Home › Game Forums › Rift
Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Rift's Skill Tree...
cybrinsanity
Member Posts: 106
in Rift
Comments
I was pretty disappointed to learn that the class switching mechanic was gone from HoT. I was looking forward to a game in which Alts were unnecessary and you could level up every class in the game if you wanted to. But this new system seems pretty interesting as well. It is still unanswered exactly as to how extensive the class swapping will be. But with potentially hundreds of combinations, including non-combat ones, and an ability to save and switch builds, color me pleasantly surprised and happy. I am definitely looking forward to a fuller reveal at E3.
It seems pretty similar to the old subclass system from what I can see. Except instead of finding 'subclass cards' they now have souls in place. Judging by earlier comments made by Scott Hartsman, there must be some limit to what they allow in terms of soul switching since the 'free form class switching' is supposedly out.
Either way, it sounds interesting. I hope there are some limits within soul trees depending on your main archetype...
Ningen wa ningen da.
----
http://twitter.com/Ciovala
Sounds good, but the acid test will be how obvious the "ultimate builds" will be. After all, one hundred different build options are useless if ninety-five of them aren't welcome on raids.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
well hopefully they'll have save slots or something so that we can save a build for PVP and Raids and then solo builds...
Personally i think this is one of the best class systems to come out ever for a PVE game. WHY? 1 reason. It will allow people to create classes that are very focused, or very hybrid. The hybrids will give up the ability to be leaders in certain areas for utility. Like the example of the rogue losing out on some damage abilities in order to gain stealth. SO, if you want to be all out dmg man, you can do that, but you're gonna give up stealth or ranged attacks, or defensive abilities etc.
I also like that example they gave of being able to create a class that was a great buffing class, so good in fact that they basically become unsoloable. I think this caters to a lot of people. I know plenty of people from my EQ days who loved to play classes like that because they enjoyed grouping and the feeling of indirectly making their buddies more powerful.
I also love that they're not pulling a WOW and letting the hybrid classes have the best of both worlds. It pissed me off to no extent that a druid could switch from a super healer to a super dmg dealer that could compete in the top 10% of pure dmg classes like warlocks or wizards. Especially in such a solo prevalent game, it basically said to pure classes that you're useless bastards and if you want to be walking demigods you should have played a "hybrid". Which of course wasn't truly a hybrid.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Man I am pumped for this game. Where have all the ads/publicity been for this game? I haven't heard like anything about it till just recently.
If you want publicity get ready its coming.
But to answer your question Trion released information last year at E3, under the games previous name Heroes of Telara, then in the fall they hired Scott hartsman to make the game and the game and changed direction and philosphy. Since E3 last year we have recieved no content information until the end of April this year. We should be learning a great deal more at E3 this coming week.
Some background on Trion while they are a startup company they claim to have raised over $100 million. So Rift will be a AAA game with hopefully AAA quality. One can see that looking at the recently released videos. I would expect they will be using that money to hype the heck out of the game as very few people know about it.
Getting back on topic the IGN article is great and the class system sounds wonderful.
I'm definitely excited about this class system. Other aspects of the games look great, but open classes like this are a something I always look forward too. It's the closest thing we'll get to a "classless" system.
Diablo 2 is NOT an MMO!
Watch the gameplay videos from E3 2010, and read a couple of the articles on the class system. It hasn't been said directly, but it leans strongly towards that the only limiting factor you may have is your initial class selection from the original 4. So you might never be able to change your character from a fighter, or cleric, but that doesnt mean that because you chose the cleric subtype you will be perma stuck healing. They look to have a much more robust system than any mmo thats come out before and the fact that you can add up to 2 additional souls will give a ton of class flexibility.
Its actually still similar to the old system, if you recall one of the old "Heroes" of telara articles mentioned that if you started as a warrior type, you could be a more tank oriented paladin, vs starting as a cleric you could still be a paladin but it would be a more healing oriented paladin? I know the systems still not identical to before, but in execution i think its very close.
