A disappointing trend seems to be the cutting down on character classes. Games have always based classes on the trinity, the three S's: Strength (fighter), Speed (thief), Skill (mage). And for the life of me, I can't think of a fourth archetype that isn't just a variation or hybrid of the three. But that doesn't excuse a simple three class sytem, unless you're Trine, and that's the theme. Dragon's Dogma was a bit of a disappointment in that regard. It had fighter, rogue, and mage as basic classes, then two coats of paint that were essentially just new moves for the old classes. And a game built on a four person party, that is strictly single player, so balance isn't as much of a concern. This was a let down.

But worse are games that aren't even worrying about the coat of paint. Games like Torchlight 2 and Borderlands 2 are just going with 4-5 classes and calling it a day. I understand the need for balance, which is more difficult with more classes, but you should have more classes than slots in a party. If you can literally cover all the bases in a group, of course you're going to. Which removes a lot of flexibility. So basically in party based games with either competitive online play or raid type groups, you need balance and flexibility. Easier said than done. EverQuest 2 had an insane amount of classes. A bunch of basic classes that all give way to two or three upgrades at level ten, and another upgrade at level twenty. And all of these classes were available to all of the races. This isn't even to mention a three pronged skill tree for all of these twenty classes and all of the fifteen races having special racial abilities. This was pretty amazing, except at higher levels, pretty much half the classes were worthless, and every group just wanted rangers for DPS. On the other end of the spectrum, you have World of Warcraft. Ten or less classes, with only four or so available to each race. Some only available to one faction of the two. And each race has it's own starting zone. So depending on which race and faction you choose, you may never even see a possible class. This system was pretty good for balance. But with a hardcore audience, and a focus on raids, everyone tended to know every class, and had most covered with their alts.

But why should balance carry the same importance in single player games? Why not have some weird classes in fantasy based games? Dark Souls included a hardcore class, where you start out naked with lowered stats. Games should have fun with it, and let us dig deep and play some more flamboyant classes. Every game should have a paladin class. (due to some confusion from a certain thick headed reader, I'd like you to read that sentence like you would: Everyone loves pudding. Which is obviously not literally true.) A fighter with high defense and heal spells, but with relatively low attack output. This class lets skilled players fight in areas way beyond their level. Fights are long and grueling, but with patience, and timely healing, it can be done. Why not include a ninja class? A rogue type with cloth armor and very little health, who can dual wield katanas and deal out damage crazy fast. People would love that. It'd be refreshing from the basic cop out rogue with leather armor, two daggers, and a sneak skill. Hell, while we're at it, why not have a drunkard class? You have to keep alcohol in your inventory, and have to stay drunk to fight well. You use your fists to brawl like a barfighter, and the damage is randomized, but is best when at a balanced level of intoxication. Too sober and you're weak, too drunk and your accuracy is low.

Also, don't just have a 'mage'. Have a wizard for elemental spells. Have a warlock for poison based damage over time. Have a summoner for pets. Have a priest for heals. Don't just roll it all into one class. Don't just have a tank class. Have a guardian to tank, a knight to deal damage, and a paladin to do a little of both, then have a monk or dragoon type for quirky flex roles. And every game needs a bard! (Again: pudding.) The thankless bard class that pretty much only works as a support role. It's a thankless job and only the hardcore want to do it. But with the best buffs and wards, the bard is always welcome. I'm rambling and spinning my wheels at this point. But don't reduce it to just the trinity. That's boring, and pretty much kills replayability.

A disappointing trend seems to be the cutting down on character classes. Games have always based classes on the trinity, the three S's: Strength (fighter), Speed (thief), Skill (mage). And for the life of me, I can't think of a fourth archetype that isn't just a variation or hybrid of the three. But that doesn't excuse a simple three class sytem, unless you're Trine, and that's the theme. Dragon's Dogma was a bit of a disappointment in that regard. It had fighter, rogue, and mage as basic classes, then two coats of paint that were essentially just new moves for the old classes. And a game built on a four person party, that is strictly single player, so balance isn't as much of a concern. This was a let down.

