Stay Classy, Oort Diego

Skills. Let’s talk about skills. The current iteration of the skill trees is not that great. For example, there is no baseline progression and even at level 50, it doesn’t feel like the player is any more powerful. The difference is the skills, and those skills don’t equate to any form of actual player progression. Basic skills such as mobility and attributes should be given at set points, regardless of your build. I have discussed this previously in my Game Breakers posts, but I plan on going into more detail in this post.

How to argue for classes? Well, I will gladly point out the pros and cons, because there are cons to class systems, but, I feel like the pros outweigh them by a ton.

Pros:

  • Given system of advancement, and moderated skill improvements.
  • Presented system to address one another, based on the chosen class.
  • Forced variety of characters in a manner that doesn’t feel limited.
  • Room for interesting skills, and unique abilities.
  • Importance is placed on game play, as the class system will allow for interesting composites groups.

Cons:

  • Inflexibility of design. Once a class is chosen, it is final, unless there is an option for multi classing or rerolling.
  • Known game play style, which is also a pro, but in this sense is a con if the game is planning on being truly innovative.
  • Builds. Set skill choices that will allow for the most “advantageous” build, also known as Min/Maxing for those who have played tabletop games.

There are more, obviously, but, let’s just go over these here. The first point is that a given system of advancement gives the player the ability to perform tasks based on their play style, and does not force them to do things that are contrary to that. For example, crafting. If I choose to be a hunter, going out into the world and killing mobs, the feat system currently does not support me. Granted, hunting is arguably the most expedient way to gain XP, if you have the base skill points allotted to allow for it. And that’s one of the biggest issues. For you to get to the point that you can advance, you need to have advanced in the first place. So, you have to do the crafter feats to facilitate that, you have to gather to get the materials to craft, and you have to do things that aren’t within the wheelhouse of the idea that you conceptualized for your character. Now, I know that the option is that you go out to talk to other people and buy things from shops to advance your gear, since you can’t make it for yourself, or hire someone to gather for you, but that’s a problem as well. You wanted a hunter, someone to brave the wilds and survive off the land, but now you are forced to become a jack-of-all-trades, completely contrary to what you were told that the developers wanted you to be. The developers said that they wanted specialized characters that rely on the community, from my understanding, but that, in and of itself doesn’t seem entirely possible because of the feat system and how you get coin. To pay people, you need money. To get money, you need to do feats, or to sell things. Since higher characters all have pretty much the same build, this stifles the sale of the items of or little hunter pal, as they saturate the market with everything that you could acquire. They also have put their points in luck to get more drops, further devaluing what you could sell, and, to make matters worse, you still have to drive traffic to your stand to even make a profit, because if they can’t find your plinth, they can’t buy from your plinth. If this seems like you’re constantly in a catch-22, and chasing after your tail, it’s because you are. You have to make your build to do things that you don’t want to do to do the things you do want to do. I know a similar situation that is related to this in life, and that’s called work. I go to work so that I can get money so that I can do the things that I really want to do. This is a game, and objectively, this is what I want to do, but now I’m going to have to do more things that appear awfully similar to work just to play how I want to. I’m fine with grinding, in fact, I play games because I like doing some repetitive tasks, but this is beyond that. Having a “Hunter/Soldier/Shopkeeper/whatever” class would completely take away this feeling, because I would have rules associated with my character that wouldn’t just direct me where to go, but would create an environment in the game that would promote me to behave and do the things that are associated with the class. It holds both of us accountable. The game, and myself, as well as giving me a feeling of accomplishment of leveling in a unique way, promoting replayability and the use of alts.

Now, I can go into all the other points on that list, in detail, but the idea is that my opinion on this matter isn’t the only one to be heard. If there is something that you find to be inaccurate or unfounded, please let me know.

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All really good points. You didn’t go much over those who would rather choose to have diversity among all skills over being masters in all aspects. Some people would rather have a character that can do everything (albeit not well) over having the necessary skills they use maxed.

Also, I fully agree that the feat system/money printing system is broken.

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