ome of you people are stupid none of the classes are gone the waylayer is not gone just you would choose to use a crossbow while playing a ranger
all the classes are still there just the anmes have changed and they have given them more abilites
^ What he said.
------------------------------ You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
I don't like this change, I understand that it makes balancing easier etc. etc. etc.
The thing is that having multiple classes that fullfil similar functions allows for varied mindsets into how they approach that character and class, and simply allow for a much deeper experience.
For example, the idea of a defiler using dark magic rippling across their blades and a silent spell to slay from the shadows is very appealing to me. Meanwhile the inelegance of master thief, and the mundane nature of lotus masters both did not appeal to me. Even less appealing is a blanket "assasin" class.
I hope at some point dev's realize that the games they are creating are actually called MMO *R*P*G*'s, and thus people wish to play them to get into actually building a character that appeals to them due to the idea of the class etc. Being able to actually play different characters that get a similar job done, even if it is through slightly different methods, can be quite enjoyable, as it allows the PLAYER to decide what type of CHARACTER most appeals to them.
Its extra work, but in the long run people will become much more attached to their characters, enjoy their gameplay more, and end up playing the game longer.
I know that without being able to play a defiler or dark templar the way I envisioned them as a character is a severe blow to my desire to try this game out. I hope they rethink this decision and decide to put in the extra work and truely deliver players an opportunity to play classes that actually have interesting stories inside the class themselves, and not just the generic assasin, barb, tank, etc. archetypes with no personality.
That Defiler is still there Ophiucus, and you can still play him, all you need do is select the appropriate feats while playing the assasin. Or not, and choose a mix of abilities.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Hemingway
I think we are now going to get more bang for the buck. Where as before there seemed to be a more cookie cutter approach to characters. You can only have these skills, these weapons, etc... Now (in the case of the Master Thief, Barbarian and Reiver) you can take a few skills from the Barbarian class, a few from the Master thief AND the Reiver. So, the potential is even higher of having a truely unique character.
the whole Less classes = easier balance is nonsense, want proof?
WoW = 9 classes and they are still trying to balance them. In my opinion balance is a Myth, it will never happen (unless you take my idea from before about the 1 class LOL). So thats why I would rather have more classes than less.
I LOVE it, balancing different feat/skilltrees (or whatever the style of implimentation) is a hard job but it is infinitely better than no differance at all.
I really hate the idea of 2 people of the same level and class being identical outside their equipment and facial features, there can be no curveballs thrown in pvp, no class debates as to who finds what the most effective,, against which build ,of what class, all of that fun stuff is just axed.
I find it much better to run into a fellow player of my chosen class and ask him how hes doing, what way he chose to go, how he is doing against certain mob types etc...
To Top it off the same class as me has access to different animations too!
All in, It has only increased my desire for the game.
I Have been in the vanguard Beta for a while now and they have LOADS of classes but each class is exactly the same, no variation at all in skill selection. Every lvl 40 deathknight you meet is IDENTICAL other than the gear they have, same goes for every single class in the game.
just to get some things stright here... to avoid any more posts like " OMG my class is gone i will never be able to have a crossbow this game suxx now bye bye"... This update is good! for example: Guardian before the patch " Hi, i am an tank. i can do noting but tank. dont ask me what 2-h weapons is, cuz i have no idea. i was born with my shortsword and my sheild... and DPS, what is that?"
Guardian after the patch: " I feel like doing some real damage today, so ill just put my shortsword and sheild away for a whie and pick this huge pointy polearm up, and then ill be ready to kill."
You will now have more choises when you have chosen your class, and you wont be stuck with using very few weapons or something like that. The only things that is gone is the class-names. The classes are still there.
What annoys me is this is proof that all of the merged classes have linear feat trees. So, in the old system you would have 1 Halberdier at 80 which did *exactly* the same thing as another Halberdier at 80. I had the impression from interviews there would be multiple branching feat paths for each class that was viable in its own playstyle. IE: Speccing up Halberdier for AOE damage at max OR speccing him for less effective AoE but masterful 1 on 1 dps. Also different defence lines. One could be keeping people at your polearms range with kicks and punches while another line focuses on parrying and shoving people back with the haft.
