Multi-classing

Sanaki

Gotta say, would be nice not to have to offer my firstborn just to get some damn enchantments done.

Tael

TL;DR because I realized I wrote an essay:

The fact that a solution is possible doesn't make something not a problem. The fact that there are people who don't have class-based RP doesn't mean it won't be a problem for the huge number of people with class-based RP. And the same goes for houses.

That means that the problem is, in theory, solvable, not that there isn't a problem or that the solution won't require effort or design.

Also self-sufficiency is bad. Undersupply is something worth thinking about (and trade skills becoming divorced from classes would be likely to fix it), but it doesn't make self-sufficiency less bad. Any change that reduces the amount players rely on one another and interact is probably a negative change for a game like Achaea - if self-sufficiency replaces whole economies, that's even worse.

Vayne

Having Houses self regulating who they allow into their house based on the contribution said person could make to their House's cause would really push them to be more roleplay oriented. This is not a bad thing in anyway I could think of it. Serpent only class houses would have the choice to continue only allowing Serpents in or allowing those who might aid their clandestine endeavors. The former might be better for the Serpentlords(Serpent is in the name), while the latter might be better for the Naga. Either way, these choices would have to be supported by creating a strong environment in the House that creates that identity they wish to portray.

Auto-housing after the intro would have to be removed outright so Houses can vet their potential members to prevent undesirables, but we are talking about multiclassing. This would pose a problem if the house restrictions were removed or not. Whether coded or player regulated(which again I think is the preferential way to do it), members suddenly getting the ability to become other classes would potentially compromise the ideal the House might be striving for. I suppose, however, members could be constrained by the House and encouraged not to play classes that would contradict their established ethos. All in all, loosening the restrictions would make a more dynamic experience and allow Houses to be more than class repository chat rooms because they would have to actually fight for what they represent if they want to attract members.

Satsumi

Tael said:

Also self-sufficiency is bad. Undersupply is something worth thinking about (and trade skills becoming divorced from classes would be likely to fix it), but it doesn't make self-sufficiency less bad. Any change that reduces the amount players rely on one another and interact is probably a negative change for a game like Achaea - if self-sufficiency replaces whole economies, that's even worse.

I don't think self-sufficiency is bad, if we keep it to one or two additional classes. There are times when there aren't any Alchemists (or Sylvans/Druids) around for curative refills, so being able to change classes, refill yours (and others') curative needs and then change back without losing all your skills and knowledge would be an asset for your City. I feel that it means that we could have more people filling more roles. Like Satsumi (once she gets to the skill level) could forge someone armour, and then do curatives for them, as well. Or maybe add runes to the armour, or enchant some stuff for them. I think it could increase the amount people interact.

Say person A is a Runewarden, and Person B is... a Priest. Ordinarily, the two COULD possibly never interact except to forge armour and heal/rezz the other. But if person A is an Alchemist, and person B is a Magi (along with their previously stated classes) then person A could forge armour and refill person B, and person B could heal/rezz and do enchanting for person A. More interaction. 

Tael

Satsumi said:

Tael said:

Also self-sufficiency is bad. Undersupply is something worth thinking about (and trade skills becoming divorced from classes would be likely to fix it), but it doesn't make self-sufficiency less bad. Any change that reduces the amount players rely on one another and interact is probably a negative change for a game like Achaea - if self-sufficiency replaces whole economies, that's even worse.

I don't think self-sufficiency is bad, if we keep it to one or two additional classes. There are times when there aren't any Alchemists (or Sylvans/Druids) around for curative refills, so being able to change classes, refill yours (and others') curative needs and then change back without losing all your skills and knowledge would be an asset for your City. I feel that it means that we could have more people filling more roles. Like Satsumi (once she gets to the skill level) could forge someone armour, and then do curatives for them, as well. Or maybe add runes to the armour, or enchant some stuff for them. I think it could increase the amount people interact.

Say person A is a Runewarden, and Person B is... a Priest. Ordinarily, the two COULD possibly never interact except to forge armour and heal/rezz the other. But if person A is an Alchemist, and person B is a Magi (along with their previously stated classes) then person A could forge armour and refill person B, and person B could heal/rezz and do enchanting for person A. More interaction. 

