Heh starting to be concerned about this one... game looks and sounds great... too great... hmm didn't something happen to one of the last great sounding releases from Funcom?
I think secret world should go back behind the curtain and not generate the over-hype and raise expectations too high (take a lesson from swtor). But damn I am looking forward to it.
I haven't read all the replies but from the article;
Flavour of the month is only an issue if the skills are applied incorrectly, for this game (where they seem to be going for a gw'esque, selection of skills) I think it will be less of an issue (for better or worse, I'm still unconvinced, but hopeful). But with regard to pvp a lot of the time it's a myth, so long as there is a counter to all builds, any fotm become easy prey for those who prey on that build. This was how it kind of worked in swg, while there were builds that seemed op'd it was largely a matter of time before what was seen as a weaker build had the tools to take them out. It can be a concern though I agree.
Balance, with regard to pvp is ass so long as skills are specialised individually. Nothing kills pvp quicker than balance, always hated the notion. Even the thought or notion that at any time I have the ability to kill anyone (all things being equal) is blatantly flawed. Situation and environment should be factors to swing fights, cambat awareness, tactics, these are the balanceing factors, nerfing and buffing are tools of the clueless and fearful developer. However this is the main concern for me when it come to Pve, I've yet to see it done correctly, I thought eq2 got the closest with seperate damage, effect of skills for pve and pvp but a large portion of the community seemed to hate it. I just fail to see how you can make AI engageing while maintaining an involving and stable pvp mechanic
Archetypes are for me a worry, largely because we still don't know the full implication what they were refereing to.
----- The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
"Archetypes – The team mentioned at GDC that they’ll be giving players archetypes which will take away some of the difficulty in building your own set of skills, so that players can and will play pre-defined “roles” or classes if need be. Again, I wonder what’s the point? I’d rather see these offered as suggestions in the manual or on the site, than as part of the game’s feature set. But maybe that’s just me."
I just see it as merely a tool for new players who have no idea what to do; they can rake a quick look at the archetypes in the character creation process, select the one that sounds best, and hop into the game. Having the archetypes present means that those players can hop into the game that much quicker, rather than having to hunt around for the information.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
Hmm.. with "7 active and 7 passive", you're more likely to run into clones than the lead-in talking about potential skills.
Now let's talk the other problem about classless.. Players in roles, in most games, are meant to heal/tank/dps. Has a paladin tank in Warcraft ever cast a heal while not the boss's attention and saved a life, most likely the MT's? Probably happened once or twice, but the thing is--take a shadow priest, it used to be something of a hybrid healer, but if you break form and start healing, your dps drops substantially, and it should. Mixed specs should do no one thing as good as a person focused on that role, meaning they should not deviate from what they want to do during a specific fight. (I'm not specifically talking about a ele shaman trying to heal, but more like an ele trying to enh, or a arcane mage trying to pump out fire damage, or yeah, a resto druid trying to boomkin).
in a 14 skill world, there will most certainly be cookie cutter specs.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug. 12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
Asheron's Call was by far the best game I've every played for character development, online anyway. Its nice to see somebody moving back towards this direction. Because frankly its a load better than having some game company telling me what type of character I have to have. Thankfully not another fighter (tank), wizard (dps) and priest (heals) game. So good for them and I hope it works. And maybe some of the online gamers who missed the days of AC will get a chance to see there is a better way to play!
This! While AC1 had some fotm builds, many players created some unique ones that also did very well. Anything to get away from the holy trinity nonsense.
I like the classless approach, let the people that care for balancing balance themself with the needed skills (or what they think is needed) and the poeple that want to try things out experiment with them. Flavour of the months is an issue that is to be ignored as long there is not a serious bug and each skill makes sense in context to the world setup and lore. If there is someone complaning about balancing issues its their own fault to choose the wrong setup. In the end my feeling is that the chances be much bigger than the risks!