I foresee the only reason for people to really create alts is if they want a stronger variation on of the 4 original flavors, i.e. rogue/warrior/cleric/caster, etc.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
They've said that classes are faction specific. That doesn't mean all are, and also that classes/souls are restricted to your calling. So, it is less open than the original idea. However, the initial idea (as mentioned above) was for a paladin to offer different sills to a warrior versus a cleric. In this game, they've just gone the route of creating additional classes/souls to do what is ostensibly the same thing (ie there will probably be some healer souls for a warrior, etc.).
Ningen wa ningen da.
----
http://twitter.com/Ciovala
In this ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY9-NqQoX1c&feature=related ) E3 presentation he says at around 3:00 you can replace the ascended soul you started with. So, I wonder if you can pick one of the other archetypes and just entirely rebuild the character without having to relevel. Either way it sounds promising, it would just be cool to switch entirely on an already leveled character.
"cinnamon buns"
- Pickles
No you cannot replace it with another archetype. The Souls you pick up are restricted by Archetype. So you would not be able to pick up a soul from another archetype. Now some souls in archetype cross over archetyopes to an extent like the spell thrower example they used for warriors but its still a warrior archetype soul.
Cryana explained it right. The old build with HoT was free form class changing the new build is restricted to changes per archetype. Still pretty cool.
Am I the only one who isn't impressed?
It looks like every other talent system you have in any current generation MMOs you have nowadays. You have 4 base classes and you can sub into one of 4 different subclasses in that archetype? How's this different from WoW's system in which you could turn each of the 8 classes into 3 different roles?
What's the difference between me making a Cleric lean towards damage dealing by going Inquistor or whatever and me making a Priest in WoW and going more towards damage dealing through the Shadow tree? Sure, you might be able to hybridize more in this game, but we won't know till the game is released if hybridization is going to be balanced (in other MMOs it's typically either been too weak or too powerful). You could spec into 3 different trees in WoW also, but it wouldn't be effective and thus typically nobody does it.
You must not have actually played wow at anything more than a solo/small group level. The difference is huge. First and foremost the skill trees on many of the classes DRASTICALLY altered the class, i site druids as the supreme example. WOW is the only MMO game where you actually have to ask someone who is a priest, if they are a healer, or someone who is a druid or shaman, if they're a healer. The reason is because of WOW's shit ass accomodate everyone's fanciest whim tree skill system. Under no circumstance was a shadow spec priest or bear/cat form druid able to heal in any real capacity.
You touched on how the game will balance itself, because there are limited soul points, you can't sit there and be the big badass bow using, stealthed duel dagger wielding fireball nuke caster because you wont have enough points to do so.
But, lets say you want to sacrifice as a bladedancer, some of your pure dmg for a bit of utility like being able to use ranged weps, or to cast say a snare or some other ability/spell like hide/sneak etc, you can. This still differs from wow, because even with the pure classes like a warlock for example, yes, all of the specs were dmg dealing specs, especially between destruction and affliction, we just "two ways to skin a cat", yeah one was always slightly better than the other in terms of pure DPS, and they always flip flopped. But it was still just 2 slightly different means to the same end. In Telara there is actually true balance. You can't have your cake and eat it too. So, if you want to be the uber dmg output top of the tippy top rogue, you can do so, but you give up utility to get that.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Its a bit more complicated than that.
You talk about a Priest in WOW speccing to Shadow as an example
How about a priest using stealth? or maybe a Caster having melee skills?
Go read the IGN write up for this and then you might understand
http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/109/1096726p1.html
I'm normally at the front of the line of people chanting "Need more sandbox games" but this class system actually interests me enough that I intend to play this game when it launches early first quarter 2011 (providing they make their schedule).
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
I'm caught up on all the latest news now, and I am much more contented with the new class information. From what I understand, yes souls are confined to your calling (archetype), but there will be souls (like heroic souls) that take on attributes of other callings (like a heroic soul in the rogue calling that has attributes of a soul in the mage calling) thus allowing the creation of a rogue with some magical abilities. Additionally, you will be able to easily save "soul builds" and switch them out in a city. This makes me quite the happy camper.