I'm all for something like you described in its basic sense - which is why I really like the idea of divorcing trade skills from classes (which has been a planned thing I think for a while).

The problem isn't being able to switch and get transmutation supplies. You can already be "self-sufficient" in the sense of having the ability to produce one class-based resource for yourself (by being that class). That's definitely fine.

What's less fine is when one person is a Runewarden/Alchemist/Serpent and can single-handedly supply forging, runes, cures, and venoms. That means that that person doesn't need to interact with other players and also that other players have to interact with fewer to be supplied. The fact that most classes require the services of a number of individuals to be fully equipped is good for the economy and the social structure of the game. It also makes shops more worthwhile by allowing them to be the principal way to find necessary resources in one place (note that shopkeepers need more contacts to keep those shops stocked though - which is good!).

There's an undersupply of certain trade skill products, but that's because they're tied to the classes, not because we lack people with two or three different class-based tradeskills.

Sasiya

Aetolia has had multi-classing for years (which is one of the reasons I keep going back to that game, it just is so fun to have access to different classes) and over this time a few issues have cropped up:

• Class compatibility: Initially, classes were only limited in compatibility based on the other classes you had. Say, a paladin could not be multiclassed as an infernal at the same time. This lead to issues where some people picked classes that should not have belonged in their city, for example Templars in what would be the equivalent of Mhaldor or Ashtan. This was motivated because 'evil uses any means available to them'. Obviously this did not work.
• Tetherings: Classes were divided into tetherings with Carnifex, Vampires, Sciomancers, Cabalists, etc, on one side and Druids, Templars, Ascendril, Zealots, etc on the other side, with a batch of neutral classes available to anyone. This has begun developing into a problem for people investing heavily into one side because once you have picked up so many classes of a particular tethering, the lesson loss of quitting all those classes just to pursue your roleplay in another city becomes overwhelmingly discouraging. If you have the templar, ascendril, zealot, and sentinel class and finds yourself in a position where your character gravitates towards darker dogmas, you either have to change your roleplay and get back in line, or lose roughly ~1,800 credits worth of lessons. This is particularly harrowing for those who picked up even more classes.
• Tradeskills: Tradeskills in Aetolia became commonplace with multiclassing. All of a sudden, a lot of people could harvest, forge, enchant, milk venoms, harvest inks, etcetera, etcetera, where they could not before. The approach taken by Aetolia's administration is to phase out tradeskills from classes, allowing each character to pick one 'mercantile' skill that will be theirs, regardless of their class (so you could have either forging or concoctions/reanimation at the moment, but this will eventually expand to include venoms and enchanting).

I am not saying that Achaea should outright copy the models used in other IRE games, but it might be worth looking into what worked for them and what didn't in order to intercept some problems before they become an issue. Anyway, here are some things to consider:

• No instant swapping: Swapping mid-fight or mid-raid is not a good thing. People should lose all defenses when swapping their class, including non-class specific ones (herb defenses, tattoos, survival defenses, etcetera). Put a cooldown on swapping after having engaged in combat; you have to wait ten minutes after doing an offensive action to swap class in Aetolia and that seems to work just fine.
• No protracted waiting: Don't make people have to wait a long time after swapping class to be able to use it. If I swap class, I want to be able to wear my new armor, wield my new weapon, def up, and play the game. Waiting for 15 minutes, heck, waiting for 5 minutes for my skillsets to become active would be so boring.
• Rogues: That Serpent rogue that has been on friendly terms with Hashan? Well, now he picked up the Paladin class and provide rites for Hashan during raids or other teamfights. This might actually not become an issue, but it would be worth considering.
• Skill access: Somewhat related to the previous point but if multiclassing is released, it would be a good idea to change the way players can take away each others' skillsets. Mhaldor having monopoly on Necromancy in the current iteration of Achaea is fine, but if you release multiclassing then it sort of feels like people should be able to test out the classes they had in mind for their characters. Of course, nothing should prevent Aurora from revoking access to Devotion from Priests that provide rites to Ashtani.
• Learning a new class: How do you want people to learn a new class? From another player? From a NPC? Is it going to be a quest? In Aetolia, only members of the guild are able to teach that guild's class to other people (Jane, member of the Sentinel guild, can teach Bob the Sentinel class, but she can not teach him the monk class even though she knows it as well). How will it work in Achaea? Will it be a daunting quest that in and of itself is an epic undertaking? Or will anyone at level 40+ be able to hand over the credits to learn whatever classes they might desire, even if they only completed the intro twelve hours ago?
• Class loyals/customisations/etcetera: Will my customised golem stay the same if I swap from druid to sylvan, or will I need to implant an entirely new grove? Will my customised falcon stay when I swap from runewarden to paladin? Will I get a new skill that allows me to de-empower my runeblades or will I need five soulpiercers for my bard/paladin/runewarden combination?
• Artifacts: More classes, lower cooldown on swapping between classes, trait/race resets when swapping class, and so on and so forth. Check out the other games and see what sort of artifacts they added. Might provide a bit inspiration.
• Class limits: How many additional classes could you learn? One? Ten? All?
  

I just realized this was not a lot of actual feedback on the topic as a bunch of questions about how the mechanics will work.

Personally, I would fall in love with Achaea all over again with the introduction of multiclassing. I would definitely love being a blademaster.

Echald

Daeir said:

I know this is likely out of the question, but if multiclassing went in, I would love at least a partial refund of all the lessons lost to class changes over the years. Not sure if this is possible, but would love to see it.

Jack

I'd like to see more of an alignment approach taken, akin to the old dnd style approach. Have each class assigned an alignment range. Then, have each city be assigned an alignment. Ignore houses entirely for applying restrictions, have it be entirely based on city alignment.

Priests for instance, could easily fit into Good, Neutral or Forest. Because the priest class itself, is simply someone who is devoted to a god. But they also use angels and other 'goodly' stuff so obviously they'd be out of place in an evil city.

Blademasters, Mages, ecta don't really lean any which way, and could be weighted as neutral, which would fit into any city.

Necromancers would fit as evil. Occultists as chaotic, ecta ecta.

Obviously you'd want to set it in stone and give it real names, but it could be as simple as:
Ashtan - Chaotic

Hashan/Cyrene - Neutral

Targassas - Good

Eleusis - Wild

Then give the classes the alignment range you deem appropriate from the designer's standpoint. From there it's pretty much set in stone, makes Rp sense, and lets houses build themselves from RP standpoints instead of what class they are.

Keelase

I love and hate this idea. I am a one character player, alt playing makes me go crazy...and kinda irritates the heck outta me when people I don't know walk up to me and say "Hey, we're best friends on alt A, so hi, now we're best friends on Alt B." Seriously? Are you really that bad at RP? What's the point of even being in Achaea then? This does not apply to the few people I know play alts where I have met and built relationships with both alts and didn't know for RL months/years who they were.
All that being said, I love the idea of having the opportunity to try out other classes. I can't afford the vast amounts of credits it costs to change classes, nor do I have the time to hunt my rear off to get enough gold to buy those credits ICily either. Keelase is a hunter-a fighter but, in her spare time she enjoys relaxing in gardens and tending roses. It would not be out of character for her at all to also harvest herbs from her garden-in fact, it would be completely normal. For this, I love the idea.
What I hate is the idea that when I'm fighting, I could be dealing with a variety of classes and never know what I'm going to be fighting. I start out fighting a dragon, then I get attacked by a serpent, then I get hit with mental warfare....all in the same 5 minute spar. It's already difficult enough for those of us who can't afford to deck themselves out with artifacts-to learn how to fight with a huge disadvantage. Multiclassing is sure to cost a pretty penny (Credit? Sovereign?) and will once again be yet another thing lower income, limited-time-to-play, players can't afford. To have to deal with the possibility of rapid class changing would put many of the players like myself at such a huge disadvantage that many of us may not wish to continue in the area of combat at all-which in my case, would ruin my RP and much of what I enjoy about the game. I know I'm not a good combatant right now, I really haven't had enough time in the game to learn and am coding illiterate. That's all my own fault, I don't blame that on lack of artifacts or lack of classes to change to but, the few friends I have that fight without artifacts tell me how difficult it is to excel beyond a certain point. Multi-classing would be another huge disadvantage.
Lastly, I completely agree with a cap on how many classes you can be at "one" time and a 12 hour cool down or what-have-you would be an excellent answer to my above concerns.
Thanks for all you do, Sarapin (and all you other lovely divine peoples).