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
I am pretty much spoken for as far as what my next mmo will be, but despite that i cant help but find this game something to watch for. Im intrigued by alot of what im seeing about this game. The "classless" system is defintly something i like and find apropriate in a contemporary modern fantasy setting (which is something else i like about this game). Though perhaps its in fact more of a "build your own class" system. Either way, i like this idea.
I will be playing GW2 when it comes out like many here, but this game makes me wish i had the kind of free time to devote to a 2nd mmo as well. If i could, this would defintly be it. But who knows, if by some unforseen circumstance GW2 isnt for me, TSW would defintly be a good back up plan imo.
I don't buy into the whole classless system. From my expereince even skill based systems still produce a need for some one who can soak up damage, some who can heal the damage, and the ever popular just high damage. It doesn't really matter to me which way a game goes as long as it is fun to play.
I think you are confusing classes with roles here.. I'm pretty sure there will be some kind of holy trinity in the game, but the main difference is that your character isn't locked into a specific role or 2.. From what i have read, i believe that you can be whatever role you want as long as you have the skills for it.. So no more alts just to have a different role, ie. a tank character just need to earn new skills and swap them around to be a healer..
But it remains to be seen if my beliefs are correct..
And here I thought AC only had 3 classes.... archer, tank-mage, heal-mage....
Basically all I saw when I played.
No... These may have been the popular builds but you were not limited to these builds. I had a tank-archer. I had melee defense and wore heavy armor but used a bow as my main weapon and had 2 magic schools. Had tons of fun playing my toon.
FoTM is a result of balance. No "classless" game has ever achieved anything close to balance. The more possible combinations there are, the greater the probability of super-builds dominating. Even Pre-CU SWG--before Jedi even--with its 32 professions could not hope to achieve balance with its free-form system. With 500 totally free-form skills, TSW will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever even resemble being balanced.
Unless they pull an NGE and re-distribute skills into a "tiered" class system, ie 10 professions, 5 skill trees each, 10 skills per tree or somesuch. Then they might come close. Maybe.
People who talk about a classless system need to take off the rose tinted glasses from AC and UO. Do people know that in UO, there was almost a whole year where anyone who wanted to pvp had the exact same skills? ( Hally mage).
Two things can happen.. if the game is very popular, then there will be a lot of websites where everything will be micro-analyzed and there will be overpowered specs that everyone uses. As soon as these specs become well known, then anyone who doesn´t use them will get griefed in any type of group setting. The other option is if the game isn´t popular, then nobody will bother doing the leg work to figure out elite specs.
AC and UO gave the ´perception´of choice through their skill systems. In the end of the day, unless you wanted to be gimped, you picked 90% of your choices the same as anyone else in your role or class.
I was curious about the game. Tried to register on the forums but they required you to know the name of the game director. Since I didn't know this I found that you can't contact them unless you know this to ask them. Catch 22 for me. I have an EA registration but that did not work either. Is there something I missed? Does the game look like it is worth the problem of registering? I will check back for comments and maby a little help from anyone already in. Thanks
I was curious about the game. Tried to register on the forums but they required you to know the name of the game director. Since I didn't know this I found that you can't contact them unless you know this to ask them. Catch 22 for me. I have an EA registration but that did not work either. Is there something I missed? Does the game look like it is worth the problem of registering? I will check back for comments and maby a little help from anyone already in. Thanks
Lol. They're even adding a puzzle, however simple, when you register? Man, they're taking their mystery and puzzle games and investigation missions seriously
I think there was some test before that you had to take, that would determine whether you're Illuminati, Templars or Dragon material. What faction you choose when creating an account is tied to your forum avatar, and apparently also what kind of newsletter you'll get, each faction will get its own.
In any case: the name of the game director is Ragnar Tornquist, creator of The Longest Journey and Dreamfall.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
People who talk about a classless system need to take off the rose tinted glasses from AC and UO. Do people know that in UO, there was almost a whole year where anyone who wanted to pvp had the exact same skills? ( Hally mage).
