Green Monster Games (Curt Schilling)

[Kuro]

And if we continue down the trail of this thread, there will be 1 class with 24 names! Yaaaaaay!

*kermit the frog arm flail*

[UnchainedAcolyte]

Originally Posted by Cowbell

Tanks dont really care about flavor nearly as much as healers or dps. All we care about is min/maxing stats and how hard we get hit.

With hardcore players, maybe. However, since you're appealing to a broader player base, I think you need to include a couple of other flavors, especially an evasion tank "done right". Revised monks are a fun class in EQ2, it's a shame they can't tank as effectively as other fighters.

Then again, for casuals they could probably serve as single-group tanks or off-tanks just fine.

Yes, balance is a huge issue, but I'd argue that for interest's sake, so is flavor. I'd personally rather have an evasion class that's harder to play, but when handled well, is easily on par with the typical meat shield archetype, if not superior in certain ways.

Also, putting in votes for bloodmage and necromancer classes for Copernicus.

[Thengel]

Originally Posted by Cowbell

The fewer tanks, the better. 2 is more than enough.

With dps and healers you can have more because there are more 'types' of healers and dps as some have stated. Backstabbing rogue or fireballing mage. Big single target heals or HoTs.

With tanks, if you try and balance them to where its "bring the player, not the class" then you end up with every tank needing the same cooldowns, the same mitigation etc. For flavor you really only need 2 types...a holy type warrior and a dark knight.

Please dont have more than 2 tanks. It will be less work on your part to try and constantly balance us and you can focus your attention on other things. Also, Tanks dont really care about flavor nearly as much as healers or dps. All we care about is min/maxing stats and how hard we get hit.

Um, wrong. I almost always pick a tank class, yet I hate the holy type warrior and dark knight. I don't see why 'tanks' would care less about flavor. It's not like they are a completely different category of gamer.

[Quince]

I really liked how Vanguard did their classes. Have the 4 arch types and within that 4 of each. Is 16 classes too much?

Tanks:
Warrior
Pally
Shadow Knight
"Spell, Avoidance, or AoE tank"

Melee DPS:
Ranger
Bard
Rogue
Monk

Magic DPS:
Wizzy
Necro
Enchanter
"AoE, Mage, or some hybred"

Healers:
Cleric
Druid
Shaman
"Hybred like Warrior Priest, Bloodmage, etc"


You get the idea. Granted you fall into the "Too many DPS and not enough Tanks/Healers" problem but is there really any way around that?

[Tropics]

After reading back on some posts I was wondering.

Originally Posted by Ngruk

That's why EVE will last longer than any other MMO in existance. The "real world' dynamics of the one shard world are just awesome.

FWIW I've been sitting in dock for around 2-3 months, doing nothing but training

I'll get waxed when I venture out, but I'll eventually not suck faster than most

Originally Posted by Ngruk

That right there is just epic. Epically awesome and horrific at the same time. I can think of no other MMO that could even hint at this sort of world wide tragedy, inflicted by players, within the rules of the game.

Just unreal. I feel for the BOB guys, which it appears not many do since they were the favorites and the rest of the living world was the underdogs.

How long have they controlled the majority of the world? Was it longer or shorter then the III Reich's reign in Europe?

EVE has alot more ability to function on a "single shard" over a fantasy based MMORPG based on world size/space requirements, a limited number of players compared to a successful MMORPG, the use of PVP to create most of the content and gameplay over PVE creations. That said this type of thing is HUGE for a MMO and even a MMORPG if you could manage to get that feeling and type of interaction into a fantasy based game. EVE does not have to be the only game that has it's shelf life dramatically increased due to these types of events if you could figure out some way to bring even a smaller scaled version of this into a MMORPG.

I can remember Tallon Zek and the wars we got into over territory control, not winning a meaningless instance battleground or a fort battle that gives us a buff for the next 6 hours but instead a constant battle to keep control of a non-instanced zone so that we could get experience and loot from it. And the Tallon Zek thing was nothing compared to the scale of what happend in EVE.

Do you have any plans/hopes to create game mechanics in your game that allow these sorts of things, the ground breaking battles and wars where the player-base can choose sides and change the political dynamics of the server and change the actual access to resources (whether this is dungeon access, travel routes, ect...)? This is one area where WOW's safe and riskless PVP system failed HARD for me, I loved PVP when it was forced on me because I wanted something and others were in my way of getting it, I don't give two hoots about instance PVP event though that has no real world connotations.

