Is 64 classes still a good idea?

After seeing the ranger update I'm very confident in IS being able to make some great classes. However, I'm starting to doubt the 64 class model and would rather have around 10-12 well designed and unique classes that is also well balanced (in a group play setting).

64 different classes would be cool, but it will take a lot of work/time and money to make all those classes feel unique, have depth in its gameplay and be a viable option for PvP or PvE. Yes, the biggest hurdle is to create a good base archetype, but making the second archetype feel important and impactful will still be a HUGE hurdle and a big time investment. I'm convinced that IS could make it happen, but I'm not sure if it's worth it?

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Veeshan

Secondary classes just seem like WoW talent tree choosing theif give you access to telent trees A but choosing summoner will be tree B and mage talent trees C

Thats my understanding of it but will find out more i guess probaly im guessing around Mayish i reckon

Raven016

George_Black wrote: »

I wanna point out that there is a sizable number of people that dont stop to think the insanity of having 64 combos as part of "great customozation", access to any weapon any armor + universal abilities, from all of which the viable playstyles will be a fraction of the offered combos.

Yet when it comes to the actual archetype abilities, actual archetype playstyle, there are restrictions on which abilities you can learn due to in innapropriate system for mmos, the skill tree. The same people who want no restrictions on unrealistic combinations are happy with restrictions on core archetypes.

Probably metas will surface, with some choices in the skill tree working well with some secondary archetypes but not with others.

Kilion

I think it is, especially when looking at the Ranger showcase. I'm not going to open up another Falconer super thread here, but we can look at a few skills to assess how the augmentation system could work:

Example: Beartrap

Bard augment: An enemy hit by the trap will grant those who hit him a short buff (cooldown reduction, mana regenration, movement speed, creates an illusion of the character that mirrors the originals skills for 3 actions/5s)
Cleric augment: An enemy hit by the trap triggers an AOE heal for nearby enemies; The trap does additional necrotic damage; the trap triggers a debuff that heals enemies for a percecntage of the damage done; the enemy trapped will be blinded which lasts a bit longer than the actual root.
Fighter augment:Inflicts critical wounds on the trapped enemy that reduces received healing for some time; the trap explodes into 4 smaller traps that scatter near the original zone; The trapped enemy becomes staggered for a time after the root ends; Instead of being rooted the enemy gets knocked back into the direction he came from
Mage augment: Obviously elemental damages would be an option; an ice trap would stun the enemy and if enough damage is applied during the "freeze" it the enemy gets shatter damage; fire traps light the enemy up applying burn damage and making it impossible to camouflage; storm could bounce the enemy in the air and make them subject to fall damage
Rouge augment: Poison damage should definitely be an option here; the trap spawns a bunch of small snakes around that have attack priority on the trapped enemy; causes a debuff ("vulnerable") for increased damage when dealt to their back or from camouflage; critical wounds to reduce healing effects (this effect is too useful in PvP to be limited to just 1 class augment)
Ranger augment: I think increasing the root duration would be useful enough but I would also like if it would automatically applies one of the marks to the target
Summoner augment: Honestly since I still don't really understand what this archetype will be able to do I cant think of much in the ways to augment other archetype's skills with it.
Tank augment: Instead of rooting the enemy he becomes disoriented (randomly swaps the movement inputs for a few seconds); Decreases all resistances; The next attack against the trapped enemy creates a shield for the attacker that scales with damage done; Applies a bleeding effect that can be increased through basic attacks

Of course these are just examples, but I think it illustrates how augments can be made without massive efforts. I will point at this point what they said in the (I think) Tank showcase, that skills are modular objects that they can easily pull apart and modify portions of, so creating various augmented versions of skills while definitely a time consuming process would at least be possible from a technical point of view.

rikardp98

Kilion wrote: »

I think it is, especially when looking at the Ranger showcase. I'm not going to open up another Falconer super thread here, but we can look at a few skills to assess how the augmentation system could work:

Example: Beartrap
Bard augment: An enemy hit by the trap will grant those who hit him a short buff (cooldown reduction, mana regenration, movement speed, creates an illusion of the character that mirrors the originals skills for 3 actions/5s)

Cleric augment: An enemy hit by the trap triggers an AOE heal for nearby enemies; The trap does additional necrotic damage; the trap triggers a debuff that heals enemies for a percecntage of the damage done; the enemy trapped will be blinded which lasts a bit longer than the actual root.