Two things can happen.. if the game is very popular, then there will be a lot of websites where everything will be micro-analyzed and there will be overpowered specs that everyone uses. As soon as these specs become well known, then anyone who doesn´t use them will get griefed in any type of group setting. The other option is if the game isn´t popular, then nobody will bother doing the leg work to figure out elite specs.
AC and UO gave the ´perception´of choice through their skill systems. In the end of the day, unless you wanted to be gimped, you picked 90% of your choices the same as anyone else in your role or class.
Some nice points.
I like the idea of a classless system along with the notion that someone will get around to making an MMO in which it IS dynamic. But let's face it, just like getting a forum with black text on white (ever heaqrd of CSS ppl), it ain't gonna happen anytime soon.
Companies focus on the Hype, spend what they can on beers after work to keep the people they have working, push it out the door and if they can manage to break even, next project.
I've tried quite a few Indie games of late and they're trying to hard to be AAA titles yet they seem to end up with the same shit as the big boys, no game play, ignore what people tell them is wrong with the game or features that should be an option, and least of all be fun and if you can manage it, get the fucking game to work.
I may as well go back and play games that are 10 yrs old, least they work and have some enoyment!
Balance is another thing that the designers overlook, put in insentives that give you 1, a reason to play, 2 contribute something to the game, 3 not all of us want to be the Conan/Raistin of your MMO. I just wanna have some enjoyment and maybe do something in your world.
Maybe I'm day dreaming again, but fuck these Devs need to go play some games and see how fucked they all are. Then we might have something that isn't blown out someone's arse or yet another "yawn" GameBreaking, oh hang on, that's ground breaking....
People who talk about a classless system need to take off the rose tinted glasses from AC and UO. Do people know that in UO, there was almost a whole year where anyone who wanted to pvp had the exact same skills? ( Hally mage).
Two things can happen.. if the game is very popular, then there will be a lot of websites where everything will be micro-analyzed and there will be overpowered specs that everyone uses. As soon as these specs become well known, then anyone who doesn´t use them will get griefed in any type of group setting. The other option is if the game isn´t popular, then nobody will bother doing the leg work to figure out elite specs.
AC and UO gave the ´perception´of choice through their skill systems. In the end of the day, unless you wanted to be gimped, you picked 90% of your choices the same as anyone else in your role or class.
Pure nonsense!
Never chose the popular builds in both UO and AC1 and I never had a problem with pvp. It is all how you play your character.
FoTM is a result of balance. No "classless" game has ever achieved anything close to balance. The more possible combinations there are, the greater the probability of super-builds dominating. Even Pre-CU SWG--before Jedi even--with its 32 professions could not hope to achieve balance with its free-form system. With 500 totally free-form skills, TSW will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever even resemble being balanced.
Unless they pull an NGE and re-distribute skills into a "tiered" class system, ie 10 professions, 5 skill trees each, 10 skills per tree or somesuch. Then they might come close. Maybe.
Balance is in the eye of the beholder. Why does every possible class combination have to be equal? Right it does not. It all depends on how you intend to use your character. Many times odd builds will confuse the opposition. The choice to build your character in the manner you choose is so far superior to a rigid class system it is not even funny.
Some muds allowed a charater to have all the skills in the game. Aardwolf was one that did a great job. Its still going strong and growing. To get all the skills there was 7 series of levels (1-201/level) where one of 5 classes was chosen for the forst 5 and 2 with full power. Then you went on to the second tier...up to 7 when I played. Great fun and since everyone had the same oportunity it worked.
GW1 also allowed a character access to all skills but only 2 classes could be used at any time. There were constant rebalances ( Anet was realy on top of it) . Even with the limitation there were many combos that no one could have possibly considered initialy. The result was some Godmode combos and builds that could do some amazing things. Godd old Sabway, Doscordway and the 55 hp monk/Necro combos were great and are still possible. Some others were just tooo strong for farming and were nerfed. There seemed to be a new 'meta' every few weeks for a while.
