Classy vs. Classless, Why have classes? Options

[ni1s]

So, what do you prefer?

I myself don't really see the point of it all. Learn the teachings of magic and someone calls you a Mage? ( Gothic-style ), I don't want that. Sure, my character might know magic, but I don't see the need to bungle me in a class. This goes for any skill or perk.

Skip classes altogether, says I. Other players won't be able to judge other players on first glans, and it adds to variation.

[Jerky]

Hmm, although it starts to go toward being off-topic, I wrote an idea down in our private wiki over a year and a half ago that applies to this discussion. If we need to break this thread off, we can, but the two issues seem to be linked somewhat.

The gist of the idea is that everyone gets to have any name they like. That is how the idea came about anyways. This idea also takes into account fame/notoriety as well. It ties in to this because, with other games (like WoW, for example) you can tell what people are, and what "level" level they are, etc. While this seems like a great idea, it caters to the power gamers who love that sort of thing, but when you think of it, it is terrible for immersion.

Essentially, this all ties in to your player identity. First off, you should be able to name your character anything (within reason), even if the name has been taken. The solution of how you do this has to do with the database and how we take care of users, but it is possible, although I wont go into detail. Next is you should be able to try and hide your identity should you want to. This means it would be skill based.

The short is that there would be skills for disguise (hide identity), but also one to see through a disguise. Also, if you chose to share your name with everyone (which would be a feature in the GUI), then it shows up, unless someone has their feature to hide everyone's name turned on. If you didn't want people to know your name, there is an introduce action that would share it with another. So, if it was your desire to share your name with others, you would have to introduce yourself to them, unless you turned on the option to share it with everyone regardless.

This becomes more complicated when you add in fame and notoriety. If you are famous or notorious, you would have your name shared whether you wanted to or not. Also, with wanted posters, you would learn someone's identity after reading their bounty poster. If that person was not disguised, you would see their name when they were on screen with you.

Now, it gets even more complicated when you add the disguise and see-through disguise skills (we could call it perceive disguise for now). These 2 skills would be exact opposites. If your disguise skill was higher than someone's perceive disguise skill, then they wouldnt be able to know who you were, even if you were famous/notorious. In the end, assuming we had a max skill cap, and both those skills were maxed (1 character's disguise skill was maxed and another's perceive disguise skill was maxed) the perceive disguise skill would win out.

As this pertains to class, I think there shouldnt be set classes, but more like a soft class system. There could be titles, but you would only get the title if a) you wanted it and B) you had the skills to match the definition of it.

As far as the skill system goes, this game will defintely be skill based, but a class would never be set in stone. Whether we had hard or soft classes at all, a player would be able to change theirs any time they wanted. Vamyen had an idea the other night about there being a class at character creation to allow for quicker setup for your character, but then maybe after a certain point that class would no longer be there (or something like that). Maybe he can share that.

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The last part of this idea was how to keep track of people/your friends if people had the same name, and even dressed alike. Its obvious that if we allowed that, there would be griefers who tried to impersonate another person, just to be a pain. The answer to this was something that I called a PCL (Personal Customization List), but really starts to go off-topic. It accounts for a lot of other customizations than just an address book for your friends. I can explain more if people need it.

[Tecknowolf]

About skills and classes. If you want to be a bit more unique and still have something that the players would more then likely enjoy try combining several of the tried and true styles.

Since almost all fantasy has some ties to D&D, lets start with that. They had you start with a class, which had a set skill base, but then you could add in other skills that you thought would benefit you character or that you just wanted. But if the skills you chose where too far out of your characters field then it would cost you extra points to learn them, thus keeping characters from being too diverse.

Shadowbane had a plethora of skills and skill sets, but this wasn't managed very well.

The key reason why pre-defined classes work so well in MMO's is that the majority of players don't want to hassle with all the tweaking of skills, stats, and such. If you asked most MMO players to go through the AD&D character creation process they would revolt!

So, I have been working on this idea for a while and would be glad to share it with you.

You start with a variety of standard and non standard classes:
( It is my opinion that you give each character the same starting stats of health, str, int)

Warrior

Rogue

Ranger

Mage

Healer

From here you give the player a chance to envision their character. Using a skill tree system in a visual format similar to Diablo 2's would allow players to see what skills where available, in a tier'd format.


So starting with a warrior we imagine an armored fighter, who is to say that the fighter can't learn lock picking? Learn basic Rank 1 magic? Use a ranged weapon for a secondary combat skill?

Do you see what I am going for? You give the player a basic character "Template" to help them start, then let them flesh out the rest. Then for those whom want total character customization you give the option to start from scratch and create a totally unique character.

[Minthos]

I can't believe this subject hasn't been discussed in length previously on this very same forum.