I like having lots of classes with lots of options. Games like NWN 1 & 2 had a ton of them. Still, it's not hard to see how it adds to development time, even without proper balancing.

Classes usually make me feel like I might miss out on something. Different games do different classes well. I like the Elder Scrolls approach better because it allows me to do whatever I feel like doing at the time.

While I think classes (which lock you into a certain collections of playstyles) have a valid place in games, I'm much more interested to see if game designers can't think of other structures of character customization.

@BirdkeeperDan: You and I seem to have a different definition of balance. To me a "balanced" RPG is an RPG where all character classes have an equal potential for success. You're right, decisions should still matter and intelligently building your character should be rewarded. A Warrior that invests all their points into Int should be functionally useless. My only argument is that players shouldn't be punished just because they picked X class instead of Y during character creation, a point in time where 99.9% of RPGs haven't provided you enough information to make anything approaching an informed decision.

@ERoBB said:

I'm sorry the other poster's "one sentence responses" weren't to your liking. I myself enjoyed them. I'm also very sorry you feel you've gone ignored in this discussion. Here's a picture of a cute puppy. I hope you feel better soon.

I hope you won't feel the need to pressure me into being what you want me to be, in the future. I hope you'll accept me, like this cute puppy. Be well.

I said nothing about disliking other posters responses, I was plainly referring to your trite and pointless first responses to me, if you read the edit i pointed to. Why do you insist with continuing this pointless derogatory bullshit, even after I have tried to talk on topic with you?

Nor did I pressure you into being anything. I pressured you into a proper reply, which you eventually did. Learn to read whats written not what you imagine I said.

We had finally started a discussion, both in regards to classes and Torchlight 2, to which you could have replied to just like you did to other people, yet you choose to write this BS to me.

@ERoBB said:

@triple07: I definitely don't mean to criticize the Torchlight devs. They're a small team putting out a refined product for only $20. They deserve props, but I think I'd still like to see at least six classes out of the box. But as long as they're deep enough it sort of comes out in the wash.

I understand, I would love to see them add more classes as well, but in the end I would rather see more content with 4 to 5 classes. Just my opinion though.

I feel that your criticism can be applied to other games a lot easier. Games like Dragons Dogma feel like they didn't really create more than 3 classes and a palette swap later in the game.

I too like games with large numbers of character classes. Wizardry 8, for example, has 15 classes and they're all pretty viable as part of a party of 6. Same goes for Baldur's Gate II and its repertoire of 2nd edition classes, class kits and multiclass options. That being said, both of those games are pretty linear as far as character progression goes, with only a few ways to build any given character. In a game where I'm not commanding a small army of dudes, I want my character progression options to be more open, a la Elder Scrolls or Fallout.

That being said, if we want to talk about the negative consequences of too many character classes, we could talk about D&D 3.5 and the crippling imbalances that that sucker had.

It is a bit difficult to draw on the line between having classes vs.going skills only when the number of classes looks silly.

For the most part, the removal of a great number of classes seems like a good move to me. The issue with many class games is that the individual class is so specified that their will be a limited number of correct ways to level. Player agency seems a bit greater when you start with a greater template (or no template) and choose skills to shape how the character works. Even if certain initial choices more or less spell out everything you will do further on, to the point where it might as well have been a single path class, there is more of a sense of ownership.

Class balance is important because you don't want players to feel like they made the "wrong" decision at a time when being informed would be highly impractical if not impossible. It is impossible to have a satisfying difficulty curve when some players are clearing the content regardless of effort and others are finding progression impossible, regardless of skill.

Also, a wider variety of imbalanced classes is more likely to decrease diversity, not increase it. If you have three total ranged classes that are all of approximate power you are more likely to have an even spread. If you have ten total ranged classes with two clear-cut winners in the strength department, you are more likely to have 98% of players eventually fall into those two classes.

Of course the dream is to have infinite classes all balanced against each other and the game content, each with a unique playstyle and flavor. Unfortunately that is impossible, and every class that gets added to a game increases the potential for imbalance by orders of magnitude. Within a vaccuum this imbalance may not matter but in the modern era of the internet and a massive social gaming audience, no single-player game is a solitary experience.

