Green Monster Games (Curt Schilling)

[Draegan]

You're not filling your guild with competent players (people with 2+ max level jobs). You're just filling your guild with people who have more time to grind that shit out.

And if you don't like playing more than one class? Well if you have a high attendance and very good knowledge of your one class, I doubt it'd be an issue in a raiding guild. Else you'd look for another guild.

But now you're seen as a "lesser player". Someone that isn't as valuable and will most likely lose out in the long term, then to be seen "as good" as someone else you will be forced to grind out some levels in another job.

All this can be done by rolling alts. That's why you have them.

Fix the shitty gear distribution system in dungeons.

[FoghornDeadhorn]

Originally Posted by Draegan

As soon as you're able to do something all in one character, it will be expected of you to be able to do that in any competitive atmosphere.

Yep, I sure know I'm a detriment to my guild not being able to switch to rogue. And my top healers? If they could just press a button and change to nukers or melee DPS they wouldn't be such a drag on us.

Oh, wait.

Sorry, but this isn't subjobbing. Subjobbing IS mandatory for raiding in FFXI because it adds power to the character you're playing right now. This gives you more options. Except you already have more options. We have two Holy Paladins in our guild with halfway-decent prot sets. We've had to use them less times than I can count on one hand. Our resto shaman all have DPS sets. Once again, small handful of times they've respecced. The biggest respec issues we've had have been numerous times (not an issue anymore) having enhance shaman spec resto, and our top feral specs resto for twins. Once or twice we used one of our SPs as a holy priest.

I'm sorry your guild(s) have to rely on entirely different people to accomplish stack-adjusting, or adjusting to people being gone. Right now we do it with our same people, only we have slightly less flexibility than we'd like, and only overall attendance issues typically stop us from raiding.

The reality of guilds

Is something I know quite a bit about, thanks.

[Grave]

The point still remains that it's an absolutely terrible way to address the simple issue of loot rotting and raids becoming boring for the bleeding edge raiders. You can't change the very foundation of a game just to solve two small problems that only effect a small portion of the playerbase in the first place. A lot of people have their hands full still just trying to gear up one class and maybe an offspec. It's not the fault of the game designers that some guilds can plow through content so fast they get bored before most people have even seen it.

Furthermore, if you really think about it, it doesn't even completely solve the issue of raid loot so much as delay it. Great, you're a little less bored on subsequent runs because there are a few items you can grab for your 2nd or 3rd classes you've worked on. How much of it can you actually use yet? What happens after you've also gotten all of the stuff you need for those? Bored again, right?

I'm not saying you guys at the bleeding edge should be ignored, but there are plenty of other loot ideas presented in the past few pages that would be far better than resorting to changing entire fundamental game elements.

Still, I wish we could get on a new topic already.

[FoghornDeadhorn]

I didn't know alt rolling was the foundation of the game. If it is, isn't that a problem?

Fact is, people who roll alts are assets, but most people don't have the time to both level and gear an alt. If anything this would be a hand to the more casual members of serious raiding guilds. But short of being called a retard again, I digress.

[Grave]

I'm not talking about alt rolling as the foundation. I'm talking about the fact that the game has to be designed from the ground up to take into account that players will be redoing content over and over again on the same character. The same issues that were brought up before with questing, storylines, general player advancement, etc. I'm not ignoring the solutions that have been brought up in this thread, but I don't necessarily feel they would work as well as they might sound on paper.

And while I'm repeating myself, I'll say again that it also changes player mentality. People feel like they have to at least try to level other classes because, for whatever reason, they don't like that little "Level 1" next to the class on their list. I just don't really want to be in a game like that again, I got enough of it from FFXI.

I think what has begun with WoW talent specs is good enough. With more classes and a larger variety of specs the game would spread the critical roles out among a larger number of players and address the issue of having someone not show up for a raid or whatever. Think about what a Bard could do with 3 or 4 talent trees, or a true Ranger class. There would be a huge amount of possibilities with a single class system.

