You don't get to choose your weapon skills. Only the 4 class skills. So the class system is pretty limited.
Ah I see, so does only your base class determine your weapons abilities? That sucks.
They even lock you in more.
A warrior might be forced to run say 2 offensive, 1 utility, and 1 defensive so you might not be able to pick the class abilities you want. I might far prefer to run 1 offensive, 1 utility and 2 defensive skills but the game won't allow it.
And some skills are more powerful than others so you might not be able to run the 2 you want... ie they said that the Shadow Port and Whirlwind were too expensive to run together, whatever that means.
The whole thing just reeks of GW2. They can say whatever they want but in the end it shares 90% of the structure of GW2.
On a positive note they said that items would also have abilities so that might expand your skill bar somewhat. You might use the portal from a ring instead and then you could port and WW and run something else in that slot.
The weapon thing is like gw2, yes. But there is obviously a lot more depth to the system than GW2 and gear will play a part in shaping your build (good news for crafters) as it can help solve issues like the shadow port and whirlwind being too expensive to cast.
It looks to be a combination of much more freedom than a normal game (although not as much as some may want) as well as far more depth than most games that have choice have. Id rather have some choice, some depth than all choice, no depth. Its very tough to have it both ways. Rift has tons of choice but little class depth, WoW (vanilla/BC) had 1/3rd the choice but fantastic class depth.
OK, this might give a better idea of what they mean by combinations:
Warrior, equipped with a 2 handed staff:
Passive abilities, not activated by buttons - HP Boost, Physical damage Boost, Defensive boost
Activated abilities - Class Abilities:
Offensive Ability - Warrior only - Tackle (Dash + Hit with a stun component),
Utility Ability - Fighter archtype (Gained through Monk) - Grapple (DoT, prevents NPC from moving for x seconds),
Defensive Ability - Fighter Archtype (Gained through Rogue) - Quick Evade - causes next physical hit to miss.
Offensive Ability - General (Gained through Berzerker) Head thrust - Straight damage
Activated Abilities - Weapon Abilities:
Warrior Only - Overhead Smash - Use a 2 handed weapon to cause massive damage - Straight single target damage
Healer Archtype (Gained through Inquisitor) - Focus Healing - Channel Mana through your 2 handed staff to heal everyone in an area - AoE Heal
Fighter Archtype (Gained through Monk) - Wide Swing - User your 2 handed staff to strike all enemies in a cone in front of you.
Support Archtype (Gained through Druid) - Vine Growth - Focus energies through your staff to entangle all nearby oponents, and prevent them from moving for x seconds.
Notice have both in class abilities, and in weapon abilities you can bring in skills from other classes as long as they are of the type specified. For a warrior, it has been stated that he will have 2 offensive, 1 utility and 1 defensive. Wizards will have 2 defensive, 1 Utility and 1 Offensive, so their setup will be different, but they can still mix and match abilities, bringing in any 2 defensive abilities from other classes, or from themselves (who wouldn't want to teleport to eveade?),
As for weapon skills, it is only tied to the weapon class, not the class of the player. So if you already learned Focus healing, as in my example, and you equipped the required 2 handed staff, then you can equip that ability as well, and now you have a warrior that can do spot healing. This makes him gain hate... he also has 3 crowd control abilities that allow him to properly tank an NPC, since by the time one of his stuns/roots drops, he can use another, causes some damage, heals some damage, and evades any big attack coming his way.
This is what I have seen as the potential of this system. As for the quote people have placed in red, stating that "What are weapons really?" it is true... this game doesn't have auto attack it seems, and it is all based on which skills you want to setup... which means, he is absolutely right... the weapon is just a model, since if you give the person an invisible weapon, you wouldn't be able to tell what he was, until he used his skills, and even then it would be a toss up, in case he equipped an uncommon weapon, and chose all skills based on a completely different archtype.
TL;DR: Class skills and weapon skills can still be swapped with others you have learned to be effective.
