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Role Playing (Games)

The Whys of MMOG Archetypes 93

Posted by Zonk from the already-knew-this dept.
heartless_ writes "The decision to use an archetype class system in Vanguard : Saga of Heroes has been met with mixed feelings by the fanbase. Some like it; others dislike it, and still others just don't know what to think. Gamergod has a rundown on what's involved in an archetype system, as well as the pros and cons from both sides of the game's design." From the article: "The balancing of classes is simplified because the system introduces a distinct measurement for comparing classes within an archetype. For example, if the Cleric and the Shaman belong to the archetype whose primary role is to heal, the developers can use this to crunch the numbers and ensure both classes are equal in this ability."
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The Whys of MMOG Archetypes More

The Whys of MMOG Archetypes

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  • It won't matter (Score:1, Insightful)

    by MrDoh1 ( 906953 )
    After playing EQ and other MMORPG games for years, in the end it won't matter. Certain groups or classes will always feel slighted and make noise about it whether it is truly the case or not.
    • All classes in EQ2 currently belong to one of four archetypes - fighter, priest, scout or mage. These branch out at level 10 to classes (like, cleric, druid and shaman for priests), and again at 20 (inquisitor, templar, warden, fury, defiler and mystic as the final subclasses for the priest archetype). At every step, each is supposed to be the equal at their primary role as anyone else (healing in this case).

      In actuality... There are clear choices as to which is best. Clerics have the best direct heals and
      • I think it's worth pointing out that Shadowbane did this same thing several years before EQ2.

        Ok, ok, yes, I am just saying this because I liked SB (I stand by my belief that it would have been one of the best MMOs ever if it could have gotten past the technical/lag issues). You could start out as one of 4 types (fighter, mage, rogue, or healer ...hmm...interesting). At level 10 you chose your class, and at level 20 you could apply "disciplines" (like subclasses). Not only was there a lot of diversity b
        • SB did subclasses, but not archetypes. All healers were not the same. I played a healer channeler. I couldn't heal worth shit- I got only the base 2 heal spells, no HOTs, no group heals. But since I was a channeler (channelers were mage or healer based classes), I was the most powerful DD in the game. All I gave up were some base nukes in the mage class that noone used, and a teleport to home city that you could get scrolls for. Meanwhile a Priest could actually heal well. Same with the other base c
          • Ok, maybe they weren't archetypes in the strict sense, but they were something pretty similar. Heal channies might suck as heavy healers, but they could still get all the healer base buffs and 3 or 4 interleaving prayers of mending into their nuking could add a not insignificant amount of healing to a group. They could also spot heal if need be (more in pve than pvp as it would be more beneficial to nuke in pvp where a channys weaker heals couldnt make as much difference).

            Actually I think it's just the
      • It's worth noting that there are really only two differentiation points in EQ2 - your initial selection of archetype and your level 10 specialization. The level 20 specialization is based entirely upon which faction you are. A scout can chose to become a bard rather than rouge at level 10, but the distinction between a dirge and a troubadour depends entirely upon being 'good' or 'evil'.
        • Actually, bards and troubadours could be either faction, as could wardens and furies. I was a Freeport-aligned inquisitor and troubadour (both halflings; in the end I betrayed Antonica three times to play evil halflings! (the last was a defiler)).
      • I completely agree. I only played EQ2 for a couple months after release and the despite the archetype model, they still created pecking order for group spots. The funniest part is their argument to get away from the "holy trinity" of EQ. So now instead of warrior, cleric, enchanter, every group needs archetype A, B, and C. Oh and since your all the same choosing who you want in your group comes down to what, looks? Fight it all you want, certian classes will always be better at particular things then others

  • Personally... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @12:49PM (#14549177) Journal
    I'd love to see a game where the numbers simply aren't available to the players.

    Something whose mechanics are derived from Runequest, for example, where every time you try something, you MIGHT succeed and if you do (or even sometimes if you don't) you get better. There's no fixed/limited list of 'talents' available to anyone, although there are some special skills that you can't learn until you reach a certain level of expertise.

    You know you're ready to move out of the newbie zone when the creatures you're fighting no longer pose a challenge and the rewards are uninteresting, not because all their names turn green or something.

