Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
- 6.2K All Categories
- 3.1K Everything Achaea
- 1.5K North of Thera
- 26 Archives of the Terraformer
- 257 The Matsuhama Arena
- 885 The Golden Dais of Creation
- 299 The Scarlattan Theatre
- 149 The Blank Canvas
- 2K Getting Help
- 412 General Questions
- 258 Quick Class Questions
- 1.3K Tech Support
- 313 Client Help
- 486 Curing Systems and Scripts
- 841 Off-Topic
- 255 The Wander Inn
- 586 The Universal Membrane
- 298 Class Discussions
- 298 Individual Class Sections
- 20 Alchemist
- 9 Apostate
- 30 Blademaster
- 9 Depthswalker
- 14 Druid
- 4 Infernal
- 20 Jester
- 19 Magi
- 34 Monk
- 11 Occultist
- 8 Paladin
- 7 Priest
- 29 Runewarden
- 18 Sentinel
- 26 Serpent
- 20 Shaman
- 9 Sylvan
Suggestion: First Class Skill
So I know what you're thinking. "RAHHHHHHHH ANOTHER SUGGESTION / RANT THREAD!"
I come with a semi-decent idea in my mind, and am open to criticism.
What if we made the first class slot.. free. Based on Attainment. You hit level 80 (or 70, or whatever), and you get completely tri-trans in that first slot. Always.
This solves a number of issues, also in helping novices get a leg-up in the world. It also solves the problem of factional classes (at.. least in the first slot. Being able to recoup the lesson investment if your class is fucked over by factional should probably be baseline, but whatever).
So, you might be wondering.
"Gee Adrik, how are we going to still make money off of lesson packages / New Play Lesson Package?"
1 ) You shift the initial cost of lessons from that first class down the tree some. Your second class is more expensive than it is now. Your third is more expensive still, etc. You're basically allocating those lessons from the first class slot onto things that are optional for the player to take.
The first class slot should be the baseline expectation, and it falls within typical MMO-Faire. You play, your first class gets stronger as you level up until tri-trans. The New Player Lesson Package can then be spent on other things, such as.. Vision, Tattoos, Miniskills, Probably raising Avoidance, etc.
It's not a great solution, but I am completely up for actual constructive criticism or feedback.
EDIT: This also has the upside of letting people actually test-trial classes (without arties) to see if they actually want to play as said class. Useful. Probably only allow people to change their 1st slot class every 3~4 days, but let them revert to their previous class with a 4 hour grace period for free if their new one isn't to their liking.
I come with a semi-decent idea in my mind, and am open to criticism.
What if we made the first class slot.. free. Based on Attainment. You hit level 80 (or 70, or whatever), and you get completely tri-trans in that first slot. Always.
This solves a number of issues, also in helping novices get a leg-up in the world. It also solves the problem of factional classes (at.. least in the first slot. Being able to recoup the lesson investment if your class is fucked over by factional should probably be baseline, but whatever).
So, you might be wondering.
"Gee Adrik, how are we going to still make money off of lesson packages / New Play Lesson Package?"
1 ) You shift the initial cost of lessons from that first class down the tree some. Your second class is more expensive than it is now. Your third is more expensive still, etc. You're basically allocating those lessons from the first class slot onto things that are optional for the player to take.
The first class slot should be the baseline expectation, and it falls within typical MMO-Faire. You play, your first class gets stronger as you level up until tri-trans. The New Player Lesson Package can then be spent on other things, such as.. Vision, Tattoos, Miniskills, Probably raising Avoidance, etc.
It's not a great solution, but I am completely up for actual constructive criticism or feedback.
EDIT: This also has the upside of letting people actually test-trial classes (without arties) to see if they actually want to play as said class. Useful. Probably only allow people to change their 1st slot class every 3~4 days, but let them revert to their previous class with a 4 hour grace period for free if their new one isn't to their liking.
2
Comments
Sorry.. the other thread has me more cynical than normal. I think Skye already mentioned this in the other thread and it is a good idea.
Someone did. I thought it was you, but Telinus claimed credit for it anyway
Though without houses utilizing any sort of class identity, it doesn't make sense to tie classes to houses at all. Class identity is dead. People pick a class because it sounds cool. There's usually nothing about their class in their city or house so they either make it all up themselves or find someone who gives their identity to them.