These possibilities keep everyone different and gives options to your playstyle. This merging they have done points to the fact they had none of this and frankly I'm disappointed. You might have the option to bring out a shield as a new Guardian, but you have to keep the spec low or your polearm line will suffer. Really the choice is Old Guardian or Old Halberdier or gimp yourself. The way I outlined above is a better way to do it and I hope they spend the time implementing branching feat trees inside the new class personally or the game will be boring.
Instead of posting my take on this with slightly different wording I'll just repost what I said on the news comment thread, as this is clearly the more active disscussion on this topic.
While I understand the reasoning behind some these merges, a few of them do concern me. As aforementioned, combining Dark Templar and Zealot makes little sense. Yes they're both the healer-tank class but I see a wide difference between a tank that heals and buffs and a tank that drains health and debuffs. Seems like the Dark Templar might now have too many roles.
Combining Reaver, Barbarian and Master Thief concerns me the most. Now there is only one staight forward melee damage dealing class (Assassin is more damage/debuff), esspecially with the class name being the same one of Conan's most famous titles, a truley massive percent of the population will now be one class. This brings all kinds of balance and economic problems, not to mention lore and immersion.
As an aside, "Druid of the Storm" is a very cumbersome and downright goofy class name. And given that the new description sounds far more like the Stormcaller than the old Druid it makes even less sense. They should have just called it "Stormcaller" or failing that simply "Druid."
As I haven't played the beta I can't comment about the classes being too limited or not but I have to say the amount of classes was a positive in my eyes. While 14 classes is a decent amount, I now worry that some classes will have too many roles and be over powered (Dark Templar) or can do so much that a majority of the server is the same class (Barbarian).
Initially with the news of the merging I was happy because my storm caller was merged with my second choice (druid), so that worked for me. Now that i think about it tho, the specalisation will b sorta pointless, because it is very likely that everyone will use the "leet" builds that their guild forces them into, so custimisation will be lost.
Initially with the news of the merging I was happy because my storm caller was merged with my second choice (druid), so that worked for me. Now that i think about it tho, the specalisation will b sorta pointless, because it is very likely that everyone will use the "leet" builds that their guild forces them into, so custimisation will be lost.
OK, but I don't see how that will effect me, or someone of the similar mindset as me. If I can't roleplay (read customize) the way I want, I realy don't want to be in that guild... with a game centered around skillz rather then items, I want to have fun using skills I choose, not choosing skills to be permited to have "fun" I get that enough in real life, I sure as hell ain't gona put up with that in a game
Instead of posting my take on this with slightly different wording I'll just repost what I said on the news comment thread, as this is clearly the more active disscussion on this topic. While I understand the reasoning behind some these merges, a few of them do concern me. As aforementioned, combining Dark Templar and Zealot makes little sense. Yes they're both the healer-tank class but I see a wide difference between a tank that heals and buffs and a tank that drains health and debuffs. Seems like the Dark Templar might now have too many roles. Combining Reaver, Barbarian and Master Thief concerns me the most. Now there is only one staight forward melee damage dealing class (Assassin is more damage/debuff), esspecially with the class name being the same one of Conan's most famous titles, a truley massive percent of the population will now be one class. This brings all kinds of balance and economic problems, not to mention lore and immersion. As an aside, "Druid of the Storm" is a very cumbersome and downright goofy class name. And given that the new description sounds far more like the Stormcaller than the old Druid it makes even less sense. They should have just called it "Stormcaller" or failing that simply "Druid." As I haven't played the beta I can't comment about the classes being too limited or not but I have to say the amount of classes was a positive in my eyes. While 14 classes is a decent amount, I now worry that some classes will have too many roles and be over powered (Dark Templar) or can do so much that a majority of the server is the same class (Barbarian).
