Are Hero Classes just totally off the radar now?

[Qhue]

I noticed with the latest "future updates" on blizzard's site that hero classes arent even listed on the long term future section anymore. I'm told that they haven't been on there for quite some time.

I would really be interested in seeing a World of Warcraft post mortem interview/disclosure that went into all the planned stuff for launch and how and why things changed from that to the current version of the game in terms of which zones were opened, what classes were changed from original designs and what the heck happened to some of the well publicized features of the game that simply never manifested.

Sadly because WoW is an ongoing game and thus a moving target I think it will be years before the full story is told.

(Although maybe now would be a good time for a tell-all insider view of what happened during the Verant years for EQ)

[Stromni Redbeard]

Seriously, Blizzard probably regrets ever even mentioning the idea of Hero classes at this point. With a big push for the expansion eating up most of the development team at this point ( i would be willing to bet ). Why would they even mess with hero classes. I mean the sheer amount of work that would have to go into it is mind boggling. Blizzard has gone back and "Tried" to rebalance all the classes, and are continuing to do so. To introduce Hero Classes anywhere in the forsee-able future would be very difficult, and would require totally rebalancing everything thats in the game currently, PVP , PVE and everything that is being developed for the expansion.

my 2cp

/shrug

[Itzena]

I think they're about the same status as player housing: Blizzard would like to do it, but it's very low-priority and they've got other stuff (class balancing, free content, expansion work, PvP tweaking, etc, etc, etc) higher on the list.

[Cybsled]

Alot of things have vanished, though, like seige weapons and housing. However, one should note that weather used to be on the long term, vanished, and it is coming in the 1.10 patch.

Hero classes are a pretty delicate matter though. IMO the easiest way to implement them is to treat them as a seperate class...but then you get the issue of all your warlocks, rogues, warriors, and mages becoming demon hunters, wardens, blademasters, and archmages. If you base it on talents, then you create a balance nightmare and limit your options as to what the "hero class" can do within the current constraints of the existing class. What sort of mechanisms can effectively limit the number of hero classes without seeming too unfair (read: completely random)? How can the quest be accessable but hard enough so that not everyone can make a hero class?

In many ways, its almost like the jedi issue in SWG.

One idea I always had was what I call the "superman" system. Basically, there are no permanent hero classes. Each class has an extremely hard, difficult, long quest line that leads to a certain hero class...with some heroes shared between multiple classes, etc (this solves the bitching about who can become what, most specifically with the demon hunter).

Once you get the hero class, your character gains a special ability to transform into the hero class. This transformation is only temporary...perhaps 15 minutes or less initially (as your level the hero it gets longer perhaps), with an extremely long cooldown such as 24hrs. Via questing with your character you can gain xp/abilities for your hero class transformation, with some of the quests requiring you to transform at certain points, thus creating a natural timesink (if you fail, you gotta wait 24hrs! This also limits how many quests requiring transformation you can do in any given day). Additionally, if you kill a particular boss while in hero class form (boss can be determined via quest...for instance, a DH might have to kill a certain demon/warlock themed mob...a blademaster might have to kill a warrior type mob...a warden kill a rogueish mob. etc) you gain some bonus xp/abilities/etc, or maybe special "phantom" items that are equiped by your hero class but take up no bag space.

For instance, your demon hunter needs a blade. Lord Kazzak, according to your quest, has some metal you need to make one, but he only drops it if you are in DH form when he dies. You kill him with your raid and get the metal. You do some other quests and whatnot and forge the blade. If you equip the blade while in DH form, then turn back to normal, the blade stays equiped on your DH form and doesnt impact your normal character. When you use your DH form again, the items you equiped are already there on your hero character.

By making the hero a timed ability, so to speak, you can more easily balance encounters to take them into effect and not completely throw the game out of whack.

