.

So, depending on what that time investment might be - having some sense of what the full class feels like would be helpful.

Noaani

CROW3 wrote: »

I think it’s still up in the air how easy it will be to switch secondary archetypes. It’s been said explicitly - several times - it will not be an ‘on the fly’ change.

So, depending on what that time investment might be - having some sense of what the full class feels like would be helpful.

I would agree that there would be a point where this could be valid, if it weren't for the fact that you won't be able to get a feel for any class from a system like this.

The absolute best they could reasonably do is give you a piece of content to play with a single build from that class. That build may well not be set up even remotely how you would eventually set yourself up if you were that class. Even just looking at things like tab vs action abilities and many vs few abilities, there is literally no way the developers can give you an idea at all as to how you would play the class should you level up as it for the next 25 levels.

Sylvanar

Virulent wrote: »

Pointless waste of resources to develop this. Secondary Archetype can be changed. It's not permanent. There will be more then enough information available at game release that any new player will not be stuck scratching their chin, for hours, unsure what Secondary Archetype to choose. Just pick one and see how you like it, try them all.

I agree to an extent. So maybe as a feature post game release and not delay the release any further by focusing on something not necessarily needed in the game.

Goalid

I'd prefer them to give you a tutorial of the basic augments you'd get from the different schools at level 25. About level 25-35 skill augments, and then if you want to switch it up later because you see others running a different build, you can do your quest and switch secondary archetypes. I want the feeling of mystery and amazement as you're leveling up your character to new powers in Verra long lost to your ancestors, but also some degree of knowledge for the playstyle you're getting yourself into.

SirChancelot

I could appreciate that.

If it was closer to actually talking the class for a test drive...
I honestly hate the idea sinking time into something, and then not enjoying the gameplay at Max level... So I would love to get some kind of end game preview for how my class will play.

TrUSivraj

Yeah I can see this being a double edged sword solely depending on who you are as a person. When I tried out the Bard in Lost ark, I was more excited to level them as I knew exactly what I planned to do with their skills and talents, AND STILL I ended up tweaking things once I got there.

On the other hand I tried monk and hated the class that i thought I'd love most. So I feel it can hurt and help at the same time to have class test drives.

Shoelid

I've seen lots of similar ideas kicked around. I was never really a fan of the "trial period/experience" ones, like what you pitched. Like what @Noaani is saying, understanding needs to be built up organically. Being dropped into your class doesn't give you understanding of your class, and you don't understand what the playstyle is really like until later. I tested lots of classes in Lost Ark before playing them, and didn't actually understand what I was doing until I was actually playing the game and had time to experiment with each ability.

I think players should get a decent amount of augments as soon as they choose their secondary archetype, so they can get a taste of what their class is. They should be given a few levels to freely change it in case they don't like it.

A secondary archetype is already changeable, so I'm not really worried about this.

insomnia

I hope the gave would show me, how i could augment my abilites, with the various subclasses. You get a menu with the 8 classes. You click one subclass, and it shows you some (all might be to many. But then again, some ability augmentation could proberly affect which subclass you would pick) of your abilites, and how they could get affected. But getting to try out it would would be nice. But have in mind, you can't pick everything of what i know. So it would only be an idea of how you could augment your class

tautau

I am personally against being able to 'try it out' and similar schemes. It seems to defeat the Risk vs Reward aspect of choosing a class or an archetype.

Veeshan

I would like to be able to see what attunements or what ever it is u get from archtypes before making a choice although ur able to change your secondary from my understanding so might not be to bad since if u dont like a secondary u can swap it out and try another
So secondary classes will kinda work like WOW talent tree where u had 3 to choose from to alter skills you have from primary but u get 8 choices than 3 but you only get 1 extra at a time where wow u could choose between the 3

Caww

I think a lot of people will be using wikis and guides to get this sorted out so after awhile the uncertainty will be gone leaving us with.... wait for it.... the Meta!

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