It sounds to me like as you go up in tier, your class will get access to more than 4 class specific skills.
My initial impression was that there were only 4 and they just would get stronger and that's it. IT sounds like you'll be able to pick which 4 though once you tier up, even without multiclassing.
I hated abilities tied to weapon in GW2, I will likely hate it in EQN as well. They can say what they want to talk it up, but I'm not seeing how it will work out any better in their game.
Seems to be some confusion, watch the Class Panel video from SOE Live and the various interviews from major gaming sites for more detail. This is what I've seen:
Pick Race
Pick 1 of 8 Starting Classes
Play Game and Unlock 40+ Classes
Original 8 Classes are same as the rest, no better no worse, have zero impact on future abilities or class options.
Classes have 2 unique weapon sets (mace/shield, 2-handed sword) and armor type. Classes may share the same weapons but will have unique abilities and animations. So a warrior and mercenary may both use 2-handed swords but would look and perform differently
You cannot mix and match Class weapon skills. Can't have 2 warrior and 2 mercenary sword skills. You get 4 for warrior and that is it. The 4 weapon skills + armor type define a class.
Each class had 8 total weapon abilities (4 from 2 weapon sets) and can be switched between while in combat.
Each class also has at least 4 secondary skills. Most likely a lot with there being at least 4 Tiers of progression.
The 4 secondary skills are what you can mix with different classes.
So if you pick a warrior, you'll get 8 unique weapon skills and armor type and then can have 1 rogue 1 wizard 1 blade master 1 enchanter secondary skills.
Changing 4 secondary skills does not impact your class choice. But each class has set secondary slots by type (offense, defense, movement, utility). So an Enchanter with 2 movement 1 defense 1 utility spots can't use 4 warrior defense skills. Secondary is limited by type and you'll have to look for classes with the same types of skills to mix.
There may be multiple tiers of weapon skills and maybe you could have: warrior with 2-handed sword with 1 ability from tier 1-4 but I doubt it. Most likely you will have the same 4 skills forever.
So there is no Warrior using a Wizard staff or weapon skills.
You can save templates and name your own classes.
So don't get too attached to names.
You could have a template using 2-handed sword and mace/shield with plate armor and 4 enchanter skills and call the class SmashNZap. But you can't switch the mace/shield for dagger and keep plate and 2-handed sword.
There is a lot of room for creativity but not total freedom. You can't have 12 skills from 12 different classes. 8 weapon + armor are a package and then you add 4 from any class.
So when building a template you have to start with the basics, what type of armor or what type of weapon do you want. Then what type of skills with that weapon. So a warrior and blade master could share weapons but one is offense and another is defense. Then you look at the type of secondary spots and find skills from other classes that match and you have a new class.
Then again I could of missed something but this seems correct.
The very first question pretty much made them hypocrites.They made that speech as Arena Net did the same talking about not needing specific builds to do the content.Well players are notorious for wanting the most dps they can get out of their players,so it is a VERY good probability that all Warriors foe example will be near identical.
Also i have seen it a LOT,players asking in chat the best build for classes,i expect more the same,again meaning identical builds.
This all means you WILL need specific builds to make content work,so i guess their speech was sort of PR BS as expected.
I wish they would cut with the bull and tell the truth,they went for an easier design to speed up development.Trinity is still by far the BEST design for grouping,it supports grouping,jack of all trade builds do not support grouping,they support SOLO game play.FFXIV although i disapprove of some design decisions,actually catered to both,they have classes for soloing and specific JOB builds for grouping,that is taking the class system further and takes more effort by the developer.
