Multi-classing

Sarapis

Sure, but liking computers is only one personality trait out of hundreds or thousands that define me.

Achimrst

Simoln said:

 Should a sword-swinging knight conjure holocaust globes?

So a knight can't conjure holocaust globes but can decay your flesh and turn into smoke or summon little demons to poke at you :P

Chryenth

At the risk of bringing us back on topic:

Really excited for multiclass, though choosing is going to be awkward. I echo Iocun's sentiments wholeheartedly, as well.

I'm sure it's already taken as read that (for example) Ashtani won't be able to multiclass into Priest (without repercussions).

I'd also be interested to note that the House limits on classes might be looked at - not relaxed entirely, but significantly. Could reduce certain points of.. contention, let's say. And that way someone who wanted to be class X and Y, where X and Y are not part of the same House at the current time, could do so.

Jarrod

I assume that the concerns with faction-crossing changes will be solved by the fact that you can't do that already. Multi-classing won't suddenly remove the restrictions that you can't become a Forestal member of a non-Eleusis city already, and Ashtan doesn't accept Devotion users. You'll (again, assumption) simply be able to retain knowledge in your prior classes to more easily switch back to them should you decide to in the future, you won't suddenly have every class at your fingertips whenever you want.

I'm sure Devotional users will simply lose Devotion if they're suddenly hopping between Occultist and Priest, and probably lose Chaos Plane access as well. There are already plenty of checks and balances for the issues everyone is bringing up for factions in the game, they won't randomly dissolve.

The only real issue is the topic of Houses and the fact you can't have a class across multiple Houses currently in a City. However, looking at what we've heard on all the other changes so far shows that this is something that's already being considered with Targossas, where ideals will define the House, not classes, and this restriction will be lifted. If the 'experiment' there goes as planned, it's pretty simple to see that same philosophy being spread across the rest of the cities. Your House should be defined by its ideals, not by its classes, though the classes should support those ideals.

Rom

I agree with pretty much everything that's been said regarding factional limitations, and I'd personally cap it at 2 classes (current and stored).

Arditi

The Naga will ban multiclassing. Last thing I need is someone going Infernal and trying to act all honorable and chivalrous.

Alcinae

Rom said:

I agree with pretty much everything that's been said regarding factional limitations, and I'd personally cap it at 2 classes (current and stored).

I think that's how they do it Aetolia, iirc.

Rinzai

In response to the first question, it's a mirror of Penwize's. To much time money effort invested in Rinzai.

I think I might be one of the odd man out on this one in that, I don't know what I would do with a second class or second set of class skills because I have focused so much on Monk and no alts, but some would interest me. I will admit my first thought would how would it effect houses and if Rinzai would able to then join one and help contribute, with out having to sacrifice who he is for the sake of RP'ing in a house. (I could go Wardens, but that is about it.)

What I do believe I would use it for, and I feel citizens of Mhaldor and Eleusis would really take advantage of (maybe?) is population issues. Maybe I would want to know some alchemy because there is a shortage of them in the city, or there is not many of X in the city, so it would be advantageous to be able to tap into that skillset to help balance out a city/org need.

Arditi

Rinzai said:

What I do believe I would use it for, and I feel citizens of Mhaldor and Eleusis would really take advantage of (maybe?) is population issues. Maybe I would want to know some alchemy because there is a shortage of them in the city, or there is not many of X in the city, so it would be advantageous to be able to tap into that skillset to help balance out a city/org need.

All Mhaldorian citizens will be required to have either Infernal, Apostate, or Serpent multiclasses, to better facilitate our OMG WTF LoS capacity.

Tael

My principal concerns would be:

(1) Making sure it makes sense ICly. It wouldn't make sense to just, say, meditate and suddenly forget an entire class and remember another. Using something like the talisman system might make sense - a talisman you can "store" your knowledge of a class in, allowing you to switch between them.

(2) How this will interface with houses. Take, as an extreme example, the single-class houses. Are the Naga going to have members that aren't just serpents? Because that's going to cause some issues - both in terms of how the house is set up and how the house feels. I spent a little bit of time playing Aetolia and it was really awkward when the guilds, many of which were largely class-based, had a GWHO where not a single person was that class. I'm not really sure what the solution for a strongly class-aligned house is going to be. It's true that class doesn't define a character and that a number of houses aren't strongly tied to classes, but plenty of them still are.

