Class names need a rework

I was a bit disapointed to see that the classes (aka primary/secondary archetype combos) got posted up on the main website without getting a second pass. These names have existed for a very very long time, from the kickstarter if I am correct. Who knows if the person who even did them originally is still around. While most of the names are good their is a problem at a high level, the repeated over use of several words, very often in compound names, which make it VERY easy to confuse some of the classes, in addition a few of names seem to be a poor match for their archetype combo, though that's a bit more subjective. Starting with the groups of names which share common words and what I think would be done to diversify the names and make it it more clear what their base archetype is.

WARDEN

Warden (Tank/Ranger) - Keep this as the only warden, this is already a common class name
Brood Warden (Summoner/Tank) - Am I playing the Zerg? rename to 'Golemancer'
Song Warden (Bard/Ranger) - rename 'Song Catcher' or 'Herald'

SWORD

Tellsword (Bard/Figher) - rename 'Skald' a common Bard/Barbarian hybrid classes
Highsword (Fighter/Cleric) - Keep, this sounds good
Spellsword (Fighter/Mage) - rename to 'Archon' a Pathfinder class, one of the few good names for such a combo

SPELL

Spellsword (Fighter/Mage) - already mentioned
Spellstone (Mage/Tank) - rename 'Abjurationist' or 'Abjurer', this is well known 'defense' magic term
Spellhunter (Mage/Ranger) - rename 'Evoker', I assume Druid has been reserved for future expansions
Nightspell (Rogue/Mage) - shift 'Trickster' or 'Arcane Trickster' here and rename Bard/Roge to 'Dirge'
Spellmancer (Summoner/Mage) - rename to 'Elementalist', is presumed to have elemental summons
Spellshield (Tank/Mage) - rename 'Thumaturge' a similar Archage class

SHIELD

Spellshield (Tank/Mage) - already mentioned
Nightshield (Tank/Rogue) - rename 'Watchmen' or 'Watcher', this class gives me Batman vibes

SONG

Song Caller (Bard/Summoner) - could also be renamed 'Herald', or 'Illusionist' if design leans that way
Song Warden (Bard/Ranger) - already mentioned

GUARDIAN

Shadow Guardian (Rogue/Tank) - rename 'Swashbuckler' if going for dodge-tank sytle of play
Guardian (Tank/Tank) - Keep, or rename to 'Juggernaught' if Guardian is gonna be resued elsewhere

NIGHT

Nightshield (Tank/Rogue) - already mentioned
Nightspell (Rogue/Mage) - alrady mentioned

SHADOW

Shadow Lord (Rogue/Summoner) - rename to 'Ninja' particularly if it uses shadow-clone mechanic
Shadow Guardian (Rogue/Tank) - already mentioned
Shadowmancer (Summoner/Rogue) - Keep, -mancer across summoner subclasses is good
Shadow Disiple (Cleric/Rogue) - rename 'Dark Disiple', aliteration for the win
Shadowblade (Fighter/Rogue) - rename to 'Executioner' a class from Archage with similar combo
Shadow Caster (Mage/Rogue) - rename 'Coercer' or 'Alchemist' or 'Phantasm' depending on if mechanics leaning towards debuff, poison or stealth respectivly.

BLADE

Wild Blade (Summoner/Fighter) - shift Blade caller here as that sounds like they summon blades
Blade Dancer (Fighter/Bard) - Keep or rename to 'Crusader'
Shadowblade (Fighter/Rogue) - already mentioned
Blade caller (Fighter/Summoner) - rename 'Berserker' or 'Dirvish', not clear what this will play like

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Comments

Korela

Here we go again

senna

Yeah man, you already asked this on the discord and no one agreed with you, I really don't see this going any differently.

I'll re-iterate my opinion here.

There is pretty much zero inherent value to renaming any of these classes at all. Their current names do more than enough to explain the flavor and intent behind every single one, and the only reason you want to change them is... what? because they reuse words? To have Intrepid go through and poll everyone on a name change everyone agrees on (since I doubt everyone will agree with yours) would be an incredible waste of time that would result in an even more divided position.

It would also pull away valuable resources (though admittedly not much, this is just a bunch of plugging in words everywhere) from the development of the game that people are already upset about the length of. There are far more important things to focus on, and this should really never be on the radar.