Still, it would have been nice to switch callings, but that seems to be one of the changes Scott made when he came in and gave the game a bit more focus and direction. Perhaps such an idea was found to be too difficult to properly balance.
At launch there are 4 callings each with 8 souls, so 32 total classes. You will eventually be able to swap out your starting soul and by level 30 iirc you will have unlocked the ability to use 3 souls simultaneously. Heroic souls are those that are not available at character creation, but are picked up later on in the game via quest, loot, etc.. Some souls are faction / race limited but most are not.
Another aspect that hasn't been fully revealed about the class system is that there will be non-combat souls as well. They might fall into a different sphere, but it's gonna be pretty awesome to pick up a jester soul and a brewmaster soul in time for harvest-fest (for example).
Did you even read my post at all? Instead you throw out an ad hominem attack on me when I never once stated that a Shadow Priest can heal in WoW. I said I don't see the system as any different than talent trees in WoW, because if I want to make a priest that is a damage dealer (NOT A HEALER, HELLO!) I could. If I want to give that shadow priest a little bit of holy I could too, sure if won't make an effective healer, but there is no telling that the skill trees in this game will either.
As far as my WoW experience I played up to the middle of TBC. I had 8 80s, 3 in full Tier raid gear at various times, a Grand Marshall character, and was in a top raiding guild since I hit 50 (one of the firsts on my server too). I also have hardcore raiding experience in just about any MMO there is with a lot of PvE focus including EQ for 5 years.
So I don't know why you went off on a whole paragraph about something I never even said in the first place. I never said shadow priests can heal (well they can, just not effectively, and they can moreso now since +heal has been transfered to +spell damage). I just said you could spec to a shadow priest if you wanted to deal damage as a priest.
I don't care how people and the developers try to word it, there is no difference between this and WoW's skill trees, besides the fact WoW has 8 classes with 3 skill trees and Rifts has 4 classes with 4 skill trees. You don't know how well it will be balanced because we haven't seen it in action yet. From the looks of it, it looks EXACTLY like skill trees in any modern MMO. Really, what's the difference besides giving it a fancy name of soul system? If I wanted to sacrifice healing as a priest in WoW I'd go shadow and focus on DPS, but in the end most people are probably just going to go for the pure specs, unless hybrids themselves are going to be overpowered, as is evident in any other MMO (Rangers sucked in EQ for a long time till they actually put them into a role of damage dealers).
More options doesn't make the system new or innovative. It's still basically 4 skill trees wrapped up around 4 base classes. Well, actually you can't make a stealth based priest since the classes are FORCED into their archetype, and stealth is a rogue trait.
I wouldn't disagree that there are similarities between them, but ultimately what Trion are trying to do is allow for effective and viable custom classes from hundreds of combinations. This is not possible in WoW as far as I know. Each of the 4 callings (archetypes) will at launch each have 8 souls (classes). It has been confirmed by the devs that some of the souls will be "pure" classes, but some will have attributes from other callings.
Mostly likely, 5 souls will be "pure" and the other 3 souls will each take after one of the other callings:
Calling: Healer
Soul1,2,3,4,5 - Healer variations 1,2,3,4, and 5
Soul 6 - Healer / Rogue
Soul 7 - Healer / Warrior
Soul 8 - Healer / Mage
or
Souls 1,2 Healer Variations
Souls 3,4 Healer / Rogue Variations
Souls 5,6 Healer / Warrior Variations
Souls 7,8 Healer / Mage Variations
However it ends up, you only can choose from 2 souls at character creation, the other souls are heroic souls.
So to use your example, you will be able to create a custom class that is a healer with stealth capabilities and still have it be a viable class. The last interesting twist is that each skill tree has branches (where you spend your soul points) and a root (which unlocks as you spend points in the branches). Additionally, like WoW's skill trees, each soul-tree will have multiple options within itself.
Ultimately, it sounds like a nightmare to balance, hopefully Trion can pull it off.
WoW has 100s of specs too that can create all types of weird class combinations, the problem is most of these aren't viable. The biggest issue I see here is that you might be able claim 100s of types of class combinations, but in the end if only a few are viable and how's it going to be any different from any other MMO's talent trees?
