Factional Classes For Hashan And Cyrene

Dji

So this sorta came up a bit in a rants thread, but to me it seems like a good idea. 

Apparently cities are now supposed to stand on their own a bit, as their own factions, this sounds good as the old alliance webs could be a bit stifling (anyone remember everyone vs Mhaldor?). However, it makes sense to me then that each faction should have it's own unique classes/skillsets that they have some degree of organisation control over. Like Devotion users for Targossas, Necromancy users for Mhaldor, Concoction in Eleusis and Occultism in Ashtan.

So extending this, shouldn't Hashan and Cyrene have something unique to them as well, that they can exert some degree of control over? My thoughts would be Runelore for Hashan and I guess something Bardic for Cyrene. Anyone else have any thoughts, suggestions on this?

Achimrst

I believe Runewardens were first in Cyrene to begin with. Along with Shaman for Hashan, although to be honest most of the Shaman I know are enemies to Hashan and all cities have runewardens. I am also very sure there was mention before that no new classes were being made for now or something. It came up in another thread but I don't feel like looking for it.

Dji

With multiclassing, weapon changes and removing the trade skills from various classes, they probably have enough on their plate without making a new class.

Something to give Hashan and Cyrene a bit more of an even playing field and a bit more of a true factional feel would be nice though.

Achimrst

I agree, I think Alchemist is a perfect fit for Hashan though. They always had the three planets, disc of nocturne, the observatory. Hashan has always been about whats in the sky so Astronomy fits them. While Cyrene, as far as I know, has always been about peace and the arts. So Bard? idk really I don't spend a lot of time in Cyrene. Runewarden is a big part of their city though.

Edit!
Forgot to add that I don't think certain classes should be forced to join the city. I think the cities should actively try to draw them into the city. Through RP or even as you said, their factional feel.

Kyrra

There will be Drama if I have to go back to Cyrene. I think a lot of folk would choose to be rogue than be forced to join a city they don't want to live in. For many, a class is your trade and not who you are. Can you imagine Runie Mizik or Earionduil in Cyrene?

With multiclass coming up and changes to House structure, I can't see factional recall being viable. I still think keeping the forestals in Eleusis is stupid while others get to be grandfathered in to other cities. If you make it a hard line, enforce it.

Kafziel

The point of Alchemist was to defactionalise cures, therefore they're probably never going to be exclusive to one city.

Vayne

Kafziel said:

The point of Alchemist was to defactionalise cures, therefore they're probably never going to be exclusive to one city.

That will be a moot point when the trade skill changes happen, most likely.

Dji

Alchemists would actually make even more sense for Hashan, especially with the great Alchemist community existing in Hashan. I like that idea.

Kafziel

Vayne said:

Kafziel said:

The point of Alchemist was to defactionalise cures, therefore they're probably never going to be exclusive to one city.

That will be a moot point when the trade skill changes happen, most likely.

I don't remember exactly where but I am pretty sure big T said there are going to be extra restrictions for transmutations/concoctions, which could mean splitting off trade skills won't solve this problem.

Nim

Kyrra said:

There will be Drama if I have to go back to Cyrene. I think a lot of folk would choose to be rogue than be forced to join a city they don't want to live in. For many, a class is your trade and not who you are. Can you imagine Runie Mizik or Earionduil in Cyrene? With multiclass coming up and changes to House structure, I can't see factional recall being viable. I still think keeping the forestals in Eleusis is stupid while others get to be grandfathered in to other cities. If you make it a hard line, enforce it.

I imagine that, if Cyrene and Hashan did get factional classes, it would work somewhat like the other factional classes have, where their presence outside their city of choice waned slowly over years rather than just being stripped immediately.

That said, if the administration really does what to make Cyrene and Hashan factionalized, they should get classes of their own. Forcing them to rely on other city's classes not only prevents them from being truly factionalized, but it also means there's less draw to join the city for PvP reasons. Why be a Cyrenian priest when you can be a Targossan priest, for example?

With both of these points said, although I don't agree with either city becoming factionalized to begin with, if you argue they should already be that way, I'd argue that not only do the mechanics disagree with your point, but that even if the administration changed that overnight, it still take a year of substantial pushing for them to get to that point.

Achimrst

Kafziel said:

Vayne said:

Kafziel said:

The point of Alchemist was to defactionalise cures, therefore they're probably never going to be exclusive to one city.

That will be a moot point when the trade skill changes happen, most likely.

