Class design

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Re: Class design

Post by Irongron » Sun Jul 03, 2022 10:18 pm

The number one issue I currently have with class design, is that many of them get some of their most interesting and powerful abilities at level 30 (20 Blackguard as mentioned above, is one), and level 30 is essentially the 'game over' moment. Sure, you might now have the greatest tools for PVE, but outside of gearing (which you likely have already done), or trading (again, you likely have enough gold), there isn't much to do with this, aside from PvP.

It's kind of like putting a free state of the art submarine at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

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Re: Class design

Post by Xerah » Sun Jul 03, 2022 10:52 pm

satan wrote:
Sun Jul 03, 2022 9:59 pm
And what of balance? Surely you are aware that it takes time to get right.
Jim working on balancing thing A doesn't really have a huge effect on Sue balancing thing B.
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Re: Class design

Post by Amnesy » Sun Jul 03, 2022 11:22 pm

Irongron wrote:
Sun Jul 03, 2022 10:18 pm
The number one issue I currently have with class design, is that many of them get some of their most interesting and powerful abilities at level 30 (20 Blackguard as mentioned above, is one), and level 30 is essentially the 'game over' moment. Sure, you might now have the greatest tools for PVE, but outside of gearing (which you likely have already done), or trading (again, you likely have enough gold), there isn't much to do with this, aside from PvP.

It's kind of like putting a free state of the art submarine at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
One of the reasons I enjoy when certain abilities are given early or mid-on, even when weaker than we would like. They already should provide tools to contribute to handling mid-level adventures, this way players after X time of leveling already familiarize themselves with the skills as they slowly grow into power.

This is a challenge to achieve as designers would like to give something every X level to make players eager and excited for the next cool thing.

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Re: Class design

Post by Scylon » Sun Jul 03, 2022 11:41 pm

Toss in my 2 cents here regarding a couple of comments I have a few bits of feed back:

For Sorc: I think they might benefit from bloodlines. Infi cast a few bloodline spells and perks, but at some costs (EG maybe forbidien spells?). Was thinking like a softer version of warlocks.

Shammy: I personally see this as one of the most powerful casters in the game. It's special is the ablity to dip almost anything and its a divine with mass haste. Trust me, this guy is strong AF.

BG: Again, recent changes makes this guy strong, and with the option coming for Undead paths, you can choose your flavor. Gonna be Lit. Though, the poisons system might need a tweak, but that is not class related per say.

FS: This one indeed is something that needs a look. It is indeed a bit bland, and comes with a inbuilt nerf (rightly so, it would be OP if you could use divine might/shield). I think it might benefit from giving it one domain, or a bloodline? Not sure. It's not "weak" per say, but it is feature bland compared to a cleric.

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Re: Class design

Post by Skibbles » Mon Jul 04, 2022 2:33 am

Irongron wrote:
Sun Jul 03, 2022 10:18 pm
The number one issue I currently have with class design, is that many of them get some of their most interesting and powerful abilities at level 30 (20 Blackguard as mentioned above, is one), and level 30 is essentially the 'game over' moment. Sure, you might now have the greatest tools for PVE, but outside of gearing (which you likely have already done), or trading (again, you likely have enough gold), there isn't much to do with this, aside from PvP.

It's kind of like putting a free state of the art submarine at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
One thing I've noticed at least in some of Kalopsia's new classes is that some of the powers have a lesser version earned earlier into the class, then a greater version of that same ability closer to the 'capstone' spot at max level or so.

Maybe this is something that might help? Blackguard, for example here, could have a lesser aura of despair at 10 or 15 that does half its effect - then the full effect when they hit 20. I've given this no balance thought, but maybe just the idea of lesser/greater powers could be something to play with.
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Re: Class design

Post by Drowboy » Mon Jul 04, 2022 2:53 am

Honestly, balance or whatever aside, druid is my platonic ideal for progression. Specifically, the shapeshifting.

You get wildshape at 5, and it grows with you- extra uses at 10, better animal forms at 12. Elemental at 16, boosts to that at 20 and 28, with extra uses at 22 as a nice sweet spot- and, importantly, if you don't want to go pure druid, there's plant shape as an alternative you can opt your build into.

