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Neverwinter Classes Vs. AD&D Class system.
namroth
Member Posts: 1 Arc User
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons have one of the biggest and most complex systems for customizing ones character. From multiclassing over advanced classes. Skill points and more.
What I am getting at is a fear that the current class system is FAR too resticted? The fact that your a "guardian warrior" or a "trickster rogue" is limiting the freedom players have to customize ones toon.
It may be I have missed a few important informations conserning character creation / lvling.. and if so I would really appreciate the knowledge. Whe I first hear there would be a D&D MMO (a new one) I was excited.. but must admit I am started to get really worried.. customization is not just how you look... it is the aspect of the toon you play.
If you are forcing me to chose between 4 predetermined character "types" (eg. trickster rogue) Then you are losing one of the most important aspects of the D&D universe.. the freedom of creativity.
I for one might chose not to play with such limitations. I would rather play DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online) eventho it is getting REALLY old......
Please enlighten me.
- N.
What I am getting at is a fear that the current class system is FAR too resticted? The fact that your a "guardian warrior" or a "trickster rogue" is limiting the freedom players have to customize ones toon.
It may be I have missed a few important informations conserning character creation / lvling.. and if so I would really appreciate the knowledge. Whe I first hear there would be a D&D MMO (a new one) I was excited.. but must admit I am started to get really worried.. customization is not just how you look... it is the aspect of the toon you play.
If you are forcing me to chose between 4 predetermined character "types" (eg. trickster rogue) Then you are losing one of the most important aspects of the D&D universe.. the freedom of creativity.
I for one might chose not to play with such limitations. I would rather play DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online) eventho it is getting REALLY old......
Please enlighten me.
- N.
Post edited by namroth on
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As a small consolation we may get paragon paths at lvl 50 (?) OR a special feat that allows us to take feats from one other class instead. Thats just what i heard so far.
The assumption to make is of course that the premade builds will be the best possible solution for the current engine. It would be much more fun to play that way because everything would work out nicely. You are less likey to make mistakes in your build and no need to reroll uncounted numbers of times.
Also, the 4E ruleset does not provide a general purpose library of abilities like 3E did. Instead, all feats are class specific.
I once saw an official video that made it clear how the ruleset was too complicated for pnp, and they needed to simplify everything to make life easier for dms. Well that should make life easier for us charbuilders, eh ?
Remember that even DDO have the most basic of basics of classes or class features at release also. Launch will likely see a very basic system of classes which is understandable. Start with a basic design and expand from there.
If done right NW can be leaps and bounds way more customizable than DDO will ever be.
Those weren't pre-defined builds which restricted players. They were classes in and of themselves with limitations and benefits of their own outside of the ranger class.
I think a similar system will be in place in NW. They've announced they designed the Trickster Rogue and Guardian Fighter but they have stated they plan to add many more classes into the game so in time I expect we'll see the Brawny Rogue, Great Weapon Fighter and Two Weapon Fighter along with a selection of paragons for each.
While it seems true you won't be able to choose a rogue and design every power from the start that in no way means it is overly-restrictive. As an avid power-gamer myself I know D&D works on paper but when it's translated into video games things break...exponentially. The worst thing an MMO can do is to have broken content because of over-powered power combinations and by restricting players to a class theme, such as the trickster rogue, they are taking measures to keep the game balanced-without disrupting other players.
Imagine for a second that you're playing a character which isn't overpowered by any stretch of the imagination. You go through dungeons and one ability really helps you a lot...but another person uses that ability and a different ability you didn't choose to take which clears dungeons 10x as fast as you. Cryptic then nerfs your most helpful ability and you are no longer effective in the least...
You can feel that is restrictive, in a sense it is, but no more than any other themed class such as the AD&D Specialist Classes or 3 Edition Prestige Classes. Just because you won't have access to *every* ability a class has doesn't mean you won't be able to differentiate between yourself and others within the same class. I know darn well that *my* prestige class builds on NWN didn't work the same as other player's builds yet we all had similar abilities and roles.
And again, this isn't Neverwinter Nights. These classes aren't set in stone. The amount of customization will only increase over time.
To me this does feel overly restrictive, I am sure others feel like this as well and thus much of the hate many have towards 4e, I like to have the freedom to make my rogue either brawny or trickstery. It seems to me my rogue would be more brawny or more trickstery depending on my build but yet here they make it a whole new class so they can "limit" how it is built. I understand that things need to be balanced BUT I think they went too far in 4e.