[Kasonic]

What about the entire raid going Power Ranger for Kel'Thuzad? While I think the 'mighty morphin' version of Hero Classes would be the most dramatic and interesting, it'd also be the hardest to balance. It has to be WORTH that 15-minute use once per day, but not make you a living god as MT or in BGs. Impossible, imo.

Personally, I'd prefer they put them on hold and START development on them after the expansion. Introduced in any form, they're going to totally shift the PvE, PvP, and class balance of WoW, so they should take their fucking time.

[RunningDog]

Originally Posted by Cybsled

One idea I always had was what I call the "superman" system...

Once you get the hero class, your character gains a special ability to transform into the hero class. This transformation is only temporary...

Sounds more like the "Popeye" system

I suspect if they ever implement a Hero system the first requirement is going to be Exalted / Revered with all your side's factions, especially given the ways they've introduced to raise reputation with numerous factions recently.

[Arbitrary]

I would try and combine the AA system with d20 Prestige classes.

Here is what I am thinking. I, the Warlock, run out and do a pretty big quest, do some grinding, some faction, some tradeskills, a little bit of everything and POOF!

Destruction turns into Demon Hunter and I've now got a melee tree and can spec to be subpar just like all the druids, paladins, and priests.

Really, anything like Hero classes needs to be written in stone during early game design.

[Sraaz]

Originally Posted by Arbitrary

Really, anything like Hero classes needs to be written in stone during early game design.

I would imagine they had this written down and plotted out during early game design, but a lot has changed since then.

Hell, level 40 was intended to be a big turning point for the game, nevermind Hero classes. At lv 40 you were supposed to get a whole new slew of abilities and spell and all this shit. Now, you get mounts and armor. Also, evidently the game was designed with levels to scale up to 100.

I wonder if the game can even support such plans anymore.

[Clericnon2boxed]

Originally Posted by RunningDog

Sounds more like the "Popeye" system

I suspect if they ever implement a Hero system the first requirement is going to be Exalted / Revered with all your side's factions, especially given the ways they've introduced to raise reputation with numerous factions recently.

fuck factions, grinding trivial shit to become a hero ? yeah right

[HailToTheChimp]

Originally Posted by Cybsled

One idea I always had was what I call the "superman" system...

Once you get the hero class, your character gains a special ability to transform into the hero class. This transformation is only temporary...

As much as i love the idea, Cybsled, something like that is a bit too situational. Especially when some quests require the use of the transformation to be 'on'. What if there's a cooldown on the transform ability, and you're killing Kazzak? and so on.

What i imagined hero classes being (and what id like to see) is a hero class TREE that you obtain after finishing the long and enduring quest to gain it. This tree would contain skills and abilities pertaining to that hero class. And in order to gain points to spend in the tree, you would gain them through a sort of an AA experience system.

As for the tree itself, it wouldn't be like current trees, not as i think of it. Each tier in the tree, or each 'talent' if you will, would be a completely new skill/ability or a certain stat boost. And at most, each talent in the hero tree would have a max rank of 3 (as opposed to the max 5 ranks we see in the current trees); almost like Warcraft 3 heroes. And there would be something like 15 abilities to get in the tree, but you'd only be able to gain up to 10 points to spend.

Hah, id also like to see some minor graphical changes on the characters once they've hit 'hero' status. It would suck for accomplishments to go unrecognized in the public eye, other than the effects of new skills and spells and what not.

[holydevil]

Honestly I could live without them "improving" the paladin class any more. I have learned to be happy with what you have.

[Lyrical]

I really hope the hero class will be released. It is the main reason I am playing WoW. It seems like besides Eq1, there really isn't much endgame progression for your avatar that doesn't involve loot. Aa is something kept me playing Eq1 all those years. While we don't know what the hero class will be, I hope it involves a good long grind.

[Cybsled]

The problem with a hero tree is that for all intents and purposes you are still a rogue, warlock, mage, etc.