Balance matters.

@BirdkeeperDan said:

Most RPGs are no longer number based. Obviously numbers still drive the underlying system but players are no longer asked to comprehend the system. Numbers were the primary basis for customization in older games. You could have a lot of it because it was relatively cheap to include. Now having more classes requires, more animations, more voice acting, more particle effects, essentially more cost. Developers aren't against what you want but when it comes down to it they are not going to put that much work into a class thats odd or redundant.

I agree it's too bad, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect many classes in big budget games. Personally I want 30+ classes, 200+ skills, 1000+ spells, 5000+ crafting items but honestly not enough people have the comprehension required to enjoy such a game. But at least I can still play the old games.

We think alike. I also love/miss turn based combat in RPGs. So maybe I'm just a dinosaur...

@triple07: I definitely don't mean to criticize the Torchlight devs. They're a small team putting out a refined product for only $20. They deserve props, but I think I'd still like to see at least six classes out of the box. But as long as they're deep enough it sort of comes out in the wash.

You seem to be asking an awful lot out of game developers. And particularly a small development team in Runic games. For me 4 to 5 classes is plenty as long as they are unique and not just palette swaps of another in the game. I'm even fine with 3 if they give you specializations of something. I really enjoyed Skyrim's class system as it allowed you to do whatever and didn't have any real class system to speak of, you simply chose what you wanted to do.

Again I feel that your criticism of Torchlight and Torchlight 2 is kinda ridiculous since the development team is so small I doubt they could pump out however many classes you want to be in the game while still having a decent amount of content. So I'm not really sure what you want out of them.

@ERoBB said:

@gamefreak9 said:

Your backward... why are you attached to lock-in from creation? We should be moving AWAY from that. Diablo 3 knows what its all about and maybe doesn't take it far enough. You choose something like I want to be mainly melee focused and jump into battles and deal damage. Then you can path it down within the game, aka you can choose to be a tank, you can choose to be a fast striking ninja, you can choose to be a two handed barb. Why lock in these choices from the beginning?

I hope in the future RPG's have NO classes, and you organically choose your favourite playstyle. Lock-in systems are backwards.

I'm cool with respecing. But I also like choices in customization to matter. I like making a choice, then upgrading it and working on it, and then going back later to check out other playstyles. Something about being a max level character and just throwing on a different class' gear feels too easy to me.

A hefty penalty is probably sufficient , or like D3 a buff for sticking with a play-style. Its very inconvenient to have to start 30 characters just to get the build right. Its pointless. If you had finished diablo 3, which you quite obviously haven't you would realize what REAL experimentation is, it puts all other games to shame on that front. Level 1 to 60 was one huge experiment, trying out like hundreds of builds trying to get the feel just right. And then putting your experiments to the test in Inferno mode at level 60. I've probably tried more buids and playstyles in one character of D3 that the total different approaches i've ever had in all RPG's i've ever played... and i'm a pretty hc veteran when it comes to RPG's. I've tried using almost every skill as a foundation for my wizard, I might have tried over 500 combinations.

@gamefreak9 said:

Your backward... why are you attached to lock-in from creation? We should be moving AWAY from that. Diablo 3 knows what its all about and maybe doesn't take it far enough. You choose something like I want to be mainly melee focused and jump into battles and deal damage. Then you can path it down within the game, aka you can choose to be a tank, you can choose to be a fast striking ninja, you can choose to be a two handed barb. Why lock in these choices from the beginning?

I hope in the future RPG's have NO classes, and you organically choose your favourite playstyle. Lock-in systems are backwards.

I'm cool with respecing. But I also like choices in customization to matter. I like making a choice, then upgrading it and working on it, and then going back later to check out other playstyles. Something about being a max level character and just throwing on a different class' gear feels too easy to me.

@KaosAngel said:

@ERoBB said:

@KaosAngel said:

I don't understand what the TC wants...

Torchlight is a Diablo clone with a strong support for mods. The game never ends, sure the "core developer" stuff is there...but most people play Torchlight for mods.