I have not even taken part in PVP since Tallon Zek but when looking back I loved the way that PVE and PVP meshed on those servers into racial wars for zone control. I would imagine if you made an elaborate enough crafting system that had a large variety of finite resources isolated to certain locations in certain zones of the world this would cause impetus for people of all factions to want to control such areas and were your game to have factions this could cause some PVP with actual meaning.

A MMORPG could do the same thing with Mithril Ore, Phoenix Feathers, Abandoned Dwarven Mines, ect... that EVE did with various solar systems, ore, and the asteroids it is mined from. Making some zones exclusive for certain resources such that a faction without control of that zone would need to either fight for it or someone would have to sneak in to farm that resource would open up huge benefits for large scale PVP, roguish types of stealth resource gathering of exclusive materials, and be a boon to a economy with rare resources catching premium prices.

Done right this could be insanely cool in a MMORPG.

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by Quince

I really liked how Vanguard did their classes. Have the 4 arch types and within that 4 of each. Is 16 classes too much?

This isn't really VG classes though:

Tank:
Warrior(physical chains tank, various debuffs)
Paladin(insane aggro tank+self/group heals+buffs)
Shadowknight(AE tank+lifetap+2h tanking)

Melee DPS:
Rogue(high single target melee positional DPS)
Ranger(terrible class design, mostly a melee class with some ranged attacks)
Bard(best bard design ever, could make your own songs, low DPS but tons of utility)
Monk(very high DPS, not positionnal)

Ranged DPS:
Necro(pet class, lots of utility)
Wizard(high DPS, low utility)
Psionicist(dot/AE/CC class, lots of utility, medium DPS)
Druid(high burst class, lots of utility including heals/clickys)

Healers:
Cleric(basic healer)
Shaman(3spec class, heavily hybrid, could tank as bear, dps as wolf or phoenix, lots of utility)
Bloodmage(ranged dps/heal hybrid, drain life/do damage to mobs to heal, had issues in end game due to resists on their "heals)
Disciple(melee dps/heal hybrid, high DPS, to me the best healer ever designed)

They were missing one tank, which supposedly was Inquisitor. You could cut on 1 class in each group, especially if you play around with "specs" stuff. Could cut the cleric and have the shaman assume the role with phoenix spec, could cut the druid and spread the abilities around, move the ranger to ranged DPS and leave the melee DPS at 3. 3tanks, 3healers, 7DPS classes, seems like a decent amount, and cover pretty much every role.

[Draegan]

IMO you can't define classes in a game until you define the game.

The less classes the better imo. Whether it's 4 classes with 3 "specs" each or 10 classes with one spec. EQ2 was terrible. VG was pretty good since each class played differently. WOW used to be good, but now is all fucked up. WAR was just a clusterfuck.

I like things simple. You need different flavors for each role, but you also don't want overload due to balancing issues.

As a vet MMOG player I also get "the grass is greener" syndrome when I can't decide on what class to play with a new game. I forces me to sometimes regret my decision thinking another class is awesome. But that doesn't really reflect class design, just my own dysfunction, but keep class count low keeps the dysfunction from popping up as much. This is happening with Aion right now.

[Ngruk]

Originally Posted by Gallenite

You would have loved the 2003 version -- There were 4 classes with 24 names.

(Word of advice: If your mechanics designers are too happy with how nice and systemic everything is, be concerned.)

Unless you're talking about Jason Roberts of course

[Gallenite]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

Unless you're talking about Jason Roberts of course

Truth. While I wouldn't worry about the game in that case, if he's even mildly giddy, I would check for either a nitrous leak or a fresh pile of gnome corpses.

[Ninen]

Originally Posted by UnchainedAcolyte

With hardcore players, maybe. However, since you're appealing to a broader player base, I think you need to include a couple of other flavors, especially an evasion tank "done right". Revised monks are a fun class in EQ2, it's a shame they can't tank as effectively as other fighters.

Then again, for casuals they could probably serve as single-group tanks or off-tanks just fine.

Yes, balance is a huge issue, but I'd argue that for interest's sake, so is flavor. I'd personally rather have an evasion class that's harder to play, but when handled well, is easily on par with the typical meat shield archetype, if not superior in certain ways.

Also, putting in votes for bloodmage and necromancer classes for Copernicus.

Evasion tanks are simply always in a bad place.