If you don't like those class names, don't play them. The game is not about having a cool class name, it's about a huge open world that players can interact with in meaningful ways and grow meaningful human bonds that pretty much no games before this breed. Let's focus more on what this game is about.

nanfoodle

The Base class is ment to not have flair. It's name point to something almost everyone will know what they are getting and the Secondary Subclass it where the names have a flare and it gives you time to pick a direction while you play your role. Names fit the class at level 25.

Lodrig

senna wrote: »

Yeah man, you already asked this on the discord and no one agreed with you, I really don't see this going any differently.

I'll re-iterate my opinion here.

There is pretty much zero inherent value to renaming any of these classes at all. Their current names do more than enough to explain the flavor and intent behind every single one, and the only reason you want to change them is... what? because they reuse words? To have Intrepid go through and poll everyone on a name change everyone agrees on (since I doubt everyone will agree with yours) would be an incredible waste of time that would result in an even more divided position.

Their clearly is value in having names for classes, else Intrepid would have skipped assigning names at all to archetype combos. The value is both themetic and memonic, I think both aspects can be improved and I have seen many many instances of confusion and conflation of the names so it's clear their is room for improvement, the excessive reuse of certain words in the classes is I belive the root cause of this. Lastly the idea of polling these changes is a strawman as I have not asked for that, Intrepid would be better off just making the changes they feel fix the problem if they agree with the diagnosis.

senna wrote: »

It would also pull away valuable resources (though admittedly not much, this is just a bunch of plugging in words everywhere) from the development of the game that people are already upset about the length of. There are far more important things to focus on, and this should really never be on the radar.

The 'it would take resources' argument is always a weak one and especially so here as this was a trivial amount of work, and now that it's handed too them on a silver platter it's even less. Updating the website is probably the hardest part so that's probably best rolled into future updates, particularly when class designs start getting completed that would be the idea time to do a second pass on the names.

senna wrote: »

If you don't like those class names, don't play them. The game is not about having a cool class name, it's about a huge open world that players can interact with in meaningful ways and grow meaningful human bonds that pretty much no games before this breed. Let's focus more on what this game is about.

This is VERY silly thing to say, if somone said the spell animations did not look good would you tell people to not cast that spell? I do not expect any player to reject playing a class because of its name or would I do so myself, but I do expect some disapointment to stem from the current names, they are a small but potent part of the games overall asthetics. And like it or not games are more then their purely mechanical systems.

Otr

Having tank as class name shows incompetence.

CROW3

Otr wrote: »

Having tank as class name shows incompetence.

Yeah, I don’t think we’ve discussed this as a community before… 😳

Lodrig

Otr wrote: »

Having tank as class name shows incompetence.

That is a different controversy all together, one I do not want to get into here (it has been belabored for years), this thread is about class names, not archetype names.

Taleof2Cities

CROW3 wrote: »

Otr wrote: »

Having tank as class name shows incompetence.

Yeah, I don’t think we’ve discussed this as a community before… 😳

Nor is the Forums search feature a thing ...

Dolyem

Class names seem fine to me. They more or less get the point across. More often than not people will likely just say rogue/ranger or cleric/cleric anyway. Can't be bothered to memorize the class name when there are 64 of them.

Renathras

I'm less worried about these and more worried about "Tank", which is a nonsense name that doesn't make any sense.

Tank comes from the modern main battle tank of military use, which are only around 100 years old if you go back to the earliest forms in WWI, which were more just armored personnel carriers. Before that, armored things were called "Ironclads", like early metal sheathed warships.

Worse, the name doesn't even make sense. Tanks are not really defensive implements, they're offensive ones. They aren't bunkers designed to sit and take fire. While they can shrug off small arms fire, their real use was as a mobile battle fortress with a main canon, bridging the gap between long distance mortar/artillery pieces and more fast and mobile heavy cavalry capable of making hard and forceful pushes on enemy positions. In the modern world, they very much are not "sit and take fire" items, as both air support, long range missiles, explosive drones, and man-carried RPGs can all pose a threat to them.

Gamers just took "armored thing" and applied it, in a post-WWII/Cold War world, to the videogame classes in games that can take a lot of punishment.