One solution that it probably shouldn't be is to have the house's class restrictions apply to multiclass. Something like that is going to make houses that are already somewhat disadvantaged in terms of attracting members profoundly disadvantaged. Not being able to be a bard in the Occultists isn't really a huge issue. Not having the ability to have a whole other simultaneous class (or, worse, multiple other classes) is a huge disadvantage. Most single-class houses are already relatively elitist (not necessarily in a bad way), so I think you're unlikely to see the Naga add more classes to the accepted list if things were restricted that way.

(3) How this interfaces with the one-house-per-class-per-city rule. That's been a good rule. It avoids the houses becoming too homogenous. It would be unfortunate if you go into a raid and many, many people just switch to the best raid class their alignment supports. Again, I have no idea how you solve this, particularly in light of #2.

(4) Trade skills. This is, I think, a very big one. I know there's been discussion of splitting trade skills off of classes like in other IRE games and it might not be a bad idea to do that before multiclass. That way, people can be limited on how many trade skills they have. Otherwise, the problem becomes one of self-sufficiency. It's awkward for the economy of the game and, worse, it reduces the amount players need to interact.

I also really dislike the idea of giving this only to dragons. There already is an incentive to become a dragon: the dragon class. Having the option to hold other classes that have their own utility skills somewhat cuts down on the value of dragons, but not tremendously.

Nakari

I think for the most part I'll just echo the sentiments that have been said. Classes may well be an important part of a character's life, but they do not necessarily represent the whole range of interests or identity. Nakari, in my own experience, really revolves around being a sylvan in pretty much all contexts. It's integral for how her personality has developed over the last few years, and changing that would require major changes to the character as a whole. At the same time, though, it is not to any degree the entirety of who she is. She's a member of the Ebon Fist, a monk house, and thus she is also a monk, even if if her class skills don't show this. Multiclassing can help for the creation or expression of characters that already identify with other classes or roles. 

As far as alting goes, I've played three characters relatively evenly for about three years now. All multi class will mean is that I have another large investment to make in terms of credits, and that I'll be paling 5 or six classes instead of 3.

I will say that I really do think the Aetolian model of only allowing two classes is the way to go, though. As much as this has the potential to make characters more unique, I feel as if this quickly becomes diluted when people just start filling up all classes allowed by their houses. WHile I don't think that a character's personality should be so bound up in a  class as to not allow for other skills, classes should never become a collectable.

Triak

When did aetolia start with two classes? I'm pretty sure it is 5

Zephyros

@sarapis Maybe you can't answer this but... would it be like just getting a whole nother set of classes where you'd have to invest 300 credits to transcend each of them? Would there be changes to prices in credits, or is that the whole idea? To generate more revenue while keeping the players interested.

Nemutaur

What everyone else said and basically saving credits on transing Survival, Avoidance and Fitness/Philsophy.

Jarrod

A reasonable idea would be your class as of the implementation, and getting one additional class at normal rates. The third class you want to learn takes twice as many lessons. The fourth takes twice as many as that. This means that if you were heavily invested (or had thousands of built up Iron Elite lessons) in the game, you could feasibly get more classes, but it simply becomes not worth it after a certain point (~2000cr+ for your fourth class at this rate)

Kinilan

There is nothing that "excites" me about this. In the end it just boils down to killing things in a different way. Being one class over another isn't going to change my game play experience.  But then I've been the same class since getting off Loom and I spend 99% of my time in dragon form using sea spells so it's safe to say my opinion and style of play does not represent the norm.

Nakari

Jarrod said:

A reasonable idea would be your class as of the implementation, and getting one additional class at normal rates. The third class you want to learn takes twice as many lessons. The fourth takes twice as many as that. This means that if you were heavily invested (or had thousands of built up Iron Elite lessons) in the game, you could feasibly get more classes, but it simply becomes not worth it after a certain point (~2000cr+ for your fourth class at this rate)

we still end up with classes being a hat you can wear rather then a skill set you have chosen to use for a reason. If anything is going to devalue class-based roleplay, it's going to be this.

Iocun

What then about dragonclass? This is an already existing form of multiclassing. Does it detract from class-based RP?