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by Grave

I think what has begun with WoW talent specs is good enough. With more classes and a larger variety of specs the game would spread the critical roles out among a larger number of players and address the issue of having someone not show up for a raid or whatever. Think about what a Bard could do with 3 or 4 talent trees, or a true Ranger class. There would be a huge amount of possibilities with a single class system.

It doesn't really, wow has shown this, if you make more specs viable, people will just want one of each of these specs, because it's better than stacking classes if their assets don't stack(mostly buffs/debuffs and raid synergy). The more subclasses you design, the more people will want to have one of each for optimum results, the more people will have to recruit people then bench them in turns to fill in specific roles. That's the case with enhance shamans(having 1 is a must, having 0 or 2 is suboptimal) in wow, or many other classes(ret paladins, arms war, survival hunter and so on).

You can make their assets stackable, but then you have to design those on the fact they WILL BE stacked if they provide a good buff. See BM hunter buff, in full hunter's group.

Now that's somewhat another discussion though ^^. I think however the spec system is one of the reason I never really liked the pure dps classes(mage lock rogue, I actually liked hunter for different reasons though). You're only limited to one role. One thing I liked about my druid is I was able to run heroics as feral to get badges if I wanted to, or run them as resto if I knew the tank, or run them as feral dps or moonkin if I felt like doing something different(worthless, but different). That's why I like the idea of having one char to do everything I want, instead of having to run shitty geared alts into annoying content to gear them enough not to be a liability in good content.

[Bongk]

Originally Posted by Grave

People feel like they have to at least try to level other classes because, for whatever reason, they don't like that little "Level 1" next to the class on their list. I just don't really want to be in a game like that again, I got enough of it from FFXI.

so because you are OCD the games should be made simpler?

[Grave]

Originally Posted by Bongk

so because you are OCD the games should be made simpler?

Simpler, eh? How does what we're talking about have anything to do with difficulty? If anything, the job system is easier. So, grats on making zero sense.

And no, I'm not the one that has an issue with not having multiple classes leveled. I rolled an alt on FFXI just to be another race, I didn't care beyond the fact that it felt like the game was punishing you for doing so.

However, I did live and play in that world for a year and see the effect it had on players. It's not being OCD anymore than a player wants to max his reputations on WoW or any other achievement. If it's there to do, on their character, the players will feel like they are supposed to do it to make their character more complete. It's simple, really.

[Agraza]

I've got characters for each class, all are above 30 and 5 of them are 70. They'd all be 70 if I was still subbed. I'd much rather just have them be roles my main character could fulfill, but he's usually a protection warrior so that's not going to happen.

I like rolling alts only because I like performing different roles. I tend to tire of tanking or healing or dpsing if I do it for a given stretch. Furthermore, I like experiencing different methods of performing similar roles. My favorite spec on my druid is feral for bear tanking because it's actually a fun mindless endeavor by comparison to my warrior's furious pace of activity.

I do not log on the prot war unless we're raiding. It doesn't happen. Though I will still tank for random groups, on my druid. Without the druid I wouldn't tank outside of raids and my guild and friends would be deprived of that. A job system would be perfect for me to just switch roles and perform a different one. I would still need the equipment to handle the role, the sockets, the inscriptions, the enchantments, etc. It would not be simple. It would be preferable to leveling up every single class seperately.

This is not 100% an item rot situation. It isn't all about attendance or grinding either. The concept of a job system can solve multiple problems. It's actually insulting to those that are claiming it is merely a convoluted solution to rot. We already have solutions in mind for that which would STILL be relevant given the presence of a job system, tokens and/or method triggered loot options. Just because I can pick up the 20th pair of frost damage bracers for the possibility of my frost mage role doesn't mean I want to. It doesn't solve the fact that I didn't get upgrades to my current role, and that by their dropping my raid has again made only lateral progress. So a job system isn't a comprehensive solution to item rot.

[Bongk]

Originally Posted by Grave

Simpler, eh? How does what we're talking about have anything to do with difficulty? If anything, the job system is easier. So, grats on making zero sense.

having less options and paths to advance your character is simpler in my world, whatever. Choices are key and you seem to want less because you feel the OCD need to max everything and be Mr Uber all. Makes perfect sense, you just fail to see it or admit it.