There is exactly ZERO sense in the name being used in a setting like this where not only do military armored tanks from which the name is derived not exist, the name doesn't really exactly describe them anyway.

As others have said, it'd be like calling Cleric "Healer" or Bard "Buffer" or Mage "Magical Ranged DPS".

I feel like the one name that needs to change is Tank.

Githal

I agree with the OP.
Removing the repetition of same words on multiple classes will make it easier to distinguish each class.
Or their other way around is to name same main class with same word. For example all mage main classes to start with spell. But at the moment you have secondary mage class and the name is still with "Spell" in it. This will be super misleading.
And they would sound better too.

Ulderek

I feel like you make a good point OP

Lodrig

Renathras wrote: »

I'm less worried about these and more worried about "Tank", which is a nonsense name that doesn't make any sense.

Stay on topic and do not derail the threat plz, their are a countless threads on that topic you can post in INSTEAD of here.

Lodrig

Githal wrote: »

I agree with the OP.
Removing the repetition of same words on multiple classes will make it easier to distinguish each class.
Or their other way around is to name same main class with same word. For example all mage main classes to start with spell. But at the moment you have secondary mage class and the name is still with "Spell" in it. This will be super misleading.
And they would sound better too.

Thx, I had considered if I should just recomend some kind of consistent pattern usage with the repeated words, but realized that would probably entitle even more changes and would probably lack good flavor.

Their were specific areas though where I saw some patterns and leaned in, such as '-mancer' for a summoner class (Necromancer, Spellmancer, Shadowmancer) and recomended Golemancer to follow that pattern, but I would not expect all summoners to be forced to follow it as their are simply not an unlimited number of good variants. 'Beast Master' is just a better name then 'Beastmancer'.

The other major concern was making primary archetype clear, so many of these compound word class names basically can't tell you which archetype is primary because of the way english combound word order is not arbitrary. A 'Spellhunter' for example is easy enough to understand as composed of Mage and Ranger classes, but just because Spell is first dosn't make it clear its primary is mage, because 'HunterSpell' isn't an option. Thus a new name like "Evoker' which is undeniably mage based, though it can be argued it's not clearly Ranger secondary so I tried to pick class names that have some estalished history of playstyle that matches the secondary, in this case Evoker is an aggressivly blasty kind of Mage in Pathfinder.

Similar Skald, Abjurrationist, Herald, Watchman, Swashbuckler, Juggernaught, Ninja, Arcane Trickster, Golemancer, Alchemist and Crusader I think convey the primary archetype well with reasonable ease of determining the secondary without being told. I'm much less certain on the other name recomendations. If anyone has different name ideas for any class at all I'd very much like to hear them.

Aszkalon

Korela wrote: »

Here we go again

Awww, sheet !

Depraved

Lodrig wrote: »

I was a bit disapointed to see that the classes (aka primary/secondary archetype combos) got posted up on the main website without getting a second pass. These names have existed for a very very long time, from the kickstarter if I am correct. Who knows if the person who even did them originally is still around. While most of the names are good their is a problem at a high level, the repeated over use of several words, very often in compound names, which make it VERY easy to confuse some of the classes, in addition a few of names seem to be a poor match for their archetype combo, though that's a bit more subjective. Starting with the groups of names which share common words and what I think would be done to diversify the names and make it it more clear what their base archetype is.

WARDEN
Warden (Tank/Ranger) - Keep this as the only warden, this is already a common class name

Brood Warden (Summoner/Tank) - Am I playing the Zerg? rename to 'Golemancer'

Song Warden (Bard/Ranger) - rename 'Song Catcher' or 'Herald'

SWORD
Tellsword (Bard/Figher) - rename 'Skald' a common Bard/Barbarian hybrid classes

Highsword (Fighter/Cleric) - Keep, this sounds good

Spellsword (Fighter/Mage) - rename to 'Archon' a Pathfinder class, one of the few good names for such a combo

SPELL
Spellsword (Fighter/Mage) - already mentioned

Spellstone (Mage/Tank) - rename 'Abjurationist' or 'Abjurer', this is well known 'defense' magic term

Spellhunter (Mage/Ranger) - rename 'Evoker', I assume Druid has been reserved for future expansions

