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lets design the perfect MMO- Character Classes
sneef
Member Posts: 12
Yes im bored and sometimes i like to think about the what if. Ill prolly do more of these eventually but this time Im thinking about character classes.
I'm sick of them.
When I buy a new game I like to think that it has new content but alas not anymore. Mage Rogue Warrior. OH cool Havent seen those before. Skrew unimaginative designers Ima make up some of my own ideas right on the spot while keeping the original philosophy of tank/dps/healer
Melee Tank/DPS
THE BLACKSMITH- The class idea here is everything you might find in a typical MMO except that instead of skills and talents learned from exp, all your abiliities are attached to gear that you make. Every peice of armor would have its own set of skills that you upgrade through upgrading your old armor. You could then choose your skill sets with the armor you craft. Need to solo? swap out some tanking stuff for damage gear. Want to start an AE party with some friends? no problem equip a 2hander and switch out your mitigation skilled gear for damage skilled gear, or if your friends are paper thing keep your shield up and switch out some peices for long range pulling and high aggro moves
Caster Tank/DPS
THE SUMMONER-The class idea here is all about the pet except the focus is ALL on the pet. Think of something more like the FFX summoning system where you directly control the summon. You would have two summons. One for Tanking and one for dealing damage. Your character would sit or ride the Tanking one and you would share the hp pool and skills of the Summon, Im thinking of some crazy beast like Cerubus or maybe even a dragon. The DPS one would be seperate and function more like a pet. All skills and special moves involve the pet. Armor on the tank would be seperate from your own. DPS pet would have no armor set and would be unkillable. reducing its hp to 0 would only stun it for a moment. HP damage is split between both you and your dps pet. Players would have the option to control the pet directly but only within a certain range of the player. Higher intelligence AI would focus on targeting your character as apposed to your pet
Caster DPS/Healer
THE MONK- The class idea here is all about healing, and strategy. Instead of a whole party buff you have 1 powerful buff you can pick to cast on only one person. If your soloing of course its on yourself, but while in a group you can choose to boost one persons speed/damage/hp/mitigation whatever. But the Catch is its only one person and its only one stat making you effectively even out a weakness or multiplying a strength. Healing would be in the form of a HoT but instead of mana it takes your own life. The only way to regen your own life is to deal damage. You can choose the strength of the HoT but be prepared to blow all your mana to do enough damage to keep up with a strong HoT. Skills and Spells would be half ranged and half melee. Ranged skills would be generally more powerful but have higher cooldown thus forcing the character to reposition him/herself constantly. Because of this there would be many controlling moves such as slow/root in its arsenal as well as teleports and speed increases
k my download is done i'll be back when i get bored again post some ideas of your own if you want
Comments
My perfect MMO would not have classes. I like the way PS and WWIIOnline work. You rank increased and you can use more weapons/tools.
First let me say character classes are only a small part of creating a good mmo. I understand the frustration of seeing the same types of classes in other mmos.
I would love to see a mmo that uses the old SWG Pre-CU tier system for skills and class development. I also miss the aspect of even a older game EQ with open dungeons. Also to know that anywhere you go you have a sense of danger. Thats missing from alot of mmos as of late.Its replaced with the farm mentality. Farm X mobs for X items/loot ect. Why there are so many gold sellers these days. If instancing is allowed it would be only for"raids". Make really hard and uber items raid only loot. Takes a guild to complete a quest. As a guild would be the only ones to have multiple events set off in all different locations. Yes another EQ thing. Have faction play a important role. Depending on your race /class as well as area. Make it where not every town is friendly to your cause. Make the world open pvp if someone ventures where they do not belong, or in open wilderness ect.
Have crafter classes. Classes that have main roles to support world economy. Do not make crafting easy. Make recipes drop off hard mobs or a item from a specific quest ect. Make the Uber items non tradable. Bind on pickup. Have pvp events for regions(with rewards of course). Example: Those Evil Gnomes are attacking our Goblin homeland..Defend it ect and be rewarded. Or "those stinky humans are going after our ogre cave!! Quick lets kill em" just examples.
Make everything your character does important for other than just leveling up to get x skill or wear x loot/item.
Just some examples of what I see a good mmo as. I have alot more. but have to go to work. Ill come back on this tommorow after im off.
Thanks Jerry!