Just for the sake of this, pretend mods don't exist. There's no telling what the community is gonna come up with. You can drive a car in Skyrim now, and I have no idea what to make of that shit. So let's just look at how the developers handle classes, which I think we could all agree needs a little breath of fresh air.

That's the dumbest thing I've heard. There WILL be mods, that's the ENTIRE POINT of Torchlight and MOST mods will be ported to Torchlight II. So right off the bat you have dozens of more classes, weapons, maps, etc.

The Community already built it and are STILL building.

There's no "if" for Torchlight II mods. It's already there.

What are you going to say when the reviews come in and fail to talk about the mods at all? Because they so rarely do. Because there's a difference between the core game, and what the mod community adds to it. Even when the game supports and encourages mods.

Your backward... why are you attached to lock-in from creation? We should be moving AWAY from that. Diablo 3 knows what its all about and maybe doesn't take it far enough. You choose something like I want to be mainly melee focused and jump into battles and deal damage. Then you can path it down within the game, aka you can choose to be a tank, you can choose to be a fast striking ninja, you can choose to be a two handed barb. Why lock in these choices from the beginning?

I hope in the future RPG's have NO classes, and you organically choose your favourite playstyle. Lock-in systems are backwards.

edit: though classes might be required for short games where you have no such time to organically develop. But most RPG's are long enough IMO.... especially action... and probably MMO.

@ERoBB said:

@KaosAngel said:

I don't understand what the TC wants...

Torchlight is a Diablo clone with a strong support for mods. The game never ends, sure the "core developer" stuff is there...but most people play Torchlight for mods.

Just for the sake of this, pretend mods don't exist. There's no telling what the community is gonna come up with. You can drive a car in Skyrim now, and I have no idea what to make of that shit. So let's just look at how the developers handle classes, which I think we could all agree needs a little breath of fresh air.

That's the dumbest thing I've heard. There WILL be mods, that's the ENTIRE POINT of Torchlight and MOST mods will be ported to Torchlight II. So right off the bat you have dozens of more classes, weapons, maps, etc.

The Community already built it and are STILL building.

There's no "if" for Torchlight II mods. It's already there.

@project343 said:

I'd rather have developers focus on unique, iconic classes rather than a large collection of shallow, undeveloped ones. I mean, you're asking them to spread their resources thinner than they should while muddying concise design. Should they work their way out of traditional trinities? Sure. But I'd rather have a concise trinity than a design clusterfuck.

If those are the only two options, I'd absolutely agree with you, but I don't think going out of the ordinary necessarily leads to a cluterfuck. For all intents and purposes, the Diablo 3 classes are unconventional. Even if the Witch Doctor is pretty much just another game's Warlock, the new theme is welcome.

@KaosAngel said:

I don't understand what the TC wants...

Torchlight is a Diablo clone with a strong support for mods. The game never ends, sure the "core developer" stuff is there...but most people play Torchlight for mods.

Just for the sake of this, pretend mods don't exist. There's no telling what the community is gonna come up with. You can drive a car in Skyrim now, and I have no idea what to make of that shit. So let's just look at how the developers handle classes, which I think we could all agree needs a little breath of fresh air.

I'd rather have developers focus on unique, iconic classes rather than a large collection of shallow, undeveloped ones. I mean, you're asking them to spread their resources thinner than they should while muddying concise design. Should they work their way out of traditional trinities? Sure. But I'd rather have a concise trinity than a design clusterfuck.

I don't understand what the TC wants...

Torchlight is a Diablo clone with a strong support for mods. The game never ends, sure the "core developer" stuff is there...but most people play Torchlight for mods.

I'm sorry the other poster's "one sentence responses" weren't to your liking. I myself enjoyed them. I'm also very sorry you feel you've gone ignored in this discussion. Here's a picture of a cute puppy. I hope you feel better soon.

I hope you won't feel the need to pressure me into being what you want me to be, in the future. I hope you'll accept me, like this cute puppy. Be well.

@ERoBB: Read my edit. above

I'm not against conversation, i'm against people ignoring what I wrote in favour of pointless one sentence replies. I'm all FOR conversation, which did not start bewtween us untill i kept pressuring you into a full reply.

