Multiclass (It's here!)

Gamden

You are eligible for purchasing the No-Brainer Lesson Package. - Thank you Patient Gamden from the past in holding out..Future Gamden thanks you a thousand times!

Dunn

I'll sell my soul for more regular lesson sales.

Telendrieth

I've been waiting for multiclass for a looong time now, and when I saw the news post.. well, I was a bit disappointed. I didn't want to hop to the forums immediately, and wanted to sleep over my thoughts before posting them to this oh so lovely environment. First and foremost, I'm super happy it's in the game. But I really think it's far too expensive, and needs a few changes.

Looking over multiclass, I'm noticing it's ultimately rather gated content, which is fine to a certain degree. I just see it as gated far too strictly for what you ultimately get. You really only need to have one thing gating these choices to your players, not both. We currently need level 80 just to open up the ability (unless we pay), and we need to pay a vastly large margin in lessons. The class slotting is fine by itself, though I think I would lower the initial slot to level 70 and keep it in line with logosian. In its current setup, it feels almost like a joke option in order to avoid paying for a few class slots. I can either pay 100 credits, or just get it naturally by leveling! Well, sort of naturally, I'll just have to hit level 100 just to open up two slots, and if I were adventurous enough, I'd need to be level 130 in order to avoid dolling out 500 credits if that was my goal.

The other gate, comes down to the lessons. Assuming I dolled out for the credits, which would cost $169, I'd then need to pay an increasing number of lessons. This is just written off as "As your brain tries to comprehend the vast knowledge", which is a bit silly. We have the increased lesson curve on the tradeskills to avoid markets being cornered, and to encourage economic flow of coin. With your classes, it offers very little in the way of damaging the economy or even combat shenanigans. There are a very few scenarios where multiclass could give you an edge, and they really boil down to things like sitting as a class with mindnet and switching the second you see enemies enter. If you'd like to have ramping lesson prices, then keep the requirement of tri-trans to pick a new class, and get rid of class slots entirely.

Ultimately, your new class is just there so you can get a breath of life in this game and not need to make a slew of one-off alts so you can enjoy stormhammering the shit out of something (Which is satisfying). Multiclass isn't a horrible advantage in combat or coin, and that's why I feel the gating is far too high. You are gating the content that is there to ultimately allow the players of this game to enjoy themselves on a single character and stick around longer. Else wise you make another alt, dick around on them and they eventually go dormant and you are bored again. I feel strongly on this, because players will already be spending extra money on the class, so there isn't a need to gate it behind a larger payment. People will spend the money to learn it, and then buy artes for their new little adventure. It isn't like it won't open up a flow of credit purchases for IRE.

(Side note, I do think it'd be nice to also have trans skills from one class pull over to another. Because relearning weaponry and chivalry just to go from runie to pally is.. silly. I also believe that is how Imperian does it afaik.)

I'm headed off to class, be back later today to respond to critique.

Dunn

I like what was done with traits, but what about race/specialization? Am I stuck only choosing strength based classes or do I have to bite the bullet and buy a gem?

Antonius

You're probably going to have to buy a Gem. Pretty glad I never upgraded my Grimoire; nice to have the option to reset my traits for a class occasionally when needed, but there's no way I'd get enough use to need it every two hours.

I've picked up Blademaster and Runewarden so far, haven't really had a chance to look at either of them. Learning takes forever. Bard is my next class, but probably going to bash to 110 for the next free slot to reduce the cost a bit.

Dunn

Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame. I would prefer a specialization per class slot, but that's a tall order. Same race, different stat pack, that is.

Sarapis

Gamden said:

You are eligible for purchasing the No-Brainer Lesson Package. - Thank you Patient Gamden from the past in holding out..Future Gamden thanks you a thousand times!

That's very responsible of you. My version of those are are Night Matt and Morning Matt. 

Morning Matt is frequently pretty resentful of Night Matt.

Antonius

@Tecton @Makarios Might be nice if buying the lesser lorewarden artefacts set your class change cooldown to the corresponding amount, if it's higher than that. I ate the 12 hour class change cooldown last night so I could learn, then bought the level 3 artefact, but still had the same cooldown (still about an hour and a half left on it).