Don't get me wrong, I'm really excited about the game. Just not excited about this particular mechanic. The Rifts system looks fantastic and the game is in my Top 3 most anticipated MMOs.
I love to see them get balance right, but I think it's going to turn out that out of those hundreds of class combinations, only about 20-40 or so are viable, most of probably which dedicate themselves to one aspect (most groups are going to want pure healers and pure tanks in PvE, so whatever spec gives the benefit there is going to win out). Either that or a hybrid class is going to be disgustingly overpowered (tank mages in UO for example). Maybe I'm being too pessimistic, but in the end it's not going to turn out to be any different from WoW's talent trees.
I thought you could only have a soul in a particular archetype? I see IGN saying otherwise, but other sources seem to be giving conflicting reports.
Edit (From the official Rifts site, bolded some points on why it seems you can only pick from one archetype):
Souls
Players choose an Ascended Soul from one of the four callings (Warrior, Cleric, Mage, and Rogue) at character creation. These initial souls, which grow in power as they become more specialized, are flexible and have well-rounded abilities that make them great for both solo and group experiences. Players can later choose to augment, or even replace, embraced souls with other souls from within their calling. The process of enabling souls that players discover in their adventures is called Soul Attunement.
Note that there is no indication anywhere on their site that you can put a soul into a different calling than the one you picked at character creation, just seems like even the second and third soul you get later on is limited in your calling.
Dev quoted this past week when asked what his favorite Class/soulstone combo was he replied that he couldn't say (meaning he knew, but couldn't for NDA reasons) other than that there were a few Heroic Class stones that dip into other classes. Meaning there could be a Cleric Calling Heroic Soul Stone that borrows from the Rogue Calling in some ways and thus you can have a Cleric with Stealth.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Here are some recent ( June 17, 2010) quotes from IRC Dev Chat:
Q: <Ayonyx> Gersh_E3: what is your title for this game?
A: <+Gersh_E3> I'm one of the Producers, working with the game mechanics team atm
Q:<Myrdynn> so is there 16 classes per faction or can you chose them all on each side?
A:<+Gersh_E3> Well like we've said before Each calling has quite a number of souls (classes) associated with it that could very well be 32 classes total but you'll have to wait and see our designers are having a bit of fun so they just keep making new crazy classes, can't seem to stop em, that being said the vast majority of souls will be availible to everyone
Q: <Elladar> @Gersh_E3 there was a mention that there will be "Heroic" souls, are they stronger than "Normal" ones? Or have I misunderstood something?
A: <+Gersh_E3> Heroic soul is the term we use for souls introduced after character create they aren't more powerful per say but they are much much more specialized so some are not all that hot for solo leveling as such we don't want to hand them out immediately b/c people would have a harder time leveling them right off
Q: <souper> Gersh_E3 : Are you guys ok with some classes SUCKING in certain parts of teh game but being amazing in others? LIke really good at PvP but horrible at raiding?
A: <+Gersh_E3> Souper, yes thats actually a goal for us we want souls to be really good at one thing if you push deep into the soul tree. That's why we allow you to mix and match
And these are from June 16, 2010 IRC Chat. This one addresses the cross Calling aspects I mention in my post above.
Q: <lepericon> what class do u play? lol
A: <+ChrisJunior> Lepericon: the beauty of our class system. I don't have to have a favorite, cause I can combine them however I see fit Smile
Q: <@Ciovala>; well, can't quite combine however you see fit since it's restricted within your calling, right?
A: <+ChrisJunior> Ciovala: Correct, but with the current layout that we are working in, we still have a lot of souls that slightly cross calling boundaries
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Far more freedom exists within Rift than your average MMO. There could be as many as eight standard souls, or really specializations for each calling, but outside that are heroic souls, which are more focused and specialized classes for one particular function. You very well may be able to make a stealth priest they have stated that less traditional classes will exist for the different callings spell casting warriors were used as an example so a stealth priest is in the realm of possibility, though I doubt it would be as capable as a rogue calling class.