I also answered several of your Torchlight 2 questions (more then anyone in this thread), all of which have been ignored up till now.

I did discuss Torchlight and WoW, I pointed out their huge differences in design, scope, what type of game they are, geanre. Hence their character progression systems have to be approached from completely different perspectives and expectations. What else did you want me to say? I'm a bit lost here sorry.

So now you're bummed because this thread turned into a conversation as opposed to an analytical breakdown of my post? Well I don't even know what to say to that. And as for "what you wrote is not what you meant", that's a pretty perfectly spot on definition sarcasm. But I think what you're missing in this whole thread, is that I was going for conversation, and I was happy to have created one, until this brought it to a screeching halt. The title of this blog post (which it is, thus the length) is a question. You on the other hand seem to be totally dead set against fluid conversation. You won't even discuss Torchlight in regard to WoW because they're apples and oranges to you, so you cross your arms. But the reason I brought up different games, some of which are in completely different genres, is not to say they're doing the same thing, but the opposite. They're different takes on the concept of classes and class customization.

If it's 4am and you're tired, cool. Come back when you're rested and I'd be thrilled to have a conversation with you. But if you want to look for plot holes in my four paragraphs on a video game website, first off I think that's an odd thing to do, secondly I'm not really interested in that. If you'd like to move forward with a discussion, I'm in, but you seem to just want to look back and critique the original post as if it's a Hemingway novel. Which it most definitely is not intended to be.

@ERoBB said:

@Tennmuerti: To be blunt, I haven't responded to you specifically in long form because your replies are overlong, poorly spelled, and poorly worded. "Aprtial" isn't even a word, and I have no idea what you were trying to say. Not to mention you misunderstood a lot of what I said.

Sorry but your own blog post was quite long form, as noted by not only me. So if you own post is so long winded, it's quite surprising you criticize mine for that same reason. You excpect other people to advance you this courtesy of reading and replying to your long post don't you? My spelling is off because I'm at home it's 4am and not using a spell checker, typing quite fast. Don't see anything poorly worded tho, unlike your initial post (hey you went there sorry). It's the content that matters anyway, being a grammar nazi is the lowest form of rebuttal/dig.

Now we are getting somewhere:

But okay, if it will make you feel better, I'll respond to the gist of your rough draft thesis. Game like Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim and Demon/Dark Souls do a good job with classes as simply guidelines to get you started. You pick your class simply by playing, and you're never stuck. This is a great take on the class system, but ultimately it's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about games that do include traditional classes, but do what I consider a poor job of them. Dragon's Dogma, which I beat as a level 80 Mystic Knight, has zero customization. Other than two of the three hybrids, the classes are all bland are totally forumlaic. And you have no skill points or flexibility, you only buy new spells and attacks for your class. It's sort of nice you can switch at any time. But I'd gladly have given up that freedom for a deeper system.

Dragons Dogma has a hybrid system with classes yet a lot of classless skills that you can mix and match. Your skill points are your "dcp"? (i think that's what they are called ingame) to be spent on skills/augments/spells. The system can be quite interesting if you mix and match certain augments. But I agree it could have used a bit more depth.

My main criticizm was however not to do with DD complexity, but with the fact that you previously argued to breakdown classes into smaller chunks, like wizzard, into healer/dps/dots etc. I pointed you that the problem is homogenization and DD is a good example, you yourself disliked. Simply increasing and breaking down classes is not a solution, it's not that easy.

Games like Diablo 3 include classes, not many, and also remove skill points. Which is considered streamlining, but those who like tinkering with their builds are left out to include less serious players, who probably won't be the ones to replay the game five times, like it's intended. So who is this for? I think WoW struck a great balance. It had a good amount of balanced and very different classes, also offering three different builds and any combination in between within each class. I think this worked very well. Especially when grouping up. Rather than having three Engineers who have to explain their builds, which I imagine will be necessary in Torchlight II. Asking Priests if they were healers or shadow in WoW was annoying enough. Now imagine asking 33% of the players in the game what type of mage they are.

