Plea for New Class(es) and Races

valynstarfire

I have been waiting before I posted this, but now time to make my feelings public.

I heard that in one of your recent streams, that no new class is in the works for 6 mods. By your account, that means about another 2 years until we would get another class. Our last class, as you know, was in Mod 6. We recieved a new class(hunter ranger) with Sharandar (the first expansion), then the Scourge Warlock with Mod 3 or 4, Oathbound Paladin in Mod 6, and then 2+ years of nothing, or is it up to 3+?

Considering all the benefits of bringing a new class into Neverwinter, I have to ask, WTH? You guys should be bringing in a new class at least once a year or every other Mod. Why? Well here are the reasons.

A) Player Enthusiasm, you will greatly increase player enthusiasm bringing in a new class (finally). This COULD brimg back some old players. All this
means a healthier game.

The money you will bring in. Players all over will be spending money on this, and will be more than happy to. What is that list? Well here you go.
-- Character Slots. Yes, these are cheap and yes, some of us have plenty of extra character slots already for such a chance, but not everyone.
-- A healthy amount of people will choose to want an instant level 70 of the new class (Knox character package)
-- Several of those same people will purchase Campaign Completion Tokens, some of us cheap skates will opt instead for Campaign Patronage
Tokens (removing AD from the game which you harped on)
-- Gearing the new class with mounts, companions, enchants. Whether buying mounts and such with Zen or AD on the AH, this will boost your
economy. Especially if people go for themes with their new characters and want specific types of Mounts to ride, or dyes/transmutes.



In between Mods where you introduce new classes, you could add new races. Forgotten Realms has tons of additional races for players to choose in its base material. You could do 2 races at a time. 1 Free for all (like Sun Elves/Drow) and then 1 from a Zen Store package (Moon Elf/Dragonborn) or (shudder) Legendary Lockbox unlock (Metallic Dragonborn, which I personally STILL don't have grrr.) Just a way to bring more money in to you guys.

BTW some of those races would be like these

Arctic Dwarf
Duergar
Gold Dwarf (if the standard dwarf is supposed to be the Shield Dwarf)
Avariel (winged elf like Aerisi from EE)
Gnome (please no)
Genasi
Aasimar (the old traditional opposite of Tiefling)
Aarakocra (saw those in EE, and some people were already hopeful)

Just food for thought, and PLEASE think about it.

nunya

A class every year would be too much, I think. Additional races would be nice, though I think we see enough dwarves as it is. (Kidding! ) Personally, I like gnomes. I played an evil gnome necromancer in EverQuest and it was a lot of fun.

silverkelt

Until they ease up on campaigns and allow some to be account wide unlocked, any new classes seem duanting to say the least, you are talking about virtually hundreds of hours of slogging through campaigns.

Ive played other games where they have done the following:

1. Allow campaign tokens to ease up on the next toon.
2. Unlocked all modifers once done once on your account.
3. Allowed certain or portions , once done once, to be done on all toons forever, so yes you might have to do somethings , but not all of it.


There are creative ways around this, so not to bog down players unnecessarily with repeat tasks .

Here, its lets sell a completion token (FOR one toon)

I would maybe pay them real world dollars to complete storm kings thunder (as that effing campaign is a royal pain and a half) if it was an account wide unlock.

At least they could do is allow for account wide purchasable unlocks, that is something I would pay real world money for.

nunya

silverkelt said:

At least they could do is allow for account wide purchasable unlocks, that is something I would pay real world money for.

If they made this available, they would get a lot of sales out of it. In fact, I would have spent quite a bit of money late last year and earlier this year on this. Now? I don't know. They've hammered our ability to progress multiple characters hard enough that I'm now down to one main character, one off-main, and 7 invocation/profession/weekly quest/SH quest alts. I suppose I probably would spend money on this still because it would enable 6 of my 7 alts to be competent enough to solo Biggrin's, Portal, and Ballad weekly quests. I run WoD weekly on select characters only. (The 7th alt is my former main and can do these quests already.)

pitmonster

nunya#5309 said:

A class every year would be too much, I think. Additional races would be nice, though I think we see enough dwarves as it is. (Kidding! ) Personally, I like gnomes. I played an evil gnome necromancer in EverQuest and it was a lot of fun.

Why? There are plenty in D&D and Forgotten Realms. I would take a new class every year for sure. Have it as a tick/tock, new class and content cleanup and next mod new content each year. Frankly it would inject a lot more into the game then what they are doing presently.

rafaelda

i would like a new class, but i dont believe since they cant balance the ones they have (and will never be ablle to do it)

but new races would be nice come and could at least sell some race reroll tokens and new characther slots...

valynstarfire

@silverkelt

They DO have some of what you refer to for most of the campaigns. Campaign Patronage Tokens, yes, it means taking a character who has already done the campaign to do 1-2 weeks worth of tasks, to get it, but then the toon you use it on has to take about only 1/2 the time to complete the campaign. And then also the Dungeon/Trial/Skirmish is also unlocked account-wide so that task doesn't have to be completed again. Also, most of the early campaigns (Sharandar/Dread Ring/IWD/Tyranny of Dragons) already have the ability to go through faster when they first came out (less currency needed for unlocks in Sharandar and the Demon HE quests in the other 3). They also have the Campaign Completion Token Bundle, which, especially if purchased at the right times, could be especially valuable, not to mention all these tokens are now sellable on the AH, so could be bought for AD instead of Zen.