[FoghornDeadhorn]

It's not being OCD anymore than a player wants to max his reputations on WoW or any other achievement.

That's OCD. I don't max reps unless I need something from it. Most sane players I know don't. The only person I know who had a hard on for maxing reputations was a fucking nutter.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Edit: Never start a post and then submit it after being in a meeting for 2 hours. This is for James.

Except WoW has already pushed that model and your argument falls flat. We have 5 paladins. Only two of us have tank suits in addition to our heal suits and we're an end-game guild. By your logic we should tell the other 3 paladins they're not welcome anymore because they're not living up to their potential.

We recently recruited a feral druid. We didn't put on the app page "MUST HAVE FULL RESTO AND MOONKIN SET AS WELL." We wanted someone who enjoyed playing a feral druid because people are more inclined to stick with your guild longer if they enjoy the class they're playing.

When we were first doing Eredar Twins we only had 1 resto shaman. We had 3 people end up rerolling just so we could beat that encounter. They lost part of their identity. One of them was a rogue with a glaive. I was asked to play my priest for one fight where I still wanted loot. Thank god the shit I wanted didn't drop or I would have been pretty upset. I don't mind playing my priest, but I wanted loot for my paladin.

I face that problem constantly actually. My priest is a far better healer from a mathematical standpoint but I prefer playing my paladin as I'm better at it and I want tanking loot since I tend to do mostly tanking shit when not raiding.

The job system resolves a lot of these conflicts. It's fun, it's intuitive, it allows players to keep their identity, it builds a deeper connection with your character. It doesn't stop you from playing just a single class, it doesn't prevent you from having a large guild, it doesn't prevent you from having tons of alts.

It seems pretty goddamn ideal to me.

[Zehn - Vhex]

How many people here were required to level up leatherworking in order to beat end game content. You can get an almost, I think the number was something like 8% raid wide dps increase if everyone is leatherworking.

Come on, show of hands.

No? How about you Fog, your guild is in SWP. Did you require everyone to roll up leatherworkers? No?

How many of you were required to level up warlocks so you could soulstone your entire raid? I mean that's a pretty huge fucking benefit, especially when shooting for world firsts. I believe that's what Nihilum did to get the world first on Reliquery.

So, hands up. How many of you are leatherworkers with warlock alts for soulstone sploiting?

How many of you have a paladin bot for blessings?

Just because it can be done, doesn't mean you will have to. Bullshit statement. If it can be done, will it? Yes. There was some guy who something like 3 months after WoW started had a level 60 of every class. Fuck, I do. I have 5 70's, and 6 lvl 63~66's (And they think I'm afk during trash clearing, hah).

Am I more suddenly more valuable? Yes. But between the time I joined up until the present we have -never- required that a DPS recruit have a max level healing alt. We have -never- required that someone be a leatherworker. We have -never- required someone have a warlock soulstone bot. We have -never- required someone to have a herbalism alt.

Your argument is terrible. Yes someone will be more valuable if they have more time on their hands. That's no fucking different then it is now. An applicant who has had the time to get a full set of pvp gear, who has a tradeskill alt and produces their own raid materials, is inherantly more valuable then an equally skilled person who doesn't and will be more sought out.

It's as bad an argument as the people who say being able to do so means healers will refuse to join groups unless they get the loot they want. They already fucking do that.

[Kuro]

I just really liked the FFXI job system because it cut down on the x-box-hueg list of alts on the friends list that most of the games I've played have ended up with, and that it seemed to be a decent form of personal accountability, since all of your classes are on one Name, people have more time invested in the name and are less likely to be an asshat to everyone in the zone while working on Alt Class #3859.

[FoghornDeadhorn]

By the way, for those who think this is just a massive derail, this is in my opinion great reinforcement of the point I was making when I re-entered this thread several pages ago: you can't just dabble in raiding to understand the impact that design decisions will have on raid guilds and the raid environment. There may be disagreements, but I know there's a lot of experience talking here.