The depth of D3 is a big topic we have a seperate one for that on the D3 board, where a lot of people would only be too happy to breakdown why D3 is actually quite complex and deep for you. They have in fact already done so several times over. Many of whom have replayed the game 5 times and more. Speaking from personal experience there is shitload of tinkering with D3 and a great number of interesting builds. D3 is streamlined, but it is far from being less complex. WoW struck a great balance, but you also have to consider that it is a most successfull MMO, with people paying to play it all the time, and a regular dedicated team working on it at all times, they have changed their talent system a ton of times over the years, they keep fucking it up and repairing it all the time too. I dare say there are also wuite a lot of peopel who would love to throw some feces at WoW's class system

Torchlight 2 is a completely different game from WoW. One is a massive big budget MMO that requires coordination for group content, the other is a light soloable $20 dungean crawler, that does not require tanks or healers, you don't need to ask any engineers to do anything in Torchlight, anyone can play as anything with any build together or with friends and have fun, it's not serious business. There will be no need for asking anyone what type of mage they are.

But almost none of this (except DD) has much to do with what you said in your first post, or what I replied to sadly. These are mostly a continuation of the topic not an actual breakdown of what you said or I replied to. :/

Not to mention you misunderstood a lot of what I said.

What did I actually misunderstand tho? Except for the "Obvious" paladins and bards being in every game statements which were basically you saying that what you wrote is not what you meant. :)

EDIT: Aaaaah fuck it at this point i don't really care about mine and yours initial opening walls of text anymore, it's 5am now and i need to sleep for work tomorrow. I realize i come off a bit strong to new people because my disagreement and argument is often treated as hostility, i just like to argue about games. And am a stickler for details people saying exactly what they mean and standing by their own words/arguments. My initial thing then snowballed cause I really fucking hate it when I spend my time actually trying to reply to a person point by point only to recieve a one sentence reply myself, that has nothing to do with the matter at hand. Anyway water under the bridge, lets forget the "misunderstandings" mine of yours and yours of me and the obviouses etc and lets drop the thinly veiled insults please, i'll do likewise. We have a jumping off point for further discussion now. Peace.

@Tennmuerti: To be blunt, I haven't responded to you specifically in long form because your replies are overlong, poorly spelled, and poorly worded. "Aprtial" isn't even a word, and I have no idea what you were trying to say. Not to mention you misunderstood a lot of what I said.

But okay, if it will make you feel better, I'll respond to the gist of your rough draft thesis. Game like Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim and Demon/Dark Souls do a good job with classes as simply guidelines to get you started. You pick your class simply by playing, and you're never stuck. This is a great take on the class system, but ultimately it's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about games that do include traditional classes, but do what I consider a poor job of them. Dragon's Dogma, which I beat as a level 80 Mystic Knight, has zero customization. Other than two of the three hybrids, the classes are all bland are totally forumlaic. And you have no skill points or flexibility, you only buy new spells and attacks for your class. It's sort of nice you can switch at any time. But I'd gladly have given up that freedom for a deeper system.

Games like Diablo 3 include classes, not many, and also remove skill points. Which is considered streamlining, but those who like tinkering with their builds are left out to include less serious players, who probably won't be the ones to replay the game five times, like it's intended. So who is this for? I think WoW struck a great balance. It had a good amount of balanced and very different classes, also offering three different builds and any combination in between within each class. I think this worked very well. Especially when grouping up. Rather than having three Engineers who have to explain their builds, which I imagine will be necessary in Torchlight II. Asking Priests if they were healers or shadow in WoW was annoying enough. Now imagine asking 33% of the players in the game what type of mage they are.

@ERoBB said:

@PeezMachine said:

The danger in creating super-specific character types is two-fold: If I pick a class that is specifically poison-based damage over time, then that's it, my real input into the game all taken care of before I've even started playing.

I don't know, WoW seems to fit that description, and there was still plenty of flexibility within those classes with talent trees. A paladin was never going to sneak like a thief, but there was still a lot of wiggle room.