It almost seems to me that 4e "dumbed down" choices so that those that can't or don't know how to build a toon can't "mess up their builds" but at the expense of those of us that know how to build a toon. Peeps keep saying its to avoid OP toons that "break" the game and I have always found this argument kind of lacking.
To me it feels more like lets nerf all those peeps that can and know how to build a toon so those that can't and don't want to learn how don't roll gimps and can play their flavor toon and still feel as proficient as those that do.
Guess we shall see what 5e brings hopefully much of the shenanigans of 4e will be gone.
Neverwinter Thieves Guild
It is more restrictive than, say NWN, but the only point I am trying to convey is that it's not bad in and of it's own. Just because you won't be able to design a Brawny Rogue who tricks just as much as he brawns doesn't mean the game is "builds" and overly-restrictive. It's not the same, but playing is the only way to discern if that is too restrictive.
All I can say is they don't seem to be doing anything other than what we already do in D&D to begin with. But instead of giving free reign they are giving varied classes which will allow the same general level of modification.
When I design somebody my first thought is, is the main focus going to be damage or defense. The Guardian Fighter will obviously be a very defensive "tanky" fighter...but in the future if I wanted a fighter who did more damage I would opt for the Great Weapon Fighter or Two Weapon Fighter.
It's the same thing I did in NWN, just instead of all of those labelled under "Fighter" we'll have specialist fields which can then be modified to the desired settings. I don't see them making a Great Weapon Fighter who can't be designed to be more (or less) durable in combat.
More restricting, yes. But whether it's overly restrictive...I don't think that can be judged completely until after release but I don't think it will be.
I am willing to try the game and let them game convince me of the merits of 4e. Hopefully I wont be too disappointed.
Neverwinter Thieves Guild
If you want to play a brawny rogue, wait for the freaking brawny rogue to come out then! It's not like this is the final version of the game they're about to release. Sure, there's going to be probably the same 4 character types running around everywhere in NWO at first, but I doubt it's going to stay like that FOREVER. Learn some patience, or just come back next December and see if the game has added more content.
Going to the MMO, this info may change as it's only based on demos and articles.
But it seems the class will have builds to suggest default powers at creation, then have other powers unlockable and swappable at later levels. Feats are point based 99% certain based on the trees we've seen in screenshots and if they went to L 60 for Paragon, then it's clear that we get a Paragon Path at L 30. From what I saw of the branching for feats, I think it's a separate specialty for "feats" but there were not enough screen images for me to conclude definitely But even if they link together, this suggests areas or MMO trees you can specialize in like most MMO's coupled with some possible classic Paragon Paths.
But all this is or was subject to change as they test these things.
The point of criticism is not to put disregard on a gem. It is a form of balanced support. Like Yin and Yang, any discussion always has pros and cons.
I want to put it clearly: If people voice their disregard of any aspect of the game, they still want to help make NW a better product.
ruinedmirage: your post contains no actual argumentaion, only voicing your bad feelings about the OP.
In most previous MMOS the skill tree or feat trees are simple. They offer no build-making choice, only little specialization and they are a part of a larger scheme that definetely includes slavering over premade builds.
While i would agree that we are arguing over uncooked stew, the time to skewer the ingredients is always a sign of great anticipation.
Really? In my experience its the opposite. Pre-launch the community is generally defensive for the game ignoring what appears to some of us as critical design flaws. Lots of 'it hasn't even been released' type comments that apparently preclude having an opinion on mechanics. That continues into beta with many 'its just beta' comments. Until the game is released and then most of the community realizes that these design flaws did persist through to the finished product and they all of a sudden turn rabid.
Personally I don't know enough to say the inflexibility in classes is a critical design flaw. But if what we have seen is an indication of their direction in class design I am concerned. D&D is about character progression and making a character your own. I don't know how well that translates to class design that has a base class with a primary skill of magic missile mapped to the left mouse button. It might be a good game. Even a great game. But that isn't a D&D game.
This is really funny to read now as we are only a few days from January and the developers have given us exactly ZERO new information about the game.
You do know by "next December", I meant December 2013, right?
Yes yes! Let me taste your tears!
Yeah thatd be great
With Star Wars Galaxies they were working with the Star Wars IP but chose to focus on building a spiritual successor to Ultima Online that focused on crafting and classes like Image Designers. They failed to develop a game for the Star Wars audience and it failed. Then they did it again with NGE. SWG was a decent game, it just didn't cater to the much larger SW fan base. So they redesigned it for the SW fan base. But it was to late for them and in doing so they failed to cater to the Galaxies fans making SWG one of the biggest failures in MMOG history .... twice.