I agree with this post 100%
As someone was, and will, play a Druid, I plan on calling them that and being done with it.
Outside of that I think it really helped the Druid class out a lot.
I agree 100% about the Barbarian class... Reavers were one of the more popular classes before, now its just going to be insane... though for a game based on Conan I can't think that Barbs SHOULD be the most popular class... that said:
INTEGRATING THEIF INTO BARB IS RETARDED! and I've told the Devs as much!
A thief needs a cultured eye to pick his targets, both in terms of people and loot, and a thief raised in the city would never have had anything barberous about him!
That aside it can bring a lot more utility and diversity to other classes, especially soldier, because now you can play X class but use the weapon of Y class without gimping yourelf having to spend the points/feats to get it...
The Ranger/Waylayer just made sense, as it was essentially the same class with a different weapon...
When the combinations make sense its a good idea, loosing Derketo was a bad idea, and Barb/Reaver=ok... +theif = dumb
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Fewer classes makes for less difficulty in balancing.
Considering this is a PvP game where class balance will be paramount this is a good change.
Stop just Stop! I fricken hate this bullshit nonsense justification.
Lets make ONE class then we wont have to worry about balance at all right? we will have one class with one skill and one spell that can only get one sword and one set of armor .... no balance issues!
Er its not nonsense or BS, just cold hard fact.
There are still 14 classes. That is quite alot you do realise?.
so then if its a "fact" we should just make one class with one spell and one skill ... Like i said. because GOD FORBID we don't want developers to actually have to work now would we. no worry for balance then huh? that will be a fun game to play.
14 doesn't impress me at all, hell EQ1 has more classes and that was made how many years ago? please lets get these damn MMOs to evolve not devolve.
lol I have never come across someone whos main requirement from a game was class volume.
You are so far off the mark you cant even see it if you believe the number of classes has anything to do with being next gen or a good mmo in general.
You should opt for one of the D&D games or DAoC, they would appear to be more what you are looking for.
You must not read many MMO forums
its one of the main reason so many people left SWG post NGE, they liked the choices and being able to make thier own "class". They didn't want to be the typical boring overdone "tank" ... "healer" ... "Dps". UO is one of the more talked about PVP games and yet wow look at that no classes. Same thing with EVE, pure skill and another very popular game. If EVE devs said they were making "classes" the game would die in a day.
one of the biggest requests on most MMO forums ... more classes ... gee i wonder why?
People left SWG for lots of reasons. The one u mentioning about Creature handler and Bio Enginer, they were simply removed.
Well technically they removed the Scourge of Derketo, even though they distributed its powers... BUT at this stage in the game thats fine, compared to me having played a SoD for months/year and then all of a sudden they poof it out from under me...
Apples/oranges...
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Well we can't really know whether they scrapped skills in order to merge classes or they just reallocated the skills across the remaining classes. However, I think it's safe to say they had to delete at least some skills, due to the fact that 3 classes (Reaver, Barbarian, and Master Thief) merged into one (Barbarian) class and others, such as all the Mage classes (Necromancer, Demonologist, etc.) remained untouched. One must assume that all the classes had close the same amount of skills before the merge, so if they kept the same total amount of skills the Barbarian class would have three times as many as a Necromancer.
Clearly some skills and/or class abilites were removed when they condensed the classes. Honestly I'd still be worried about the class merges even if Funcom said they kept all the previous skills simply because a Thief-specced Barbarian still isn't the same as a Master Thief, at least not to me. The amount of people playing Barbarian was always going to be large, but now they will be legion. Highly skewed class distrubution is never a good thing, regardless of how you can spec that class.
And the Zealot class was completely absorbed, as in it ceases to exist, by the Dark Templar as far as I can tell.
I know proponents of this condensing will say and have said that the skills removed were redundant and won't be missed and that 14 classes is a fine amount of classes to have. Since never saw those skills we probably never will so that will always be up for debate, and yes 14 is a decent number of classes.
