Final Fantasy 11 Online. It has 22 awesome jobs(classes) and you can have a full job(class) and a sub job(class) of your choice which is half the levels and has all skills up to that level.
White Mage Black Mage Red Mage Blue Mage Paladin Warrior Dark Knight Monk Ninja Samurai Thief Ranger Corsair Puppetmaster Summoner Dragoon Scholar Geomancer Rune Fencer Dancer Bard Beastmaster
edit: forget to say you can also level all the jobs(classes) with 1 character which is awesome.
Of the systems with actual classes, Shadowbane was my favorite. I felt like I had decent control of how I built my characters within the their respective classes. Second to that is kind of the polar opposite. World of Warcraft. It was like "Here's your role, and all the tools to work it. Learn it and know it, and you'll be fine."
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
The best class systems are the one that offer continous progression at max level, lots of freedom, but still have build in classmechanics that make most of your abillities interactive with eachother... a isngle build for a character for immersion reasons.. and if you ever wanted to change builds, a kind of relevleing way to do this trough hard labor and gaining XP... a class system that offers room for both specialists builds as well as generalists... in a game build around an advanced form of trinity (Tank, heal, support, crowd control, 2x dps in a party setup)
sadly nothing comes even close to this.... So far i have to choose EQ2 because of its AA system
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
SWG. Skyforge, having one character that could switch classes so easily is a great idea.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I didn't play either of them, but everything I've watched on Youtube and read about makes me think that SWG and RIFT had some of the best systems. The sheer variety allowed for in both games is what I wish that MMORPG's had continued with past the early years.
Now, as far as games on the horizon, I'm liking the look of Camelot Unchained. Hoo boy does it have some interesting looking classes for each faction. I'm excited to play several of them.
SWG, being able to construct your 'class' by allocating points into different skill trees, i think you had up to 245 points max, and even then, you had to gain the relevent xp to even unlock the skill, probably the most innovative game of its time.
Everyone keeps listing SWG or UO which are certainly the way I prefer to go but I don't consider those "classes" (which is why I like them)
If you mean choosing a class and having the character progress based on a path of mostly predetermined skills and abilities / playstyle then I would say, from what I played I really liked Vanguard just for the number and "flavour" they offered.
Basically any game where they have not balanced the classes to become basically the same thing with a different skin and visuals. Didn't play much EQ and never tried FF.
SWG wasn't revolutionary. It borrowed from older games. It had a ton of professions in vanilla. You got exp for what you did. Used a pistol you became a pistoleer. Used a rifle you became rifleman. Collected animals you became a bio-engineer. Tamed animals a creature handler.
Given the broken state of the game at release it wasn't difficult to max out various skills on the FIRST DAY. There was no pathing. You could get npc's stuck in world geometry and kill much higher level enemies with ease gaining a ton of exp at anything.
My first character was a mix of almost everything and master of none. Thats how everyone was until the first combat revamp which forced the traditional "builds." That fucked everything up. Then everyone became a fencer, combat doctor or jedi until the final combat revamp when they removed 90% of the professions from the game.
Given the amount of times they changed their class system I'd say it negates SWG entirely from consideration.
UO - Can make the class you want. Spend points anyway you wish.
Rift - Skills trees, but that one class can play anyone role. When out of combat, withen 4 seconds, you can be a tank, dps, healer, or support class. All the while, not needing an alt
Was going to say EQ but I think I actually enjoy EQ2 a little better. Mostly I like games that actually have support classes other than healer. But you don't see those anymore. They are all pretty much tank, damage, and healer now. Most games have moved from even wanting players to trap, etc...its just aoe fest now.
Not really traditional classes, but each profession was basically a class, its just you could be more than one at once. Each individual profession was pretty limited, but the underlying system was good fun with lots of freedom.
FF11 + FF14 would be a close second. I didn't play either for long, but I loved the fact that a single character could play and master as many classes as they wanted and then just switch between them.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
Comments
It has 22 awesome jobs(classes) and you can have a full job(class) and a sub job(class) of your choice which is half the levels and has all skills up to that level.
White Mage
Black Mage
Red Mage
Blue Mage
Paladin
Warrior
Dark Knight
Monk
Ninja
Samurai
Thief
Ranger
Corsair
Puppetmaster
Summoner
Dragoon
Scholar
Geomancer
Rune Fencer
Dancer
Bard
Beastmaster
edit: forget to say you can also level all the jobs(classes) with 1 character which is awesome.
Rift was pretty good too
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
sadly nothing comes even close to this.... So far i have to choose EQ2 because of its AA system
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Now, as far as games on the horizon, I'm liking the look of Camelot Unchained. Hoo boy does it have some interesting looking classes for each faction. I'm excited to play several of them.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
Themepark - CoH/V
If you mean choosing a class and having the character progress based on a path of mostly predetermined skills and abilities / playstyle then I would say, from what I played I really liked Vanguard just for the number and "flavour" they offered.
Basically any game where they have not balanced the classes to become basically the same thing with a different skin and visuals. Didn't play much EQ and never tried FF.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
1) Asheron's Call for classless
2) Horizons/Istaria for multi-classing
3) Rift for freedom and really cool classes
Given the broken state of the game at release it wasn't difficult to max out various skills on the FIRST DAY. There was no pathing. You could get npc's stuck in world geometry and kill much higher level enemies with ease gaining a ton of exp at anything.
My first character was a mix of almost everything and master of none. Thats how everyone was until the first combat revamp which forced the traditional "builds." That fucked everything up. Then everyone became a fencer, combat doctor or jedi until the final combat revamp when they removed 90% of the professions from the game.
Given the amount of times they changed their class system I'd say it negates SWG entirely from consideration.
Rift/ chronicles of the spellborn
It had by far best and diverse classes in any fantasy set MMO to date.
Rift - Skills trees, but that one class can play anyone role. When out of combat, withen 4 seconds, you can be a tank, dps, healer, or support class. All the while, not needing an alt
Not really traditional classes, but each profession was basically a class, its just you could be more than one at once. Each individual profession was pretty limited, but the underlying system was good fun with lots of freedom.
FF11 + FF14 would be a close second. I didn't play either for long, but I loved the fact that a single character could play and master as many classes as they wanted and then just switch between them.
Aesthetically, I would go with Final Fantasy XI.