It is nearly impossible for a 'classless' system to not have unforseen developments and majot balance issues. I prefer balanced classes where I have to know both my class and the one I am up against to win.
Keeping an eye on this title but still very leery. My initial AoC experience was blue screens and lag. Gorgeous world, and came to love the game when the issues were ironed out, but this being my first exposure to Funcom (I never played AO) means I am Approaching With Caution.
I love the idea of a classless system. I love the genre they are going for. I love that I'll be able to play a pistol-toting, katana-wielding zealot of the Dragon Society.
I would like more information on PvP. Is it open world? Battlegrounds? Can I level up in PvP exclusively? Am I forced into PvE to get gear? Why is cargo taken by ship, and a shipment is taken by car?
Its an illusion to think no one will not be same. As soon some player kick ass others will ask what build they have and copy it lol.
And FC also have archtype becouse they know many will not have the abillity or are to lazy to think for themselfs so they make pre build people can choose from.
After a while people start whining that they want a tank healer dps and FC obey to there wishes and chances the whole freedom into force class system mark my words. FC have proved before not very strong in resist the whiners(AoC pvp system penalty more harsh so people are more safe) so the weak more protected hehe.
Im intrigued by classless and no lvls also the combat with no auto attack, so i hope we also don't get a game where they hold hands, but waypoints say other wise.
This means FC trick us into game by saying total freedom no classes or lvls but when we enter game they point us into the direction they want to waypoints and quest hubs small maps many loadscreens and instance and npcs marked on your map or radar?
If thats the case im not intrested in TSW but for now i give them benefit of the doub, the game looks intresting also becouse no elfs, orcs, dwarfs and dragons im fed up with Tolkien and D&D fantasy based worlds.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
FFXIV has a skill system where you can use any skill from any class. Sadly some of the playerbase is crying abut wanting the trinity, more rigid classes, and state that combat w/o the trinity are boring zergfest. Maybe the one good thing most wost would say. I hope this game sticks to their guns.
There is sooo many problems with a classless system that i actually had HUGE post ,then said screw that too long.
Just to make it simpler,classless=no design+testing.Dev does not have to answer to poor design because they are not designing any classes.
Controlled systems are much better than limiting hotbars and zerging or basically button mashing,chaotic type combat.Once again this seems to be more direction towards soloing and making grouping pretty much an entity with a bunch of names in the same window but everyone still plays as if they were not in a group at all.Soloing within a group i call it.
Even worse is if you try to describe what you are playing in the game...I am a...........IDk what the heck i am, a hybrid or a morphling i guess.MUCH better to be able to say i am roleplaying a Warrior or a Paladin,otherwise you are not roleplaying anything at all.
It really appears to me that more and more devs are trying to change the rpg genre into something simpler to meet their financial and ease of development needs.We are at the point now ,where EVERY single game is just a MMO,online status with either p2p or cash shop funding.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I remember the days when SWG was effectively a classless system. During those days what did we see.
Every patch included changes trying to deal with balance
The min/maxers established mathematially the best builds for each role and pretty much became standard.
Quests and instances varied from extremely easy to nearly impossible depending on the skills used by each member of the party. Causing lots of complaints and L2P responces.
The concept fo the classless system is really nice and one that I would like to see work. But time and time again it has proven to be totally cost prohibitive when it comes to maintaining player enjoyment for enough people to remain commercially viable. This starts immediately once the game introduces PvP.
The most viable classless system game today is EvE Online but it does suffer from players having to build following certain templates or they are simply cannon fodder and leave the game.
Comments
Heh starting to be concerned about this one... game looks and sounds great... too great... hmm didn't something happen to one of the last great sounding releases from Funcom?
I think secret world should go back behind the curtain and not generate the over-hype and raise expectations too high (take a lesson from swtor). But damn I am looking forward to it.