Fighter augment:Inflicts critical wounds on the trapped enemy that reduces received healing for some time; the trap explodes into 4 smaller traps that scatter near the original zone; The trapped enemy becomes staggered for a time after the root ends; Instead of being rooted the enemy gets knocked back into the direction he came from

Mage augment: Obviously elemental damages would be an option; an ice trap would stun the enemy and if enough damage is applied during the "freeze" it the enemy gets shatter damage; fire traps light the enemy up applying burn damage and making it impossible to camouflage; storm could bounce the enemy in the air and make them subject to fall damage

Rouge augment: Poison damage should definitely be an option here; the trap spawns a bunch of small snakes around that have attack priority on the trapped enemy; causes a debuff ("vulnerable") for increased damage when dealt to their back or from camouflage; critical wounds to reduce healing effects (this effect is too useful in PvP to be limited to just 1 class augment)

Ranger augment: I think increasing the root duration would be useful enough but I would also like if it would automatically applies one of the marks to the target

Summoner augment: Honestly since I still don't really understand what this archetype will be able to do I cant think of much in the ways to augment other archetype's skills with it.

Tank augment: Instead of rooting the enemy he becomes disoriented (randomly swaps the movement inputs for a few seconds); Decreases all resistances; The next attack against the trapped enemy creates a shield for the attacker that scales with damage done; Applies a bleeding effect that can be increased through basic attacks

Of course these are just examples, but I think it illustrates how augments can be made without massive efforts. I will point at this point what they said in the (I think) Tank showcase, that skills are modular objects that they can easily pull apart and modify portions of, so creating various augmented versions of skills while definitely a time consuming process would at least be possible from a technical point of view.

Yes it's easy to think of what can be done to modify a spell, now do it for the rest of the 20 spells (think we had 20 spells in the ranger preview) and for the other classes. 20*8*8, that's over a thousand spells that they need to modify, create animations (maybe just small changes), FX, and somehow balance it. (Then again, IS are not afraid of a challenge and advanced systems)

Even if its small changes to the abilities, those small changes add up to alot of changes that will take alot of effort and time. I know coding, but I'm not a game developer, and even if IS have a system where these modifications can easily be
made, it will require a lot of work to get right.

Kilion

Yes there are 8 archetypes with 35-40 unique active skills each; and each of these base skills can be modified with one out of 4 augementation school based on the selected "augmentation archetype".

This would sum up to a total of

280-320 unique base skills overall
32 skills that can be created from one base skill
8'960-10'240 active skills in total for Intrepid to design

This is a lot of wood to chop, you are absolutely right. So let's look at the ways we were told by Intrepid they tried to streamline their design processes. The reason why this is relevant is that Intrepid, dealing with this huge number of skills indeed cannot afford to start skill design from zero for just the augementations.

1) Art Style Guides - I think this has been brought up in connection with biomes but also classes and gear, how those things follow a previously worked out "style guide books" that lays out forms and colors for certain themes. With this effects, visual and acustics, can be easily reused and modified and added to a database that is the digital image of the style guide book allowing quick access to a special tool kit with which to modify a base skill.

2) Balacing for groups - Direct effects of augmentation could be much less frequent or less effective as they were in my examples above, given that Intrepid seems to aim at group synergies accessing the full potential of skills.
This could mean for example that a trap does not apply "fatal wounds" (which reduces healing the target receives)directly, but inflicts a stackable effect that if stacked fully or combined with a bleed/necrotic effect transfors into the "fatal wound" debuff.
This means that overall Intrepid could create a matrix beforehand and distribute combo pieces for strong effects amongst the classes, so that the art style guide will be expanded by a game mechanic component that further simplifies the final step of designing the augmented skills.