    You know you are a good wall-climber because you've scaled a number of dangerous precipices and survived, not because you're a level 12 rogue and you have the "climb walls" ability.

    You know your "inflict agony" spell lasts about 15 seconds because that's what it's done the last five times you've cast it. There was that one creature on whom it only lasted 6 seconds, however....

    You know that new sword you got is a sweet one either because you paid to have someone magically investigate it, or more frequently because you killed the last 5 nasties in a single swing, not because the "pluses" are better.

    Where is a Darklands MMO?

    * truth in commenting note: I don't think this would EVER exist commercially, because not enough people want something that hard. I do think it might be conceivable however to get a CURRENT class-based game to run a mod version where the numbers/details like this are not shown...even that alone would be interesting.

    • Re:Personally... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I want this and would pay for it. I've been brainstorming along this idea for years. Even when I DMed D&D (etc.) I tried to make it where only the DM did rolls and explained what the rolls meant to the characters. It was pretty hit-or-miss with the players

    • Re:Personally... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Viking Coder ( 102287 )
      I'd love to see a game where the numbers simply aren't available to the players.

      Game designers know that even if they hide the numbers, the players will deduce them. They simply have too much vested interest to NOT know how a change in equipment or class or skill or... will impact their gameplay.

      It's a nice idea, but unfortunately, something as easy as statistical sampling (trivial, with the help of computers) reveals all.

      What I almost like better is the Zelda model. If I hit something with my sword, it g

      • Re:Personally... (Score:2, Informative)

        by RobinH ( 124750 )
        What I almost like better is the Zelda model. If I hit something with my sword, it gets hurt a predictable amount - the same, every time. If I hit it with a different weapon, it gets hurt a different amount. Different critters respond differently to different weapons... There is no "chance" associated with that - no numbers. The problem is, that devolves to a "twitch" style game - very, very hard to pull off in an MMO. =(

        I would like to point out a game called Planetside [planetside.com] which effectively does what you desc
      • Game designers know that even if they hide the numbers, the players will deduce them.

        Not only that but every single patch half the playerbase will be convinced that some of those invisible numbers have been changed (for the worse, of course) without them being told and raise a fuss that the developers (or PR folks) have to deal with.

    • Re:Personally... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by svzurich ( 524785 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @01:21PM (#14549500)
      As the City of X devs are learning, players always deduce the numbers and want them provided, and games that provide numbers do not confuse their player base. WoW and EQ2 provide the numbers, and the players are not overwhelmed and perplexed. City of Heroes/Villains is slowly adding numbers, and admiting that hiding them was a bad idea. In CoX Players spend hours on the test server crunching numbers, and then update character planners. Players resent hearing that a power offers a vague amount of damage or resistance, only to find out that the numbers are super low and not worth enhancing. Giving the players more information allows players to make informed decisions with fewer regrets. Most of us hate deleting toons to recreate as we learn how the game really works.

      • Re:Personally... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @04:22PM (#14551108) Journal
        I played City of Heroes for a year, and I can certainly see your point.
        However, I'd argue this is the "Alpha Centauri" effect.

        One of the most successful games of all time was Civ, right?
        Alpha Centauri, as the sequel to Civ II, should have been a huge hit. It was successful, but what was one of the main complaints? Expectations. See, in Civ, people understood (roughly) what happened when you invented Coinage or Religion. Certainly there were specific game effects/numbers, but in any case you knew "Coinage" probably wasn't going to make your armies tougher, and "religion" wasn't going to do much to protect from earthquakes, for example.

        In AC, however, people were developing techs like "anti-physics probulator" or "neutronium psionic pleasure ray" and while you COULD drill down into the game and get the numbers, players were on a very basic level unhappy because they didn't instinctively KNOW what things did.

        I'd argue the same for CoH. Is "stupendous blast" more or less damaging than "megaboom punch"?

        The more I think about it, a game lacking in numbers can't really just be the same-old, same-old dressed in different clothing. It's got to progress differently, and present the information at LEAST as informatively as real life would.