Nightspell (Rogue/Mage) - shift 'Trickster' or 'Arcane Trickster' here and rename Bard/Roge to 'Dirge'

Spellmancer (Summoner/Mage) - rename to 'Elementalist', is presumed to have elemental summons

Spellshield (Tank/Mage) - rename 'Thumaturge' a similar Archage class

SHIELD
Spellshield (Tank/Mage) - already mentioned

Nightshield (Tank/Rogue) - rename 'Watchmen' or 'Watcher', this class gives me Batman vibes

SONG
Song Caller (Bard/Summoner) - could also be renamed 'Herald', or 'Illusionist' if design leans that way

Song Warden (Bard/Ranger) - already mentioned

GUARDIAN
Shadow Guardian (Rogue/Tank) - rename 'Swashbuckler' if going for dodge-tank sytle of play

Guardian (Tank/Tank) - Keep, or rename to 'Juggernaught' if Guardian is gonna be resued elsewhere

NIGHT
Nightshield (Tank/Rogue) - already mentioned

Nightspell (Rogue/Mage) - alrady mentioned

SHADOW
Shadow Lord (Rogue/Summoner) - rename to 'Ninja' particularly if it uses shadow-clone mechanic

Shadow Guardian (Rogue/Tank) - already mentioned

Shadowmancer (Summoner/Rogue) - Keep, -mancer across summoner subclasses is good

Shadow Disiple (Cleric/Rogue) - rename 'Dark Disiple', aliteration for the win

Shadowblade (Fighter/Rogue) - rename to 'Executioner' a class from Archage with similar combo

Shadow Caster (Mage/Rogue) - rename 'Coercer' or 'Alchemist' or 'Phantasm' depending on if mechanics leaning towards debuff, poison or stealth respectivly.

BLADE
Wild Blade (Summoner/Fighter) - shift Blade caller here as that sounds like they summon blades

Blade Dancer (Fighter/Bard) - Keep or rename to 'Crusader'

Shadowblade (Fighter/Rogue) - already mentioned

Blade caller (Fighter/Summoner) - rename 'Berserker' or 'Dirvish', not clear what this will play like

you say repeated words can be confusing, I say it makes it easier. you see the word spell somewhere, now you know there's a mage in there, be aware of aoe and elemental damage. you see the word shield, now you know that's a tanky character, etc. instead of trying to remember 64 different names and what they do.

to use one of your examples, the golemancer. that only tells me its a character that summons golems. it could be a summoner, but it could be a mage. it doesn't tell me anything about it being summoner / tank. what if I play that class then I'm surprised to see there isn't any golem summoning? immediate disappointment!

Caww

I'm gonna need a cheat sheet for these class names.....

Yenn0war

Lodrig wrote: »

I was a bit disapointed to see that the classes (aka primary/secondary archetype combos) got posted up on the main website without getting a second pass. These names have existed for a very very long time, from the kickstarter if I am correct. Who knows if the person who even did them originally is still around. While most of the names are good their is a problem at a high level, the repeated over use of several words, very often in compound names, which make it VERY easy to confuse some of the classes, in addition a few of names seem to be a poor match for their archetype combo, though that's a bit more subjective. Starting with the groups of names which share common words and what I think would be done to diversify the names and make it it more clear what their base archetype is.

WARDEN
Warden (Tank/Ranger) - Keep this as the only warden, this is already a common class name

Brood Warden (Summoner/Tank) - Am I playing the Zerg? rename to 'Golemancer'

Song Warden (Bard/Ranger) - rename 'Song Catcher' or 'Herald'

SWORD
Tellsword (Bard/Figher) - rename 'Skald' a common Bard/Barbarian hybrid classes

Highsword (Fighter/Cleric) - Keep, this sounds good

Spellsword (Fighter/Mage) - rename to 'Archon' a Pathfinder class, one of the few good names for such a combo

SPELL
Spellsword (Fighter/Mage) - already mentioned

Spellstone (Mage/Tank) - rename 'Abjurationist' or 'Abjurer', this is well known 'defense' magic term

Spellhunter (Mage/Ranger) - rename 'Evoker', I assume Druid has been reserved for future expansions

Nightspell (Rogue/Mage) - shift 'Trickster' or 'Arcane Trickster' here and rename Bard/Roge to 'Dirge'