Grows with you, caps you out at max, maybe a weaker, optional version, for the multiclassers. (See also the warlock summons/warlock gate alternative).
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Re: Class design

Post by Preserver » Mon Jul 04, 2022 5:18 pm

I personally prefer Classes with features that enable them to have a very strong identity, yet sufficient wiggle room to justify those features in a way that facilitates unusual avenues of RP (RPing the Warlock boons as mutations, rather than dark magic, has been some of the best fun I had on Arelith).
In that sense, I prefer classes that you have to stick to if you want to retain that sense of progression, and I do enjoy paths (having experienced them on Warlock and Paladin for now) because they tend to allow two lvl 30 pure Locks to be sufficiently mechanically different and to be roleplayed differently.

I would love to see the path philosophy and the explicit viability of pure lvl 30 classes to be open to potentially all classes. I am sure that the theoricrafters will manage to have fun with the new toys nevertheless: I don't think the devs ever explicitly designed to disadvantage dips and polyclass builds.

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Re: Class design

Post by AstralUniverse » Mon Jul 04, 2022 5:55 pm

Arelith is not a place without history.

And history shows that classes who have their core abilities granted early on become problematic dips or just not worth playing for their early on spikes and are built for late-game regardless. The most obvious example would be Monk. In previous metas people complained about div dips and the answer to div and monk dips was to give different classes strong scaling at 28+ levels. Before that, UMD tax was the 'currency' and people would *also* spike late-game in order to not dip more than 3 levels and +6 ac from tumble + UMD access in those days was by far stronger than any earlier powerspikes from their main class. It has literally always been like this for a reason. For better or worse.
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Re: Class design

Post by Scurvy Cur » Mon Jul 04, 2022 7:04 pm

Irongron wrote:
Sun Jul 03, 2022 10:18 pm
The number one issue I currently have with class design, is that many of them get some of their most interesting and powerful abilities at level 30 (20 Blackguard as mentioned above, is one), and level 30 is essentially the 'game over' moment. Sure, you might now have the greatest tools for PVE, but outside of gearing (which you likely have already done), or trading (again, you likely have enough gold), there isn't much to do with this, aside from PvP.
I actually wanted to touch on this point, because I think there's a bit of misunderstanding here. Actually several misunderstandings.

From my experience, level 30 is not the endgame. In fact, I'm very seldom "done" with my gear until a month or two after level 30, and for ambitious gear sets, I will sometimes be working for 4-6 months or more (my loremaster took ~8 to finish gearing out because of a couple of very difficult slots, the filling of which permitted me to skip epic skill focus: lore).

The first reason for this is that there's a lot of scope for improvement in gear now. 5% rolls, esoteric things that can be done with chest/crafted loot and runes, etc. You're very seldom "done" with a set until every slot you've got has a 5% basined item in it, or a masterwork rune applied, because there's almost always something worth adding to your gear.

The second reason is that money is actually very diffficult to earn outside of trading (or sailing, I suppose) right now. My current character hit level 30 with mithril armor, a smattering of dungeon dropped dual stat items, and about 25k in the bank to finish gearing himself. He didn't really get wealthy until he used his full level 30 kit to acquire some valuable materials worth selling. This experience is not isolated.

So, finishing a character out, even for a purely pve experience will often require running a lot of content after 30. This is why I also pushed back a little bit on your recent remarks in another thread, stating that:
I wouldn't want to add more extra special unique rewards the hardest dungeons, as I feel it would further incentivise levelling. Writs are designed to balance reward discrepancies by offer more rewards in gold and XP for harder dungeons, and less otherwise.

A thorough report of which epic dungeons could do with a bump in reward, and those that are currently too high would be a help here, and I could fix that up in a moment.

Anything I can do will be limited though, as there will always be players who don't really have any interest in the content iteslf, only in taking whatver route will get them to level 30 most painlessly.

Others, of course, enjoy the challenge and RP associated with going new places. We can cater to both.
For most characters (excluding those expressly made as "rollbait" to fish for a desired award), I imagine the time spent at 30 outweighs the time spent getting to 30 by a factor of 3 or more. For quite a lot of people, it may be greater by an order of magnitude.