Antonius

Jack said:

Because the priest class itself, is simply someone who is devoted to a god. But they also use angels and other 'goodly' stuff so obviously they'd be out of place in an evil city.

Except that's definitely NOT what the Priest class is.

There are mechanisms in the game to control factional classes as-is, I'm not convinced any more are needed for multi-class. If you're currently in a city other than Eleusis, no Sentinel, Druid or Sylvan. If you're not in Mhaldor and choose a class with Necromancy, you'll just lose your ability to regain essence; same for Paladin or Priest if you're not in Targossas (or, I guess, Cyrene). I'm not entirely familiar with how Occultist restrictions work, so they may or may need changing.

Chryenth

Keelase said:

Sarapis

FTFY

Iocun

Keelase said:

Lastly, I completely agree with a cap on how many classes you can be at "one" time and a 12 hour cool down or what-have-you would be an excellent answer to my above concerns.

I don't think it needs to be that extreme for preventing people from the type of situation you described above, where people repeatedly change class in the middle of a fight. A 12 hour cooldown wouldn't really give you the feeling of having two classes, but would be more akin to rapid class switching.

Something like the 10-minutes-of-no-aggressive-action that was suggested seems more sensible to me. That truly prevents mid-combat switching, but still isn't annoyingly long.

Jarrod

I could see there being a 're-learning' phase after switching classes. You can switch as often as you like, but you'll be at triple Inept when you do. Then you can learn up to max quickly at zero lesson cost. With the new learning speed this would be quick as hell, especially if it were just 'learn once per rank' or something.

Iocun

Still sounds a bit tedious and I'm not quite sure how much IC sense it would make. Would you really have to spend lessons with a teacher any time you went from picking herbs to drawing runes?

Nim

Jarrod said:

I could see there being a 're-learning' phase after switching classes. You can switch as often as you like, but you'll be at triple Inept when you do. Then you can learn up to max quickly at zero lesson cost. With the new learning speed this would be quick as hell, especially if it were just 'learn once per rank' or something.

I'm personally fond of the idea of starting at Inept and gradually regaining ranks over time. It might be something like one rank every X seconds, or X lessons a second, or something. At 30 seconds per rank, that'd be Transcendence in 6 minutes!

Of course, the exact numbers and even the exact implementation could be tinkered with. I just like the concept itself.

Mizik

Sounds pointless and impractical. And ain't nobody got time for going up to a player/denizen every time you want to class change.

Just give it a practical 30 second windup. Give it a generic 'recall effort' message at 1, Certimene message for skill 1 at 5, recall message at 10, message for skill 2 at 15, recall 3 at 20, skill 3 message at 25, "Having suppressed previous knowledge, you are once again a full member of the Sentinel class!" type message at 30.

Can be done anywhere, but not after x time of aggressive action. Unless you want us to go to the Zelda lake fairy of eidetic recall magic every time for the above process. That'd be cool, too.

Rangor

Sry @mizik, you can't be sentinel

Trevize

Mizik said:

Sounds pointless and impractical. And ain't nobody got time for going up to a player/denizen every time you want to class change. Just give it a practical 30 second windup. Give it a generic 'recall effort' message at 1, Certimene message for skill 1 at 5, recall message at 10, message for skill 2 at 15, recall 3 at 20, skill 3 message at 25, "Having suppressed previous knowledge, you are once again a full member of the Sentinel class!" type message at 30. Can be done anywhere, but not after x time of aggressive action. Unless you want us to go to the Zelda lake fairy of eidetic recall magic every time for the above process. That'd be cool, too.

