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Thoughts on WoW's Classes
nate1980
Member UncommonPosts: 2,074
In WoW, every class is the same, regardless of which race is choosing it. Common sense tells us that a race's physiology would dictate a different, if not only slightly, approach to class design.
Look at real life as an example. Look at traditional American fighters and compare them to traditional European fighters, Asian fighters, and African fighters. Each style of fighting is different, even though the end result is the same.
For example, I think the elves would have more graceful and fluid moves in their melee attacks, whereas Orcs would have more powerful and brutish melee attacks. A elven Priest may have different prayers than a Human priest.
I think you know where I'm going with this. Basically, every class approaches their classes philosophy the same, which is unlikely. I bet if another company created the class designs for WoW, we'd have a lot more flavor. Take DAoC's classes for example. If you haven't played that game, check it out. The Albion (British theme) had Armsman as their pure fighters and they were different than Midgards Viking Warrior, or the Celtic Guardian. The had similar flavors, but their approach and even look was different.
I just thought I'd point this out, because it's fun to think about how things could have been if Blizzard took a more creative approach to class design, instead of worrying more about how classes would be balanced with each other.
Comments
i get what your saying but think of it this way. Say we have 2 priest a Night Elf and a Human. There healing spells have different names and such but do the exact same thing. Whats the point rofl. But yea it would make things a bit more interesting
The important aspect of a game is the way it plays and not how true to reality it is.
In this example, it is more important to have balance between the classes, regradless of race. Also, when you start to differentiate classes based on what race is chosen there will always be one choice that is superior to others. It is more important to allow players to choose what race they want to play based on what they enjoy rather than what numerical advantage might be given to a certain race they might not enjoy.
There is a lot of grey area inbetween of course, but the idea is there.
Well think about it. If the two Priests come from different races and cultures, would the spells really do the same thing? Besides, Priests are a tough one to analyze. Let's say a Mage instead. Would a Human Mage use the same spells as say a more ancient race, such as the Blood Elves? Perhaps the Blood Elves Mages would use a more raw and pure magic, whereas Humans mold the magic into elements. A deeper understanding of each races culture and gods would need to be looked at to understand how classes in each race would be different.
Well that's your opinion. People find fun through various means, or else there wouldn't be more than one genre or more than one game in a genre. My fun comes more from individuality and immersion. I find it hard to be immersed into a world where everyone is the same. I value creativity and imagination. Everyone being the same is neither.
Personally, I could care less about balance. In reality, imbalances exist and it adds character. Besides, balance is also subjective. Ask a non-plate wearer what he thinks about Rogues in PvP. I guarantee you that balance isn't the word they'd use.
I find WoW to be a fun game regardless, but I think imaginative classes would be more fun and I look forward to future games that use a bit more creativity with class design.
The only way that was doable 5 years ago was creating a class set for each set and just giving htem diff skills.
Wow chose to have a lot of classes and some available to some races, 5 years ago the classes in wow were exciting.
Nowadays it seems a bit basic, but dont forget that wow in now an old mmo.
I'm not a no life that sits in front of his computer all day long, I'm an intern that sits in front of his computer all day long.
Well, each race isn't EXACTLY the same. Each race has their own racial abilities, and slightly different stats, although in the long run the stats tend to show no significance to game play, maybe excluding the tauren's 5% health increase racial.
But for the longest time, there were certain races that were more popular then others due to their racials.
In vanilla wow, most alliance priest were dwarf due to stoneform racial.
In vanilla wow, most horde rogue, mage, and warlock players were undead due to will of forsaken racial.
Now, people roll whatever pretty much whatever race they like the best.
Anyways, I think its better that Blizzard made all classes pretty much the same despite the races. That way, people wont bitch and moan like they do in other games like Warhammer. Everybody is on a more even playing field with WoW.
Well the priest is an interesting example because they do actually have racial specific spells and the result in vanilla WoW was that non-dwarven priests could have trouble getting into raiding guilds because they couldn't cast Fear Ward.
Not that the OPs idea is a bad one but the balancing of it is most important or you can be almost forced into playing a race that you don't really want to play.
Well that's your opinion. People find fun through various means, or else there wouldn't be more than one genre or more than one game in a genre. My fun comes more from individuality and immersion. I find it hard to be immersed into a world where everyone is the same. I value creativity and imagination. Everyone being the same is neither.