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Re: Class design

Post by stoneheart- » Mon Jul 04, 2022 7:22 pm

Irongron wrote:
Sun Jul 03, 2022 10:18 pm
The number one issue I currently have with class design, is that many of them get some of their most interesting and powerful abilities at level 30 (20 Blackguard as mentioned above, is one), and level 30 is essentially the 'game over' moment. Sure, you might now have the greatest tools for PVE, but outside of gearing (which you likely have already done), or trading (again, you likely have enough gold), there isn't much to do with this, aside from PvP.

It's kind of like putting a free state of the art submarine at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
This is really, really untrue. Between how hard, and how expensive enchanting is, how hard needed runes are to get (and again, how expensive they are to buy), and the neverending material costs creep in crafting, it's getting harder and harder to finish gearing at all, let alone by level 30. Most frequently I hit level 30 with mithril armor, an essenced msteel weapon, and BASIC stat/stat/skill/skill items either from the basin or dungeon drops, and probably about 50k(?) in the bank. With the sheer power creep that has occurred over the last few years, this is not sufficient at all.

There are an absurd amount of crafting recipes that require 4+ bricks of adamantine. Dragonbone plate requires 8. A lot of them, too, require mithril dust, a purely RNG component. To buy all this stuff is absurdly expensive, meanwhile gold from writs and drops have been continually nerfed. The gold you earn by level 30 from your writs and drops is a mere pittance compared to what is required.

This is not even counting the amount of consumables in scrolls, potions, etc that you will need.

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Re: Class design

Post by Drowboy » Mon Jul 04, 2022 7:33 pm

Not to pile on but I really have to agree here. I would argue at this point that Arelith has the leveling system that a lot of MMOs have. 1-30 is kind of a tutorial and starter resource gathering situation, existing mostly because it's always existed and is how the genre 'works,' at which point you hit epics or 30 or your personal favorite capstone and the 'actual' game opens up. Gearing, The Cool Dungeons, high tier pvp.

Were kitting out a character easier, money more plentiful, crafting recipes weren't still, often, nested nightmares on an often-laggy interface... You'd still need much slower leveling to make that 1-30 thing not feel true.

Anecdotal, surely, but: I've played my current 30 for about two years, as of like, next week. I leveled him to 30, twice, from 3, because I needed to change his build before relevel. Those levels took basically no time at all. Maybe a month total, and only because I stopped actually grinding at 25 or 27 or something out of boredom. The other 23 months were spent at 30.

Rolling doesn't do it either: in the last two years I've gotten, shoot, must be somewhere over half a dozen other characters to epic, just sort of casually doing writs. It's not that hard.
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Re: Class design

Post by Xerah » Mon Jul 04, 2022 7:36 pm

Given the XP speed/progression, it is very unlikely to be finished gearing by 30. My last character, a warlock, was finished by 30, but I only needed armour and a staff (everything else was self-enchanted), but this is definitely the exception (melee will absolutely not be anywhere near).

I do think that some people have different opinions of what "finished gearing" is. I only plan for a 1-3 greater runes max because my characters don't end up staying around long enough and I don't end up end game dungeons enough. I could never imagine planning for everything to have a masterwork rune; a lot of us don't have that kind of time.
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Re: Class design

Post by Arienette » Mon Jul 04, 2022 7:38 pm

Scurvy Cur wrote:
Mon Jul 04, 2022 7:04 pm
Irongron wrote:
Sun Jul 03, 2022 10:18 pm
The number one issue I currently have with class design, is that many of them get some of their most interesting and powerful abilities at level 30 (20 Blackguard as mentioned above, is one), and level 30 is essentially the 'game over' moment. Sure, you might now have the greatest tools for PVE, but outside of gearing (which you likely have already done), or trading (again, you likely have enough gold), there isn't much to do with this, aside from PvP.
I actually wanted to touch on this point, because I think there's a bit of misunderstanding here. Actually several misunderstandings.

From my experience, level 30 is not the endgame. In fact, I'm very seldom "done" with my gear until a month or two after level 30, and for ambitious gear sets, I will sometimes be working for 4-6 months or more (my loremaster took ~8 to finish gearing out because of a couple of very difficult slots, the filling of which permitted me to skip epic skill focus: lore).