Since Intrepid does not seem rushed about these things, I think it is absolutely in the realm of possibility that they are working on exactly that for the past 1-2 years.

3) Alpha 2 - A lot of what they are doing will come down to looking at the use rates and efficacy during the testing phase. I am by no means fully convinced that the 64 class system will work, but I am optimistic it can; however I am also certain that the augment system will be downsized if it turns out to cause more problems than benefits.

Taleof2Cities

You’re right, Kilion … the bigger the scope the more of a nightmare it is to balance combat.

On the other hand, we’ve been surprised by what Intrepid can do in other areas (e.g. the environment and seasons).

We’ll have to see how it plays out in Alpha 2.

My guess for A2 is everything will still be eight (8) classes … with secondary archetypes merely adding “flavor” (Jeff Bard’s quote still holds true).

Enigmatic Sage

Need to remember, this is just for the vanilla version of the game. There is room to grow with new abilities and augments over time as the game ages, gains expansions etc.

Cyridius

I've seen people talk about WoW as a reference point - it has 12 classes and each one has 2-4 specs, resulting in everyone having two talent trees (the base class talent tree and the spec tree). You basically have around 36 classes with a huge amount of potential variability, and then you have racial bonuses (which aren't really a big deal in current day WoW, but there if you're mage it's very nice to have Gift of Naaru from a Draenei and if you're a Shadow Priest or Affliction Warlock you'll benefit from the Void Elf's Entropic Embrace). In reality there's maybe two builds for each spec that are considered optimised and that's what people use, and that's been the case no matter how balanced the specs are. Considering the way that classes have been described in AoC, I'd make the case that your secondary archetype has a significantly smaller impact than your spec in a game like WoW - no new spells, just for one.

Point being, that having a large number of classes or class-spec combos isn't a new thing. MMOs have been doing it for a while now. And the end result is that the game will be unbalanced. Which is fine. We're not doing sweaty arena 3v3s or playing Dota 2 or something, it's an MMO and open world PvP in MMOs is inherently unbalanced no matter how many or few classes exist or how well they're designed, because numbers and gear are the deciding balancing factor.

We've also seen systems similar to what AoC is pursuing in games like ArcheAge where your class was formed of your base and secondary archetype, though in AA the combo mattered a lot more than what it appears to in AoC. Remains to be seen. From what I can see so far, your secondary archetype will probably have as much impact on your base class as the weapon and armour you decide to use - which is to say, significant. If they weren't up for the task of simply making these systems, I don't think they'd say they're doing it.

rikardp98

Cyridius wrote: »

I've seen people talk about WoW as a reference point - it has 12 classes and each one has 2-4 specs, resulting in everyone having two talent trees (the base class talent tree and the spec tree). You basically have around 36 classes with a huge amount of potential variability, and then you have racial bonuses (which aren't really a big deal in current day WoW, but there if you're mage it's very nice to have Gift of Naaru from a Draenei and if you're a Shadow Priest or Affliction Warlock you'll benefit from the Void Elf's Entropic Embrace). In reality there's maybe two builds for each spec that are considered optimised and that's what people use, and that's been the case no matter how balanced the specs are. Considering the way that classes have been described in AoC, I'd make the case that your secondary archetype has a significantly smaller impact than your spec in a game like WoW - no new spells, just for one.

Point being, that having a large number of classes or class-spec combos isn't a new thing. MMOs have been doing it for a while now. And the end result is that the game will be unbalanced. Which is fine. We're not doing sweaty arena 3v3s or playing Dota 2 or something, it's an MMO and open world PvP in MMOs is inherently unbalanced no matter how many or few classes exist or how well they're designed, because numbers and gear are the deciding balancing factor.

We've also seen systems similar to what AoC is pursuing in games like ArcheAge where your class was formed of your base and secondary archetype, though in AA the combo mattered a lot more than what it appears to in AoC. Remains to be seen. From what I can see so far, your secondary archetype will probably have as much impact on your base class as the weapon and armour you decide to use - which is to say, significant. If they weren't up for the task of simply making these systems, I don't think they'd say they're doing it.