I haven't read all the replies but from the article;
Flavour of the month is only an issue if the skills are applied incorrectly, for this game (where they seem to be going for a gw'esque, selection of skills) I think it will be less of an issue (for better or worse, I'm still unconvinced, but hopeful). But with regard to pvp a lot of the time it's a myth, so long as there is a counter to all builds, any fotm become easy prey for those who prey on that build. This was how it kind of worked in swg, while there were builds that seemed op'd it was largely a matter of time before what was seen as a weaker build had the tools to take them out. It can be a concern though I agree.
Balance, with regard to pvp is ass so long as skills are specialised individually. Nothing kills pvp quicker than balance, always hated the notion. Even the thought or notion that at any time I have the ability to kill anyone (all things being equal) is blatantly flawed. Situation and environment should be factors to swing fights, cambat awareness, tactics, these are the balanceing factors, nerfing and buffing are tools of the clueless and fearful developer. However this is the main concern for me when it come to Pve, I've yet to see it done correctly, I thought eq2 got the closest with seperate damage, effect of skills for pve and pvp but a large portion of the community seemed to hate it. I just fail to see how you can make AI engageing while maintaining an involving and stable pvp mechanic
Archetypes are for me a worry, largely because we still don't know the full implication what they were refereing to.
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
"Archetypes – The team mentioned at GDC that they’ll be giving players archetypes which will take away some of the difficulty in building your own set of skills, so that players can and will play pre-defined “roles” or classes if need be. Again, I wonder what’s the point? I’d rather see these offered as suggestions in the manual or on the site, than as part of the game’s feature set. But maybe that’s just me."
I just see it as merely a tool for new players who have no idea what to do; they can rake a quick look at the archetypes in the character creation process, select the one that sounds best, and hop into the game. Having the archetypes present means that those players can hop into the game that much quicker, rather than having to hunt around for the information.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
I'm playing this game when it comes out. Don't expect to get into beta, but I will be there for opening day.
Hmm.. with "7 active and 7 passive", you're more likely to run into clones than the lead-in talking about potential skills.
Now let's talk the other problem about classless.. Players in roles, in most games, are meant to heal/tank/dps. Has a paladin tank in Warcraft ever cast a heal while not the boss's attention and saved a life, most likely the MT's? Probably happened once or twice, but the thing is--take a shadow priest, it used to be something of a hybrid healer, but if you break form and start healing, your dps drops substantially, and it should. Mixed specs should do no one thing as good as a person focused on that role, meaning they should not deviate from what they want to do during a specific fight. (I'm not specifically talking about a ele shaman trying to heal, but more like an ele trying to enh, or a arcane mage trying to pump out fire damage, or yeah, a resto druid trying to boomkin).
in a 14 skill world, there will most certainly be cookie cutter specs.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
This! While AC1 had some fotm builds, many players created some unique ones that also did very well. Anything to get away from the holy trinity nonsense.
Flavour of the months is an issue that is to be ignored as long there is not a serious bug and each skill makes sense in context to the world setup and lore.
If there is someone complaning about balancing issues its their own fault to choose the wrong setup.
In the end my feeling is that the chances be much bigger than the risks!
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
Classless is a great thing to claim, but let's see the execution, Funcom.
I am pretty much spoken for as far as what my next mmo will be, but despite that i cant help but find this game something to watch for. Im intrigued by alot of what im seeing about this game. The "classless" system is defintly something i like and find apropriate in a contemporary modern fantasy setting (which is something else i like about this game). Though perhaps its in fact more of a "build your own class" system. Either way, i like this idea.
I will be playing GW2 when it comes out like many here, but this game makes me wish i had the kind of free time to devote to a 2nd mmo as well. If i could, this would defintly be it. But who knows, if by some unforseen circumstance GW2 isnt for me, TSW would defintly be a good back up plan imo.
I think you are confusing classes with roles here.. I'm pretty sure there will be some kind of holy trinity in the game, but the main difference is that your character isn't locked into a specific role or 2.. From what i have read, i believe that you can be whatever role you want as long as you have the skills for it.. So no more alts just to have a different role, ie. a tank character just need to earn new skills and swap them around to be a healer..