My main point is the more choice the better. Whether it's skills, classes, races, looks, weapons, etc. And any reduction of choice should have a very strong reason behind it. The PvP balance doesn't really justify the choice reduction to me. I'm not saying that less classes aren't easier to balnce than more, of course that's true, but the existance of skill-based PvP games where the vast number skill combinations creates a large number of "classes" while still being balanced, refutes the PvP balance arguement in my mind. Every game has and will have balance issues, and yes fixing these is difficult, complicated and often very subjective, but taking options away from the players is rarely the right solution.
"So what we have done is a consolidation that provides each class with a more flexible role in the class structure. This means that in the long term it will ensure that there is an extra playability in each of the classes."
I interpreted this as a.) we have some seriously redundant skills between some of the classes and b.) the classes were cookie cutter (i.e. you knew exactly what you faced if you ran into a Waylayer or a Defiler.) By consolidating down to 14 from 23, suddenly players have more diversity, more options to develop their toons. Sure it's not necessarily SW:G uber skill selection but it sounds like toons will be far more differentiated than in say, WoW (where you can buy every single skill, sorry for bringing it up) or CoX where you're likely to be nearly cookie cutter if you don't diversify into power pools, etc.
Just my thoughts, all inference and total speculation like everyone else ( ' :
edited to throw some space in because of funky formatting.
Comments
------------------------------
You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
I don't like this change, I understand that it makes balancing easier etc. etc. etc.
The thing is that having multiple classes that fullfil similar functions allows for varied mindsets into how they approach that character and class, and simply allow for a much deeper experience.
For example, the idea of a defiler using dark magic rippling across their blades and a silent spell to slay from the shadows is very appealing to me. Meanwhile the inelegance of master thief, and the mundane nature of lotus masters both did not appeal to me. Even less appealing is a blanket "assasin" class.
I hope at some point dev's realize that the games they are creating are actually called MMO *R*P*G*'s, and thus people wish to play them to get into actually building a character that appeals to them due to the idea of the class etc. Being able to actually play different characters that get a similar job done, even if it is through slightly different methods, can be quite enjoyable, as it allows the PLAYER to decide what type of CHARACTER most appeals to them.
Its extra work, but in the long run people will become much more attached to their characters, enjoy their gameplay more, and end up playing the game longer.
I know that without being able to play a defiler or dark templar the way I envisioned them as a character is a severe blow to my desire to try this game out. I hope they rethink this decision and decide to put in the extra work and truely deliver players an opportunity to play classes that actually have interesting stories inside the class themselves, and not just the generic assasin, barb, tank, etc. archetypes with no personality.
*crosses his fingers*
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway
thats what iv been saying all the clsses are still there its just how you spec them
in the end your goign to end up saying i have an 80 lotus master and people will know what you mean
the whole Less classes = easier balance is nonsense, want proof?
WoW = 9 classes and they are still trying to balance them. In my opinion balance is a Myth, it will never happen (unless you take my idea from before about the 1 class LOL). So thats why I would rather have more classes than less.
I LOVE it, balancing different feat/skilltrees (or whatever the style of implimentation) is a hard job but it is infinitely better than no differance at all.
I really hate the idea of 2 people of the same level and class being identical outside their equipment and facial features, there can be no curveballs thrown in pvp, no class debates as to who finds what the most effective,, against which build ,of what class, all of that fun stuff is just axed.
I find it much better to run into a fellow player of my chosen class and ask him how hes doing, what way he chose to go, how he is doing against certain mob types etc...
To Top it off the same class as me has access to different animations too!
All in, It has only increased my desire for the game.
I Have been in the vanguard Beta for a while now and they have LOADS of classes but each class is exactly the same, no variation at all in skill selection. Every lvl 40 deathknight you meet is IDENTICAL other than the gear they have, same goes for every single class in the game.
just to get some things stright here... to avoid any more posts like " OMG my class is gone i will never be able to have a crossbow this game suxx now bye bye"... This update is good! for example: Guardian before the patch " Hi, i am an tank. i can do noting but tank. dont ask me what 2-h weapons is, cuz i have no idea. i was born with my shortsword and my sheild... and DPS, what is that?"