        So for example, Joe Warrior learns the basics of using a sword. He's killing rats left and right, and starting to fight tougher things. The next time he's in town, he's checking with the weapons master who surprises him by saying "you know, I think you're ready to learn some of the more advanced moves. Which would you like to focus on:
        - powerful, smashing attacks
        - nimble attacks at vital areas
        - fighting more than one target at a time
        But again, like real life, these aren't exclusive - if you're finding that the powerful, smashing attacks aren't working well against your opponents, go back and learn the others at a cost of time and $$. You'd only LOSE the power attacks skills as they atrophy if you don't use them regularly.

        Think about grouping - instead of a metagamey "Let's go do the Instance of Death!" "OK, let's group" "Well, we're all 20th lvl, you're only 10th you'd get slaughtered, so you can't come." it might be more like "Let's do the Instance of Death!" "Think we're ready?" "Sure! Bill and I just killed a minotaur yesterday, and Glenda's fireballs have really been kicking butt." "Can I come? Yesterday I killed some bandits, and didn't have much trouble." "Much trouble?" "Yeah well I died once, but I got them all." "You mean the bandits north of town?" "Yep." "Look, if you had trouble with them, you probably shouldn't. I fought them a couple of weeks ago and they weren't much challenge for me, I think the Instance of Death is going to be quite a bit more difficult."

        Which sounds more REAL?

        I think it could be done, it would just take more careful planning and effort than most producers would be interested in putting in, when they could just go the well-worn "levels" route and not worry about that part of the game at all.
        • "Which sounds more REAL?"

          Neither. It is an IMAGINARY GAME. You're talking about a guy fighting rats with a sword...

          If you don't want to have any number crunching in your games that's fine, but get off the realism bit.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Check out the original Marvel Super Heroes Role Playing Game for an idea way to use words rather than numbers to represent different power levels.

          "stupendous blast" more or less damaging than "megaboom punch"?

          You're Amazing Blast is higher than your "Remarkable Punch", by two steps.

          Numbers without numbers.
      • In WoW at least, when the numbers aren't provided some players do their best to reverse engineer the game mechanics to understand and determine the numbers. For example, a few players have reverse engineered Blizzard's itemisation budget, how stats get allocated to items based on item level, item class, etc. Another example is how the WoW threat or aggro model works, while some of it is still unclear some players have a pretty good model of how the mobs determine who to attack while a fight is going on.
    • I'd love to see a game where the numbers simply aren't available to the players.

      Actually, I've thought about the same thing myself. I've been playing Red Ochestra Mod [redorchestragame.com] for UT2k3 which doesn't show health, amount of bullets, or stamina. Everything is given through cues like heavy breathing if you are tired and "clip is heavy" or light if you yank out your clip to check your ammo.

      Then I thought to myself, why don't they apply this to MMOGs. Seriously, levels, hp, mp and all the other numerical stats make the g

    • Re:Personally... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 )
      You might really enjoy an old MUD called Dragonrealms. It is by far one of the best games I've ever played and the best part about it was how it hid the numbers. Which is kind of ironic since its predecessor, Gemstone III (they're both made by Simutronics) was ALL about the numbers.

      Both games took place in roughly the same setting, but I gotta say, the roleplaying that went on in DR was unlike anything I've ever experienced. Its funny because people could get a general feel for the quality of weapons, ar

    • Up until a few years ago, Ultima Online had exactly this system. Potion kegs were "almost full" or "nearly empty". You got a magic sword? Great. What is it? You need to use an Item ID skill on it to know. And it didn't suddenly make the stats available, you might get a "Supremely Accurate Katana of Vanquishing". Some keywords (Supremely Accurate, Vanquishing) there gave you a ball park of how good it was compared to others, but not exact numbers and even then, not all with the same name were exactly e
    • I'd love to see a game where the numbers simply aren't available to the players.

      That was the intent of the designers of City of Heroes, but if you look at how the community has developed you'll quickly see that we [when I still played] picked the game apart and discovered how the mechanics worked. We even created 'hero creators' that allowed us to pre-build heroes with the best possible combination of stats.

      Games use mechanics, and hiding them from people doesn't make the go away or make them better. It

    • "I'd love to see a game where the numbers simply aren't available to the players."

      Yes! Less stat whoring and more emphasis on exploration, social networking, and perhaps even some role-playing.

