That is what happened when

[TrueWarlord真の武]

DEVs keep insisting in failed game design ideas.

New World lacks classes, which kills immersion.

When your weapons decide what skills you have, you become nothing but an ambulant weapon, going here and there. It's not YOUR skills; it's the WEAPON skills.

Classes are more than just a way to put skills in your action bar; they are the WORLD lore merged with SYSTEM design.

Games like Genshin Impact manage to make it work by tying cool weapons with specific characters that are part of the WORLD lore. This way, immersion is still present in a different fashion.

FFXIV also manages to make weapons and classes work by making the weapon define your class, not your skills. After that, there is a WORLD lore tied with the class, and an entire part of the game is to build your class story. Again, IMMERSION.

WoW is still the king of MMOs. While the New World Steam forum debates whether this B2P FREE game has 17k or 20k players, WoW has around 5 MILLION subscription players. How can AGS look at these numbers and not feel ASHAMED? WoW has such great lore, and you simply can't imagine WoW without classes.

What is a Druid? A healer who manages to carry a healing staff? WRONG. A Druid is much more than a WEAPON and some skills. LORE. IMMERSION. The same can be said of a Paladin, Warlock, and so on...

[fauxpas]

Nah, the issue isn't the lack of classes, in fact classless systems are more immersive by nature.


However, tying skills to individual weapons is a horrible idea that combines the worse aspects of the class system with the worse aspects of a classless system.


Adding classes to New World wouldn't have helped on the lore front either, because WoW was based on an existing setting that had lore to build upon whereas New World is a fresh setting without preexisting lore. Now the lore that exists is a crazy LSD trip including time travel, teleportation, broken causality, imprisoned primordial evil, and ancient alien "gods" using clark-tech. ... Sadly the game does a really poor job at portraying its own lore to the point where I've had guildmates who played since launch who didn't realize any of it.

[TrueWarlord真の武]

Originally posted by fauxpas:

Nah, the issue isn't the lack of classes, in fact classless systems are more immersive by nature.


However, tying skills to individual weapons is a horrible idea that combines the worse aspects of the class system with the worse aspects of a classless system.


Adding classes to New World wouldn't have helped on the lore front either, because WoW was based on an existing setting that had lore to build upon whereas New World is a fresh setting without preexisting lore. Now the lore that exists is a crazy LSD trip including time travel, teleportation, broken causality, imprisoned primordial evil, and ancient alien "gods" using clark-tech. ... Sadly the game does a really poor job at portraying its own lore to the point where I've had guildmates who played since launch who didn't realize any of it.

I must admit, I find it challenging to accept the claim that classless games are more immersive by nature, with all honesty. Your reasoning is compelling, but it appears disconnected from reality.

When we look at the MMORPGs with extensive lore and a focus on immersion, they are invariably class-based games, such as WoW and FFXIV. What classless games have good lore and immersion? New World? Mortal Online? Albion? It's hard to make the case that they measure up.

Sure, you can claim to love Ultima Online, but was it because of the lore? Let's be real: if Ultima Online were any good, it would have a thriving community today. But it wasn't good, and it's dead.

The harsh reality is that classless MMORPGs tend to fade away. They lack the staying power of their class-based counterparts.

[fauxpas]

The mmo genre is one of the worse in terms of mindless copy cats, and the reason nearly all mmos use the 'holy trinity' and classes is because its easier to design encounters and loot grinds around, putting shackles on player choice is sadly cheered by the masses.


Lore is a completely separate issue, and there is no difference between a character who is a druid because they picked a class versus one who is a druid because they leveled up survival skills and nature magic, in fact the second offers far more freedom, does your druid fight with stave and club, tooth and claw, earth and water, or plant and animal? Maybe a combination of all of above or some other style that I haven't thought of.

Also never forget, it was Everquest that created the formula that WoW copied.

[EQOAnostalgia]

I like the Monster Hunter approach they chose. Just needs more variety, more ways to make your own "class" so to speak. I wouldn't toss the model they have. No way.

I'm sure once i put a lot of hours into the game, all the issues end game players have will rear their ugly heads. But i don't think it's the weapon system.

[fauxpas]

Originally posted by Maranatha:

I like the Monster Hunter approach they chose. Just needs more variety, more ways to make your own "class" so to speak. I wouldn't toss the model they have. No way.

I'm sure once i put a lot of hours into the game, all the issues end game players have will rear their ugly heads. But i don't think it's the weapon system.

I'm glad you're having fun but part of the reason I disagree is that every character can fill any role with the minor cost of a respec and the weapon system limits useful builds ... don't bother using a sword unless you want to use a shield, and shields are only useful with a sword for example.