I don't need to design the perfect class ,they are many unique classes here are couple of my favorite
Herald of Xolti-AoC
Death Knight-WoW
Hunter-WoW
War Priest(War),Cleric(aion),ToS/BS(AoC)-new breed healers
Necromancer-AoC,EQ
Mastermind-CoX
Fire/KIn-Blaster-CoX
Valewalker, Infiltraitor, Bonedancer-DAoC
Deverish,paragon-Guild wars
Blood Mage-Vanguard
You forgot pulling + splitting for the classes. It's one of the most fun things in MMO for me.
EQ1 classes were perfect in my opinion.
Man what I would do for EQ1 to be updated, add a decent pvp aspect and come back as strong as before. Loved playing a bard, a ranger, and a necro in eq1.
EQ1 classes are some of my favorite, at least until they added beastlords and beserkers. Thy made both of those classes overpowered, at least at first.
Vanguard classes are also very well done.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
Traditional RPG Fantasy classes work something like this:
Fighter - Wears plate and hits hard with taunts.
Barbarian - Wears leather and uses avoidance instead. Hits hard. Taunts.
Monk - Wears cloth and uses resistance/avoidance instead. Hits hard. Taunts.
Wizard - Wears cloth and hits hard with CC.
Psionicist - Wears cloth and hits mediocre with great CC.
Summoner - Wears cloth and uses pets. Hits hard.
Rogue - Wears leather and hits hard from the shadows.
Ranger - Wears leather and hits hard from afar.
Bard - Wears leather and hits mediocre. Massive buffer.
Cleric - Wears plate and heals hard.
Paladin - Wears plate, heals weak, taunts.
Druid - Wears leather, damages mediocre, heals mediocre.
Personally, I would like a complex skill point system that was not class based at all. It would need to be deep and in my opinion would be extremely difficult to design correctly. Generally, people go with a cookie cutter anyway which basically makes them a class or they feel gimped in some way. If someone were ever to design a skill point based system where these two issues were a non-issue instead of a central theme, the MMO would go far IMO.
But that's not what this thread is about. This is about classes. Classes need strengths and weaknesses to really be successful. The simplest form is the fighter that can take damage but can not reach his target as easily, and the wizard that can't take damage but can hit really hard from afar.
The classes I listed are the cookie cutter typical fantasy MMO classes. No matter what you call them, they are all the same.
I'd like to see more flavors of bards & rogues, like jesters / jokers. That or madmen lol
"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun."
Still the oldschool holy trinity classystem? (tank, spank, heal). Thats far from perfect for me. It causes 2 of the most annoying drawbacks in MMO's imo.
While a class system like preNGE SWG or Anarchy Online might be difficult to develop just like that, you could also go for dual classes, where the chosen class doesnt predetermine role in a group.
A nice example for that is Guild Wars class system. Its way more flexible then class systems in most other games. That game also doesnt use a taunting system, but tactical positioning to determine aggro of mobs. The mobs also move in packs and have their own roles within their pack.
Too bad that Guild Wars rarely gets credit for that, only because the discussion is always about it being a MMORPG or not. Which has nothing to do with the combat system.
Traditional? Is this hasbros D&D? Doesnt look like a traditional system to me...
Just to make things clear...
I speak for myself and no one else, unless i state otherwise mine is just an opinion. A fact is something that can be independently verified, you may challenge such but with proof. You have every right to disagree with me through sound argument, i believe in constructive debate, but baseless aggression will warrant an unkind response.
Traditional? Is this hasbros D&D? Doesnt look like a traditional system to me...
D&D is about as traditional as it gets. Class roles were defined in that game. Others took those concepts and converted them to Online games a long way back. My first experience with this system was in MUDs and it has really never looked back.
I liked a Dota class:
OmniKnight
Had spells:
Heals the player but damages anything attacking the player.
Castable magic immunity on players.
An ulti of a big armor bonus to players around him.
Tricky character to build for in terms of getting items because it would all depend on your game structure but useful class in the PvP type thing.
I always loved the classes from daoc. A lot of variety. My favorite is the spiritmaster.
Also liked the classes in EQ. Liked when the ranger was a better archer than melee, and my monk, hehe. Actually I think I liked all the classes except berserker. I was never really fond of 2h weapons.
if we really must have classes (i prefer classless systems) then noncombat classes are a must in my mind or at least some sort of non combat focus.