      I don't think it would be commercially viable on the scale of EQ, DAoC, or WoW, but I think (well, hope) that the day is near when we will begin to see smaller-scale niche MMOGs entering the market. The interest is definitely there; we're just missing the development tools.

      OSS may provide the solution. I drea

    • I'm afraid you're right. I used to be quite prolific on MMORPG message boards talking about what I liked and didn't like. I had things I was for, and things that I considered poison for a successful MMORPG.

      I'd like to believe it's because of the quality with which they implemented things, and not the ideas themselves, but WoW took everything that I considered poison and made a great game out of it.

      There are no choices in WoW. It's an RPG on rails, but it's hugely popular, (and I admit, I think it's

    • You won't find any numbers in this game, it and its ilk are what I consider to be among the world's first mmorpg:

      Genesis, The Original LP MUD

      http://genesis.tekno.chalmers.se/ [chalmers.se]

      Regards
  • "I would prefer to start with a freeform system and move towards the archetype system"

    This would end up being a total kludge. If you do it live (I.E. the game is developed in this manner while people are playing) then you will have a lot of people who developed some unique characters get royally screwed when it starts becoming more archetype centered and their character doesn't really fit an archetype. If you do this preproduction, then players are saddled by the limitations of both types of systems.
    • To introduce this after the game is released would most definitely be a kludge. We can look no futher than the recent SWG: NGE fiaso for proof of this.
    • Yes, exactly.

      I like the idea of Vanguard's class system, a lot, because I know right from the start that I can be a paladin and be as good of a tank as a warrior. That's how they are designing it.

      Unlike in say, World of Warcraft, where the developers before release claimed that there would be "more than one class to fill every role", and that the paladin would be "a tank overall", but they still ended up with a class that they intentionally don't want to tank at end-game except in a few limited circumstanc

  • Open systems reveal the holes much faster (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Shivetya ( 243324 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @01:15PM (#14549424) Homepage Journal
    as the mini-maxed characters appear. UO had flexibility but at least was wise enough to limit players from becoming best at everything. Horizons had the archetypes but allowed players to pick up as many types as they wanted. In the end you have characters that could do nearly everything. Asherson's Call was open ended but attempted to contain what players could do with limiting the number of choices afforded. Yet at the same time unlimited experience meant most skills capped and characters at the end game looked very much alike.

    There are other games with some openeness to character development but the end result is usually the same. Over time the players learn what skills actually are worth it and those are the only ones the players have. Throw PvP into the mix and you will see less deviation.

    Having a defined role also helps players identify easier with their characters. They can learn their place fairly easily with the help of other more experience players. It also makes fighting MOBs in the game easier as you can generally know what to expect of your opponent.

    Which is more fun? Really it depends on the game.
     
    • UO had flexibility but at least was wise enough to limit players from becoming best at everything.

      That was so true in the day. Eventually, UO got it so that you had to specialize to do one thing really good or the other which lead to macers, fencers, and pure mages (the earlier templates usually involved people with halberds going cor por with ebolts all the time).

      Even then since you had about 700 points to work with you could become a GM Tailor, Carpenter, Blacksmith but you weren't going to also be an exp
    • Open ended systems where you might be able to learn all skills need not be bad. You could let equipment play a major factor.

      To cast spells, you must have one hand free.

      To cast more interesting spells, you must have both hands free.

      To cast the best spells, you must have both hands free, and wear a robe for easy access to spell components.

      To be able to backstab, you must wear light armor, or you'll either be too slow, or the monster will notice you. Also, you must use a dagger.

      To be able to take lots o

  • Therefore.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by acvh ( 120205 ) <geek.mscigars@com> on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @01:20PM (#14549492) Homepage
    .... the system just boils down to "Healer", "Fighter", "Thief", etc. Generic RPG. REALLY generic. Plain white box with "RPG" in 24 point type on the front generic.
    • I'd expect a generic RPG to allow you play whatever you want, instead of forcing you into specific archetypes around which the game has been designed.

      What if I want to play a jack-of-all-trades? Someone who can fight and heal (but not as good as a specialist)? Or, suppose it's not just a hack&slash game but a real RPG, and I don't want to fight or heal at all, but be good something totally different?