If the content is trivial, then it doesn't matter who tanks, including non-tank classes.

If the content is current and/or hard, healers prefer non-evasion tanks due to consistency of incoming damage. The raid prefers non-evasion tanks due to not RNG wiping out of nowhere when you fail to dodge 4 attacks in a row.

The only real place evasion tanks shine is in content you have no business doing and/or isn't tuned remotely correctly. If the mob can kill ANYONE in 1-2 hits, then evasion rules the roost. Even then you're likely to get RNG wipes.

[Froofy-D]

Originally Posted by Tropics

EVE has alot more ability to function on a "single shard" over a fantasy based MMORPG based on world size/space requirements, a limited number of players compared to a successful MMORPG,

Just to point out, EVE is one of the most successful MMOGs if you are judging solely by subs. It is currently 7th or 8th in subs in the world, and is one of the very few games whose subs are constantly increasing.

http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html

[Tyen]

Originally Posted by Froofy-D

Just to point out, EVE is one of the most successful MMOGs if you are judging solely by subs. It is currently 7th or 8th in subs in the world, and is one of the very few games whose subs are constantly increasing.

http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html

It's a cool game but too much confusion for us simple folk.

[Agraza]

They've constantly made changes to assist in the steep learning curve, but it remains one of their largest barriers to entry. I just got 5 days on a my inactive account and I logged in to find this neat certificates system which helps guide new players to develop complementary skills. It establishes particular roles more clearly. This is similar to the various skill titles you earned in Ultima Online while being more complex, granular, and transparent.

Furthermore the new Tech III ships, with their more modular design, are how all ships should work. It's rather simple at the moment, but the potential is enormous. I hope that one day they decide to re-design everything in this manner, but I can already guess at a handful of technical challenges they'll need to overcome to preserve their current gameplay.

[Caliane]

Originally Posted by Tyen

It's a cool game but too much confusion for us simple folk.

Boring as shit would be the phrase I would use.
I gave it a try a few weeks ago, and made it about 3 days before saying. ffs this is boring.
End game might be great. But I wouldn't know, cause I have no intention of afking in a dock, jumpgate auto pilot for 4 months to find out.

The entire game is a big menu. Even combat. Bleh.

I don't like the auto train skills. The concept is good, but backwards I feel. Skilling up should be part of what you do in game. The queueing should be for mining, and salvaging and the like. You should be making money offline, not leveling.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by Quince

You get the idea. Granted you fall into the "Too many DPS and not enough Tanks/Healers" problem but is there really any way around that?

Yes. I'd post it again but we just discussed this like 3 pages ago and even then it was just a rehash of the discussion we had about it like 30 pages ago.

Cliff notes though: DPS isn't a class role. It's just something everyone does. Done.

Originally Posted by somebody else

Just to point out, EVE is one of the most successful MMOGs if you are judging solely by subs. It is currently 7th or 8th in subs in the world, and is one of the very few games whose subs are constantly increasing.

Eve is one of those games I love to hear other people talk about but about two days was enough to convince me that I even my obsessive compulsive behavior pales in comparison to the people who play this game.

What makes the subs less impressive is that it's got about half as many subs as the game above it, Dofus. And in 5 minutes of internet research all I learned about Dofus is that it is apparently an amazingly silly game.

It's the MMOers guilty pleasure. We like to see it do well because it's that game that proves a niche game can be successful. But I fully agree with Yahtzee's review of the game.

The Escapist : Video Galleries : Zero Punctuation : Eve Online

Originally Posted by another person

Evasion tanking

Another reason I'm for removing healing as the potent force it is right now is because it helps mitigate this issue. Simply put, the concept behind evasion vs. raw mitigation sucks when you can go from alive to dead in 2~4 swings. However, if you instead push that out to it taking roughly 100 swings, then the issue is lessoned.

Either way, I don't think that players would care that they have roughly the same raw stats, it's that the classes just operate differently even if they achieve the same effect. You don't hear about hunters and rogues complaining about how similar they feel even though in the end they're both just doing 7000 dps.

Likewise I don't think tanks would care that they're all sitting at 50% damage mitigation and 25% chance to avoid when the soldier achieves that via heavy armor and hiding behind a shield, the ninja achieves that by 'rolling with the hits' and expert sword work and the psionic achieves it by coating himself in a mental shell and blinking out of phase (the 3 tank classes in Zehn the MMO by the way! Exlusive info for FoH forum posters only!).