And if you're interrupted mid-switch, you're become very confused and suffer every mental affliction in Achaea, as well as losing class entirely for an hour. Backlash!

Tekk

The idea of this seems pretty basic and more surprising that we have not implemented it before. I can't say anything really interests me, it just feels like a logical addition to the game. I would like to see trade classes become unmarried to class, but I know that's just a dream. 

Tarkanian

Daeir said:

I know this is likely out of the question, but if multiclassing went in, I would love at least a partial refund of all the lessons lost to class changes over the years. Not sure if this is possible, but would love to see it.

Or maybe restrict that further to only the classes you've tri-transed. I'd be happy both ways .

Flair

I have an odd question that will probably concern no one but me. Will our in game aliases reset when we switch from class to class? Unfortunately, these are still what I use for any alias that requires targeting.

Mannimar

Tekk said:

The idea of this seems pretty basic and more surprising that we have not implemented it before. I can't say anything really interests me, it just feels like a logical addition to the game. I would like to see trade classes become unmarried to class, but I know that's just a dream. 

Tecton said:

It is something that's been on my mind for a while, and moving to a system where tradeskills are no longer tied to classes is something that we'll probably do in the future.

Jonners

I wouldn't want to see people be able to have more than three classes, and I'd truly prefer it at two max. Just allow switching from one to the other with a cooldown for combat. If tradeskills are going to get divorced from class, let us choose two max.

Jarrod

I suggested longer downtimes earlier because I think it'd be silly if you could change class and be back in an ongoing raid immediately as a new class. It would turn it into a combat necessity to raid at high end instead of a convenience for those who enjoy multiple classes.

Vansittart

This is obviously an awesome, exciting thing and I give it a huge thumbs up - not least because it looks totally motivated by a desire to make something fun for players rather than maximise credit sales.

But I also have @Blujiaxpug problems.  Not because I think Houses *need* to be class-based, but because the last few years have been characterised by an admin and player push to have Houses *be* class-based, at least in large part.  And this was perceived to be the solution of the pointlessness of Houses post autoclass.  I think it's pretty clear that hasn't worked very well either (even as cities have succeeded in becoming more differentiated).

And I'm a big fan of awesome mechanics, but I do think they aren't really what sells Achaea - I think the structure, depth, and RP sell Achaea and Houses are a big part of that.  This is going to render them even more confused and pointless.  I really think they've needed a reboot for a long, long time now. No-one really knows what they are *for*.  They seem at the moment to be nothing more than gang-groupings which principally foster division within cities.  You may as well just have people wear different coloured T-shirts.

While all the awesome stuff goes on at the coding, and mechanics level I would totally urge @Sarapis and team to have a think about what this does to Houses, and work on a reboot of them.  They need help.

Aktillum

nvm I got trolled. Lol D&D alignments in Achaea.

Orzaansyn

The main interesting point that I see in multiclassing, but that's my personnal view on the topic, is in a RP point of view, and not in a game mechanics point of view. Many classes have a skillset tied to a Divine, like Necromancy. 

What a wonderful moment when one will reveal their true allegiance with the use of those skills.

Hasar

Is enchantment being counted as a tradeskill?

If so, if it is being let open for everyone, will anyone who chooses it be able to get a necklace of purity? :O

Sylvance

Orzaansyn said:

The main interesting point that I see in multiclassing, but that's my personnal view on the topic, is in a RP point of view, and not in a game mechanics point of view. Many classes have a skillset tied to a Divine, like Necromancy. 

What a wonderful moment when one will reveal their true allegiance with the use of those skills.

See, I can't see it having any effect on RP whatsoever. Presently, class has little to do with RP (Order, City and House seem to be the deciders there), so multiclassing would only be doubling zero. The only possible exception I can see to this is in the tradeskills... which hopefully will be divorced from class before multiclassing comes in.

Lianca

I have to disagree with @Sylvance here.

Some classes have a huge relevance on the roleplay of the player. Some of the neutral classes more so by choice, but many faction aligned classes are often integral to the personality, growth, and history of a character.