The Weaker Class

caine6621

First off we will start with a little about me.

I love video games.  Have ever since I saw my first pinball machine (ok, video games weren't invented yet).  As I grew I have found myself to have declining skills towards them though.   I love them as much now as I did then, I am just not that good at them.  Due to that fact I have found myself gravitating towards RPG's.  Turn based games give me the time I need to make decisions.  Although I love a FPS I usually play for a bit before looking for the God mode cheat on the internet.  So I go about playing things like Railroad Tycoon or Age of Empires and I am very content.

I happened across my first mmo purely by accident.  I don't even remember the website I was on.  They were offering a 14 day trial for Earth and Beyond.  When I downloaded it I didn't even know it was a mmorpg.  Needless to say my life transformed.  I was hooked.  I posted an ad on my company's bulletin board seeing if anyone else played it.  A person I used to work with wrote me to tell me what a geek I was.  I told him to try it.  He did it and our journey has gone on now for about 4-5 years.

I have always been a bit of an intellectual.  Sometimes even to my disadvantage.  But hey, we can't change who we are.  So I go about teaching physics giving my students stupid trivia quizzes on some useless facts that only I could know.  It has been a fine career.

We have to know get to the part where those two points come together.  Their meeting has led me down the lonely road that I walk today.  When I first started Earth and Beyond I looked at the three races.  Progen--Warrior race   hmmmm nope, let the 13 year old kid have that one.  Human--capitalistic rac...looks boring.  Jenquoi and more specific the Jenquoi Warrior.  The game claimed they fought "like a Ninja" (I can still hear the voice from the game in my head).  Oh, that's what I want.  I want to be like a ninja.  Stealth, brains, dirty tricks.  That's me (if I were to suddenly live in space anyway).

There was one small problem with all of it.  Jenquoi sucked.  And they sucked bad.  They couldn't fight worth crap.  They had little for defences and had to get up close and personal with their prey.  Oh they could cloak, but once the fight started, that was gone.  Meanwhile, the Progen and Humans with their heavier armour fought from great distances with missles and projectiles.  I tried a Human Trader and was fighting prey 3-5 levels higher than me by kiting them.  My Jenquoi some days had a hard time with prey of an equal level.

Since then I have travelled through the life of a Mon Calmari.  Big Brain and little else.  All the while listening to people who chose wookies (and their great stats) whine about how they needed to wear armour (which they got).

A Luddite Sorcerer.  Awesome power as long as whatever you are attacking doesn't choose to come after you.

You know who you are out there.  The wizard or rogue or healer etc.  You live a hard life.  In love with your character but forever dependant on a tank to help you out.  You cannot choose a different type of class.  It just doesn't feel right.  You are always more content to sit in the shadows and orchestrate the fate of the group.  To help out indirectly as opposed to having a weapon in hand.  In Lord of the Rings Gandalf is one of the most powerful people we see yet he is physically frail.  But that has not translated for us in mmo's.  We require the tank for the most part, yet the tank does not require us.  This is not the way it should be.

If we follow what we read it should work like this.  A tank is that, a tank.  Great armour and decent attacks.  My class (say a wizard) is physically not able to withstand much of an attack.  Whatever we lose in defence though we should more than make up for in offence.  Our powers should make those who oppose us shudder in fear.

A warrior (on both sides of the battle) should drop in amazement at the power we wield.  The earth should shake, mountains should fall, rivers should swell and recede.  Where we walk whispers would follow us.  "There he is, he saved them all."  "I don't care how weak he looks, he can destroy you with a simple nod." 

Instead we shall forever remain the weaker class.  Begging to be added to a group so we can earn some XP.  Brought along like someone's younger brother.   Desired but not really needed. 

Maybe its time for a change.

Jerek_

I basically play as a full time healer/support class PvPer, so I feel where your coming from.  Sadly, the trend continues to move away from relying on classes that I play.. a bit more complicated, never in the spotlight, making the difference between a difficult fight or even a loss and complete victory.  The developers, however, realize the minority these players are, and therefore more longer 'waste' resources developing such things.  Get out your big shiny, probably flaming, sword and get to work!

katriell

Offensive elemental magicians in Ryzom do the most damage, but don't hold up well to attacks because of their light armor. Healers are very necessary in teams - extremely so in PvP. Melee usually fulfills a tanking role in teams, with heavy armor and high HP, but there are possible exceptions. All three have their places in PvP - elemental casting the high-damage spells, healers keeping everyone up, and melees rushing into the midst of the opposite side to try to disrupt the casters. There is also offensive and defensive affliction magic, which includes spells like Stun, Fear, etc. - those skills aren't used much, but they are rather nice to have in PvE or PvP. So I suppose affliction is the "lesser support skill," but the skills you seemed to have an issue with are not.

Because Ryzom is not class-based, however, anyone can do anything at any time. One can work every skill to max, in theory (no one's done it yet because that's about 11,000 levels total), without limit or penalty. So, for example, a 250 (max) two-handed swordsman can switch to his 137 daggers skill or his 250 healing or his 81 offensive affliction to fulfill a need in a team, or to be able to team with players working lower skills without nerfing experience points...or just because he wants to.

But it isn't very fast or convenient to switch skills in the midst of a battle etc. (you'd have to have the appropriate equipment with you and put that equipment on, which would have a delay of a few seconds), so usually players stick to one skill at a time. The exception to this is that it's very easy to switch between magic types, because all you need for magic is light armor and a magic amplifier glove.

I'm not sure if you were looking for or expecting a game recommendation, but just in case...Saga of Ryzom is my suggestion.