Sure, but currently when looking at the database of wow, retail have 423 class abilities while original wow vanilla only have 260.

What AoC is trying to do is +2000 abilities. Sure most of them will be a modification of one spell, but that is still A LOT of spells you need to make and balance.

But if they make it work, then that would be amazing. I'm just not sure it's worth the time and money they need to spend on it. The current classes they have shown looks amazing and I think that they should stick to that and small varieties within the base archetype fantasy.

Depraved

rikardp98 wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

This is already the case pretty much. All abilities will be based on your archetype, which is why I say that there's only 8 classes.

We'll need some build variety though, which is where the augments come in. Balancing an mmo is an impossible task, so I think expecting that is kinda pointless. But having a good variety of options on your abilities is something that would make the game better.

I'm saying that it would be better to focus on the main archetype to make it feel complete, and have variety in gameplay and abilities within this completed base archetype. Instead of feeling the need to implement 8 arguments to every spell (or most of them) for every archetype.

NiKr wrote: »

And that will happen if you have over 8 archetypes in a game with only 8 party slots.

Well this will happen oven of there is 8 classes with 8 party slots. People will class stack if some class is stronger than another. Or some class is just much weaker. But yes, more likely if there is more classes to choose from.

how and why would it be better? how are you measuring that? are you implying that if they build the augment system the base classes will feel incomplete? that makes no sense. building one system doesnt mean you neglect another one.

1- and let me tell you that if your concern is time, money and effort, making 2-4 new classes from scratch is much more money, time and effort than changing some properties in some skills. so what you said makes no sense to me.

2- people will stack classes regardless. if you have 10-12 classes, people will pick the strongest for the party anyways. they are balancing around having 1 of each main archetype in the party. if they added more archetypes right now, they would have to go back to the drawing board and figure out what they are going to do now with parties. thats more time, money and effort

rikardp98

Depraved wrote: »

how and why would it be better? how are you measuring that? are you implying that if they build the augment system the base classes will feel incomplete? that makes no sense. building one system doesnt mean you neglect another one.

In the sense that the class fantasy of the augmented archetype will feel incomplete. I feel like they should focus on the base archetype and its fantasy. Then make new classes in the future to make different feeling classes and builds to fill some other class fantasy. And I in current system, adding new archetypes will be a huge time investment and make things even more complicated and bring big balance issues if not done correct.

Depraved wrote: »

1- and let me tell you that if your concern is time, money and effort, making 2-4 new classes from scratch is much more money, time and effort than changing some properties in some skills. so what you said makes no sense to me.

To me it make sense since creating a new class that stands on its own will be easier than creating and balancing augmented spells that is related to every other archetype (this is only based on feeling and nothing else xD). Yes both takes time but I feel like creating and balancing 280-320 abilities for every class will take longer than creating a new class with 35-40 spells.

Depraved wrote: »

2- people will stack classes regardless. if you have 10-12 classes, people will pick the strongest for the party anyways. they are balancing around having 1 of each main archetype in the party. if they added more archetypes right now, they would have to go back to the drawing board and figure out what they are going to do now with parties. thats more time, money and effort

Yes people will stack classes, 100%. From what I have seen they have said that they won't balance for 1v1 and instead focus on group balance, and we have 8, 16 and 40 person groups sizes. So I dont think they only look at 8 man party with one of each archetype when balancing. And that would be weird, since most friend groups and guilds will NOT have an even spread of archetypes. So getting a group with one of each will be very very difficult for the average player.

SirChancelot

rikardp98 wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

There is only 8 "classes". Don't believe the "augments will drastically change abilities" until you see it happen on at least a single archetype.

Ashes is a game with 8 classes and parties of 8 people. It's a perfect fit.

Yeah that's why I kind of feel like they shouldn't even bother with the arguments and focus on the base archetype and maybe add one or two more for that extra variety.

But the thing is those secondaries will also be 'recycled'. The effects that one archtype has as a secondary will have the same theme of effects being applied to each primary.

rikardp98

SirChancelot wrote: »

rikardp98 wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

There is only 8 "classes". Don't believe the "augments will drastically change abilities" until you see it happen on at least a single archetype.