The first reason for this is that there's a lot of scope for improvement in gear now. 5% rolls, esoteric things that can be done with chest/crafted loot and runes, etc. You're very seldom "done" with a set until every slot you've got has a 5% basined item in it, or a masterwork rune applied, because there's almost always something worth adding to your gear.

The second reason is that money is actually very diffficult to earn outside of trading (or sailing, I suppose) right now. My current character hit level 30 with mithril armor, a smattering of dungeon dropped dual stat items, and about 25k in the bank to finish gearing himself. He didn't really get wealthy until he used his full level 30 kit to acquire some valuable materials worth selling. This experience is not isolated.

So, finishing a character out, even for a purely pve experience will often require running a lot of content after 30. This is why I also pushed back a little bit on your recent remarks in another thread, stating that:
I wouldn't want to add more extra special unique rewards the hardest dungeons, as I feel it would further incentivise levelling. Writs are designed to balance reward discrepancies by offer more rewards in gold and XP for harder dungeons, and less otherwise.

A thorough report of which epic dungeons could do with a bump in reward, and those that are currently too high would be a help here, and I could fix that up in a moment.

Anything I can do will be limited though, as there will always be players who don't really have any interest in the content iteslf, only in taking whatver route will get them to level 30 most painlessly.

Others, of course, enjoy the challenge and RP associated with going new places. We can cater to both.
For most characters (excluding those expressly made as "rollbait" to fish for a desired award), I imagine the time spent at 30 outweighs the time spent getting to 30 by a factor of 3 or more. For quite a lot of people, it may be greater by an order of magnitude.
Absolutely agree with this, and very strongly.

For me, and many others I know, the game STARTS at 30. And this is not an “RP starts at 30” comment. I of course enjoy my role play through all levels. As opposed to Scurvy, I don’t make a point to hard 5 and masterwork all my gear. If it happens it happens.

But even so, typically I will get to 30, then spend a week or three hearing, and then really dig into the story and the way I want my character to impact the world.

This isn’t because I believe you must be 30 to do any serious RP. It is because if I am sub-30, I log in and quickly check if there is anything “going on” in my usual places. If there isn’t much going on? Within about 10 mins I’m off to do writs or grind or whatever.

Once I am 30 and geared, I log in and check for things going on. And then I check again. And if there’s not much going on, I find a way to make things happen for mine and other characters. If I’m 30 and geared, what else am I going to do but RP with others?

This is why IMO the game really kicks off at 30.

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Re: Class design

Post by AstralUniverse » Mon Jul 04, 2022 8:06 pm

Yeah, I dont think I've ever reached level 30 with anything even remotely close to an end-game gear ever since the introduction of Writs.
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Re: Class design

Post by Scurvy Cur » Mon Jul 04, 2022 8:28 pm

I suppose it's worth adding:

I think that a lot of people have "acceptable" gear when they have every crafted item they need, maybe a mid tier rune or two, and some basined stuff (i.e. about the level that Arienette mentions). The game is very playable at this point. You're still not done with all of this by the time you're 30 though. For reference, the most generic melee build at present wants no fewer than 14 adamantine ingots and reasonably good enchanted items before it hits that point, and even then, it really appreciates the ability to spend masterwork runes on a bunch of slots to improve saving throws.

But I don't think the set is "finished" until there's not a worthwhile reason to go out and make a little more money to spend on improvements. That's part of the "stuff to do" at 30: taking your gear from the 90% "enough to play the game" mark to the 100% "Can't think of any other changes that I would like to make" mark.


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Re: Class design

Post by AstralUniverse » Mon Jul 04, 2022 8:55 pm

Also in relation to gear progression,

I think the over all rune prices have yet to adapt to the reality that god-saves are mostly guaranteed now, which means it costs about 300k average to make a hard 5% item with +2 skill x5, +1 stat x2, +1 unisave and is better than most of what you can make with runes. Runes are still useful for many reasons but not nearly as high in demand as before. The prices will eventually drop (except blade runes I guess) but these changes are slow and will subsequently affect gear progression. I dont see much point in runes for early-mid gear when soft 5% items cost about 13k gp to make.
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Re: Class design

Post by Zavandar » Mon Jul 04, 2022 9:48 pm

I know that my personal benchmarks for being done/mostly done with gear are something like:

Getting +7 in relevant stats (so a +5 from a zoo buff caps).
Reaching AB/AC potential (dragonbone instead of mithril, adamantine/racial weapon instead of bronze (since I honestly just gmw a bronze weapon as I level at this point)), etc.
Putting keen on an adamantine weapon if applicable.
Reaching acceptable levels of discipline (I usually like to have at 65-75).
Getting a good secondary skill if applicable (spot, bluff, hide/ms, etc).
Getting good saves (my personal threshold is 37 in all saves vs. spells, which means enchanting uni/specific saves, spellcraft).
Doing the above while trying to tie in class-specific gear where applicable/useful.