I don't remember exactly where but I am pretty sure big T said there are going to be extra restrictions for transmutations/concoctions, which could mean splitting off trade skills won't solve this problem.

If they make Alchemists the only ones able to use the trade skill what's the point of splitting it? My guess is they are making it something completely different. Such as when pills became herbs, although this is all speculation I have no idea what is happening.

Dji

Nim said:

With both of these points said, although I don't agree with either city becoming factionalized to begin with, if you argue they should already be that way, I'd argue that not only do the mechanics disagree with your point, but that even if the administration changed that overnight, it still take a year of substantial pushing for them to get to that point.

According to what I was told, they are already supposed to be factionalised and standing alone.

Karai

The only thing Hashan could possibly claim is vodun/curses. Alchemist would be awesome given that Hashan was the first to have an observatory and a history of similar study but that will never happen since it's necessary for those cities that fight Nature. There will be no new classes and without having something similar to beckon/piety-gravehands and the possibility of us losing Occultists, Hashan won't be in a very good place with just vodun. Neat as an idea it might be. @Tecton said that we have a "factional identity" coming and @Ourania echoed this a few times. No timeline, maybe something will come out of @Twilight returning. I'm definitely fangirling a bit.

Nim

Dji said:

Nim said:

With both of these points said, although I don't agree with either city becoming factionalized to begin with, if you argue they should already be that way, I'd argue that not only do the mechanics disagree with your point, but that even if the administration changed that overnight, it still take a year of substantial pushing for them to get to that point.

According to what I was told, they are already supposed to be factionalised and standing alone.

With Cyrene on Targossas's leash, and Hashan presumably barely able to keep occultists, even with the Divine alliance thing going on. >_>

Mannimar

I think it would be cool to have a priest class where the skills are all based on the Triad concepts.

Vayne

Any factional class for Cyrene or Hashan would have to be revamped to give a significant and unique style of play and utility in combat. None of the options on the table are really suitable as is.

Kyrra

You would need to fix the problems in Cyrene and Hashan as well. While I have no issues with Hashan personally, I wouldn't want to live somewhere that has so much infighting. I would find that to be a very depressing and negative environment to play in.

I half expect to see a recall of all priests to Targossas eventually.

Jacen

What I take the "additional restrictions" on Transmutation/Concoctions would be that Eleusians + forestal classes can't learn Transmutations, non-Eleusians + non forestal clases can't learn Concoctions. Therefore, Alchemist has the possibility of being factionalized to Hashan without any further restrictions on curative availability.

Sena

The problem with factional classes for Hashan and Cyrene is that being thematically appropriate for the city isn't enough. Look at the other factional classes, for example. All of them draw their power from a specific "side" to some extent, there's a very direct link inherent in the classes. Cyrene and Hashan don't have any strong alignment like that, nothing to inherently tie a class to them exclusively from all the other cities, nothing that would let them control access to some aspect of a class (like devotion/essence).

Even if you create new classes with the explicit intention of making them factional classes for Hashan and Cyrene, you'd still also need to change the cities themselves for it to work, giving them some inherent and permanent link to specific gods or powers, or you could limit it to a specific house that happens to be part of the city (like the Occultists and Ashtan), but that likely wouldn't be much easier without any history or tradition behind it.

I could see this being a possibility for Hashan (after a huge renaissance/rebirth and probably RL years of work), if it was explicitly made the "City of Darkness" for example, with a class that draws its power directly from Twilight somehow. I can't imagine it working in Cyrene, and I imagine the city would largely oppose something so inherently divisive and conflict-generating.

Achimrst

Karai said:

The only thing Hashan could possibly claim is vodun/curses. Alchemist would be awesome given that Hashan was the first to have an observatory and a history of similar study but that will never happen since it's necessary for those cities that fight Nature. There will be no new classes and without having something similar to beckon/piety-gravehands and the possibility of us losing Occultists, Hashan won't be in a very good place with just vodun. Neat as an idea it might be. @Tecton said that we have a "factional identity" coming and @Ourania echoed this a few times. No timeline, maybe something will come out of @Twilight returning. I'm definitely fangirling a bit.

Curses maybe, but Vodun has a counterpart called Puppetry which is basically the same thing. Maybe they are changing it? idk.

Mannimar said:

I think it would be cool to have a priest class where the skills are all based on the Triad concepts.

As for priests, I believe that is what Shaman was to begin with. Alchemists to have ties to the three planets which used to decide the patron of Hashan with Alchemy and the primes. Maybe that is what will replace Transmuatation? Something that truly ties them to the city for factional RP?