The blacksmith the OP was talking about is sort of what i am looking for but the guy is a tank as well. A rogue/assassin should brew poisons or steal when they are not killing and a sorcerer/wizard should discover/create new spells or experiment while they are not out blasting things to death We need far more non combat stuff in MMO's and they may as well tie them to a class.
Aside from that i would say i am still waiting on a freaken ranger that is like an actual ranger (pets (decent ones), melee, ranged stuff) almost every game nails one side but never all 3 (Vanguard is as close as i have gotten..and their pets are a tad lame)
Oh and mages/wizards/sorcerers need far bigger spells. I loved Pyroblast in WoW and yet every game (including WoW) seems to give you some lame little firebolt thats your main cast. Depending on the sort of game i really want to see very exadurated spells or (if the game wants to be a tad...realistic) smaller ones.
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
You can create the perfect class but it will just get nerfed to be competetive with the other classes.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
Now Playing: N/A
Worst MMO: FFXIV
Favorite MMO: FFXI
I do miss bards/minstrels.
Music just doesn't seem to play much of a part in any of the more recent MMOs that I've seem.
I loved the way that you could play instruments in LOTRO, and how they approached the health/healing mechanic.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
It was fun jamming their faces into the ground with a lute.
"What, you want something weird looking wolf?!"
*slams a chord and bobs his head as the wolf shrieks in pain*
How about just dropping the whole class system all togheter and go for a skill system. Be whatever you wanna be?
I feel the Tank, DPS, Heal, CC, AOE archtypes have been done to death.
Hauken Stormchaser
I want pre-CU back
Station.com : We got your game
Yeah?, Well i want it back!!!
I agree with you, but I also believe that it's extremely hard to pull off a solid "game" without having roles defined. For instance, if everyone choses what they are through a heavy skill system, how can you balance anything ever?
And if balance doesn't matter, will you not eventually just end up with 3 or 4 cookie cutter builds that pwn the rest in their specific areas?
You put limitations on the system. Like what weapon you're using determines what kind of skills you can obtain (although you could mix skills from other weapon types but they wouldn't be as strong).
You put limitations on the system. Like what weapon you're using determines what kind of skills you can obtain (although you could mix skills from other weapon types but they wouldn't be as strong).
If it were only that simple.
Edit: What you are saying reminds me of FF7 with limitations.
You put limitations on the system. Like what weapon you're using determines what kind of skills you can obtain (although you could mix skills from other weapon types but they wouldn't be as strong).
If it were only that simple.
Edit: What you are saying reminds me of FF7 with limitations.
Hmm, well that is what FFXIV is aiming to do.. so maybe it is that simple? Or maybe I'm missing something.
The perfect MMO would ditch the class system entirely in my opinion. It's outdated, and in my experience, far less fun than picking cool abilities I like to make my own character. I want to make my own character, not use the abilities someone else wants me to have in their class they designed.
Yes, skill systems can be hard to balance on one level, but it's not impossible (well, in regards as much as 'complete' balance is ever possible, since elements of it can be subjective) and the returns are worth it. On another level, assuming you have a smart series of rules and systems, balancing skills by and of themselves is less complex than making a well-oiled one-trick-pony-machine-thing of a class. Granted, when you can mix and match, people can create "odd builds". But any good skill system should have a "respec" feature that lets people make adjustments and fine-tune their fun little creation.
As for balance in general: It helps if you don't use unnecessarily arcane formulas and have a simple but robust system that relies on more straightforward calculations. Just because a computer can process ridiculous formulas in half a nanosecond doesn't mean you have to use them.
A perfect mmo wouldn't have classes. It would have a tree of maybe 200-300 different skills to accomplish everything (combat to crafting)
Both ways have their place."If" they let you be full creative then yes picking abilities is great but most times these games are so afraid of unbalance system that you can't be creative.You find me a game where i can make a heavy armor magic tank that summon pet and do some dps or High damage fire melee mage that can transform into a demon and i will play that game.
The weridest thing is that that most creative system in mmo is not in a classless game the most creative system is found in champion online or CoX.You can create whatever you want in those games.
You get some truly well design classes in some mmo then you get a game like darkfall where what you can create is bland.I will take a HoX or Death Knight any day those class are masterpieces.A Classless system is only good if the let create masterpieces,yeah i would rather make my own but rather settle for a great class in set system.