Ashes is a game with 8 classes and parties of 8 people. It's a perfect fit.

Yeah that's why I kind of feel like they shouldn't even bother with the arguments and focus on the base archetype and maybe add one or two more for that extra variety.

But the thing is those secondaries will also be 'recycled'. The effects that one archtype has as a secondary will have the same theme of effects being applied to each primary.

Well creating a theme for the secondary archetype is easy, the difficult part is implementing it and making it a somewhat balanced and fun ability.

Mag7spy

rikardp98 wrote: »

Cyridius wrote: »

I've seen people talk about WoW as a reference point - it has 12 classes and each one has 2-4 specs, resulting in everyone having two talent trees (the base class talent tree and the spec tree). You basically have around 36 classes with a huge amount of potential variability, and then you have racial bonuses (which aren't really a big deal in current day WoW, but there if you're mage it's very nice to have Gift of Naaru from a Draenei and if you're a Shadow Priest or Affliction Warlock you'll benefit from the Void Elf's Entropic Embrace). In reality there's maybe two builds for each spec that are considered optimised and that's what people use, and that's been the case no matter how balanced the specs are. Considering the way that classes have been described in AoC, I'd make the case that your secondary archetype has a significantly smaller impact than your spec in a game like WoW - no new spells, just for one.

Point being, that having a large number of classes or class-spec combos isn't a new thing. MMOs have been doing it for a while now. And the end result is that the game will be unbalanced. Which is fine. We're not doing sweaty arena 3v3s or playing Dota 2 or something, it's an MMO and open world PvP in MMOs is inherently unbalanced no matter how many or few classes exist or how well they're designed, because numbers and gear are the deciding balancing factor.

We've also seen systems similar to what AoC is pursuing in games like ArcheAge where your class was formed of your base and secondary archetype, though in AA the combo mattered a lot more than what it appears to in AoC. Remains to be seen. From what I can see so far, your secondary archetype will probably have as much impact on your base class as the weapon and armour you decide to use - which is to say, significant. If they weren't up for the task of simply making these systems, I don't think they'd say they're doing it.

Sure, but currently when looking at the database of wow, retail have 423 class abilities while original wow vanilla only have 260.

What AoC is trying to do is +2000 abilities. Sure most of them will be a modification of one spell, but that is still A LOT of spells you need to make and balance.

But if they make it work, then that would be amazing. I'm just not sure it's worth the time and money they need to spend on it. The current classes they have shown looks amazing and I think that they should stick to that and small varieties within the base archetype fantasy.

You are only speaking for yourself again you want a boring class meta. Also you are loosely throwing around the term amazing and to reach what you call amazing is very very low on the bar. Looking any other mmorpg they would have better and more interesting classes if they went with what you wanted and just had very simple classes.

I'm figuring you are new to watching AoC and that is why you are trying to advocate for them to have basic stuff (or are impatient and want the game released earlier). They don't have a infinite budget they have a plan / framework. They have talked abotut his stuff in the pass briefly with how their tool kit works for creating abilities. Effects they make are like legos (that is how the unreal niagara works) and you can take one effect and use it somewhere else and target their rig (feet for example) and scale the fire effect down and tweak it slightly. And right away you have fire at feet and a trail made in less than a day than you can just polish the effect later.

You are doing a mix of a warrior and summoner and need a sword effect. You take one of the swords they made already use a shader on it and now they have a large blue magic summoned feeling sword they can use to replace effects, swapping the sword out with current ones like the hammer. And adjust the way it falls from the sky.

Of course it still is a lot of work regardless but it is their job they have a plan they will figure it out and./or scale some of it back if they fel they need to. This idea you are trying to throw out "They don't have money or time so they should make things basic." Is kind of insulting imo, let them do what they set out to do the best they can.

Xeeg

Kilion wrote: »

Yes there are 8 archetypes with 35-40 unique active skills each; and each of these base skills can be modified with one out of 4 augementation school based on the selected "augmentation archetype".