I can't tell you the last time (if ever) I was able to afford all of the above by 30. I'm not sure I know anyone who is aside from those receiving hand-me-downs or a LOT of generosity from friends.
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Re: Class design

Post by Aren » Mon Jul 04, 2022 10:32 pm

Scurvy Cur wrote:
Mon Jul 04, 2022 8:28 pm
I suppose it's worth adding:

I think that a lot of people have "acceptable" gear when they have every crafted item they need, maybe a mid tier rune or two, and some basined stuff (i.e. about the level that Arienette mentions). The game is very playable at this point. You're still not done with all of this by the time you're 30 though. For reference, the most generic melee build at present wants no fewer than 14 adamantine ingots and reasonably good enchanted items before it hits that point, and even then, it really appreciates the ability to spend masterwork runes on a bunch of slots to improve saving throws.

But I don't think the set is "finished" until there's not a worthwhile reason to go out and make a little more money to spend on improvements. That's part of the "stuff to do" at 30: taking your gear from the 90% "enough to play the game" mark to the 100% "Can't think of any other changes that I would like to make" mark.
To add to this, most casters can level 3-30 without anything else but casting stat / con gear. They don't need to spend hundreds of thousands of gold on UMD to grind to 30. My caster characters who reach 30 usually have half a million to a million gold in the bank, depending on leadership/appraise - and that's with very low effort.

I recently took it upon myself to level another mundane to 30 - and man, spending 200k worth of wands, potions, scrolls, healkits, repair kits just to be able to do level appropriate content.. Well - casters have it easy, let's just leave it at that. So yeah, as Scurvy Cur says, mundanes are, unless they have friends in high places, far from finished by the time they hit 30.

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Re: Class design

Post by satan » Mon Jul 04, 2022 11:05 pm

Xerah wrote:
Sun Jul 03, 2022 10:52 pm
satan wrote:
Sun Jul 03, 2022 9:59 pm
And what of balance? Surely you are aware that it takes time to get right.
Jim working on balancing thing A doesn't really have a huge effect on Sue balancing thing B.
Of course it does. Ballance is everything together. If you add too many untested unknowns too fast you will not achieve it.
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Re: Class design

Post by Ebonstar » Tue Jul 05, 2022 12:46 am

im playing a shaman monk right now and followed with reading the wiki and just letting things flow and see what happens.

one thing ive noticed is that the free greenfingers listed where you interact with plants, doesnt work.

the spectral summons create great rp and the only thing i would change for them is have the spirit companion that would also have the vfx just like summons.

Dont really like the inablility to choose your spells like other divine base casters save on level up. If you are not close to leveling, you cant even rp gathering spirital energy to cast that spell you just didnt have picked as being known.

Now sorcs had this fixed by having all spells being infinicasts, which would be a nice change instead of spamming flare as your go too damage provider. And why isnt acid splash or electric jolt a possible choice?

Even if it just went to 3rd level spells being infinicast and having full access to the spell list being interchangable before any rest would open up even more opportunities imo.

Otherwise, having so much fun with the Shaman
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Re: Class design

Post by Xerah » Tue Jul 05, 2022 2:17 am

satan wrote:
Mon Jul 04, 2022 11:05 pm
Xerah wrote:
Sun Jul 03, 2022 10:52 pm
satan wrote:
Sun Jul 03, 2022 9:59 pm
And what of balance? Surely you are aware that it takes time to get right.
Jim working on balancing thing A doesn't really have a huge effect on Sue balancing thing B.
Of course it does. Ballance is everything together. If you add too many untested unknowns too fast you will not achieve it.

Right, what do I know?