Tecton

Tzond said:

HELP MULTICLASS and the announce post say  "Normal refunds of lessons apply to additional classes, with embraced individuals receiving 66% of their invested lessons, and journeymen getting 98%." But as far as I'm aware, quitting a class after embracing only refunds 50% of invested lessons. Is this a new change, something specific to multiclassed classes, or just a typo?

Just a typo, was thinking of artefact trade-ins at 66% (was a very long day/night) - sorry for any confusion!

Tecton

Antonius said:

@Tecton @Makarios Might be nice if buying the lesser lorewarden artefacts set your class change cooldown to the corresponding amount, if it's higher than that. I ate the 12 hour class change cooldown last night so I could learn, then bought the level 3 artefact, but still had the same cooldown (still about an hour and a half left on it).

I'll look into it!

Dochitha

No one goes Jester?

Trey

Dochitha said:

No one goes Jester?

I would go jester in a heartbeat if the ability flavors weren't retarded for a good half of it.

Ruth

I would definitely like to hoot like a monkey and throw banana peels onto the floor.

Kaila

So.. This may be a silly question, but considering Kaila is a forestal in Hashan and was 'grandfathered' in.. @Tecton will I be able to switch back to Sentinel if I add another class?

Sobriquet

Ruth said:

I would definitely like to hoot like a monkey and throw banana peels onto the floor.

Don't knock it until you've tried it

Tecton

Kaila said:

So.. This may be a silly question, but considering Kaila is a forestal in Hashan and was 'grandfathered' in.. @Tecton will I be able to switch back to Sentinel if I add another class?

If you have the class, yes, you'll still be able to get other non-conflicting classes and switch between them!

Arador

Perhaps allow people to switch back from an empty class slot if nothing has been learned in it, to the slot that was active before the switch. A small typo can leave you powerless for a while the way it currently is.

Kaila

Tecton said:

Kaila said:

So.. This may be a silly question, but considering Kaila is a forestal in Hashan and was 'grandfathered' in.. @Tecton will I be able to switch back to Sentinel if I add another class?

If you have the class, yes, you'll still be able to get other non-conflicting classes and switch between them!

Woo, thanks! 

Xenon

@Tecton @Sarapis

Coming from a coding background, thank you. I am sure you have some underlings but thanks for the countless hours you put into this game, whether it be support, or tweaks, or implementing features. These are not easy things to do!

I am sure many an endless day and sleepless night (those 3am coding eureka moments that make you rush to your PC!) can take a toll.

This community seems great, and I am sure there is no lack of thanks, but I wanted to show my appreciation! Job well done!

Ruth

@Tecton, if I decided that I want my second class to be my primary, is it possible to quit my primary class and shift the 2nd class up to fill the empty slot? Or is that just not possible because of the disparity in lesson cost?

Trey

Even though I'm probably not going to utilize it much, ditto on the thanks for all the effort for multiclass. You can't please everyone, but this looks about the best the concept could be managed. GJ

Xith

Yeah tl;dr - slots should come at 70,80,90,100...

You honestly spent 3 years preparing for multiclass and I can now be... *drum roll* ... two classes.
But hey, if you'd announced that plan sooner I might have cancelled my Iron Elite a lot sooner, so good move financially.

See ya later, Achaea.

Trevize

Ruth said:

@Tecton, if I decided that I want my second class to be my primary, is it possible to quit my primary class and shift the 2nd class up to fill the empty slot? Or is that just not possible because of the disparity in lesson cost?

I'll second this, I'd like to do something like CLASS MOVE 1 TO 2 (where 2 is an empty slot, 1 is a tri-trans class) and it prompt you with the lesson cost, then CLASS MOVE 1 TO 2 CONFIRM to pay the cost and move them.

Xith said:

Yeah tl;dr - slots should come at 70,80,90,100...

You honestly spent 3 years preparing for multiclass and I can now be... *drum roll* ... two classes.
But hey, if you'd announced that plan sooner I might have cancelled my Iron Elite a lot sooner, so good move financially.

See ya later, Achaea.

Half tempted to point out how awesome multiclass is, but with that attitude, I'm certain it would be wasted. Peace.

Antonius

I'm a bit confused as to why you'd want/need to be able to switch/move classes. What am I missing?

If you don't want your current primary class, just quit it and then stay as the second one? If you ever want to pick up a second class again later on, I assume you'd just pay the primary class cost.