This would sum up to a total of
280-320 unique base skills overall

32 skills that can be created from one base skill

8'960-10'240 active skills in total for Intrepid to design

Has this actually been said? Or is it possible that, of the 35-40 unique skills, a quarter have 2 augment choices and another quarter have 4 augment choices? This would half the work required and still be plenty of variation between archetypes.

Then we would get

280-320 unique base skills overall
8*((1/4)*2)+((1/4)*4)+(1/2)*1) = 16x variations of skills
4480-5120 active skills

And again, if we imagine a skill like Barrage to have 8*4=32 variations, most of these might just be a simple colour palette change and some tweaks on the number side (does fire damage, adds bleed, etc.) Maybe only 3 variations change something about the actual skill that requires new assets.

The majority of the work is developing the initial 300 base skills.

Kilion

Xeeg wrote: »

Kilion wrote: »

Yes there are 8 archetypes with 35-40 unique active skills each; and each of these base skills can be modified with one out of 4 augementation school based on the selected "augmentation archetype".

This would sum up to a total of
280-320 unique base skills overall

32 skills that can be created from one base skill

8'960-10'240 active skills in total for Intrepid to design

Has this actually been said? Or is it possible that, of the 35-40 unique skills, a quarter have 2 augment choices and another quarter have 4 augment choices? This would half the work required and still be plenty of variation between archetypes.

Then we would get
280-320 unique base skills overall

8*((1/4)*2)+((1/4)*4)+(1/2)*1) = 16x variations of skills

4480-5120 active skills

And again, if we imagine a skill like Barrage to have 8*4=32 variations, most of these might just be a simple colour palette change and some tweaks on the number side (does fire damage, adds bleed, etc.) Maybe only 3 variations change something about the actual skill that requires new assets.

The majority of the work is developing the initial 300 base skills.

According to the Wiki on Augments the total skill number seems to be fairly accurate. (I wish I would have looked it up before rather than do the math myself).

The thing with varying the augment choices is IMO that people would gravitate more towards archetypes that offer more augmenting options, so either Intrepid would have to balance the augment options on all classes or try to somehow adjust the cause when switching to a class with a different numer of augmentation options. The reason being that more options within a class would allow the player who chose that class to have easier, cheaper access to more play style variation and through that strategic advantages. Additionally the necessity for gear adjustment when changing augments within a class would probably be less expensive than switching to a whole new class. So I'm not sure whether Intrepid would do themselves a favor by varying the amounts of possible augments depending on class and/or skill.

I definitely agree that some of the augments might not be very significant and indeed just change the color and maybe the damage type and that would be fine because than in itself could already be a big advantage depending on the type of conflict you are involved in.

And I agree even more that the bulk of the work is creating the base skills from which the augmented versions are being created. So maybe this process has already progressed further than we think. Additionally it is not too far fetched to assume that this also has implications for enemy design. Sure, mobs like spiders might have unique skill sets but humanoid mobs will probably greatly rely on the same type of skills that actual player are also using. It wouldn't make too much sense if a Mob Mage suddenly has completely different magic than other mages in the world, I think that would, to a certain degree even contradict the lore.

Xeeg

Kilion wrote: »

Additionally it is not too far fetched to assume that this also has implications for enemy design. Sure, mobs like spiders might have unique skill sets but humanoid mobs will probably greatly rely on the same type of skills that actual player are also using. It wouldn't make too much sense if a Mob Mage suddenly has completely different magic than other mages in the world, I think that would, to a certain degree even contradict the lore.

That's actually a pretty good point. Many mobs could be using abilities/weapons and augments that are identical to the player ones already created. Would definitely save on time and fit the lore.

They basically need to create 1 ability, and then have defined parameters on that ability that react to augment selections. So the hard part might just be creating the complex ability in the first place.

I'm not sure about the wiki answer though. If every ability can have the mage school "teleportation" applied to it, things are going to get crazy.

Aszkalon

rikardp98 wrote: »

Is 64 classes still a good idea?

rikardp98 wrote: »

After seeing the ranger update I'm very confident in IS being able to make some great classes. However, I'm starting to doubt the 64 class model and would rather have around 10-12 well designed and unique classes that is also well balanced (in a group play setting).