Strata

I really like what Triak said. And houses should be able to systematically control which classes are available and which ones are not. It doesn't make sense to have occultists and apostates in a Targossas house. Anyone who disagrees with this can select "I'm a non-RP'ing houseless retard who will switch classes every hour because I have ADHD." when they create a new character - and that's fine. But please don't allow this to degrade all status and functionality of houses. I don't want to see Priests in the Shadowsnakes - that's f*king moronic.

ETA: Also would need to either scale back monks, runies, bards bashing prowess or make dragon harder to achieve. I know a lot of people will go "WTF STRATA" for this last comment but when I can easily switch to monk and get dragon in 2 IRL months or less, everyone's going to do it. And then... yeah. Let the boredom flow.

Tirac

Unless Maldaathi gets BM, see you guys later!

Seriously though, removing house class restrictions is a good idea all around. I'm tired of the stupid discussions about how having the DSL RAT syntax somehow gives a knight house an identity.

Nakari

I don't buy the argument that being able have multiple skill sets is necessarily going to kill class identity. Frankly, I think the idea of 'class based roleplay' is generally overused, so I probably should have just avoided that term.

Basically, my view is that the decision of taking on a class should mean something for your character and your character's roleplay. No class is a simple set of easily attainable skills, they are all powerful, almost always partially mystic arts with deep histories. Dragon fits into this well. Becoming a dragon is (or I suppose should mean, though I can't think of when it doesn't) a huge achievement for your character, and will always maintain a meaning as a result. Futhermore, people generally seem to maintain the original class and characterization, even with a different skill set available. Of course, the lore seems to support this as well, as being a dragon isn't even about learning new skills, it's about attaining a latent potential of yourself. I think that if classes just become something where you cash in your saved up lessons, they do lost a lot of what helps support them being important right now

Trilliana

I think this works great to be honest. Trilliana as a character went through Knighthood and will always be a Knight in my eyes, but she's inquisitive and scientific which works great with her current class being alchemist. It would be nice to get rid of the House Class restrictions because I'd love to be back in the Wardens, because no way in heck I'm going through House work again, but Wardens don't accept alchemists.

Arditi

I somewhat disagree with opening up Houses to whatever, simply because there's established roleplay and identity with some Houses. Not all, but some.

If they move towards 'ideals with limited class choice', then maybe. I can see every house in Mhaldor taking a different tack towards service, but I can't say the same about other cities.

As I half-jokingly said above, I don't want knights in the Naga, because the Naga doesn't believe in honor, chivalry, or fairness. If a Naga shows up to a fair fight, they've already lost. It's completely at odds with the essence of being a knight.  I could argue for jesters and maybe a few other classes, although if I do, @Yig, @Ulrike, and @Tenebrus will magically appear to torture me until I edit that out of this post.

Sarapis

Arditi said:

I somewhat disagree with opening up Houses to whatever, simply because there's established roleplay and identity with some Houses. Not all, but some.

Here's an interesting point: The reason Houses can't let whoever they want in has nothing to do with roleplay: It's a purely OOC mechanic that doesn't even make any sense. Why couldn't an organization simply let in whoever it wants? There's nothing ICly stopping Houses doing it, only a mechanic with transparent OOC motivations behind its implementation.

I'm not arguing for or against more open Houses, but it should be recognized that telling any organization, via code, that they can't let in who they want is a very artificial restriction and has no basis in RP even if, paradoxically, the intent of that restriction is to encourage RP. 

Sidonia

Nakari said:

Basically, my view is that the decision of taking on a class should mean something for your character and your character's roleplay.

I think if the classes are limited in number, it'd still be a big/important decision. I mostly just don't want it to be everybody walking around with 10+ classes. For instance, if it was limited to 3 classes, I'd probably spend a long time thinking which would suit my character the most, but I am the kind of person that almost never switches class (I've quit class while tri-transed twice since ~2004).

Eurulis

There are a few questions and comments that come up about this.

First, the concept of trade skills. I think this needs to be talked about before we go much further, otherwise we'll risk economic meltdown as @Tael said. Earlier there was mention of splitting off trade skills from classes. I think this needs to be dealt with before multiclassing ever comes into the mix, as I feel this is one of the core parts of the classes right now. Seven classes (forestals, knights, alchemists)  currently have a single skill that is entirely devoted to the trade skills in question. Some other classes have items that can be used by other classes, but they have stuff like combat skills within them. Serpents are somewhat exempt from this in my eyes due to the fact that Venoms is essentially a requirement for serpent combat, though others may say otherwise. How will this be handled?