  • Archtypes are stupid.... or at least redundant. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by neo ( 4625 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @02:00PM (#14549881)
    Did Gandalf cast magic spells because he was a Wizard, or was he a Wizard and hence could cast spells? Was Conan a Barbarian because he didn't wear armour and swung a huge weapon or was he swinging a huge weapon and not wearing armour because he was a Barbarian?

    Lazy game designers simply update the last successful thing they find... and that's D&D. Now go back and think about why D&D used classes? Because it was basically a minitures system where all the pieces belonged to classes. Spearman, archers, horsemen... all classes.

    Break Free!

    Archtypes are boring, stiffling the one thing that MMOGs having going for them which is the ability to make a character that stands out from the crowd. They force players into cliques and alienate others ("sorry we already have a tank")...

    How about a system that mimics the real world a little more? How about making your character good at what ever he does... if he goes around swinging a sword... make him a good swordsman. If he tries to cast spells, make him a spellcaster. If he wants to do both, let him, but don't let him be quite as good as someone dedicated to one thing.

    I can't wait until MMOGs get what people want:

    1. Persistance (When I change the world, the world stays changed)
    2. Personality (My character is unique)
    3. Psychology (My character isn't insane and won't do stupid things like attack randomly anyone they come across... unless he's psychotic. But that's all done by the character.)

    Message me if you want me to explain this further, particularly if you want me to consult on your next game.
    • One of the old MUD's (MUME: http://mume.pvv.org/mume.php [pvv.org]) works a bit along those lines. Well the Personality line at least ;)

      In the last version I played, you didnot really pick a character type so much as learn various abilities which in turn made learning other abilities in that school easier. So, as a caster type I could lear n healing spells and offensive spells, but if I did not specialise in healing or offense, I would not be very good at either.

      But I hear what you are saying, though it would be a te
    • A non-class character system is pretty much what you had in SWG originally. A series of jobs you could do, and a limited number of "points" to allocate. As you did actions more, you gained xp in that area, and could eventually get the next step in that specific ladder. This system allows characters to get good at what the player wants to do, and ignores the other areas.

      The problem with SWG was that sadly there wasn't enough variety to game content so it all boiled down to people picking two or three hybr
      • The reason you won't see a system like that in a major MMO though is because it would be damn near impossible to balance against content or make updates to without throwing the whole thing out of whack. It removes the whole "class" issue, and so long as the game provides viable avenues to play that are rewarding for any profession or combination of professions, it would give probably one of the most dynamic play experiences out there.

        Exactly right. Classes exist so that Game Designers can at least *try* to
      • The reason you won't see a system like that in a major MMO though is because it would be damn near impossible to balance against content or make updates to without throwing the whole thing out of whack.

        Content should be player created. No one wants to save the same princess everyone else has saved. Create a dynamic content system driven by player action and interaction and you don't need to balance anything. When you run into something you can't take on, you'll know it and run... just like you should.

        And
        • Nethack has all those things. Unfortunately it's single player only with graphics that fail to thrill modern gamers.

          It is an interesting model for game companies to look at. I was never into Diablo but I'm told that it used some on the fly content creation.
        • There's a difference between player created content and content that is generated dynamically based on player actions. In the first case, you end up with Star Wars Galaxies, a game that tried to provide as many tools as was reasonable to the players, and the players created some great environments and set pieces to "play in" but it lacked real gameplay and real game content. To do player created content, you have to take something like Neverwinter Nights, and make it a LOT simpler to build and script in.
          • Player created content need not be "build a map" ala Neverwiner Nights. The upcoming game Spore shows procedural content created by players. Basically it's the best of both Dynamic and Player content. The game does the hard part of matching plots/locations/monsters/PCs and the players call up a plot generator and ask for "Romantic Plot", "Revenge Plot", "Power Building Plot", etc etc.

            This give players very interesting control over their own stories and involves other players in the game, while keeping th
        • You have a lot of interesting ideas. Unfortunately, the world is full of assholes that ruin it for everyone else.

          Open-ended skills system - Something Ultima Online had, but it quickly turned into a tank mage-fest (plate wearing magician).

          Perma-death - As someone has already mentioned, what if your network gets disconnected in the middle of a fight? Doesn't seem fair for your character to permamently die because of that. Also, if you want to add in real PvP with perma-death, all it takes is one asshole to ru
          • A lot of your ideas would work great in an MMO that's really restrictive on who they allow into the game.