I agree completely! I think that one of the things that really works about the class design in WoW is that there is some flexibility but also a lot of flavor to each class. If WoW had opted instead to dramatically increase the class list to something like 15-20 while maintaining that level of flexibility then we'd be left with a lot of classes that feel redundant. In your article you propose a way around this, adding flavor like "Drunkards" who perhaps have special requirements. At this point, you're essentially altering how various classes interact with their resource mechanic, which is already a common practice (and Why The Engineer is the Best Thing About Torchlight II). Such dramatic variation in specific mechanics can be troublesome in a multiplayer setting (where it reduces transparency) and have a limit in single player settings - even Diablo III's five different resource systems have a lot in common, and with the right Passive Skills or Runes are simply combinations of "it regenerates" and "build it up with some attacks, spend it with others." In either case, it's usually better for both the developer and the player if we have five classes with three "builds" each than fifteen different classes, and, to bring it back around again, that's what WoW gets right (and I don't say that often).

@ERoBB said:

@Tennmuerti said:

I can't read your mind, only what you have written on the forum.

You're the only one who took those comments as literal. And there are 30 other comments here that are totally coherent, intelligent opinions. But rather than admit you misunderstood me, you're pretending to be a martyr. You're not a victim, you just missed some jokes and exaggerations. It's going to be okay. Just breathe.

I am simply the only one so far who has made an effort to discuss your entire initial argument as a whole. Also lot of people also simply scan a topic and only reply to a general idea, in a couple fo sentences saves time. And several people have made the exact same points that I have included in my own reply, and you have addressed neither them nor me. Yet you had no issues addressing other shorter replies.

You continue to to make no effort to actually defend what you wrote and I argued versus. Preferring to not even talk about character progression systems with me, rather continuing to make compeltely irrelevant statements on interpretation.

@ERoBB said:

I haven't played Torchlight or the beta for Torchlight II, but I'm curious. Am I missing something? The first game has three playable classes listed, and the new one only four.

Torchlight was a budget game, likewise Torchlight 2 will only be $20 as opposed to a full priced game. It's made by a small team hence what they can do is limited in terms of class number vs. variety vs. complexity. The game has a skill tree system making a variety of builds possible. It's main feature however is that Torchlight is highly moddable, allowing people to create their own classes and more, and for Torchlight 1 people have made a large number of free mods with a shitton of classes.

Thus to many having only 4 classes is a non issue for T2.

And you yourself seem totally alright with Diablo3 only having 5 classes, because yes they are very deverse and allow a lot of possibilities and builds within them.

@ERoBB said:

Skill trees are a whole different beast that some games do amazing things with, others totally fail at. But it's definitely a different aesthetic to have diverse classes as opposed to three classes with a lot of customization within those three.

That's true but if a game does the skill trees right there is no need for more then 3 classes because the skill tree choices you make would make all the other classes like paladin or bard. The thing with a lot of classes is then they do one very niche thing and all the players choice for what they are going to do in that game up front right at the start. There is no room to grow or feel like your deciding whats happen it fells more like your playing from some one else character sheet.

@PeezMachine said:

The danger in creating super-specific character types is two-fold: If I pick a class that is specifically poison-based damage over time, then that's it, my real input into the game all taken care of before I've even started playing.

I don't know, WoW seems to fit that description, and there was still plenty of flexibility within those classes with talent trees. A paladin was never going to sneak like a thief, but there was still a lot of wiggle room.

@Tennmuerti said:

I can't read your mind, only what you have written on the forum.

You're the only one who took those comments as literal. And there are 30 other comments here that are totally coherent, intelligent opinions. But rather than admit you misunderstood me, you're pretending to be a martyr. You're not a victim, you just missed some jokes and exaggerations. It's going to be okay. Just breathe.

Diablo 1 had the best system with the spell books. I wish games would copy that.

@Tennmuerti: I agree with you.

Skill trees are a whole different beast that some games do amazing things with, others totally fail at. But it's definitely a different aesthetic to have diverse classes as opposed to three classes with a lot of customization within those three.