As I said, all that would put money in Cryptic's wallets as well as taking some AD out of the game (AH transaction fees, Patronage Token Fees).

ghoulz66

Why it matter at this point. Half of the playerbase is a dragonborn. Only the tiefling has a worthwhile racial bonus that's comparable.

pitmonster

Totally agree with this 100%. New content is fine but, frankly, not everyone can play endgame content (with the exception of this new HoF mod that is noob friendly). My daughters stopped playing because they hit the post 70 grind wall and basically said "%$#@ this". A new class once a year would not only provide new playing opportunities for noobs but for vets as well. And new races are good flavoring. As far as Cryptic, both are good revenue generators. Most vets have a slot of each class and have most decently geared.

ecrana

I would love a new class but we all know how that will go.

• release new class
• players realize omg this new class is way overpowered compared to everything else
• players embrace new class and that class is now part of meta
• nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf
• rinse repeat

As far as races go, people put way too much stock into race selection having an enormous difference in endgame. If you're minmaxing sure but for most it doesn't make a ton of difference. So race selection is more flavor than function. They should be able to easily add more races but would that deter people from defaulting to dragonborn on every toon.

kythelion

They can't even make the classes we have work right. I shudder to think of adding new ones. And, that's not a small workload. I imagine it would take up a significant portion of time and budget to create a new class. I think it would have to be in exchange for new content. New content keeps players playing. So, would it balance out? Would enough people play old content on a new class, or would people buy campaigns and be endgame ready with nothing new to do and get bored?

raiderone000

I would definitely like to see a new Class. Right now I don't care which type. They keep saying that class balancing needs to be completed first. I think that's just an excuse.

It's time for a new Class... Give me Monk, Druid, Sorc, Barbarian... I don't care. Maybe now that they've removed "Coming Soon" from Class Generation, we will get one soon. Crossing my fingers, but won't hold my breath.

Ahem Cryptic, DDO has come out with multiple new Classes and new Races along in Ravenloft!!! What's the DEAL!!!

If you build it, they will come...

valynstarfire

It WOULD mean hiring a few people to do this AND put out the content. And I think this would STILL mean profit for Cryptic.

arailem

rafaelda said:

i would like a new class, but i dont believe since they cant balance the ones they have (and will never be ablle to do it)

but new races would be nice come and could at least sell some race reroll tokens and new characther slots...

balance across all classes is a pipe dream. You can't balance a class without another class crying about it being op or the class being balanced crying about being nerfed to oblivion.


as for new classes though. I just want to play a damn druid. I have to fight druids in Barovia and River District all the time and I just want to play one for once.

pitmonster

Will say it a hundred times, get rid of PVP and there is no need for balance. The only thing you have to deal with is allowing all of them to function both in a party and in solo.

mithrosnomore

Races cost time and money to develop, and I think that they painted themselves into a corner with Dragonborn.

What will people that have already paid for Dragonborn pay for in terms of a new race?

They can not just make a "normal" +2 to this, +2 to that or the other race and hope it will sell. There is no mechanical incentive for anyone, and the Dragonborn is out there.

Now this isn't me saying that no one would buy a "Genasi" race that could be one of four types with different stat combos and special abilities for each, but such a thing is virtually four races in one with a more complex character customization process and that costs money, and there just isn't much of an advantage to that over Dragonborn is there?

It's hard to gauge whether such a thing would sell. Certainly harder than to try and figure out why people would spend money on something like Dragonborn.

Classes? They got off to a bad start on them anyway, in my opinion.

It's like SW:TOR in its way, I guess.

In that game they were all about the voice acting. Fully voiced game. But then as time went along, they just started adding fewer voices to the point where the Republic and Empire were doing the exact same missions alongside the exact same NPCs and using the exact same companions.

Here? They started out acting like "Illusionist Wizard" and "Battle Cleric" and whatever else might be things that we would see down the road, but I think that they gave up on that idea a long time ago.
Classes like Hunter Ranger and Oathbound Paladin were, if I was betting, given their names strictly to follow form, not because anyone actually thought that there would be another ranger or paladin in the game in the future.

Still though, this is a good way to keep the players engaged, I think.

Add a new class and some people will just want to give it a try even if they plan on sticking with their old favorites, while others may finally be getting that class that they wanted all along.

For me? I spent all of the early days of the game playing a rogue and a cleric because that was as close to a ranger and paladin as I had. When the actual classes appeared then I immediately started playing them.

So yeah, I say bring on the bard, druid, and monk, even if I have next to no interest in two of those classes.

But I won't be holding my breath.

I guess that just adding a new campaign and whatever content to go with that is easier.

pitmonster

Another problem that Cryptic did to themselves was specific armor for classes. Why does a paladin or a cleric or a GWF or a GF have armor that the others can't wear? Same with leather armor for rangers, TR. Or cloth for SW or CW.

What problem this causes is that if you now want to make a new class, you have to create hundreds of wearable items of all levels and epic pieces, etc. Frankly it would be a good rework just to do away with those restrictions. If nothing else it just makes logical sense as any armor class can use a piece of armor.