            Actually what I'm talking about is restricting what the character can do, not what the player can do.

            For example, in the social scheme I'm suggesting, there are six levels of social contact. In the first, instead of names you see decriptions of people above their heads in grey. These are people you do not know. You can't attack them unless they attack you first (there are exceptions... but they are to
            • That's an interesting system. WoW has something similar for NPCs, but not for players. I'm not convinced that its not griefable or that it won't have its own host of problems. For example, you could have a "griefer gang". True, they won't be able to attack new players (who would be initially neutral to them), but they would make sure that they'd be enemies to most other groups. If you happened to join a newbie group, you would instantly become one of their enemies and be targetable.

              Is it realistic? Sure is,
              • Groups would have a similar dynamic. Your gang might not even know about more of the other gangs unless they were introduced to them (either through contact or plot). So if you just want to kill kill kill, you can join one of the two big gangs that just go around killing each other. Have fun! But that newbie is grey and you're not going to do anything to anyone you don't know. In fact, you can't tell the newbie from the NPC.
          • Theres actually a successful paytoplay mud called Gemstone III that has permadeath. It basicly works like this - You have to make a Gem or Cash donation to your patron god to gain favors/contracts. The cost is based off of your level, and the number of contracts you have - the more you have, the more expensive.... If you dont have one of those contracts when you die, Booom.
    • It seems like you're interested in a computer version of GURPS.

      In the role-playing version of GURPS, your skills and abilities were chosen from virtually anything you wanted to do. Want to be an axe-wielding, ambidextrous, spell-casting, gun-toting psycho who is afraid of caterpillars and can't wear any armor heavier than a thick blanket? Sure thing. Now just try to pigeonhole that character into a class stereotype. You really can't, and that's why GURPS was so generic.

      You were allowed to create charact
      • Hm, I'd love to see how the "manic-depressive" malus would work out in an MMO environment...
      • I've played GURPS, but while GURPS is free of archtypes, it also fails to free itself completely. For example a player who wants to spend any amount of time in combat would be foolish not to "buy" combat reflexes.

        In my ideal MMOG, you would start with skills based on your characters history, which would be created in a system similar to (blanking on the name of the game...) where you roll up your history and that gets you started. It also would give you ties into existing characters.

        I've created a very in

      • that's why GURPS was so generic

        Was? It still is. More so than it used to be, in fact. The 3rd edition tended to encourage jack-of-all-trade characters with good DX and IQ, and lots of skills with only a few points. The 4th edition has more expensive DX and IQ, while it's cheaper to have high skills, making specialisation (as well as ST and HT) more attractive. They also cleaned up the ads/disads system. Looks much better now.

        Steve Jackson is in the process of creating his own MMO based on GURPS. May

    • Reminds me a lot of Morrowind. Sure, there are a lot of numbers and stats and levels and even three "classes" to choose from (combat, stealth, magic) but those only added minor tweaks to the character. The more you swung your sword, the better at long/short sword you became. The more you cast the better at casting. You also didn't have to kill X creatures to gain a level. Levels are doled out by gaining 10 stats points. The world is entirely open too so no series of predefined events (except for the m
    • The problem with getting rid of classes is play balancing. Players will very quickly discover optimum configurations which become templates for the vast number of characters on the server. The more freedom you give to your players, the greater the domain of possible combinations, and somewhere in a very large domain will inevitably be the killer combination, the thing that your testing did not uncover but suddenly becomes the single most popular template in the game. Instead of greater variety, you end up
      • Players will very quickly discover optimum configurations which become templates for the vast number of characters on the server.

        Well designed systems don't fall prey to this. Instead there's a rock/paper/scissors nature to them where you can't be optimum for all situations. Also, as you noted, you need a way to limit players from all possible combinations while not sucumbing to character classes... but this is trivial. Assume skills A, B and C are the "best" combination. You would assume that these wou

    • Was Conan a Barbarian because he didn't wear armour and swung a huge weapon or was he swinging a huge weapon and not wearing armour because he was a Barbarian?