The danger in creating super-specific character types is two-fold:

1) The majority of the play experience is determined at character creation. If I pick a class that is specifically poison-based damage over time, then that's it, my real input into the game all taken care of before I've even started playing. Picking from a variety of skills that don't step outside of that box in the name of having highly specialized classes isn't fun, isn't exciting, and isn't rewarding. From a design perspective, you're replacing the player's role in character development with the designer - the designer crafts a very specific play experience for you and then you just follow along, which is an absolute no-no in an RPG.

2) It increases the likelihood of the player coming across impossible situations. Imagine if you had to pick all of your skills in Skyrim right at the outset. Did you pick Alteration, Illusion, and Speech? Good luck with that dragon you have to fight in the beginning! Forcing players to choose overly specific paths sets them up to fail.

In the end, it's more fun for players to say "I had a large and diverse array of tools at my disposal, and I used them well" than it is to say "I chose a good set of tools at character selection." That's why I think it's better to have 4-5 well-rounded but distinct classes than 20 highly specialized classes.

@ERoBB said:

@Tennmuerti said:

@ERoBB said:

@Tennmuerti said:

and eventually the entire game.

You're right, it was shortsighted of me not to get into the individual game mechanics of every single game. How lazy I am.

I did not ask you to.

If you only reply to that entire counterargument is going to be to an imaginary implication asking you to deconstruct every game in a single post, then I have wasted my time one you here.

Yes, it seems you have wasted your time. Obviously not every game needs a paladin. Obviously games without classes don't necessarily need more classes. Obviously including classes that make no sense in terms of the story is not a good thing. I could go line by line explaining my post to you, but as we've agreed, that'd be silly. I know tone is hard to interpret through text, but rest assured, not everything I said it meant to be taken as gospel. I'm hungry, but I probably could not eat a whole horse. You know?

I can't read your mind, only what you have written on the forum.

Which was asking for paladins and bards everywhere, regardless of context or a game's character system. It was likewise asking for a simplistic increase in class numbers in games, which again I have addressed as a shallow viewpoint and backed it up. And even hypocrisy of asking for things in games, having earlier criticized a game that had those exact apects being asked for.

If all that you write can't be even addressed because that is not what you meant to say or what was in your head how do you expect to have a discussion? How can anyone address any single point in your post if you don't actually mean what you write?

Next time make an effort to explain your ideas properly if you don't want assholes like me coming in and breaking everything down.

I could go line by line explaining my post to you, but as we've agreed, that'd be silly.

No, it would not be silly. It would be the proper thing to do, seeing how none of your points seem to say what you actually mean. It would take effort, but that is what presenting a proper argument takes. Because as it stands it mostly reads as nonsense ramblings. Who knows I might even agree with a lot of them in the end. I do that a lot, agree with people I mean, after a good discussion.

@ERoBB said:

@rb_man: I also don't think every game should just toss in 25 classes superfluously. But I do think most class based games would benefit from some more diverse and unique classes.

Okay sorry I am kind of bad at getting points across. The point was dropping a bunch of classes on a player the first times he boots up the game and saying just keep making new dudes until you find one you like is just counter intuitive.

Also the thing with the Torchlight games is you get a base class then with the skill trees you can make what you want thought what skills you get. So it is kind of like Infinite classes. Also with the fan mods you even more classes.

In truth the best thing in the world is to just get rid of classes and just give player skills to pick from so they can get exactly what they want and I know this would not work for all games.

It's just another step in trying to make games for EVERYONE. I think they need to get this idea out of their heads. Look at the movies. When a movie is for EVERYONE, it gets panned by critics and 9/10 the story boils down to: Joe Blow's girlfriend gets taken by bad guys and he gets mad and goes to get her back. It's like a more simplistic version the first Super Mario Bros. The only people who make art and media for EVERYONE are only concerned about getting EVERYONE's money and nothing else. Make the game you want to make developers and let EVERYONE go play Wii Sports.

@rb_man: I also don't think every game should just toss in 25 classes superfluously. But I do think most class based games would benefit from some more diverse and unique classes.

I haven't played Torchlight or the beta for Torchlight II, but I'm curious. Am I missing something? The first game has three playable classes listed, and the new one only four.