Not supposed to be " actually 64 different Classes ", though.
More like All 8 Archetypes - can have later on Traits of ONE - other - Class.

8 Times 8 makes 64, easy as that.

But for Example a " Tank " - who later on gets the Subclass " Rogue ",
will not the same as for Example a " Rogue " - who later speccs/skills as his Subclass " Tank ".

It will be more like the still firm Classes they are - with some passive or active Traits of some other Class. So there is no need to worry, that the Game and Gameplay will be completely overwhelmed by an insane Amount of totally different Classes.

rikardp98 wrote: »

64 different classes would be cool, but it will take a lot of work/time and money to make all those classes feel unique, have depth in its gameplay and be a viable option for PvP or PvE.

Yes, the biggest hurdle is to create a good base archetype, but making the second archetype feel important and impactful will still be a HUGE hurdle and a big time investment. I'm convinced that IS could make it happen, but I'm not sure if it's worth it?

For the whole Sake of Freedom, Freedom of Fantasy - and "Fun" - believe me. It shall be worth it.

I for Example plan to play a Summoner. I want to test and give it my all as a Necromancer at least once.

I shall be different from another Summoner, who for Example is more like a "elemental Type of Summoner/Shaman", right ? Or a Summoner who is a bit of a Ranger. Or a bit of a Rogue. Or a bit of a Mage.

Necromancer is a Summoner supposed to have "Cleric" (?) as his Subclass, right ? I admit i don't always keep it in my Memory.

It is mainly for the Sake of Customisation, Freedom of Uniqueness - oh and of Course a few, probably handy Extra-Abilities and/or Skills from the Subclass.

Depraved

rikardp98 wrote: »

SirChancelot wrote: »

rikardp98 wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

There is only 8 "classes". Don't believe the "augments will drastically change abilities" until you see it happen on at least a single archetype.

Ashes is a game with 8 classes and parties of 8 people. It's a perfect fit.

Yeah that's why I kind of feel like they shouldn't even bother with the arguments and focus on the base archetype and maybe add one or two more for that extra variety.

But the thing is those secondaries will also be 'recycled'. The effects that one archtype has as a secondary will have the same theme of effects being applied to each primary.

Well creating a theme for the secondary archetype is easy, the difficult part is implementing it and making it a somewhat balanced and fun ability.

this is how it works. you dont build skills, you build a factory that builds skills. this is the simples way i can explain this. there are other ways to do it, like using composition, but i dont want to go into technical details.

so you have something like this: (not a real language)

Skill = {
name: heal,
icon: C:\aoc\images\icons\heal.png,
healAmount: 100,
damage: 0,
range: 20
element: none,
critRate: 0
...
...
etc etc etc

}

you can create new skills by changing the values, such as name, damage, etc and you just attach these skills to a class.

if you play cleric/ mage and use fire augments, now your skill healAmount is set to 0, damage is set to 100 and element is set to fire.
maybe you can add a red/orange/yellow filter to the png icon so u dont have to draw a new one.
and if you use the lightning augment, then the element is set to lightning, you add a white/light blue/yellow filter to it. change the particles color, etc
if you play cleric/ranger, maybe the augment only changes the range to 35,
if you play cleric/cleric, then the heal amount changes to 150. you could also change another value so that it applies a heal over time to your target, etc
a rogue secondary would change the crit rate to 20 for example.

the point is that you are just changing numbers, basically. you still have to think about what numbers you want to change. also, iirc steven said that not all skills will be augmentable, so they wont have to work on 200+ skills or whatever.

you can still use this skill factory to create a new class, but a new class is so much more work. you have to think about what class you are going to make. is it going to be a monk? a druid?, witch? a rune knight?, etc, etc. then you have to design a stat growth for that class, you gotta draw new icons for the skills, create new sound and visual effects, animations, etc.

at some point you will end up changing skill values and all that, but not before you have to do the entire process that happens before you get to that point, and of course, they go through multiple iterations and play tests. and that process can take several months. adding 4 more classes, you are probably looking at 2 years of work for whoever has to make them. so nope, adding more classes isnt easier and faster than just changing some values on the skills you already made.

on top of that, they already have an augment system. remember you can get augments from religions and social organizations? so now they gonna have to scrap all that because you think the game will fail if they dont add 4 more classes instead? xDD

rikardp98

Depraved wrote: »

rikardp98 wrote: »

SirChancelot wrote: »

rikardp98 wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

There is only 8 "classes". Don't believe the "augments will drastically change abilities" until you see it happen on at least a single archetype.