      Conan wore armor and was, in fact, both intelligent and patient. Read Howard's books, don't think that the movies had anything to do with Conan.

      Then again, Conan was a Barbarian/Rogue, not pure Barbarian.

    • How about a system that mimics the real world a little more? How about making your character good at what ever he does... if he goes around swinging a sword... make him a good swordsman. If he tries to cast spells, make him a spellcaster. If he wants to do both, let him, but don't let him be quite as good as someone dedicated to one thing.

      Now balance every combination to make sure the backstabbing hypnotist isn't significantly more powerful than the chain wearing fire caster.
      If you don't balance you end u
      • Heres the problem - the players. Theres a significant chunk of Subscriptions that are from the Min-Maxing population. They will find any way possible to become the best in the game, and not in a good way. For people looking to say "Oh so I shouldnt try to be good at something" - take a look at your methods. ARe you just finding the best combination, and doing it in such a way that would ruin the game for others? Or are you actually working for those stats...
    • Actually, archetypes are used because that's what the people willing to spend money on these games really want. The history of online RPGs is much longer than the graphical "MMORPGs" you see today, going back as far as text-based games in the 70's, and a wide variety of possibilities have been explored. Current games rely on archetypes because this is what has proven to be popular.

      There was actually quite a bit of variety in even just the first few retail online RPGs in the mid to late 1990's. Ultima Onl
      • Actually, archetypes are used because that's what the people willing to spend money on these games really want.

        I disagree with this statement. Most of these games, as you point out, are just iterations of the P&P versions of games that already existed. These gave birth to MUDs and MOOs. I know the whole history.

        Character classes aren't all bad. They get you into character quickly and are easy to understand. But that doesn't directly translate into people's money. People play what their friends are
  • The question isn't one of classes, but one of roles. Roles are things like:
    - healing damage
    - preventing damage to others
    - preventing damage to self
    - doing damage (melee, magical, single or multi-target)
    - enhancing others' abilities to do something
    - overcoming obstacles (utility)
    (and more)

    The problem with early MMOGs is that they assigned classes directly tied to the most important roles, so that *one* class fulfilled each primary role. Thus, other classes were secondary.

    The archetype system amends this so
    • There's no need to completely avoid primary roles for your classes. A lot of problems can be resolved with selective buffs. For example, a buff that enchants chain armor so it becomes plate armor would benefit chain armor classes (like a rogue, but not a monk), but be of no use to classes already wearing plate armor. A buff that enhances hand to hand combat, making it more effective, would benefit monks to do damage on par with a backstabbing rogue. It would be useless for the rogue, unless they're will
  • Archetypes in MMORPGs make it easier to group. In City of Heroes, for example, I know what I need to make a successful group by looking at the archetype: Scrappers deal a lot of melee damage, Controllers control mobs, etc. Without that, you might spend a longer time looking for the right people than playing the game.

    The problem, of course, is when you have classes that are neither one type nor another. The Friar, for example, in Dark Age of Camelot: "I can heal, but not as well as a cleric, and I can fight
    • Kind of off-topic, but I saw your comment about DAoC's friar and remembered the disaster of a character system that DAoC has, that is best illustrated by my Warden.

      DAoC had a kind of worst-of-all-worlds approach to characters. They had character classes with 'specializations' within the character classes. The problem was, most character classes had one specizlization that worked fairly well for that type, and two specializations that would leave you, often, with a royally gimp character. They gave you a lim

  • after reading.... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by to_kallon ( 778547 )
    all the comments, which i found interesting, i think it important to note something no one has addressed yet: finding people. the idea is certainly noble to allow every player to create their character to exactly their own specifications and develop them in exactly their own way, etc, etc, but what happens when you try to put together a group of people? in most, i've not played all, archetype-style games it is not overly difficult since you already know what each class, or sub-class, will do well. so if you
  • There are generally two disinct styles of RPG like games: Classless and Classed Systems. Neither one is better but they are different and have some serious drawbacks. A lot of what is good and bad about Classed Systems is already covered in the article so I won't bother to go over that. Read the article if you want to see what is good and bad about a ridgid class system.