Since this McPhearson guy has acknowledged that you will still need specific builds for some content "most likely the real core tough content"why did they just not come out and say it?This is why i hate misleading PR people,you can't trust them for anything when they try to butter up their speeches to tell you what you want to hear.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Alot of you are right but your wrong at the same time. Hers what they said all classes get 2 weapons and with that they get 4 weapon skills based on those weapons. Each Class gets four skill slots so you have a total of 8, 4 bieng weapon and 4 being skill. Now lets say I make a warrior I will get 4 skills based on hammer and shield and 4 based on two-handed something plus I get 4 skill slots based on my class say 1 movement 1 utility and 2 defense skills now later down the road I get mage well I can stay a warior using the same weapons and skills and add some mage skills to my make up or I can change to be a mage with a scepter and focus or staff and for 8 new weapon skills and 4 class skill slots that have 2 movement one utility and one damage spell but I would have to change the armor also cause a mage can't wear heavy but I can create a load out for certain play style such as.
Bard base 8 weapon skills based on weapon set + warrior movement + mage utility + rogue offense + Ranger offense = Battle Bard
See the above can be just one loadout I have or I could be.
Shadowknight base 8 weapon skills based on weapon set + Mage movement + necromancer utility + Druid defense + Warrior defense = Dungeon Tank
You also go strait class like all Shadowknight and be just that and still be viable in the game.
Now they did say armor and weapons would also effect your powers like your armor might help by lowing the cost of a skill to use it in conjunction with another so this can mean we go to a mana system like in some games or like a rogue trigger system like in WoW but it means we will have to play alot different then we did in the past.
They have also stated combat would be more like a MoBa style game I have only played a few LoL What ever the Funcom one was and a few other asian and european ones I tried but they have mechanics not like what most players are used to and I can see how this will work in way I do play the Lord of the rings MoBa son just reminded me but yeah they are alot more positional than the trinity but not as crazy as say GW2 and it could make for some fun battles.
They said in the class panel thats how they want it to work but they have stated sense then they will be more skills from other things not sure on this yet tho will have to wait and see.
Sherman's Gaming
Youtube Content creator for The Elder Scrolls Online
The reason why it didn't work in GW2 is that Combat in a MOBA lasts seconds and in a MMO it lasts minutes. Once you extend the time the combag starts to feel shallow and superficial.
How will they enhance this in EQNext? I am unsure. What I have seen so far suggests very little.
They woukd be better to offer the class freedom of Secret Worls than the locked in direction they are using now.
The very first question pretty much made them hypocrites.They made that speech as Arena Net did the same talking about not needing specific builds to do the content.Well players are notorious for wanting the most dps they can get out of their players,so it is a VERY good probability that all Warriors foe example will be near identical.
Also i have seen it a LOT,players asking in chat the best build for classes,i expect more the same,again meaning identical builds.
This all means you WILL need specific builds to make content work,so i guess their speech was sort of PR BS as expected.
I wish they would cut with the bull and tell the truth,they went for an easier design to speed up development.Trinity is still by far the BEST design for grouping,it supports grouping,jack of all trade builds do not support grouping,they support SOLO game play.FFXIV although i disapprove of some design decisions,actually catered to both,they have classes for soloing and specific JOB builds for grouping,that is taking the class system further and takes more effort by the developer.
Since this McPhearson guy has acknowledged that you will still need specific builds for some content "most likely the real core tough content"why did they just not come out and say it?This is why i hate misleading PR people,you can't trust them for anything when they try to butter up their speeches to tell you what you want to hear.
It would seem that accommodating such builds might not be so simple this time around. Builds are going to be very gear dependent to make sense (Leggings of teleportation... casting cost reduction) accompanied by you actually going out and obtaining other classes (Who knows how long this will take). I think it's going to be a lot of doing the best you can with what you have and I'm looking forward to the theorycrafting ahead.
I really hated the answer about the rigid weapon skill system.
"in other games did different weapons mean anything? Usually they are models only and change nothing right?"
That is so ridiculous. Of course other weapons meant something. Some classes can only use certain weapons, especially lore wise, different damages, delays, also different types did slashing piercing blunt damage or elemental damage, depending on the game.
What a clueless answer. It is like the guy never played a game ever.
^^Agreed.