Spellmancer (Summoner/Mage) - rename to 'Elementalist', is presumed to have elemental summons

Spellshield (Tank/Mage) - rename 'Thumaturge' a similar Archage class

SHIELD
Spellshield (Tank/Mage) - already mentioned

Nightshield (Tank/Rogue) - rename 'Watchmen' or 'Watcher', this class gives me Batman vibes

SONG
Song Caller (Bard/Summoner) - could also be renamed 'Herald', or 'Illusionist' if design leans that way

Song Warden (Bard/Ranger) - already mentioned

GUARDIAN
Shadow Guardian (Rogue/Tank) - rename 'Swashbuckler' if going for dodge-tank sytle of play

Guardian (Tank/Tank) - Keep, or rename to 'Juggernaught' if Guardian is gonna be resued elsewhere

NIGHT
Nightshield (Tank/Rogue) - already mentioned

Nightspell (Rogue/Mage) - alrady mentioned

SHADOW
Shadow Lord (Rogue/Summoner) - rename to 'Ninja' particularly if it uses shadow-clone mechanic

Shadow Guardian (Rogue/Tank) - already mentioned

Shadowmancer (Summoner/Rogue) - Keep, -mancer across summoner subclasses is good

Shadow Disiple (Cleric/Rogue) - rename 'Dark Disiple', aliteration for the win

Shadowblade (Fighter/Rogue) - rename to 'Executioner' a class from Archage with similar combo

Shadow Caster (Mage/Rogue) - rename 'Coercer' or 'Alchemist' or 'Phantasm' depending on if mechanics leaning towards debuff, poison or stealth respectivly.

BLADE
Wild Blade (Summoner/Fighter) - shift Blade caller here as that sounds like they summon blades

Blade Dancer (Fighter/Bard) - Keep or rename to 'Crusader'

Shadowblade (Fighter/Rogue) - already mentioned

Blade caller (Fighter/Summoner) - rename 'Berserker' or 'Dirvish', not clear what this will play like

Dervish sounds way better for Bladecaller. Highsword should be renamed into Crusader because Paladin is taken. It also seems its a closest class to Ret Paladin from WoW which had/has lots of Crusader themed spell and talent names.

As a mage/mage player I would love them to scrap Archwizard and go for just Wizard or Archmage.
Archwizard seems so over the top to me.

Adding Blade, Shadow and -mancer to each class names seems so lazy to me. 1 class with those words would be okay, but reusing it like 4-5 times. No.

Yenn0war

senna wrote: »

Yeah man, you already asked this on the discord and no one agreed with you, I really don't see this going any differently.

I'll re-iterate my opinion here.

There is pretty much zero inherent value to renaming any of these classes at all. Their current names do more than enough to explain the flavor and intent behind every single one, and the only reason you want to change them is... what? because they reuse words? To have Intrepid go through and poll everyone on a name change everyone agrees on (since I doubt everyone will agree with yours) would be an incredible waste of time that would result in an even more divided position.

It would also pull away valuable resources (though admittedly not much, this is just a bunch of plugging in words everywhere) from the development of the game that people are already upset about the length of. There are far more important things to focus on, and this should really never be on the radar.

If you don't like those class names, don't play them. The game is not about having a cool class name, it's about a huge open world that players can interact with in meaningful ways and grow meaningful human bonds that pretty much no games before this breed. Let's focus more on what this game is about.

I have a friend who didn't want to play Guardian in Guild Wars 2 because name didn't sound ''paladin' enough and he didn't want to roll Paladin in FF14 because it wasn't Dps.

There are two things I learned from that:
a) There is power in names
b) People who main Ret Paladins in WoW are idiots.

Azherae

There will always be the spectrum of people who care a lot to people who pay no attention at all.

I don't really care about the names, though if I had to say, I really like the idea of working in Archon, Herald, etc.

But similarly, there are a ton of names Intrepid already uses that I like too.

The 'bigger problem' is that games with strong build depth can never capture all of the potential of combinations in the first place, and names create expectations.

It helps if some playstyle terms are used, but older games did this well (by either not doing it at all if their game was very complex, or setting it up correctly if it was 'normal'), so I think we should probably rely on Intrepid to provide the same overall quality of it when we know which of those two their design is.

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