    So what about Classless systesm? A classic example of a Classless setup is something like Final Fantasy 7. No one is a fighter. No on
    • In the best case these "hybrid" systems are supposed to let people get a taste of various types of gameplay before the commit to a certain profession. The only problem I see with this is that most classes really only come into their own when you are fairly deep into them. Can you start the game knowing that you'd rather be a certain melee/caster hybrid than a caster/melee ?
    • Your problems with a classless system are easily fixed by making the system, despite its absense of classes, still reward specialisation. That way, a group with a fighter and a healer would be more effective than a group with two fighter/healer hybrids, and if they think the healer can afford to do a bit of fighting too, that's still possible.

      Ofcourse IMO the EQ-style MMORPGs have as little to do with real RPGs as a game like Nethack. Give me some intrigue, improvisation and deep roleplay instead. (Alas! Co
  • If one entity had the ability to accomplish 100% of the meaningful tasks in a given game, then there would be no reason for a game to be "Massively Multiplayer." By segmenting players into specialized classes, it forces people to team up.

    Then, to field a complete team, people need to be able to identify the positions each player will fulfill. If there is no easy way to classify a player, it is difficult to know where their position should be.

    This is no different from any activity that requires cooperati

    • If one entity had the ability to accomplish 100% of the meaningful tasks in a given game, then there would be no reason for a game to be "Massively Multiplayer." By segmenting players into specialized classes, it forces people to team up.

      A druid could main tank, main heal, or dps in dire maul in world of warcraft. Yet they could never get through the whole instance alone. People would have to team up just to overcome whatever monsters they are encountering at some point.
  • I read TFA, and I am not sure why the author decided to write it. While he makes points, they are moot, imo. I mean, WoW pretty much has an archetype system in the way that you craft your character's class with skill points. And for all of that, you have most classes using only 2-3 builds per class. Nobody cried that much about it. (Well, they did on the forums, but people are still using cookie cutter models.)

    Priests in WoW used one build if they soloed to 60, and a 2nd build is they were grouping. O

  • Communication (Score:3, Funny)

    by AnotherBlackHat ( 265897 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @06:27PM (#14552371) Homepage
    Communicating the primary role of the class to the player is also important.


    Archetypes also make communicating the primary role of the class to other players easier.
    When your group is a warrior, archer, and thief, you know you'd be stronger with a priest, witch doctor, or physician.
    When your group is Bob, Ted, and Alice, you're not sure if you be better with Charlie or Frank.
    You could figure it out, and some of the play might be in figuring, but generally players don't want to spend their time that way.
    "40 Healer LFG" is already more than most seem willing to type.

    -- Should you believe authority without question?

  • Hi. "Whys" is not a word. Thanks.
    • Actually it is. I would imagine it is most commonly encountered in the phrase 'whys and wherefores' (which is actually a tautology by the way). The usage in the title is perfectly accurate though.

      • Poppycock! I hear these so-called definitions and vernaculars and euphemisms and etymologisms and I dismiss them! It's a silly word. I won't have it, I can't have it, and I shan't have it!

        I hereby reject "whys" from my personal vocabulary now and forever.

  • I personally like the way Guild Wars got around this issue... let players decide what they want to do, within limits. Given six classes (Warrior, Ranger, Elementalist, Necromancer, Mesmer, Monk), each with a job, you are given choices IN that job (i.e. Monk can heal, protect, or deal holy damage) AND you are given a secondary class, so you can have a warrior that heals itself or a Mesmer that only uses it's primary class for one thing: fast casting elementalist spells. This basically lets you make up your
    • The system in Guild Wars is brilliant. It's just unfortunate that most groups wont let you join unless you're playing a cookie cutter of the month build.
    • GW really does have a good system. In a way, everyone is a hybrid. 6 classes each class had 4 attributes(ignoring the one you only get for your primary class) that you couldn't all max or even get all to an effective level. That is really the strength of guild wars, you can't over level the content everyone is kinda gimped(compared to other games).
  • What's happened? The designers made all the classes the same so it would be easier for them to balance out the numbers? Fantastic.

    Remind me not to sign up for this one!

    Games need to be complex and unbalanced in all sorts of different areas. The difference between one class and another class, and all the varied strengths and weaknesses are what defines the RPG genre. They need to be unbalanced because that way you can, as a player, feel good about your strengths in the areas that you're strongest in. We

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