Do you like weapon swapping? or Classes?

olepi · August 2022

In the older MMO's, your character was a class, and that class had restrictions on what it could do. For example, the Druid could not wield metal weapons like swords, although wooden clubs are ok. The class basically defined what powers/abilities you had and what weapon proficiencies you had. In many older games, like DAOC, each class had multiple class lines that each played differently.

Newer games, like ESO and New World, rely on weapon swapping to determine what your skills/abilities are. They might have classes, but those are shallow and only provide a small amount of differentiation. If you are a magic user, you will have to wield a staff. And then you are like all other magic wielders with that staff, no matter what your class is. The class skills just add some flavor.

Sovrath · August 2022

You're leading with your question.

You prefer the first you don't like the 2nd.

In any case, weapon swapping doesn't "have" to be limiting. A developer could literally have someone weapon swap and pick from loads of abilities. You could differentiate from all sorts of abilities and skills.

You could have a class that has literally the exact same abilities as every other class.

In lineage 2, every class looked like every class as far as skills.

So weapon swapping by itself doesn't guarantee limited play nor do classes guarantee expansive choices.

Scot · August 2022

MMOs along with the rest of gaming have moved from complexity to simplicity, from content to "streamlining", from expansions to dlc. So that's just par for the course I'm afraid.

More generally speaking we need more differentiation between classes be they based on profession, weapon skills or whatever. That gives players a feeling of uniqueness that is not favoured today. What is favoured is a solution for soloers, every class does everything. Quite boring.

olepi · August 2022

Sovrath said:

You're leading with your question.

You prefer the first you don't like the 2nd.

In any case, weapon swapping doesn't "have" to be limiting. A developer could literally have someone weapon swap and pick from loads of abilities. You could differentiate from all sorts of abilities and skills.

You could have a class that has literally the exact same abilities as every other class.

In lineage 2, every class looked like every class as far as skills.

So weapon swapping by itself doesn't guarantee limited play nor do classes guarantee expansive choices.

I think weapon swapping, at least in ESO and NW, is there because the games were designed for a controller with a limited set of abilities. Usually 5 or so at any one time. If you want different abilities, you have to change your weapon. Even if the weapon itself has no effect on the skills at all.

That allows for a more "action" oriented game, where your reaction time is at least as important as which skill you choose to use at any one time.

In the old DnD type games, the class determines what skills you have, and even what weapons you can use. Just the opposite of the weapon swapping mechanism.

I left out the third option: classless skill-based characters. In Ryzom for example, there is no concept of class at all, or weapons swapping. Everybody has all the skills, and they are leveled up by using them.

Scot · August 2022

Sovrath said:

You're leading with your question.

You prefer the first you don't like the 2nd.

In any case, weapon swapping doesn't "have" to be limiting. A developer could literally have someone weapon swap and pick from loads of abilities. You could differentiate from all sorts of abilities and skills.

You could have a class that has literally the exact same abilities as every other class.

In lineage 2, every class looked like every class as far as skills.

So weapon swapping by itself doesn't guarantee limited play nor do classes guarantee expansive choices.

Someone leading with their question on here...never!

Sovrath · August 2022

olepi said:

Sovrath said:

You're leading with your question.

You prefer the first you don't like the 2nd.

In any case, weapon swapping doesn't "have" to be limiting. A developer could literally have someone weapon swap and pick from loads of abilities. You could differentiate from all sorts of abilities and skills.

You could have a class that has literally the exact same abilities as every other class.

In lineage 2, every class looked like every class as far as skills.

So weapon swapping by itself doesn't guarantee limited play nor do classes guarantee expansive choices.

I think weapon swapping, at least in ESO and NW, is there because the games were designed for a controller with a limited set of abilities. Usually 5 or so at any one time. If you want different abilities, you have to change your weapon. Even if the weapon itself has no effect on the skills at all.

That allows for a more "action" oriented game, where your reaction time is at least as important as which skill you choose to use at any one time.

