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Secondary Archetype - Feature Idea
chibibree
Member, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
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?
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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Comments
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuU1txumPQ5PqdU1D9cPhIg
https://twitch.tv/trusivraj
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.
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
Pretty sure if you didn't want to you could skip it. No reason to force what you want down others. Most people would try out something they like then find out the meta crap and swap later as people try stuff out and what works best so to speak.
Hopefully a good working preview in game or out of game will be available. People talk about resources but almost all the work would be done. Pretty sure these people never actually worked on a project before. In the end the request is a rescept players time even though estimated level process is less than 2 months for even casual play.
Care to elaborate?
Or lets say the BiS gear for a class is dropped in an encounter which is unlocked when Node XYZ has reached metropolis stage but that node is surrounded by higher level nodes in your server.
Basically, creativity of each and every player would be showcased to a larger degree in AoC than it would have been in other MMOs with static world where meta would be constant across different servers with grind and skill being the deciding factor only. In AoC, everything would matter.
Yeah, but you can change your secondary.
You are making a good point in regards to why it should be substantially easier to change your secondary class before you hit the level cap, but that's about it honestly.
But they did say it wouldn't be easy.
But then again. Some people might datamine the game and we can find the information online.
I tried Lost Ark, and i really startet to miss all the information you could find about wow. Like with items you find. If you are ment to keep it. Sell it etc