Guardian after the patch: " I feel like doing some real damage today, so ill just put my shortsword and sheild away for a whie and pick this huge pointy polearm up, and then ill be ready to kill."
You will now have more choises when you have chosen your class, and you wont be stuck with using very few weapons or something like that. The only things that is gone is the class-names. The classes are still there.
What annoys me is this is proof that all of the merged classes have linear feat trees. So, in the old system you would have 1 Halberdier at 80 which did *exactly* the same thing as another Halberdier at 80. I had the impression from interviews there would be multiple branching feat paths for each class that was viable in its own playstyle. IE: Speccing up Halberdier for AOE damage at max OR speccing him for less effective AoE but masterful 1 on 1 dps. Also different defence lines. One could be keeping people at your polearms range with kicks and punches while another line focuses on parrying and shoving people back with the haft.
These possibilities keep everyone different and gives options to your playstyle. This merging they have done points to the fact they had none of this and frankly I'm disappointed. You might have the option to bring out a shield as a new Guardian, but you have to keep the spec low or your polearm line will suffer. Really the choice is Old Guardian or Old Halberdier or gimp yourself. The way I outlined above is a better way to do it and I hope they spend the time implementing branching feat trees inside the new class personally or the game will be boring.
Instead of posting my take on this with slightly different wording I'll just repost what I said on the news comment thread, as this is clearly the more active disscussion on this topic.
While I understand the reasoning behind some these merges, a few of them do concern me. As aforementioned, combining Dark Templar and Zealot makes little sense. Yes they're both the healer-tank class but I see a wide difference between a tank that heals and buffs and a tank that drains health and debuffs. Seems like the Dark Templar might now have too many roles.
Combining Reaver, Barbarian and Master Thief concerns me the most. Now there is only one staight forward melee damage dealing class (Assassin is more damage/debuff), esspecially with the class name being the same one of Conan's most famous titles, a truley massive percent of the population will now be one class. This brings all kinds of balance and economic problems, not to mention lore and immersion.
As an aside, "Druid of the Storm" is a very cumbersome and downright goofy class name. And given that the new description sounds far more like the Stormcaller than the old Druid it makes even less sense. They should have just called it "Stormcaller" or failing that simply "Druid."
As I haven't played the beta I can't comment about the classes being too limited or not but I have to say the amount of classes was a positive in my eyes. While 14 classes is a decent amount, I now worry that some classes will have too many roles and be over powered (Dark Templar) or can do so much that a majority of the server is the same class (Barbarian).
I agree with this post 100%
As someone was, and will, play a Druid, I plan on calling them that and being done with it.
Outside of that I think it really helped the Druid class out a lot.
I agree 100% about the Barbarian class... Reavers were one of the more popular classes before, now its just going to be insane... though for a game based on Conan I can't think that Barbs SHOULD be the most popular class... that said:
INTEGRATING THEIF INTO BARB IS RETARDED! and I've told the Devs as much!
A thief needs a cultured eye to pick his targets, both in terms of people and loot, and a thief raised in the city would never have had anything barberous about him!
That aside it can bring a lot more utility and diversity to other classes, especially soldier, because now you can play X class but use the weapon of Y class without gimping yourelf having to spend the points/feats to get it...
The Ranger/Waylayer just made sense, as it was essentially the same class with a different weapon...
When the combinations make sense its a good idea, loosing Derketo was a bad idea, and Barb/Reaver=ok... +theif = dumb
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Stop just Stop! I fricken hate this bullshit nonsense justification.
Lets make ONE class then we wont have to worry about balance at all right? we will have one class with one skill and one spell that can only get one sword and one set of armor .... no balance issues!
Er its not nonsense or BS, just cold hard fact.There are still 14 classes. That is quite alot you do realise?.
so then if its a "fact" we should just make one class with one spell and one skill ... Like i said. because GOD FORBID we don't want developers to actually have to work now would we. no worry for balance then huh? that will be a fun game to play.