But worse are games that aren't even worrying about the coat of paint. Games like Torchlight 2 and Borderlands 2 are just going with 4-5 classes and calling it a day. I understand the need for balance, which is more difficult with more classes, but you should have more classes than slots in a party. If you can literally cover all the bases in a group, of course you're going to. Which removes a lot of flexibility. So basically in party based games with either competitive online play or raid type groups, you need balance and flexibility. Easier said than done. EverQuest 2 had an insane amount of classes. A bunch of basic classes that all give way to two or three upgrades at level ten, and another upgrade at level twenty. And all of these classes were available to all of the races. This isn't even to mention a three pronged skill tree for all of these twenty classes and all of the fifteen races having special racial abilities. This was pretty amazing, except at higher levels, pretty much half the classes were worthless, and every group just wanted rangers for DPS. On the other end of the spectrum, you have World of Warcraft. Ten or less classes, with only four or so available to each race. Some only available to one faction of the two. And each race has it's own starting zone. So depending on which race and faction you choose, you may never even see a possible class. This system was pretty good for balance. But with a hardcore audience, and a focus on raids, everyone tended to know every class, and had most covered with their alts.

But why should balance carry the same importance in single player games? Why not have some weird classes in fantasy based games? Dark Souls included a hardcore class, where you start out naked with lowered stats. Games should have fun with it, and let us dig deep and play some more flamboyant classes. Every game should have a paladin class. (due to some confusion from a certain thick headed reader, I'd like you to read that sentence like you would: Everyone loves pudding. Which is obviously not literally true.) A fighter with high defense and heal spells, but with relatively low attack output. This class lets skilled players fight in areas way beyond their level. Fights are long and grueling, but with patience, and timely healing, it can be done. Why not include a ninja class? A rogue type with cloth armor and very little health, who can dual wield katanas and deal out damage crazy fast. People would love that. It'd be refreshing from the basic cop out rogue with leather armor, two daggers, and a sneak skill. Hell, while we're at it, why not have a drunkard class? You have to keep alcohol in your inventory, and have to stay drunk to fight well. You use your fists to brawl like a barfighter, and the damage is randomized, but is best when at a balanced level of intoxication. Too sober and you're weak, too drunk and your accuracy is low.

Also, don't just have a 'mage'. Have a wizard for elemental spells. Have a warlock for poison based damage over time. Have a summoner for pets. Have a priest for heals. Don't just roll it all into one class. Don't just have a tank class. Have a guardian to tank, a knight to deal damage, and a paladin to do a little of both, then have a monk or dragoon type for quirky flex roles. And every game needs a bard! (Again: pudding.) The thankless bard class that pretty much only works as a support role. It's a thankless job and only the hardcore want to do it. But with the best buffs and wards, the bard is always welcome. I'm rambling and spinning my wheels at this point. But don't reduce it to just the trinity. That's boring, and pretty much kills replayability.

I agree.

When it comes to classes....I actually really like redundancy. Granted that's a bitch to balance even remotely well. But man if you want to keep your game fresh that's the only way to do it.

That's why Diablo 3 looks exciting to me, who the hell knows what they're going to do with expansions. Imagine that game getting an expansion with 4 or 5 more classes.

It sounds like you want to play Final Fantasy Tactics. Lots of different classes in the form of Jobs and each magic type was a different job with Priest, Wizard, Time Mage, Oracle, Summoner, and Geomancer. You then had physical type classes that were essentially just melee with special abilities and hybrid type classes that were physical with skills that were kinda magical like Samurai and the Monk.

I myself don't know why games would limit to just 3 or 5 classes. Actually, FFT is a party game with 4-6 characters while the other games only let you control 1 character. I guess that's the reason.

Mainly cause of balance and time issues.

The more classes you have the less useful some will be, and you'll end up with classes that nobody ever uses and everyone complains about all the time.