Vanguard is another example. This was a game being developed by the guys that made EQ. It was the spiritual successor to EQ. But they altered course midway to attempt to get the WoW fanbase and ultimately failed to capture their EQ audience.
You can find many many examples across the industry where the developers lost their audience.
For Neverwinter the audience includes Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter, Dungeons and Dragons Online, pen and paper, and other D&D gamers. They are working with a very established IP.
They don't need to emulate the system 100%. If they make some necessary revisions to the formula to translate it to an action based MMO without discarding the overall feel (i.e. SHIFT Click Dodges, mana based, no friendly damage) then that is fine. But if they choose to forgo the principle of some of the basic building blocks that were consistent across all of D&D based gaming today they risk abandoning their audience.
I think if they are building a game where Magic Missile is the left click spam skill of wizard type A, but is not available to Wizard type B whose spam skill is Burning Hands, then they have lost site of a huge part of the D&D IP.
I am not saying that is what they are doing. But that is what they have shown on the videos so far.
I agree with your post 100%.
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I completely agree here. Things common to the popular and old D&D games series like BG etc should be maintained. One thing to note is that even when many of the games are years old with outdated graphics and everything else, still people play these games today.
I am not saying NW will not be success in absence of common elements - but it sure won't be able to retain the long term crowd which stays for 10 years if they ignore things like that.
A little birdy told me it's basically a Daggerdale mmo...jk *bear smiley hug*
*Cough*Kill*Cough*the*Cough*Birdy*Cough*
We have been told a lot of time that we can customize the characters but they are yet to demonstrate that. Lets hope the coming beta (or at least rumors of it) bring in a flood of information.
Now excuse me while I go back to the rocking fetal position until I block out the memory of that game that shall nevermore be mentioned again!
Are you sure you are talking about AD&D? Because in that version, you had to choose just what this game makes you choose: 4 archetype classes. Dual and multi-classing in AD&D was a nightmare, in my opinion. I thought version 3 and 3.5 gave players way more freedom than they had ever had.
There will always be restrictions man, it's a video game, not a pen and paper game. In any class-based system, there will ALWAYS be restrictions. We should be able to build our own classes, (Star Wars Galaxies did this; anyone recall all the titles for different builds when there were 32 professions?).
I can tell you personally, that not all players have the creative ability to sculpt their own characters. Gamers these days don't really care; a lot of times you will find a creative build within a game that gets ripped off by another player, and so becomes the 'alpha class'. This is why I am totally against being able to examine other player's abilities/builds, etc.
It seems like the level of customization (powerplaying) that Third Edition gave has spoiled much of the D&D Player Base. Fourth Edition on it's own takes a lot of the customization (powerplaying) away from players wih much more restrictive multiclassing features and such.
Now as for class builds customizations, as Crypticmaplois said about a week ago there won't be free build classes at launch but that doesn't, by any means, mean you are being given class builds.
In Diablo every class is given a series of powers that is unlocked as you level up. Each power can be further modified with different effects as you level up. End result is that although you are only given one class with one set of powers there's no one way to play any class. Every person BUILDS their own class to fit their own style of gameplay.
Some might prefer using level 1 spells over high level spells. Some people build their class to do more damage than other builds while others may prefer to build their class tankier than other builds.
The only thing we know for sure, at this point in time, is every class is given powers to unlock as they level and you are able to choose and mix-match a few powers however you want. Free-choice power selection is something that might come after launch.
However they still have not released anything about player feats or the other attributes which define D&D. A series of powers to choose from is enough for me to say any person who doesn't consider that a build is too far stuck in Third Edition because the only reason they are classified as builds in the fourth edition PHB's is because a player has access to EVERY At-Will, Encounter, Utility and Daily power at any given time in PnP and we KNOW that won't be the case in NW. Part of the strategy will be that you will only have access to a few at a time.
There's still a whole level of customization left to be discussed but honestly Powers is the least important means to discuss the level of customization. It's more important to know what we can do to customize those powers to fit what we want our own character to do.
Not sure I like this approach though because it takes away the need or want to re-roll, instead just change what skills you are using and wholla a new build, there are no mistakes.
I hated this in Diablo 3 but there was a lot of things wrong with that game besides the way the skills worked...
Except for choice of paragon paths.