14 doesn't impress me at all, hell EQ1 has more classes and that was made how many years ago? please lets get these damn MMOs to evolve not devolve.
lol I have never come across someone whos main requirement from a game was class volume.You are so far off the mark you cant even see it if you believe the number of classes has anything to do with being next gen or a good mmo in general.
You should opt for one of the D&D games or DAoC, they would appear to be more what you are looking for.
You must not read many MMO forums
its one of the main reason so many people left SWG post NGE, they liked the choices and being able to make thier own "class". They didn't want to be the typical boring overdone "tank" ... "healer" ... "Dps". UO is one of the more talked about PVP games and yet wow look at that no classes. Same thing with EVE, pure skill and another very popular game. If EVE devs said they were making "classes" the game would die in a day.
one of the biggest requests on most MMO forums ... more classes ... gee i wonder why?
People left SWG for lots of reasons. The one u mentioning about Creature handler and Bio Enginer, they were simply removed.Funcom did NOT remove anything. Period.
Well technically they removed the Scourge of Derketo, even though they distributed its powers... BUT at this stage in the game thats fine, compared to me having played a SoD for months/year and then all of a sudden they poof it out from under me...
Apples/oranges...
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
none
Well we can't really know whether they scrapped skills in order to merge classes or they just reallocated the skills across the remaining classes. However, I think it's safe to say they had to delete at least some skills, due to the fact that 3 classes (Reaver, Barbarian, and Master Thief) merged into one (Barbarian) class and others, such as all the Mage classes (Necromancer, Demonologist, etc.) remained untouched. One must assume that all the classes had close the same amount of skills before the merge, so if they kept the same total amount of skills the Barbarian class would have three times as many as a Necromancer.
Clearly some skills and/or class abilites were removed when they condensed the classes. Honestly I'd still be worried about the class merges even if Funcom said they kept all the previous skills simply because a Thief-specced Barbarian still isn't the same as a Master Thief, at least not to me. The amount of people playing Barbarian was always going to be large, but now they will be legion. Highly skewed class distrubution is never a good thing, regardless of how you can spec that class.
And the Zealot class was completely absorbed, as in it ceases to exist, by the Dark Templar as far as I can tell.
I know proponents of this condensing will say and have said that the skills removed were redundant and won't be missed and that 14 classes is a fine amount of classes to have. Since never saw those skills we probably never will so that will always be up for debate, and yes 14 is a decent number of classes.
My main point is the more choice the better. Whether it's skills, classes, races, looks, weapons, etc. And any reduction of choice should have a very strong reason behind it. The PvP balance doesn't really justify the choice reduction to me. I'm not saying that less classes aren't easier to balnce than more, of course that's true, but the existance of skill-based PvP games where the vast number skill combinations creates a large number of "classes" while still being balanced, refutes the PvP balance arguement in my mind. Every game has and will have balance issues, and yes fixing these is difficult, complicated and often very subjective, but taking options away from the players is rarely the right solution.
Well, you have to consider what the developers actually had said --
per the website (http://community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi?session=paezpwpn5pxgxiugo308ibx3dhqdx9&func=publish.show&template=content&func_id=1501&sort=PRIORITY&table=CONTENT)
"So what we have done is a consolidation that provides each class with a more flexible role in the class structure. This means that in the long term it will ensure that there is an extra playability in each of the classes."
I interpreted this as a.) we have some seriously redundant skills between some of the classes and b.) the classes were cookie cutter (i.e. you knew exactly what you faced if you ran into a Waylayer or a Defiler.) By consolidating down to 14 from 23, suddenly players have more diversity, more options to develop their toons. Sure it's not necessarily SW:G uber skill selection but it sounds like toons will be far more differentiated than in say, WoW (where you can buy every single skill, sorry for bringing it up) or CoX where you're likely to be nearly cookie cutter if you don't diversify into power pools, etc.
Just my thoughts, all inference and total speculation like everyone else ( ' :
edited to throw some space in because of funky formatting.