Creating a class takes quite a lot of time, you need to come up with abilities, models, animations, etc. So it kinda becomes, add more classes and cut down the rest of the game content or just work on the ones we have and have more game and more polished classes.

Classes are massively overrated. What you want is classes with depth. Which Dragon's Dogma has since you can actually pull augments and stat gain from multiple classes at once. Meaning you may be a Level 82 Warrior but the odds of that level 82 Warrior over there having the same stat line, gear, and abilities as you is almost non existent.

The grand daddy of all modern RPG's (AD&D) originally had Fighter, Mage, Rogue, Paladin, Cleric, and Druid. That is six classes. Yet any one of those six whole classes had more depth and options for customization than every class in Diablo 3 combined. That is even one of the oldest and most basic versions of the AD&D system too.

EDIT: To put it in a difference sense, there is multiplayer class design, and then there is class design period. Who in their right mind playing a single player game would want to be a class who is only capable of tanking? No one. But in a multiplayer game like Diablo 3 or WoW etc this is required, not because of balance, but because you have to force teamwork so you can't let anyone do more than one thing or the system falls on itself.

The more classes and the more complex they are the better.

*disclaimer: Not true for all games, some shouldn't have any classes.

When there are no classes, I still stick to skills that would be in that class. For example, in Skyrim I always either play thief, warrior, or wizard, not something in between.

Unless you have something really cool/original just keep it simple, let the variety come from how you build or use the character not how many you have. I tend to feel this way about most types of games not just RPGs

Here is how I feel I want like 4-5 classes with completely diffident styles of play with directly in each classes skill tree. My big problem with games with a lot of classes they tend to copy paste skills / have skills that are very similar. There are just to many games were I will go from playing one class to one that is kind of the same and I can almost not tell the differences and then why play more then 4-5 classes.\

Long post short: Variety is the spice of life but to much spice and it just tasted bland.

Side note: This only how I fell for games were classes are a main part I much prefer a classless system like the table top RPG Shadowrun

I agree, classes are closely tied to your character's identity and thus are the best way to create a bond with him/her. I think it's much easier to roleplay a ''ninja'' than a ''warrior specced dual wield incidentally using katanas and cloth armor'' (but hey, at least no two warriors are the same!). That's my biggest gripe with Skyrim, no class name anywhere, major skills or favored attributes, nothing. Dragon Age was close to perfect, with a few highly customisable yet unique starting classes and many elite specializations you'd obtain by various means along your journey. Too bad you could choose three of them by level 22, it kinda killed the point.

Reminds me of the first time i fired up Neverwinter Nights 2, got into the character creation, and was immediately assaulted with a list of like 25 classes. It was GLORIOUS.

Personally, i think variety in classes is most important in a single-player game where you control multiple party members. Other than that, its not really that important as long as the classes themselves are interesting.

That's a somewhat shallow view of things. Ahem.

Firstly you can't simply judge classes by their number. That is far from the only thing that matters. It is likewise the depth of the classes, the depth of the entire class system, the game mechanics, and eventually the entire game. It's how these classes are used too. Then there are a shitton of classless systems, or systems that allow you to mix and match certain aspects of classes increasing complexity.

Secondly the trinity is the most shallow bread and butter concept that frankly a lot of people are getting tired of. Games like Borderlands have almost nothing to do with this. MMO's are beholden to the model due to their reliance on a party system, and a lot of those games you go on to mention are designed to be played solo, compeltely changing the dynamics. And even MMO's are now trying to move away from this concept.

How can one even criticize derivatives of the trinity and then go on to mention stuff like EverQuest 2 where derivatives from the core classes are the name of the game. Or go on to push the ninja class with a rogue in a game, when for example a game can simply provide the rogue with enough complexity and some gear to make you look just like that, a ninja can just easily be a rogue with a slightly different coat of paint. Yet another game can have only 2 clases in it a Ninja and a Rogue make them compeltely different and be amazing or shit depending on how well they are done.