As such, you have to really limit what the hero class can do. For instance, lets say Warden is a hero class. I think most people can agree that rogue has the most incommon with warden. One of the warden's main abilities is blink. There is no way you can balance a rogue with blink. So you are left with...a rogue that can throw poisoned daggers.

While the hero tree is an ok idea, I think it is far too limited since you have access to the abilities of your class, and as such, limits what else you can add to it. Besides, the expansion already has a super specialization thing going (add all 10 pts to a tree to get the super 41 pt talent), so doing hero trees would just seem redundant. They need to do something new.

As for the everyone-go-powerranger at the sametime...ya that would be an issue. I suppose you could code mobs to detect when people are transforming and have it change its behaviour at a certain threshhold. It's certainly codable...mobs in the game already have anti-zerg abilities they only use when they detect a certain amount of people. Just code the bosses so if they detect a certain amount of heroes active at any given time, they start to use their whoop-ass anti-hero abilities.

As much as i love the idea, Cybsled, something like that is a bit too situational. Especially when some quests require the use of the transformation to be 'on'. What if there's a cooldown on the transform ability, and you're killing Kazzak? and so on

Thats part of the reason why it needs to have a large cooldown. Granted Kazzak is a bad example since he is a contested spawn, and as such, its much harder to plan around. So lets say Mr. Demon in X instance. From your guild schedule, you know that you are raiding X today and Mr. Demon is on the menu. With that in mind, you might want to save your ability so you can get the equipment you want.

The idea is to not make the hero form a spammable ability. It shouldnt be something you can bust out every 2 hours or use to farm with. It should be the "oh shit!" ability that gives you temporary uberness or something you plan out usewise.

[Rezz]

With the way WoW is setup in it's uh, "balanced" state, you can basically rule out any short duration super buff ala the silk road Goku mode. No matter how you look at it, you improve a warrior's stats/abilities with a super form deal and you end up with something broken, that's just the state of the game and the way the stat/equipment system works. No other class would end up as broken as warriors, and to give warriors anything less effectively means they get snubbed because of the way the game works. Effectively, one of the only ways they could do hero classes would through an alternate form of talents. Since the entire game revolves around quests (minus the recent faction gayness) it would almost have to be quest based to progress in the hero class. Say you have your 51 normal talents, then the "Hero" talent tab. Each Class could have 2-3 "heroes" per class, with heroes shared between classes. Making racially restricted hero classes would end up in a crazy ass shitstorm the likes of which hasn't been seen since the "Nerf Monks" threads of old, so that can probably be ruled out as well.

Anyway, you have your Heroes, and you have some instanced raid boss that drops 3 hero books at a time or some shit, the books themselves don't pick your class, you activate them and they detail the lore of the classes available to you (the books are classless as well, so whoever needs one gets one) You also have a partial book drop deal that comes from normal instance bosses, collect 4 portions of the book, combine and you have a hero book as well. Once you click the book and choose which path you want to take, you get a series of solo, single group and raid quests that eventually lead to your first Hero Point. At this point, you can now see the hero tree for the hero class you chose, and you can spend it on the first tier of abilities, say if you had Blademaster as your hero class, your first tier abilities (one point cost each, no hero ability costs more than 1 point) would be 5% damage increase with Axes or Swords, or a triggered ability with a 5 min reuse that makes your next attack with a sword or axe guarantee a crit. More quests later, you get another point, and the tier 2 abilties open. Anyway, continue on doing quests and getting poitns till you reach the 5th Tier, where you get some flashy graphically enhanced bonus to your normal attack, say for the blademaster regardless of your equipment you have a chance to proc a weak whirlwind on every attack.

Something along those lines is workable, I don't really see AA working with the way the game model is set up, and definitely not power ranger mode =/

[nosf]

Make the hero classes truly heroic. Each potential hero must have slain various bosses; Ragnaros, Nefarian, Onyxia and so on. Blue/green loot and 10 man scholo "raids" do not a hero make!

Oh god, think of the forum response. *cackle*