Not to mention, a warrior should be skilled in using a bunch of different weapons. He's a warrior for chrissakes. Why is he limited to a longsword (1H) and bastard sword (2H)? Some people like using different looking weapons. But now if I want to wield a scimitar or pike, I am stuck with using the weapon skills for those weapons instead of being able to use those same skills with my sword.
What a terribly designed mechanic.
Disagree. Different weapons should be wielded differently and require different skills. You cant swing a longsword like you can a polearm and even a scimitar would have some handling differences from the longsword. I could see the argument against it making you a completely different class, but the skills used should be different for every single weapon.
First, we know less then nothing about the Weapon, Skill, Fighting systems in the game. All we have seen is barely a taste of what is to come.
What we do know:
You will have a base class. This is the class you have actively selected. The base class controls the weapon and armor choices. A Warrior likely won't be able to wield a magic wand.
The rest is stuff that is being made up by the group.
There are two methods of progression for the weapon skills. 1. You can level up you ability to use your current weapon. 2. You can level up your ability to use better weapons. Since we don't know how SOE will implement this yet it is just conjecture.
Weapon skills will most likely make sense. You learn a new technique for how to use your weapon. That technique is now an equipable weapon skill. But again we don't know anything about how this will be implemented.
Comments
The weapon thing is like gw2, yes. But there is obviously a lot more depth to the system than GW2 and gear will play a part in shaping your build (good news for crafters) as it can help solve issues like the shadow port and whirlwind being too expensive to cast.
It looks to be a combination of much more freedom than a normal game (although not as much as some may want) as well as far more depth than most games that have choice have. Id rather have some choice, some depth than all choice, no depth. Its very tough to have it both ways. Rift has tons of choice but little class depth, WoW (vanilla/BC) had 1/3rd the choice but fantastic class depth.
OK, this might give a better idea of what they mean by combinations:
Warrior, equipped with a 2 handed staff:
Passive abilities, not activated by buttons - HP Boost, Physical damage Boost, Defensive boost
Activated abilities - Class Abilities:
Offensive Ability - Warrior only - Tackle (Dash + Hit with a stun component),
Utility Ability - Fighter archtype (Gained through Monk) - Grapple (DoT, prevents NPC from moving for x seconds),
Defensive Ability - Fighter Archtype (Gained through Rogue) - Quick Evade - causes next physical hit to miss.
Offensive Ability - General (Gained through Berzerker) Head thrust - Straight damage
Activated Abilities - Weapon Abilities:
Warrior Only - Overhead Smash - Use a 2 handed weapon to cause massive damage - Straight single target damage
Healer Archtype (Gained through Inquisitor) - Focus Healing - Channel Mana through your 2 handed staff to heal everyone in an area - AoE Heal
Fighter Archtype (Gained through Monk) - Wide Swing - User your 2 handed staff to strike all enemies in a cone in front of you.
Support Archtype (Gained through Druid) - Vine Growth - Focus energies through your staff to entangle all nearby oponents, and prevent them from moving for x seconds.
Notice have both in class abilities, and in weapon abilities you can bring in skills from other classes as long as they are of the type specified. For a warrior, it has been stated that he will have 2 offensive, 1 utility and 1 defensive. Wizards will have 2 defensive, 1 Utility and 1 Offensive, so their setup will be different, but they can still mix and match abilities, bringing in any 2 defensive abilities from other classes, or from themselves (who wouldn't want to teleport to eveade?),
As for weapon skills, it is only tied to the weapon class, not the class of the player. So if you already learned Focus healing, as in my example, and you equipped the required 2 handed staff, then you can equip that ability as well, and now you have a warrior that can do spot healing. This makes him gain hate... he also has 3 crowd control abilities that allow him to properly tank an NPC, since by the time one of his stuns/roots drops, he can use another, causes some damage, heals some damage, and evades any big attack coming his way.
This is what I have seen as the potential of this system. As for the quote people have placed in red, stating that "What are weapons really?" it is true... this game doesn't have auto attack it seems, and it is all based on which skills you want to setup... which means, he is absolutely right... the weapon is just a model, since if you give the person an invisible weapon, you wouldn't be able to tell what he was, until he used his skills, and even then it would be a toss up, in case he equipped an uncommon weapon, and chose all skills based on a completely different archtype.