Ashes is a game with 8 classes and parties of 8 people. It's a perfect fit.

Yeah that's why I kind of feel like they shouldn't even bother with the arguments and focus on the base archetype and maybe add one or two more for that extra variety.

But the thing is those secondaries will also be 'recycled'. The effects that one archtype has as a secondary will have the same theme of effects being applied to each primary.

Well creating a theme for the secondary archetype is easy, the difficult part is implementing it and making it a somewhat balanced and fun ability.

this is how it works. you dont build skills, you build a factory that builds skills. this is the simples way i can explain this. there are other ways to do it, like using composition, but i dont want to go into technical details.

so you have something like this: (not a real language)

Skill = {
name: heal,
icon: C:\aoc\images\icons\heal.png,
healAmount: 100,
damage: 0,
range: 20
element: none,
critRate: 0
...
...
etc etc etc

}

you can create new skills by changing the values, such as name, damage, etc and you just attach these skills to a class.

if you play cleric/ mage and use fire augments, now your skill healAmount is set to 0, damage is set to 100 and element is set to fire.
maybe you can add a red/orange/yellow filter to the png icon so u dont have to draw a new one.
and if you use the lightning augment, then the element is set to lightning, you add a white/light blue/yellow filter to it. change the particles color, etc
if you play cleric/ranger, maybe the augment only changes the range to 35,
if you play cleric/cleric, then the heal amount changes to 150. you could also change another value so that it applies a heal over time to your target, etc
a rogue secondary would change the crit rate to 20 for example.

the point is that you are just changing numbers, basically. you still have to think about what numbers you want to change. also, iirc steven said that not all skills will be augmentable, so they wont have to work on 200+ skills or whatever.

you can still use this skill factory to create a new class, but a new class is so much more work. you have to think about what class you are going to make. is it going to be a monk? a druid?, witch? a rune knight?, etc, etc. then you have to design a stat growth for that class, you gotta draw new icons for the skills, create new sound and visual effects, animations, etc.

at some point you will end up changing skill values and all that, but not before you have to do the entire process that happens before you get to that point, and of course, they go through multiple iterations and play tests. and that process can take several months. adding 4 more classes, you are probably looking at 2 years of work for whoever has to make them. so nope, adding more classes isnt easier and faster than just changing some values on the skills you already made.

on top of that, they already have an augment system. remember you can get augments from religions and social organizations? so now they gonna have to scrap all that because you think the game will fail if they dont add 4 more classes instead? xDD

First of I never said that the game will fail if they don't add 4 more classes, and my number of classes (12) is after a few expansions not now. We have also not seen, what I can remember, the augment system related to religion and social organisations, so we don't know if that's even implement yet (I guess they have some ideas of how to do it though).

And implementing augmented abilities that relates to an archetype and its fantasy AND the base archetype isn't as simple as "lets change the dmg from physical to fire". You need to change the sound, the effects, maybe even animations on some abilities (add or remove) and they need to have variety within the augmented abilities so it doesn't get boring and feel the same. Then you need to do that on some number of abilities 8 times for all 8 base archetypes. That will easily add up to +1000 abilities they need to work on.

What I'm saying is that if they scrap the 8 augmented ability system (64 classes) and just stick to base archetypes. Classes will not only be more based to its class fantasy, but it will also be easier to add new archetypes with new class fantasies in the future. And maybe at some point (not any time soon), 12 or more classes to have a good spread of archetypes and class fantasies that feel complete and fun.

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