In the old DnD type games, the class determines what skills you have, and even what weapons you can use. Just the opposite of the weapon swapping mechanism.

I left out the third option: classless skill-based characters. In Ryzom for example, there is no concept of class at all, or weapons swapping. Everybody has all the skills, and they are leveled up by using them.

I've always preferred action oriented games as soon as Tera came on the scene. I find older games like everquest or any game with "all the skills" a bit dull.

I feel like I"m playing wackamole with the interface as opposed to actually experiencing what's on the screen.

I love vanguard but the combat for me is dull.

I liked Ryzom's system to a point though was never able to really get the hang of putting together stanzas.

so I guess to answer your question I prefer action combat. I "could" be persuaded toward a skil system but I want it so I am not playing the interface and actually looking at what's going on, on screen.

Iselin · August 2022

olepi said:

In the older MMO's, your character was a class, and that class had restrictions on what it could do. For example, the Druid could not wield metal weapons like swords, although wooden clubs are ok. The class basically defined what powers/abilities you had and what weapon proficiencies you had. In many older games, like DAOC, each class had multiple class lines that each played differently.

Newer games, like ESO and New World, rely on weapon swapping to determine what your skills/abilities are. They might have classes, but those are shallow and only provide a small amount of differentiation. If you are a magic user, you will have to wield a staff. And then you are like all other magic wielders with that staff, no matter what your class is. The class skills just add some flavor.

You're kind of out of date with respect to ESO. The current magic user meta uses dual-wielding not staves although that might change with the next patch since they're nerfing light and heavy attacks for most weapons but buffing or leaving alone staves.

Also, classes are anything but shallow and are well differentiated - at least they are if you know the game well. And it also isn't just class + weapons.

There are many non-weapon, non-class skill lines that are routinely used once you unlock and train them. So noobs wouldn't use many of those skills because some take a very long time to unlock and level. Fighter's, Mage's, Undaunted and Psijic skill lines as well as vampire, werewolf and soul and the two PvP skill lines which have several skills used also for PvE routinely.

There are many top end builds that use zero weapon skills but I don't know of any that use no class skills.

As to your question, I want a mix of both. Just weapons as in New World feels just wrong and the old traditional, class determines weapon is boring to me.

olepi · August 2022

Iselin said:

olepi said:

In the older MMO's, your character was a class, and that class had restrictions on what it could do. For example, the Druid could not wield metal weapons like swords, although wooden clubs are ok. The class basically defined what powers/abilities you had and what weapon proficiencies you had. In many older games, like DAOC, each class had multiple class lines that each played differently.

Newer games, like ESO and New World, rely on weapon swapping to determine what your skills/abilities are. They might have classes, but those are shallow and only provide a small amount of differentiation. If you are a magic user, you will have to wield a staff. And then you are like all other magic wielders with that staff, no matter what your class is. The class skills just add some flavor.

You're kind of out of date with respect to ESO. The current magic user meta uses dual-wielding not staves although that might change with the next patch since they're nerfing light and heavy attacks for most weapons but buffing or leaving alone staves.

Also, classes are anything but shallow and are well differentiated - at least they are if you know the game well. And it also isn't just class + weapons.

There are many non-weapon, non-class skill lines that are routinely used once you unlock and train them. So noobs wouldn't use many of those skills because some take a very long time to unlock and level. Fighter's, Mage's, Undaunted and Psijic skill lines as well as vampire, werewolf and soul and the two PvP skill lines which have several skills used also for PvE routinely.

There are many top end builds that use zero weapon skills but I don't know of any that use no class skills.

As to your question, I want a mix of both. Just weapons as in New World feels just wrong and the old traditional, class determines weapon is boring to me.

Yeah, I haven't played ESO in a while. I started in closed beta, and played for about 6 years or so. Got multiple characters to max level. I'm probably somewhat out of date.

When NW came out, it made me think this was the new mechanism: weapon swapping.