Second, aligned classes. How are we going to handle these? Let's say we do it on the city level, assuming five factions of Nature, Good, Evil, Chaos, and "Neutral" (You don't get any of the professions from the other alignments, the price you pay for neutrality). Would acceptance of one cut off the rest? Or are we looking at a more intricate system here, where we pick and choose which class fits with each city (House for those not in a city)?

Third, class identity. I'd argue that class identity is one of the stronger kinds of identities in Achaea. There's a small amount of racial identity, and I've tried that myself, but in the end, it's class that overall more people get their in game identity from. If we go by the Aetolia model (Two classes, one stored, one active), this may fit alright, but if we allow any class to be learned, then we lose that identity for a lot.

And finally, what about those classes that have the same skills as others? Like the knight classes? They all have chivalry, but when they change classes again, they have to relearn it. I would personally feel cheated if I had switched from runewarden to infernal and had to relearn the same damn skill.

I actually have a proposition for this. We take a leaf from Lusternia's book and bunch those particular classes up as an "Archetype". They learn the first skill they share (Chivalry with knights, metamorphosis for druids and sentinels, so on and so on). They learn the first shared skill, and when they want to switch, they have to give up the lessons in just the skill. To give up an archetype would incur normal penalties. It's rough, but I think this is probably one of the better times to consider such a change.

Arador

I like @Triak's notes on it. Conflicting alignments are already solved so that I no worry. I would like see some limit to 5 or so linked to levels. You can always swop out one of your classes if need be. No to the exponential cost idea as that would just make it the reserve of credit whores. The boosted income from multiclass alone is enough. If it gets too high people will not even bother. I do like that this makes houses based on ideology instead of class. I do think we will see some Houses changing or becoming pointless. Of course city politics will screw this like Houses demanding to be the only one in the city to allow a certain class. Will be fun to watch with some popcorn.

Wynedere

I'm more excited about house changes than multiclass. I do, however, know one player who's about to jump out of his skin with anticipation. 

Nakari

I'm not going to lie, I'm a little afraid of the idea of knight-serpent-monk-bard-shamans. It just seems on a large level to remove the level of importance of each of those choices and the identities that revolve around them. 

What's the need to be five different classes, anyways? Is it just because people have the credits and want to have as many different skills as possible? People seem to get along pretty well with just one, and two would open that up literally exponentially.

A lot of talk on other threads seems to deal with the desire for decisions that have lasting consequence. We talk about things like theft as providing real risks with consequences, and even the thread on removing a runeblade enhancement revolved around the desire for there to a very lasting impact of those decision. I guess that I generally agree with that sort of mindset (independently of my stances on those particular issues) that making life choices for your characters should have consequences, or at the very least should have aspects to them that make the original decisions feel consequential. To me, a multiclassing that exists to fill a need to simply play different class skills or to make choosing a class less necessary risks devaluing the significances based around those class decisions in the first place. I think an attempt to try and offer up a way to play characters that have more complex interests then a single class is very promising and allows for both better roleplay and more mechanical flexibility, but I think that limiting it to even two easily allows for this to a huge degree, while doing more risks making the classes and their flavors feel less unique.

Carmell

Strata said:

I really like what Triak said. And houses should be able to systematically control which classes are available and which ones are not. It doesn't make sense to have occultists and apostates in a Targossas house. Anyone who disagrees with this can select "I'm a non-RP'ing houseless retard who will switch classes every hour because I have ADHD." when they create a new character - and that's fine. But please don't allow this to degrade all status and functionality of houses. I don't want to see Priests in the Shadowsnakes - that's f*king moronic.

ETA: Also would need to either scale back monks, runies, bards bashing prowess or make dragon harder to achieve. I know a lot of people will go "WTF STRATA" for this last comment but when I can easily switch to monk and get dragon in 2 IRL months or less, everyone's going to do it. And then... yeah. Let the boredom flow.

That  also wouldn't be allowed.  Devotion will never be allowed in Mhaldor, Ashtan or Hashan.  Me I'd rather not see this multi classing.  I can see where it will lead and it's not something I like. It will be like what happened when houses first went in and everyone was switching classes and all houses in the city were accepting the same classes.  There was no real RP to it to begin with.