TL;DR: Class skills and weapon skills can still be swapped with others you have learned to be effective.
It sounds to me like as you go up in tier, your class will get access to more than 4 class specific skills.
My initial impression was that there were only 4 and they just would get stronger and that's it. IT sounds like you'll be able to pick which 4 though once you tier up, even without multiclassing.
Independent of the "weapon" skills I mean.
Gonna be a lot of abilities in this game if so.
Seems to be some confusion, watch the Class Panel video from SOE Live and the various interviews from major gaming sites for more detail. This is what I've seen:
Pick Race
Pick 1 of 8 Starting Classes
Play Game and Unlock 40+ Classes
Original 8 Classes are same as the rest, no better no worse, have zero impact on future abilities or class options.
Classes have 2 unique weapon sets (mace/shield, 2-handed sword) and armor type. Classes may share the same weapons but will have unique abilities and animations. So a warrior and mercenary may both use 2-handed swords but would look and perform differently
You cannot mix and match Class weapon skills. Can't have 2 warrior and 2 mercenary sword skills. You get 4 for warrior and that is it. The 4 weapon skills + armor type define a class.
Each class had 8 total weapon abilities (4 from 2 weapon sets) and can be switched between while in combat.
Each class also has at least 4 secondary skills. Most likely a lot with there being at least 4 Tiers of progression.
The 4 secondary skills are what you can mix with different classes.
So if you pick a warrior, you'll get 8 unique weapon skills and armor type and then can have 1 rogue 1 wizard 1 blade master 1 enchanter secondary skills.
Changing 4 secondary skills does not impact your class choice. But each class has set secondary slots by type (offense, defense, movement, utility). So an Enchanter with 2 movement 1 defense 1 utility spots can't use 4 warrior defense skills. Secondary is limited by type and you'll have to look for classes with the same types of skills to mix.
There may be multiple tiers of weapon skills and maybe you could have: warrior with 2-handed sword with 1 ability from tier 1-4 but I doubt it. Most likely you will have the same 4 skills forever.
So there is no Warrior using a Wizard staff or weapon skills.
You can save templates and name your own classes.
So don't get too attached to names.
You could have a template using 2-handed sword and mace/shield with plate armor and 4 enchanter skills and call the class SmashNZap. But you can't switch the mace/shield for dagger and keep plate and 2-handed sword.
There is a lot of room for creativity but not total freedom. You can't have 12 skills from 12 different classes. 8 weapon + armor are a package and then you add 4 from any class.
So when building a template you have to start with the basics, what type of armor or what type of weapon do you want. Then what type of skills with that weapon. So a warrior and blade master could share weapons but one is offense and another is defense. Then you look at the type of secondary spots and find skills from other classes that match and you have a new class.
Then again I could of missed something but this seems correct.
Sounds a lot more like GW1 than GW2 to be honest.
Anyone that played that game after they implemented multi-classing can appreciate how deep the skill system should work in EQN
The above is my personal opinion. Anyone displaying a view contrary to my opinion is obviously WRONG and should STHU. (neener neener)
-The MMO Forum Community
The very first question pretty much made them hypocrites.They made that speech as Arena Net did the same talking about not needing specific builds to do the content.Well players are notorious for wanting the most dps they can get out of their players,so it is a VERY good probability that all Warriors foe example will be near identical.
Also i have seen it a LOT,players asking in chat the best build for classes,i expect more the same,again meaning identical builds.
This all means you WILL need specific builds to make content work,so i guess their speech was sort of PR BS as expected.
I wish they would cut with the bull and tell the truth,they went for an easier design to speed up development.Trinity is still by far the BEST design for grouping,it supports grouping,jack of all trade builds do not support grouping,they support SOLO game play.FFXIV although i disapprove of some design decisions,actually catered to both,they have classes for soloing and specific JOB builds for grouping,that is taking the class system further and takes more effort by the developer.