Personally, I could care less about balance. In reality, imbalances exist and it adds character. Besides, balance is also subjective. Ask a non-plate wearer what he thinks about Rogues in PvP. I guarantee you that balance isn't the word they'd use.
I find WoW to be a fun game regardless, but I think imaginative classes would be more fun and I look forward to future games that use a bit more creativity with class design.
Your example of rogue vs non plate class is comparing to two different classes, not different races of the same class. It isn't the same situation. The balance is set up to be rock-paper-scissors.
Now ask yourself what would happen if a human priest got +10% healing and an night elf priest got +10% armor penetration. Suddenly you would have a game filled with mostly human priests. Then you are heading into a situation that you don't like where everyone is the same, becasue it is numerically superior to be a human. I think you serverly underestimate the importance of balance in a game, espcially if the game has any competative features.
There is enough difference between 10 classes each with 3 different talent trees to fill a truck. It might be nice to have lots of differences between each class based on race, but that adds so much more effort on the part of the game designers and players alike. It isn't some fairy tale change that will automatically make things better or the result of designers without imagination.
As for your original example about warriors of the world having different styles. Great point, except they were not typically all found milling about the same cities everyday. Once that happened in the real world you can see the streamlining of all those "styles" into one basic formula that every modern army follows currently.
I could be wrong, but I think blizzard removed the priest only racials and gave them to every priest as baseline skills (maybe removed some?), because that was exactly what was happening. Guilds were seeking priests of specific races, because they offered something no other priest could do.
Fear ward is a great example of how 1 single skill made that racial choice much more attractive than any other class. At least as far as game mechanics go.
That goes to show how different we are I guess. I have a level 50 Thane as well and I played him before they got their balance pass and I've never had any complaints about the Thane. Not sure why people are so hung up on balance, instead of focusing on playstyles they like. I liked the Thane because he could cast ranged spells and melee, while wearing heavier armor. I loved the concept of the class and the playstyle. I could give two shits about the balance, because in the end, every class dies quickly in DAoC (zerg, mezz, zerg), so it didn't matter.
I don't know why you people want to argue so damned much. I just introduced a question and you people argue about it like I stole your lunch. Why can't people just accept a good idea for what it is, instead of slamming it down with flames? You people so F'ing concerned about class balance is what ruins these games. It turns classes into stale copies of each other, because people whine their asses off on the forums. PvP is the worst thing to happen to MMORPG's due to balance issues. I love PvP, but people suck the fun out of it by worrying about optimizing so much. It's like people can't enjoy the sport of it for the sake of fun, they have to optimize every last detail to win, when in the end you will still lose a lot. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun. I'll just go back to picking classes based off of their lore and playstyles, while you people get technical about it. Worrying about technicalities sucks the fun out of things and I bet you're no fun to be around in real life either. It'd be like hanging around with a bunch of Mr. Spocks. No sense of adventure, creativity, or imagination. Just, point me to the most OPed class and show me the most prefferred spec and I'll be on my way.
"numerical superiority." That sort of approach to a game is what forces more mature and laid back people to solo. Whether you realize it or not, which I know you won't, worrying about details like that suck the fun out of a game.
As for fighting styles and military, I am a martial artist and a former Marine Infantryman, and I can tell you right now that although fighting styles have migrated across the world, there is still a distinct difference between them when comparing major regions of the world.
To some extends this is catered for by lore. For instance human mages learned their magic from Sindorei (who would become blood elves) and then presumably passed it on to gnomes in the Kirin Tor. It makes sense that they use the same spells. This doesn't explain troll and dranei mages though...
Likewise human and dwarf priests have the same faith (as do their paladins) so would have the same divine abilities. you can theorise that the 'Light' of their religion is the Naaru, which explains why Dranei and Blood Elves have the same abilities in these classes. Likewise Forsaken priests are just using a dark aspect of the same thing.
Warlocks presumably use the same abilities that Gul'dan passed down - shady buggers the lot of them, but perhaps the most understandable to cross the faction divide.
Shamans would naturally use the same abilities, since the elementals of Azeroth grant them, regardless of race.
Tauran and Nightelf druids both follow the teachings of Cenarius, no reason the abilities to be different.
The rogue network seems based in that Ravenholdt place, if we assume the trainers all spent time there learning, the teachings won't differ much.
And so on... but of course some races have no aptitude for certain disciplnes... the Night Elves won't learn demonic magic, taurans are too clompy to learn stealthy rogue stuff and too grounded in nature to use magic from other sources.