With regards to slots... There are already tons of rewards for levelling to 100, far fewer for continuing to level past that. If you want more than two classes, and you don't want to bash to level 100, then you can just pay for an extra class slot. The cost for that is a fraction of what it will cost to Trans a third or fourth class, anyway.

Sobriquet

Please point out how awesome it is, as I'm not seeing it. 

Aelios

We finally have the ability to play more than 1 class on the same character, at the same time... and people are complaining?

The self entitlement is massive here. It even smells funny...

Trevize

Antonius said:

I'm a bit confused as to why you'd want/need to be able to switch/move classes. What am I missing?

If you don't want your current primary class, just quit it and then stay as the second one? If you ever want to pick up a second class again later on, I assume you'd just pay the primary class cost.

With regards to slots... There are already tons of rewards for levelling to 100, far fewer for continuing to level past that. If you want more than two classes, and you don't want to bash to level 100, then you can just pay for an extra class slot. The cost for that is a fraction of what it will cost to Trans a third or fourth class, anyway.

Hm. In a way, I could see it as making the second class your 'main' one and using the first to test out others. Still possible without, just a little more expensive.

Sobriquet said:

Please point out how awesome it is, as I'm not seeing it. 

For people like me and other habitual class changers, this is actually a cheap alternative that has the added benefit of changing back pretty often.

I get that it's not for everyone, and there's still a time and place for old fashioned class changes. But really, it's purely an extra benefit that it's obvious was both wanted and lots of effort was poured into it admin-side to give people something they wanted.

At a loss to them, long-term, I'd imagine - considering as I said above, it's actually -cheaper- for people like me and Seftin and all the others who change class regularly.

Silvarien

Xith said:

Yeah tl;dr - slots should come at 70,80,90,100...

You honestly spent 3 years preparing for multiclass and I can now be... *drum roll* ... two classes.
But hey, if you'd announced that plan sooner I might have cancelled my Iron Elite a lot sooner, so good move financially.

See ya later, Achaea.

@Xith : I think getting to 100 is not at all that hard, right now. That leaves you with primary class, two secondary classes, and Dragon. Considering the expense of lessons involved in subsequent classes beyond that, if you really DID want more classes beyond, you probably could save up the 250 cr cost for a slot -- though I admit I am saddened by it being moved up from 100 cr. Is paying 500 credits for class slots really that much more insane than any other promotion IRE has done? Even if the slots came at 70, 80, 90, 100 -- the immense rising cost of lessons would STILL make you unable to get five classes. Five classes, if I calculated correctly, cost 7914 cr in lessons. At that point, an additional 500 cr starts to seem not-that-insane.

I really am baffled why you're quitting Achaea over this.

Sobriquet

But for those of us who have never change class (Speaking purely on Sobriquet here) there is now a total lack of character / class identity. Sure, a habitual class changer used to chop and change a lot and it got expensive but at least there was an identity for that character for a period of time. We aren't all like Seftin, or Ainly or whoever changes class at the drop of a hat. 

With guilds we had a unique and distinct identity to our character and what they wanted to be and while Guilds were changed (and rightly so) this seems to have taken us full circle to making a character in spite of their class, not because of it. Just feels... wrong

I'm not saying it's bad, but certainly wouldn't put it in the "awesome" bracket.

Isaeah

How I would like to see shared abilities is, as mentioned before, how Imperian does/did it. If you are Transcendent in the shared ability with your primary class, that copies over to Virtuoso within your secondary class. Not as heavy of a lesson investment, but still a lesson investment for the class, itself. 

Overall, I like the feel of multi-class in what I've read. I may be in the minority, but I like feeling as if multi-class is something you either work toward, or pay out the nose for beyond a second class. I know a second class is more expensive than a primary one due to lesson investment, but the way class slots work give me a reason to bash to Dragon (beyond being a Dragon), AND gives me a reason to bash even beyond Dragon if I want more than two other classes.

Realistically, though, even ONE extra class is plenty. I know there are those who want to be able to have every class for every situation, but at the same time, the difficulty and investment encourage careful consideration beyond the "OHH SHINEY" moments. 

One thing that would be nice to consider is giving class ranks for changing classes. Learn two skills to Transcendent, or all three to Fabled, or something like that. Something that allows for non-pkers to enjoy the classes they want and not simply learn so they can branch out into a class they have considered beyond their initial class. 

Keep up the good work, @Tecton and @Sarapis.