But it remains to be seen if my beliefs are correct..
- SvendSvin
No... These may have been the popular builds but you were not limited to these builds. I had a tank-archer. I had melee defense and wore heavy armor but used a bow as my main weapon and had 2 magic schools. Had tons of fun playing my toon.
FoTM is a result of balance. No "classless" game has ever achieved anything close to balance. The more possible combinations there are, the greater the probability of super-builds dominating. Even Pre-CU SWG--before Jedi even--with its 32 professions could not hope to achieve balance with its free-form system. With 500 totally free-form skills, TSW will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever even resemble being balanced.
Unless they pull an NGE and re-distribute skills into a "tiered" class system, ie 10 professions, 5 skill trees each, 10 skills per tree or somesuch. Then they might come close. Maybe.
People who talk about a classless system need to take off the rose tinted glasses from AC and UO. Do people know that in UO, there was almost a whole year where anyone who wanted to pvp had the exact same skills? ( Hally mage).
Two things can happen.. if the game is very popular, then there will be a lot of websites where everything will be micro-analyzed and there will be overpowered specs that everyone uses. As soon as these specs become well known, then anyone who doesn´t use them will get griefed in any type of group setting. The other option is if the game isn´t popular, then nobody will bother doing the leg work to figure out elite specs.
AC and UO gave the ´perception´of choice through their skill systems. In the end of the day, unless you wanted to be gimped, you picked 90% of your choices the same as anyone else in your role or class.
I was curious about the game. Tried to register on the forums but they required you to know the name of the game director. Since I didn't know this I found that you can't contact them unless you know this to ask them. Catch 22 for me. I have an EA registration but that did not work either. Is there something I missed? Does the game look like it is worth the problem of registering? I will check back for comments and maby a little help from anyone already in. Thanks
Lol. They're even adding a puzzle, however simple, when you register? Man, they're taking their mystery and puzzle games and investigation missions seriously
I think there was some test before that you had to take, that would determine whether you're Illuminati, Templars or Dragon material. What faction you choose when creating an account is tied to your forum avatar, and apparently also what kind of newsletter you'll get, each faction will get its own.
In any case: the name of the game director is Ragnar Tornquist, creator of The Longest Journey and Dreamfall.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Some nice points.
I like the idea of a classless system along with the notion that someone will get around to making an MMO in which it IS dynamic. But let's face it, just like getting a forum with black text on white (ever heaqrd of CSS ppl), it ain't gonna happen anytime soon.
Companies focus on the Hype, spend what they can on beers after work to keep the people they have working, push it out the door and if they can manage to break even, next project.
I've tried quite a few Indie games of late and they're trying to hard to be AAA titles yet they seem to end up with the same shit as the big boys, no game play, ignore what people tell them is wrong with the game or features that should be an option, and least of all be fun and if you can manage it, get the fucking game to work.
I may as well go back and play games that are 10 yrs old, least they work and have some enoyment!
Balance is another thing that the designers overlook, put in insentives that give you 1, a reason to play, 2 contribute something to the game, 3 not all of us want to be the Conan/Raistin of your MMO. I just wanna have some enjoyment and maybe do something in your world.
Maybe I'm day dreaming again, but fuck these Devs need to go play some games and see how fucked they all are. Then we might have something that isn't blown out someone's arse or yet another "yawn" GameBreaking, oh hang on, that's ground breaking....
Pure nonsense!
Never chose the popular builds in both UO and AC1 and I never had a problem with pvp. It is all how you play your character.
Balance is in the eye of the beholder. Why does every possible class combination have to be equal? Right it does not. It all depends on how you intend to use your character. Many times odd builds will confuse the opposition. The choice to build your character in the manner you choose is so far superior to a rigid class system it is not even funny.
I see those cool outfits and the first thing I want to do is craft my own...
Some muds allowed a charater to have all the skills in the game. Aardwolf was one that did a great job. Its still going strong and growing. To get all the skills there was 7 series of levels (1-201/level) where one of 5 classes was chosen for the forst 5 and 2 with full power. Then you went on to the second tier...up to 7 when I played. Great fun and since everyone had the same oportunity it worked.