Now maybe that's more a matter of taste than a design flaw, but the system never did sit well with me.

[Dogtatokun]

Originally posted by fauxpas:

Originally posted by Maranatha:

I like the Monster Hunter approach they chose. Just needs more variety, more ways to make your own "class" so to speak. I wouldn't toss the model they have. No way.

I'm sure once i put a lot of hours into the game, all the issues end game players have will rear their ugly heads. But i don't think it's the weapon system.

I'm glad you're having fun but part of the reason I disagree is that every character can fill any role with the minor cost of a respec and the weapon system limits useful builds ... don't bother using a sword unless you want to use a shield, and shields are only useful with a sword for example.


Now maybe that's more a matter of taste than a design flaw, but the system never did sit well with me.

It is a design flaw for a game with limited content. As I said a long time ago, alts create the false belief that there is more content and gives more incentive to replay content. Most content in NW is one and done because all characters can do everything.

[TrueWarlord真の武]

Originally posted by fauxpas:

The mmo genre is one of the worse in terms of mindless copy cats, and the reason nearly all mmos use the 'holy trinity' and classes is because its easier to design encounters and loot grinds around, putting shackles on player choice is sadly cheered by the masses.

I like your views, but I have a different perspective on this issue. I believe that using the 'holy trinity' and classes in MMOs is not necessarily bad, but rather a matter of practicality. In my opinion, there is no need to reinvent the wheel when something is already working effectively. These design choices have been proven to work well, that is why the biggest and the second biggest MMORPGs in the world both use that system. WoW and FFXIV playerbase is so much bigger than the "rest" it is not even close...

Originally posted by fauxpas:

Lore is a completely separate issue, and there is no difference between a character who is a druid because they picked a class versus one who is a druid because they leveled up survival skills and nature magic, in fact the second offers far more freedom, does your druid fight with stave and club, tooth and claw, earth and water, or plant and animal? Maybe a combination of all of above or some other style that I haven't thought of.

As an old TTRPG player, I believe that there is a significant difference between a character who is a druid because they picked a class and one who has simply learned some nature skills. Classes provide background information and help to immerse the character into the world's lore. For instance, knowing what is expected of a druid in a particular universe and how NPCs will interact with the character are essential to immersion, lore and to build a well-rounded character. On the other hand, someone who has simply gathered some herbs and learned some nature skills may not necessarily be considered a druid. While a skill system may offer more freedom, it is not as immersive as the class system. Again, not even close.

[fauxpas]

Fair point about the holy trinity, it just chaffs me personally because I have a hard time creating the characters I want to play, about the closest I've gotten is the power sets offered in Champions Online and even then I had to mess with the loot box driven FX attachments to "force" powers to be something they weren't mechanically. (At least it allowed enough freedom where an individual character could cover two corners of the triangle fairly well if built properly.)



I'll still disagree about skills vs classes lorewise, in a table top game its a matter of roleplaying and character backstory, which I personally think could be emulated pretty easily in a mmo by allowing players that learnt the necessary skills to join a druid guild and you get the attached lore that way ... but it also offers players the option of not joining the guild. ... Champions vs DnD basically.

[TrueWarlord真の武]

Originally posted by fauxpas:

Fair point about the holy trinity, it just chaffs me personally because I have a hard time creating the characters I want to play, about the closest I've gotten is the power sets offered in Champions Online and even then I had to mess with the loot box driven FX attachments to "force" powers to be something they weren't mechanically. (At least it allowed enough freedom where an individual character could cover two corners of the triangle fairly well if built properly.)

That is fair, this subject for sure has a strong subjective tone, so it is probably a matter of tastes here.

Originally posted by fauxpas:

I'll still disagree about skills vs classes lorewise, in a table top game its a matter of roleplaying and character backstory, which I personally think could be emulated pretty easily in a mmo by allowing players that learnt the necessary skills to join a druid guild and you get the attached lore that way ... but it also offers players the option of not joining the guild. ... Champions vs DnD basically.

I will try to explain my views on this with a different approach.

The old Roman Empire soldiers are a perfect example for my case. These soldiers were trained in a specific way of fighting that was unique to the Roman Empire. They were not simply taught a universal "sword and shield" skill set, but rather a specific set of techniques and tactics that were developed by the Roman Empire.
So in regards this training we would have a "Roman Empire Soldier" class with a unique way of fighting that set them apart from other soldiers of the time.

In contrast, a skill system lacks this background and immersion. One cannot put a background or lore into a skill, as it is simply a set of abilities that can be learned by any character.

[Crunktanium]

Originally posted by TrueWarlord真の武:

When we look at the MMORPGs with extensive lore and a focus on immersion, they are invariably class-based games, such as WoW and FFXIV. What classless games have good lore and immersion? New World? Mortal Online? Albion? It's hard to make the case that they measure up.