Tarkanian

... and from a layman's point of view, a factional class in Hashan would contradict Hashan's neutral nature.

it may be good for Hashan in the future, but it's not needed now.

Katzchen

Alchemist could work well for Hashan, especially if the replacement for transmutation was some sort of skill to do with astronomy. Cyrene has never fought, and doesn't seem to want to, and doesn't really need a factional class - there is nothing wrong with a pacifist city, plenty of people love it there. There would be way too much fallout if you tried to make Cyrene the only city with bards or runewardens.

@Tarkanian Hashan isn't trying to be neutral, they're trying to be 'Night/Darkness'. It's just not well defined, and everyone has their own idea of what that is. Also some of the population -do- want neutral, so they can't even decide on that.

Jacen

Yeah, some want extreme neutrality. I've been told by Hashani that Hashan is for people who don't want to PvP whatsoever.

Achimrst

Jacen said:

Yeah, some want extreme neutrality. I've been told by Hashani that Hashan is for people who don't want to PvP whatsoever.

I think they are confusing Hashan with Cyrene.

Nim

Katzchen said:

Alchemist could work well for Hashan, especially if the replacement for transmutation was some sort of skill to do with astronomy. Cyrene has never fought, and doesn't seem to want to, and doesn't really need a factional class - there is nothing wrong with a pacifist city, plenty of people love it there. There would be way too much fallout if you tried to make Cyrene the only city with bards or runewardens.

@Tarkanian Hashan isn't trying to be neutral, they're trying to be 'Night/Darkness'. It's just not well defined, and everyone has their own idea of what that is. Also some of the population -do- want neutral, so they can't even decide on that.

Although I agree, I think it'd be cool if bards became a Cyrenese class, but rather than the usual "if you're not in our city, you're against us"-style ruling, if non-Cyrenian bards simply had to produce enough neutrally-available art to keep their barding license.

Trilliana

Maybe if aforementioned Bards had triple-jab again... but seriously, cities that are supposed to be neutral shouldn't have a factional class... when they technically already do. Runies, alchemists, bards, serpents, etc.. neutral.

Jules

Cyrene needs to stay neutral-good, but I've been wondering when they might give us a class or two that is a Cyrene only weapon, just to help defend ourselves.  If the other cities have one or more powerful classes that are unique to them, Cyrene and Hashan do need one as well, you'd think.  Politically, I'd like it if Cyrene managed to be on chilly but civil (trading) terms with all cities but Mhaldor.  

ETA:  oh, and to make us independent from other factions.  That's the biggest piece, really, and alchemists mostly took care of that for us and other cities that aren't Eleusis, which is great.

Eld

Trilliana said:

Maybe if aforementioned Bards had triple-jab again... but seriously, cities that are supposed to be neutral shouldn't have a factional class... when they technically already do. Runies, alchemists, bards, serpents, etc.. neutral.

Those classes are the opposite of factional...

Accipiter

Trilliana said:

Maybe if aforementioned Bards had triple-jab again... but seriously, cities that are supposed to be neutral shouldn't have a factional class... when they technically already do. Runies, alchemists, bards, serpents, etc.. neutral.

There are no neutral cities anymore. Everyone is at one end of some spectrum or another.

Achimrst

Accipiter said:

Trilliana said:

Maybe if aforementioned Bards had triple-jab again... but seriously, cities that are supposed to be neutral shouldn't have a factional class... when they technically already do. Runies, alchemists, bards, serpents, etc.. neutral.

There are no neutral cities anymore. Everyone is at one end of some spectrum or another.

How in the world is Cyrene not neutral? I really need to know this.

Karai

Neutrality is a copout for Hashan and it's caused more apathy than anything else. We don't have the culture and atmosphere Cyrene does. We lack the events that every other city has and in place of them, we have no clear direction. Night, Darkness, Moon, they're all so esoteric that none of the Divine have been able to succinctly explain their realm. Hashan served it's purpose long ago, now it's just a free-for-all that's tearing itself apart using neutrality as an excuse for laziness. Stop calling us neutral, we're trying to distance ourselves from that, otherwise the best course of action is to have Ourania fling a meteor at Hashan and be done with it. Saying Bard or Jester, Serpent, Alchemist, Runewarden are factional classes is lame, at best particularly since we already seem to be distancing ourselves from Occultists, and hopefully Ashtan. But that relationship is necessary for our survival, it seems like.