Of course... in some ways, yes it is lazy, but you've seen the Blizz forums (probably.) Class imbalance causes immense amounts of distress. I don't blame the designers for giving in on the priest racials etc.
To me, the big problems are troll priests and mages having the same flavour as the other classes, and dranei mages existing at all.
I wasnt aware of that but I guess thats been largely true since WOTLK
www.wowwiki.com/Priest_abilities#Racial_Spells
In Wrath of the Lich King, most of these racial spells were removed from the game while a few got revamped.
Desperate Prayer replaced Holy Nova as a Holy talent (the latter spell becoming a basic Priest spell), while Symbol of Hope and Devouring Plague were retooled and made basic Priest spells. All other racial spells were removed from the game.
EQ2 fan sites
Thanks for focusing on the topic. Just when I about gave up all hope for mmorpg.com forum goers, you surprise me by staying on topic. Everyone else just responded by changing the topic to balance issues, which I obviously know about if I've played any MMO for any length of time. This thread was made specifically for your type of contributions.
As for your actual response, I agree with most of what you said. Some things are bound to be shared and it makes sense to do so. However, I do think Elven fighters should be different than Human fighters, than Orc fighters, Tauren fighters and so on. Hell, if you look at the guards for each faction, you can see that Blizzard realizes each culture approaches melee combat differently. Blood Elves and their double-bladed staves, night elves and their glaives, and etc. To me, magic is magic. Some is darker than others, and its power drawn from different sources. An arcane mage, which uses arcane and elemental magic probably draws their power from the same source, so it'd be the same regardless of race. Shamanistic magic would have a different source than arcane magic, which it does in-game. What makes no sense is how some races share the same source, but have had no legitimate contact with each other. Trolls came in contact with High Elves, but they weren't tought the magic. I could believe Trolls using shamanistic magic, but arcane?
Anyhow, I'm not suggesting change to the game or anything like that. This is all a "what if" thing. I've played all of the MMO's out there and some companies do better than others with class creativity, such as SOE and Mythic. I know Blizzard to the easy path concerning balancing and I know how important balance is to a lot of people, but being the person I am, I'd of been happier with more class creativity and believability.
Thanks for focusing on the topic. Just when I about gave up all hope for mmorpg.com forum goers, you surprise me by staying on topic. Everyone else just responded by changing the topic to balance issues, which I obviously know about if I've played any MMO for any length of time. This thread was made specifically for your type of contributions.
As for your actual response, I agree with most of what you said. Some things are bound to be shared and it makes sense to do so. However, I do think Elven fighters should be different than Human fighters, than Orc fighters, Tauren fighters and so on. Hell, if you look at the guards for each faction, you can see that Blizzard realizes each culture approaches melee combat differently. Blood Elves and their double-bladed staves, night elves and their glaives, and etc. To me, magic is magic. Some is darker than others, and its power drawn from different sources. An arcane mage, which uses arcane and elemental magic probably draws their power from the same source, so it'd be the same regardless of race. Shamanistic magic would have a different source than arcane magic, which it does in-game. What makes no sense is how some races share the same source, but have had no legitimate contact with each other. Trolls came in contact with High Elves, but they weren't tought the magic. I could believe Trolls using shamanistic magic, but arcane?
Anyhow, I'm not suggesting change to the game or anything like that. This is all a "what if" thing. I've played all of the MMO's out there and some companies do better than others with class creativity, such as SOE and Mythic. I know Blizzard to the easy path concerning balancing and I know how important balance is to a lot of people, but being the person I am, I'd of been happier with more class creativity and believability.
without meaning to disrespect the community here, I have to agree. It's often pointless posting a calm, reasoned response because if you're not spoiling for a fight over which game sucks or is vapourware, you get drowned out
I agree warriors was a missed trick, because as you say the two elven races specifically have very iconic styles. I suppose the answer is that you're simply not one of those (lorewise male elves shouldn't be the glaive-wielding Sentinels anyway.) you're more of the grunt type.
I've been dabbling in Warhammer actually, just because I like to try everything, and it's actually the polar opposite to WoW - each class is actually totally true to the source material and differs totally from the other races (even if everything can be reduced to the same basic effect in the end.) It's good, but funnily enough makes the opposite problem - you get reduced to the iconic weapon and look of that class. Imagine if you COULD play a Night elf Sentinel, but could ONLY use the warglaive. Basically, WoW has diversity within a class, WAR has diversity between classes.
If they could only meet halfway...