Continuing further the less classes you have the more time you can devote to each one, enabling you to make them more diverse, unique, better balanced and designed overall. Obviously this is not a statement that a game with less classes is better, just a logical factor of why some choose this path. Likewise with more clasess you are looking at either an increased workload of the dev team or shallower classes

Darksouls you mention had no classes, it's at its core a classless system, your "class" only determined some insignificant in the grand scheme starting gear/attributes. If your interperetation of what is a class as simply that it says so at the character select then again this comes off as somewhat shallow.

Every game should have a paladin class.

What is this nonsense even? Do you really trully want every game there is to include a paladin class, I think I'd rather shoot myself (metaphorically) then be forced to endure the same class in every game. What if is not in tune with game lore? Or it's a game that doesn't require healing? etc...

Also, don't just have a 'mage'. Have a wizard for elemental spells. Have a warlock for poison based damage over time. Have a summoner for pets. Have a priest for heals. Don't just roll it all into one class. Don't just have a tank class. Have a guardian to tank, a knight to deal damage, and a paladin to do a little of both, then have a monk or dragoon type for quirky flex roles

Why the fuck not? This is again nonsense. What is the argument for segregation except, segregation for the sake of it. Classes can be complex enough and well done enough that a mage can do all of those things for example or specialise in one of them and naturally form such a class as you descibed. The huuuuge irony here is that you criticize a game like say Dragons Dogma for having classes that are similar to each other (even tho they are quite varied once you dig deeper) but here you are describing the exactly same thing as what Dragons Dogma did, it has a mage class for buffs/heals and a sorcerer for pure dmg, a fighter as a tank, and Mystic Knight as a paladin class and so on.

And every game needs a bard!

sigh... NO, it doesn't. It realy really doesn't. There are planty of amazing games without bards. And some even with them.

Don't get me wrong I am a huge fan for complexity in my games and absolutely adore infinity angine games for example of the 2-3.5 rulesets with classes coming out of their asses towards the end there But these are not solid arguments whatsoever. Almost every one of them reads like an extremely one sided narrow view of games/classes and overall game design concepts.

If your argument is: "it would be great to have more class diversity in games" i agree, but there is nothing in that post to back it up.

@yinstarrunner: I agree. It's ultimately a good thing to be a bit overwhelmed during the character creator. Assuming the game is good, players who've beaten it will want to come back and check out the more odd and unusual classes. I'm fine even if they're a bit unbalanced. Newer players will gravitate toward the familiar fighter, rogue, mage classes, but include the chef class for when the traditional way loses it's fun. Think of them as New Game Plus classes, even if they're available from the start.

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

@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.

When I talk about wanting more classes, OBVIOUSLY I'm not aiming that criticism at games with a classless system. Please recalibrate your reply. And when you do, try to detect humor or exaggeration. When someone says every game needs a bard, followed by an exclamation point, it's safe to assume they're not talking about Battlefield. Are you a robot?

@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?

@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.

That's Torchlight's biggest selling point...it's why everyone bought the first one. This shit was known. There's already 100+ classes for the first one and most of them are very good or just copies of Diablo II stuff, which again...is very good.

@ERoBB said:

@yinstarrunner: I agree. It's ultimately a good thing to be a bit overwhelmed during the character creator. Assuming the game is good, players who've beaten it will want to come back and check out the more odd and unusual classes. I'm fine even if they're a bit unbalanced. Newer players will gravitate toward the familiar fighter, rogue, mage classes, but include the chef class for when the traditional way loses it's fun. Think of them as New Game Plus classes, even if they're available from the start.

I think that's kind of crazy because it fucks first timers. To play any long game you want to know just what you're getting in to when you start because if you pick some thing you don't like it could make you hate a game you might have loved. I know because I have had this happen to me more then a few times when your starting some thing for the first time you want all the info you can get the best game play for you.

@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.

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.

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.

I don't like classes.

@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.

@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:

@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.

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.

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.

@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.

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.

@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.

@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.

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.

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.

@Tennmuerti: I agree with you.

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

@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.

@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.

@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.

@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:

@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).

@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:

@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.

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: 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.

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 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'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.

@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.

@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.