I didn't read anything here (brevity, people) so what I'm going to say may have already been pointed out.
 
Most modern games that have classes have you choose top-level gameplay roles (ex. warrior, rogue, mage) when you are creating your character.  After coming to terms with the particulars of the game, you are better able to make a more specific decision about how you want to play.  This is when leveling up and skill trees come into play, allowing more low-level playstyle choices.   At the outset of the game you may only know that you want to hang back and sling spells, so you go with a mage and don't have to torture yourself deciding which of the five types of mages is the right choice (FYI, it's always the Wizard) before you've even started the game.  Once you've familiarized yourself with the game, you realize you want to play as a summoner and so when leveling up you choose skills that enhance that playstyle.
 
You still have all the class options you want, it just doesn't slap that title on your character sheet in the menu.

@ERoBB said:

@rb_man: The concept of picking the "best" role is actually a pretty big negative impact in class based games, which Gamespy just wrote a great article about. But basically, newcomers would gravitate toward classes called Warrior. Not Illusionist. And if it takes a few rerolls, so be it. The games I'm describing aren't Facebook games. A little bit of intimidating complexity is okay, and you can trust your audience to pick things up.

Best role for you not the best over all. Also I never said that people could not pick up on the complexity I was saying it is bad game design to make your game overwhelming at the start because I make new people not want to play it. Take DOTA2 if you just started playing that game with no back round in that game it could really put a lot of people off. Now this might just be me but if I have put a few hours in to a game with a class I did not like because I did not have the clairvoyance to pick the one 1 class out of a list of lets say 25 then I will more then likely just stop playing it.

Look I am fine if you want to say all games should have 25+ classes (God I hope that does not happen) but at the start of a new game is when the player is most vulnerable so just overwhelming them is kind of a dick move because it fucks with with the people trying to get in to and like your game.

Okay last thing I am fine with there being that many classes as long there are presented in a way were people can make the most informed decision in what they are going to play.

@Tennmuerti said:

@ERoBB said:

@Tennmuerti said:

and eventually the entire game.

You're right, it was shortsighted of me not to get into the individual game mechanics of every single game. How lazy I am.

I did not ask you to.

If you only reply to that entire counterargument is going to be to an imaginary implication asking you to deconstruct every game in a single post, then I have wasted my time one you here.

Yes, it seems you have wasted your time. Obviously not every game needs a paladin. Obviously games without classes don't necessarily need more classes. Obviously including classes that make no sense in terms of the story is not a good thing. I could go line by line explaining my post to you, but as we've agreed, that'd be silly. I know tone is hard to interpret through text, but rest assured, not everything I said it meant to be taken as gospel. I'm hungry, but I probably could not eat a whole horse. You know?

@ERoBB said:

@Tennmuerti said:

and eventually the entire game.

You're right, it was shortsighted of me not to get into the individual game mechanics of every single game. How lazy I am.

I did not ask you to.

If you only reply to that entire counterargument is going to be to an imaginary implication asking you to completely deconstruct every game in a single post, then I have wasted my time one you here.

@ERoBB said:

@KaosAngel said:

This guy knows you can make your own classes right...?

In what game? Skyrim yes, World of Warcraft no. What are you referring to? Did you mean to quote somebody?

You can make your own classes in Torchlight 2. He was referring to the game in which board this topic is posted, naturally.

I don't like classes.

I have to applaud Diablo 3 for coming up with some unique classes. Wish there were a few more of them, though. I imagine they'll add a few in expansions.

This is kinda why, aside from the mod community, NWN2 is still one of my favorite games. 15 base classes and 24 prestige classes, allowing a combination of any four of the 39 for any given character. You could gimp or OP your character with the combinations with skills, feats and items but you always had a say in your build.

@rb_man: The concept of picking the "best" role is actually a pretty big negative impact in class based games, which Gamespy just wrote a great article about. But basically, newcomers would gravitate toward classes called Warrior. Not Illusionist. And if it takes a few rerolls to figure things out, so be it. The games I'm describing aren't Facebook games. A little bit of intimidating complexity is okay, and you can trust your audience to pick things up.