A simple solution would be to have admin approved clans that you could join upon leaving the novicehood, tied to a task, and they were semi-democratic. Ex: Task ??? : As a Blademaster, there is a group you could seek out to learn more about the history and traditions of your skills. CLANHELP BLADEMASTERS to speak to a member who caninduct you. (CLANHELP BLADEMASTERS would be the thing to pass the task)
(Or something better)
The idea is that the person in question would be tri-trans by 80, or whatever arbitrary number is 'good'. 80 is likely the best, since it's also when you get a spike in health, or something.
It's going to progress at the following rate.
Full speed for Main skill (Bashing Skill), Should trans by about 40. 2/3rd speed for 2nd skill (Usually a not-pve necessary skill, but needed for PVP) will be completed at 60ish. Your final skill will be completed at 80.
What this means is that as you level, all of these abilities will gradually grow and gain lessons, making it so that you can feasibly do things in PVP as a level 50 or 60 wanting to help out, or even 40! You won't have access to the third skill (Bard's is Harmonics, which is not super pivotal), but you'll have SOME level of access to the skill, making it still useful if it's necessary for you to have it.
This class slot should just be the base line, and should always be available to everyone. You can swap it out, for free, once per month. No questions asked, if you're level 100 and don't wanna be a bard anymore, you get a free swap to try out a new class!
I wanted the lessons to be pushed over to the other class slots, because the value (at least to make it a bit more appealing on IRE's end) isn't lost. It's just shifted towards more end-game players, or people with multiple classes, rather than the average joe schmoe who might drop $25 every now-and-then.
..not that I know the best way.
Having it cost like ~40/60/100 BCR for the primary/secondary/tertiary class skills means that they can be bi-trans by level 55 (a passable soldier in a raid) and tri-trans by 80; faster with high engagement with the adventuring system. Make it so the items are available for people's first month of Elite (instead of or in addition to the 100 BCR) to incentivize the service.
For a novice at level 80 who is moderately engaged in the adventuring system and buys:
Nothing - they can expect to be tri-trans and have a few token artifacts (like vials)
2x no brainer lessons - they can expect to be tri-trans with trans avoidance and a ways into some tradeskills, along with having a few token artifacts
3x no brainer - they can expect to be quad-trans with a level 1 artifact or seriously contemplating dipping their toes into the 'serious' artie pool (SoA)
Constantly make small changes that gradually make people rethink their class.
But it doubles as constant progress and development, so it's a good thing!
Edit: Actually we already have a system that could support it. The practice system could just convey the same bonus a lucrescent not does and when leaving arena it reverts.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
I also like the arena practice mode idea a lot.
Quite right, Issam - my apologies. I forgot to check the rules before posting. I will instead email them. I figured as they were currently responding to a series of posts related to similar topics they may want to take the opportunity to reach out and respond on this topic too.
I think your question has two questions somewhat intertwined:
1: Do we need embrace to facilitate things running smoothly and prevent gaming of the system?
2: Does it create a major difficulty for new players determining if they'd like their class before investing lessons?
I'll tackle them separately.
For the first question, I think we do need embrace. Its not a perfect solution and I think the implementation could definitely be improved, though doing so in the areas I'd personally be interested in would be a pretty significant undertaking and I think those dev hours can probably be spent more impactfully elsewhere. Achaea's implementation is fairly arcaic and does impose some unfortunate limitations on what we can easily do without a very major rewrite. That major rewrite may happen at some point, but I think given the time vs payoff it should be pretty far down the list.
To the second question, we think yes, it probably does. We liked the arena practice mode trans class skills suggestion - this is now implemented. We agree people should be able to know what they're getting into before committing, and embrace throws a spanner in the works where that is concerned.
Does this realistically answer all the problems I initially had? Well, no. Of course not.
Does it let people actually try their class before they commit? Yep!
I'll take what i can get on this one.
Thanks Mak!
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
Disagree, but then again, I learned blademaster basics from all your forum posts on the matter sooooooo gunna go sit in the corner and rethink things.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.