That's interesting, because one of the reasons I left WAR is because they didn't design the classes right. My class of choice was the Swordmaster, and if you read up on the swordmaster, you'd see that they weren't tanks and didn't use sword and shields. They are more akin to Jedi in reality, but were portrayed a bit different in WAR, which spoiled things for me.
I personally want to know your view on sex classes? Let's say...WAR if you played that or anything with the knew Slayer class the dwarves have it but only MALE Dwarves have it but not female. Also some games have completely different stats for male and female characters. I'm just curious if that is your cup of tea of how detail of "realism" and "detail" caters to people of your taste and concern.
I personally am in the middle as far a lore and balance come into mind. I personally think it would be a pain in the ass on the dev's end to throw in detail of every single race having a different skill set of classes. I mean, creative wise, awesome but also makes me wonder how many people would actually pay attention to it. I'm not saying no one will. I sure as hell would and find that great but I don't think a " majority" would give a moot. Like you said OP balance can ruin games on PvP end of things.
I'm going to continue on WAR here since I've been playing it recently. I like how Witch Hunters and Witch Elves (Notice the WE are only female and not male, interesting) are the same in a sense of a "rogue" class. WH arern't rogues but they can stealth, gain up to 5 "Accusations" (combo points) and then use their "Executions" (Finishers) and have bleed effect dots and fast DPS and disarm abilities. Yet they use a pistol and a sword, duel wielding in a way that they both have melee and ranged.
The WE are more rogue just by looking at them. Same combat system of points to save before using skills that deplete them but hey use two daggers for wielding have somewhat same abilities (some exactly the same mechanics like bleed effects or poisoning (where at the WH burn their enemies). I find it fun they're the same class (a lot of the classes are the same but different in apperance and race mecahnics) but bring something to the table for their own faction.
Now here's a point I'm making about balance that I notice not just in PvP but also PvE. WH used to be spilt in two stats, Str and Balistics (range) Half their skills are str based (sword and point makers) and the finishers were ranged (pistol used the points) This made getting armor tough to decide if I wanted to keep boosting Balistics for my finishers or boost by Str to keep dealing dmg over long battles with some mobs or multiple mobs I had to fight. Now they made all skills Str base so it would be easier to spec into something knowing that my dmg isn't always split in two and worry about dying all the time just because I couldn't last in battle long enough.
Now did making my class all str based make it easier? Yeah sure. Realistic? No, cause I'm using a pistol as my finishers (and there's only pistol finishers as far as I can tell) but do I gripe, no because I still think the class is interesting and somewhat different with their lore.
So like I said I'm caught in the middle. I can tell when balance is needed but I also appreciate the lore and considerations of different races play their particular class (hell from the Destro and Alliance each class has different names so it's neat).
I know this is a WoW thread but this thread felt like the whole "what if" thing could easily be applied to other games as well and I wanted to know your input about my first question.
Gender based classes is a much better word, lol. Anyways, I was just thinking this while playing WoW actually. A previous poster was right about only females being Sentinels and I'm okay with that. My first experience with gender based classes is DAoC, when they introduced the Valkrye, Banshee, and so on.
I believe gender based classes are fine, as long as the lore supports it. If the lore supports it, I'd also like an opposite gender counterpart. For example, in DAoC they only allowed females to be Banschees, but nothing was stopping them from making a male version and calling them Liche's.
I wouldn't take my realism all the way to stat manipulation, because in reality, there are girls who are stronger than many guys. Strength, intelligence, dexterity, and so on vary from person to person based on their genetics, upbringing, schooling, and lifestyle, so restricting a persons stats based on gender alone is sexist actually.
Balance is a tricky thing. I find FPS games to be the best format for PvP, because balance is easy. In reality, a sword would cut you down unless you had plate or chainmail on. A rapier would stab through chain and leather and so on. In a game, they assign damage values to these things, so they end up shooting themselves in the foot. In reality, a fireball would kill a person just as quickly as a sword, but the act of casting is much easier in cloth, and would take longer in heavier armor. Therefore, realism is a perfect way to balance things. If health is equal across the board, since everyone should be equally healthy, the only thing differing you from another is how you decide to kill things. Some people would sacrifice armor to be able to cast spells from range, but melee fighters can dodge those spells and close in to stab the mage through the heart, while the rogue is sneaking up behind (no stealth) the warrior to stab him between the armor plates. Balance is much easier when you're not assigning number values to everything, because then everything is as deadly as another thing. It's just a matter of personal preference to how you decide to kill things and look.