But in reality, no, you’re not trying to balance new thing A to new thing B, you balance it to a baseline which has nothing to do A on B. Sure those things can have intersection but not in some massive fundamental way.
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Re: Class design

Post by Ork » Tue Jul 05, 2022 2:25 am

Players made a critique that many of the old changes happened without a trail period or a "heads up", and I think the team did their honest best work to make sure that these recent updates have been public, available to access via PGCC, and open to feedback during the development process.

Kudos to the devs for doing that. You didn't have to do that, but I love getting to play with all the toys before release.

Ultimately no trial run will prepare classes for the true test of the live server. We have a lot of creative players that love to break things backwards and no amount of time in PGCC will spare the devs from learning of game-breaking elements 6 months after live release. Overall, I like the system we have now. It allows us all to play a part in development without removing the developers' creative genius in making the class/update/whatever.

There's honestly no best time to release these things. There's always going to be someone upset about something, but I think all these new classes have shown that if your feedback is rational, accurate and well-thoughtout the developers do listen to that.

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Re: Class design

Post by Exordius » Tue Jul 05, 2022 5:10 am

Making money is super easy, it seems hard when you don't know how and i was there at one point but now i know what to do and i can make multiple 100k often in as little as 2-3 days.

Boost your search skill then hit the dungeons, does not even have to be the hard dungeons even low level ones will work. If you do this daily you should find at least one or two super rare/expensive goods every other day. Once you have the goods, dont bother trying to sell it using stores. Find someone who is super rich and runs a store and sell it to them for half-price, even at half price you will still be making gold out the Snuggybear. Its the best and fastest way to make coin outside of sailing.

Dungeons that have lots of chests are the best to hit btw.

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Re: Class design

Post by satan » Tue Jul 05, 2022 5:16 am

Xerah wrote:
Tue Jul 05, 2022 2:17 am
satan wrote:
Mon Jul 04, 2022 11:05 pm
Xerah wrote:
Sun Jul 03, 2022 10:52 pm


Jim working on balancing thing A doesn't really have a huge effect on Sue balancing thing B.
Of course it does. Ballance is everything together. If you add too many untested unknowns too fast you will not achieve it.

Right, what do I know?

But in reality, no, you’re not trying to balance new thing A to new thing B, you balance it to a baseline which has nothing to do A on B. Sure those things can have intersection but not in some massive fundamental way.
Well...more like things a through z, and every new class might be in some way broken against some or all of them, or synergize with some or all of them in unforseen ways that breaks a build or how it functions in a world that itself contains a myriad of mechanics.

And discovering these factors take time, even in a control group that is not constantly being rebuilt and added to.
Xyxz - Goblin spider druid. RIP
Flail - Orog weapon master RIP
Krom - Half orc Barbarian RIP
Glyngolyn - Firbolg Shadowdancer RIP
Jigjog - the least industrious Kobold ACTIVE
Muck - munching on carion. ACTIVE

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Rei_Jin
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Re: Class design

Post by Rei_Jin » Tue Jul 05, 2022 5:18 am

Irongron wrote:
Sun Jul 03, 2022 10:18 pm
The number one issue I currently have with class design, is that many of them get some of their most interesting and powerful abilities at level 30 (20 Blackguard as mentioned above, is one), and level 30 is essentially the 'game over' moment. Sure, you might now have the greatest tools for PVE, but outside of gearing (which you likely have already done), or trading (again, you likely have enough gold), there isn't much to do with this, aside from PvP.

It's kind of like putting a free state of the art submarine at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
For some people? Sure.

I have a few friends who love leveling characters, and usually roll their characters when they hit the 26-30 range. Gearing isn't a huge issue for them as they're not worried about PvP or having a cutting edge build, they just want to enjoy the journey of leveling and exploring and trying out mechanics and dungeons, etc.

And that is a totally legitimate preference for how to play.

As has been shared above though, for a decent number of players they see things as really opening up at level 30 and will spend months (and in some cases, years) with one character AT level 30, or even remaking said character a few times to try out different builds, and each time having to get fresh gear, re-level, etc.

I have my own difficulties with some of the thinking behind class design decisions at the moment, but I completely understand why the best cookies are usually saved for level 28+ in a pure build. There's got to be something there to offset the potential (or perceived) benefit to multi-classing to get various things into a build.

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