FFXIV only uses classes to extend the leveling time and prevent the need for added data storage by having 10 different characters. However to compare the class system in FFXIV and WOW is like comparing a banana with a lemon. WOW was a success because there was nothing like it at the time and it had amazing scripted encounters like Van Cleef that were later turned to dung. The cut scene system in FFXIV doesn't even compare to those well crafted encounters of yesteryear but it's something. After WOW began it's downturn they inflated the player base with the release in Asia. If WOW was so much better you would be playing it instead of coming here and trying to explain why NW needs to copy other games that also face big player declines shortly after major content updates or expansions have been played through.

[TrueWarlord真の武]

Originally posted by Crunktanium:

Originally posted by TrueWarlord真の武:

When we look at the MMORPGs with extensive lore and a focus on immersion, they are invariably class-based games, such as WoW and FFXIV. What classless games have good lore and immersion? New World? Mortal Online? Albion? It's hard to make the case that they measure up.

FFXIV only uses classes to extend the leveling time and prevent the need for added data storage by having 10 different characters. However to compare the class system in FFXIV and WOW is like comparing a banana with a lemon. WOW was a success because there was nothing like it at the time and it had amazing scripted encounters like Van Cleef that were later turned to dung. The cut scene system in FFXIV doesn't even compare to those well crafted encounters of yesteryear but it's something. Then after it began it's downturn they inflated the player base with the release in Asia. If WOW was so much better you would be playing it instead of coming here and trying to explain why NW needs to copy other games that also face big player declines shortly after major content updates or expansions have been played through.

The level of debate was going so well, it's a shame it had to devolve. WoW has been and remains the most successful MMORPG, likely to remain the king of its genre for quite some time. The only real threat to its dominance would be a WoW sequel. As for why I'm discussing this subject here, that's really none of your concern. I own the game and am not violating any forum rules, and that's all there is to it.

[fauxpas]

That's a very fair point, and I'm probably getting into the too complicated to be worthwhile but in the classless system I'm envisioning the base sword / shield skills would be something everyone could learn, but joining the "Roman Soldier Guld" would offer both cosmetic FX animations as well as potentially mechanical techniques, the lore is attached to the guild not the skills, which you qualify to join based on whether you've learnt the necessary skills, but you have the freedom to crosstrain if you wanted too, at the opportunity cost associated with not specializing your training.


For example, one of the archetypes that I tend to enjoy playing but have trouble emulating in the class based systems Ive tried (and just a forewarning, my practical MMO experience is limited) is what I call a Witch/Monk ... a melee warrior (off Tank / off DPS in the holy trinity) using magic instead of weapons.

[Teo]

Originally posted by Dogtatokun:

Originally posted by fauxpas:

I'm glad you're having fun but part of the reason I disagree is that every character can fill any role with the minor cost of a respec and the weapon system limits useful builds ... don't bother using a sword unless you want to use a shield, and shields are only useful with a sword for example.


Now maybe that's more a matter of taste than a design flaw, but the system never did sit well with me.

It is a design flaw for a game with limited content. As I said a long time ago, alts create the false belief that there is more content and gives more incentive to replay content. Most content in NW is one and done because all characters can do everything.

The only solution is to release content regular, every 3 months. Fresh content. Because this game lacks contents to keep you engaged after you maxed out everything. Lets see

[TrueWarlord真の武]

Originally posted by fauxpas:

That's a very fair point, and I'm probably getting into the too complicated to be worthwhile but in the classless system I'm envisioning the base sword / shield skills would be something everyone could learn, but joining the "Roman Soldier Guld" would offer both cosmetic FX animations as well as potentially mechanical techniques, the lore is attached to the guild not the skills, which you qualify to join based on whether you've learnt the necessary skills, but you have the freedom to crosstrain if you wanted too, at the opportunity cost associated with not specializing your training.

I see. I actually like your idea, and you have convinced me that it is possible to make a skill system worthwhile with this concept that you're envisioning. I would definitely play a game like this.

Instead of having "classes," you have something like "specializations" that you can obtain if you have the required basic skills. This means that instead of starting the game with a class, you can create the "background" of your character yourself. A class system assumes that you have already made this choice in the past, but the system you're envisioning assumes that you have not yet made this choice, and you still need to "get your class" by selecting these specializations, or at least that is what I understood.

It sounds like a very interesting system indeed.

[THE END]

Elder Scrolls Online have all of the above, Class- Weapon Specialization- NPC Guild abilities-Armor stats-Crafting Stats-PVP stats- Champion points and many attached to lore.

If only combat animation, gfx, sound was like New World :)