GW1 also allowed a character access to all skills but only 2 classes could be used at any time. There were constant rebalances ( Anet was realy on top of it) . Even with the limitation there were many combos that no one could have possibly considered initialy. The result was some Godmode combos and builds that could do some amazing things. Godd old Sabway, Doscordway and the 55 hp monk/Necro combos were great and are still possible. Some others were just tooo strong for farming and were nerfed. There seemed to be a new 'meta' every few weeks for a while.
It is nearly impossible for a 'classless' system to not have unforseen developments and majot balance issues. I prefer balanced classes where I have to know both my class and the one I am up against to win.
time will tell. Prolly be fun :0
Keeping an eye on this title but still very leery. My initial AoC experience was blue screens and lag. Gorgeous world, and came to love the game when the issues were ironed out, but this being my first exposure to Funcom (I never played AO) means I am Approaching With Caution.
I love the idea of a classless system. I love the genre they are going for. I love that I'll be able to play a pistol-toting, katana-wielding zealot of the Dragon Society.
I would like more information on PvP. Is it open world? Battlegrounds? Can I level up in PvP exclusively? Am I forced into PvE to get gear? Why is cargo taken by ship, and a shipment is taken by car?
We must know!
i only hope combat wont be too second gen-ish
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Its an illusion to think no one will not be same. As soon some player kick ass others will ask what build they have and copy it lol.
And FC also have archtype becouse they know many will not have the abillity or are to lazy to think for themselfs so they make pre build people can choose from.
After a while people start whining that they want a tank healer dps and FC obey to there wishes and chances the whole freedom into force class system mark my words. FC have proved before not very strong in resist the whiners(AoC pvp system penalty more harsh so people are more safe) so the weak more protected hehe.
Im intrigued by classless and no lvls also the combat with no auto attack, so i hope we also don't get a game where they hold hands, but waypoints say other wise.
This means FC trick us into game by saying total freedom no classes or lvls but when we enter game they point us into the direction they want to waypoints and quest hubs small maps many loadscreens and instance and npcs marked on your map or radar?
If thats the case im not intrested in TSW but for now i give them benefit of the doub, the game looks intresting also becouse no elfs, orcs, dwarfs and dragons im fed up with Tolkien and D&D fantasy based worlds.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
There is sooo many problems with a classless system that i actually had HUGE post ,then said screw that too long.
Just to make it simpler,classless=no design+testing.Dev does not have to answer to poor design because they are not designing any classes.
Controlled systems are much better than limiting hotbars and zerging or basically button mashing,chaotic type combat.Once again this seems to be more direction towards soloing and making grouping pretty much an entity with a bunch of names in the same window but everyone still plays as if they were not in a group at all.Soloing within a group i call it.
Even worse is if you try to describe what you are playing in the game...I am a...........IDk what the heck i am, a hybrid or a morphling i guess.MUCH better to be able to say i am roleplaying a Warrior or a Paladin,otherwise you are not roleplaying anything at all.
It really appears to me that more and more devs are trying to change the rpg genre into something simpler to meet their financial and ease of development needs.We are at the point now ,where EVERY single game is just a MMO,online status with either p2p or cash shop funding.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I remember the days when SWG was effectively a classless system. During those days what did we see.
Every patch included changes trying to deal with balance
The min/maxers established mathematially the best builds for each role and pretty much became standard.
Quests and instances varied from extremely easy to nearly impossible depending on the skills used by each member of the party. Causing lots of complaints and L2P responces.
The concept fo the classless system is really nice and one that I would like to see work. But time and time again it has proven to be totally cost prohibitive when it comes to maintaining player enjoyment for enough people to remain commercially viable. This starts immediately once the game introduces PvP.
The most viable classless system game today is EvE Online but it does suffer from players having to build following certain templates or they are simply cannon fodder and leave the game.