In the WE to WH comparison, I played both and they are pretty similar. What I do like is that while they are similar, they have many differences that make the particular class feel like they are what they are called. Setting an enemy on fire after you accuse them of their crimes is very much a WH thing, while what WE"s do is very much in their nature. So Mythic did good in balancing these classes by making them similar enough to where you can call them mirrors of each other, but different enough to where you can tell the difference between a WE and a WH.
I'm not bothered at all by you posting your thoughts on class realism v. balance in this thread, because WoW isn't the only game that does this, their just the one company that was the laziest when it came to class per race distinction. A company with that much money could of afforded to make race specific classes and still balance them, but they chose not to. It's hard not to point fingers at this and make comments, regardless of how successful Blizzard is and how much I like their games.
Yeah I wasn't thinking on the correct word "Gender Based Class" I was just typing and then realized my mistake. heh.
Hmn I like the concept of the whole having the same health and what not in terms of balance. Actually that's why I liked Guild Wars a lot in that regard. Yeah everyone was one race, but it didn't bothered me. I liked the different professions and sub professions. Everyone had the same health, just different armor to resist damage and scrolls or skills that increase health. And each class was different enough to make a difference in gameplay. I miss that game but, not much to do in it because I got everything I wanted from that game.
Honestly the only MMO I know to have lore and balance in check are MUDs (Multi-User-Dungeons) A text based MMO. It's not for everyone sense you have to RP (something I think is missed all around in MMOs in general) but the MUDs I have played everyone had the same health and it was skill based not level but basically you played the lore not just followed it.
WOW's classes are the best of any class based mmorpg because it is the only mmorpg where I found them all to be really fun and exciting to play. Instead of watering them down to make 50 odd classes like DAOC, EQ2 and WAR they just pack each one with lots of features. What I love about my Priest in WoW is it can switch between defense to offense and healing where in most mmorpgs I'd only be doing healing.
In WoW's case less is more.
I spent ages trying to find a class I liked in each of them other mmorpgs and failed and quit but in WoW I had fun with any one I played and just had a blast.
From a lore stand point, the most of the different race's classes are in fact different classes.
But they all share the same class name in the game as a Game Mechanic.
For Example,,,,,,,,,
Priest Class--
Why would Human and Dwarf Priest use Shadow Magic? Thats just a game mechanic for an excuse for Forsaken and Trol Priest.
Forsaken Priest (lore wise) cant use Holy Magic, so they are really Necromancers. and Troll Priest are truely Witch Doctors Break Offs.
Humans, Dwarfs, High Elfs all would be the same class because they share a commend view of the Holy Light.
--------------------------
Warrior Class---
Human Warriors would be Knights
unlike Orc Warriors and Tauren Warriors.
Mountain King for Dwarfs
--------------------------
Shaman Class ----
Troll Shaman are really (Lore Witch Doctors)
Thats the reason Blizzard gave the Shaman class Hex spell. That would be Voodoo magic which has nothing to do with Shaman in the Lore but Witch Doctors from the lore. (totems anybody?)
---------------------------
Paladin class -----
This was a bit confussing for people in Burning Cursade with the addition of Horde/ Evil Blood Elf Paladins.
But Blood Elfs Paladins are only a Game Mechanic for the Lore Class known as the "Spell Breaker".
Spell Breaker are hte masters of Magic and Melee, which allow them to steal the mgic of others and put it to their own use. (Sounds a lot like what they were doing to the Narru)
Dwarfs and Humans are the same class because they both share a commend view of the Holy Light.
Draenie on the other hand are again another class of their own. They dont share a commend view of the Holy Light as the Humans,Dwarfs, and High Elfs. Vindicators are what they are.
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all i gotta say is...mages and warlocks ftw
Maybe your idea isn't as great as you think it is and that is why you are lashing out at anyone that offers a counterpoint to your topic. What I am pointing out are truths about solid game design, not some whimsical "this is what I like in a game" comment. You can't simply throw balance out the window just so you can whip up an idea that sounds cool on paper. There are more than enough examples of flopped games that took that approach.
Wonderful that you are former military and take martial arts. I've actually designed and run a game (not an mmo) and have seen your ideas fall flat first hand. It is a novel concept in principle, but ends up being more problematic that the perceived benefits.
Because if races had real differences, then players would be pigeon-holed too much. In Vanilla WOW, Fear-ward was a big example of this with priests.