Since this McPhearson guy has acknowledged that you will still need specific builds for some content "most likely the real core tough content"why did they just not come out and say it?This is why i hate misleading PR people,you can't trust them for anything when they try to butter up their speeches to tell you what you want to hear.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Alot of you are right but your wrong at the same time. Hers what they said all classes get 2 weapons and with that they get 4 weapon skills based on those weapons. Each Class gets four skill slots so you have a total of 8, 4 bieng weapon and 4 being skill. Now lets say I make a warrior I will get 4 skills based on hammer and shield and 4 based on two-handed something plus I get 4 skill slots based on my class say 1 movement 1 utility and 2 defense skills now later down the road I get mage well I can stay a warior using the same weapons and skills and add some mage skills to my make up or I can change to be a mage with a scepter and focus or staff and for 8 new weapon skills and 4 class skill slots that have 2 movement one utility and one damage spell but I would have to change the armor also cause a mage can't wear heavy but I can create a load out for certain play style such as.
Bard base 8 weapon skills based on weapon set + warrior movement + mage utility + rogue offense + Ranger offense = Battle Bard
See the above can be just one loadout I have or I could be.
Shadowknight base 8 weapon skills based on weapon set + Mage movement + necromancer utility + Druid defense + Warrior defense = Dungeon Tank
You also go strait class like all Shadowknight and be just that and still be viable in the game.
Now they did say armor and weapons would also effect your powers like your armor might help by lowing the cost of a skill to use it in conjunction with another so this can mean we go to a mana system like in some games or like a rogue trigger system like in WoW but it means we will have to play alot different then we did in the past.
They have also stated combat would be more like a MoBa style game I have only played a few LoL What ever the Funcom one was and a few other asian and european ones I tried but they have mechanics not like what most players are used to and I can see how this will work in way I do play the Lord of the rings MoBa son just reminded me but yeah they are alot more positional than the trinity but not as crazy as say GW2 and it could make for some fun battles.
They said in the class panel thats how they want it to work but they have stated sense then they will be more skills from other things not sure on this yet tho will have to wait and see.
Sherman's Gaming
Youtube Content creator for The Elder Scrolls Online
Channel:http://https//www.youtube.com/channel/UCrgYNgpFTRAl4XWz31o2emw
You can't have a base-class warrior equipped with a 2 handed staff.
The reason why it didn't work in GW2 is that Combat in a MOBA lasts seconds and in a MMO it lasts minutes. Once you extend the time the combag starts to feel shallow and superficial.
How will they enhance this in EQNext? I am unsure. What I have seen so far suggests very little.
They woukd be better to offer the class freedom of Secret Worls than the locked in direction they are using now.
e.
It would seem that accommodating such builds might not be so simple this time around. Builds are going to be very gear dependent to make sense (Leggings of teleportation... casting cost reduction) accompanied by you actually going out and obtaining other classes (Who knows how long this will take). I think it's going to be a lot of doing the best you can with what you have and I'm looking forward to the theorycrafting ahead.
Disagree. Different weapons should be wielded differently and require different skills. You cant swing a longsword like you can a polearm and even a scimitar would have some handling differences from the longsword. I could see the argument against it making you a completely different class, but the skills used should be different for every single weapon.
First, we know less then nothing about the Weapon, Skill, Fighting systems in the game. All we have seen is barely a taste of what is to come.
What we do know:
You will have a base class. This is the class you have actively selected. The base class controls the weapon and armor choices. A Warrior likely won't be able to wield a magic wand.
The rest is stuff that is being made up by the group.
There are two methods of progression for the weapon skills. 1. You can level up you ability to use your current weapon. 2. You can level up your ability to use better weapons. Since we don't know how SOE will implement this yet it is just conjecture.
Weapon skills will most likely make sense. You learn a new technique for how to use your weapon. That technique is now an equipable weapon skill. But again we don't know anything about how this will be implemented.