Kyleran · August 2022

Weapon swapping for sure, was playing FO76 on my latest alt, regularly changing between my Gauss Sniper rifle, automatic combat shot gun, light "Fixer" auto rifle and when the Super Mutants showed up, the .5mm mini-gun.

I guess I'm playing a "slaughterer" class or build.

TheDalaiBomba · August 2022

I highly dislike when the majority of my abilities come directly from the items I have equipped. The poster child for this is Albion Online, and that system is what eventually put me off of that game.

I think weapon swapping in and of itself isn't bad- even in a skill based development system, a Ranger-type would want to maintain skills with both a ranged weapon and melee weapons, though that means they'll be less skilled with each individual weapon as someone who is more dedicated to a specific weapon type. WoW included weapon swapping with Hunteds, you just didn't have to actively swap and both were equipped at the same time.

That creates fun new additions and possibilities. Chaining all (or almost all) abilities to the kind of weapon of armor you're wearing feels constraining to me, more than anything else.

Ungood · August 2022

IMHO, DDO has the best character building system of any game, ever made, to date.

To grasp DDO, you have 24 Races, each with their own Special Traits, Feats, and Abilities, as well as their own racial Trait line that allows them augment race specific traits, feats, and abilities.

9 of which are Iconic's, which are races that have a class specific abilities, so they need to have at least 1 level in their Iconic class. IE: Morning Lord, is a Sun Elf Cleric, so they need to have at least 1 level of cleric.

On top of that, You have all your traditional D&D classes, like Fighters, Clerics, Thieves, 15 classes in total, each class having 3 trait lines they can follow.

On top of this, a Build can Combine Up to 3 classes.

So, to give an example, you could be High Elf Paladin, Cleric, Monk, if you wanted to be.

Almost all weapons are open to anyone, with very few exceptions. Runearms are Limited to Artificers, and Handwraps are Limited to Monks. Otherwise, you can use anything you want.

Outside a very specific race restrictions, all Armors are open to any race, with the one exception being Warforged&Bladeforged using Docets, but all fleshbags can use normal armors, any kind they want.

To get this, if say you Want to play a Dwarven Wizard/Thief, that wears plate armor and uses a Great Sword, you can build that.

There are feats like Proficiency, which allow you to be better using weapons, but you are can still pick up and use any weapon you want.

There are also some drawbacks, like heavy Armor has Arcane Spell Failure, so if you opted to wear plate as a Warlock, casting spells might be a lot harder on you then if you opted to wear cloth or light armor. Just like if you opted to play a druid, and figured you wanted to use to use a metal great axe, you would discover you can't cast spells, but you could still run around hitting things with that Great axe all the same.

No game even comes close.

Now, if it got a graphic's update, it could be a king shizzle shits of a game. Sadly the Studio that runs it, barely has the talent to maintain it.

Mendel · August 2022

I detest the entire concept of an equipped weapon 'granting' skills. Characters have skills, items have attributes. I don't necessarily agree with classes, it's just a convenient label for an amalgamation of skills that a character learns.

There needs to be a better way applied to MMORPGs; there isn't enough flexibility in classes for me. I don't want to go to a Ranger school to come out with exactly the same skill set as every other Ranger. Let me worry about assigning my character a label.

Sovrath · August 2022

Mendel said:

I detest the entire concept of an equipped weapon 'granting' skills. Characters have skills, items have attributes. I don't necessarily agree with classes, it's just a convenient label for an amalgamation of skills that a character learns.

There needs to be a better way applied to MMORPGs; there isn't enough flexibility in classes for me. I don't want to go to a Ranger school to come out with exactly the same skill set as every other Ranger. Let me worry about assigning my character a label.

I think you can look at it as certain skills are only able to be used with certain weapons.

So, to be simplistic, you aren't going to do "sword thrust" with a mace. You aren't going to do "skull bash" with a dagger. Equip the appropriate weapon and now you can use the appropriate skills.

it seems like semantics but that's because it is.

Iselin · August 2022

Sovrath said:

Mendel said:

I detest the entire concept of an equipped weapon 'granting' skills. Characters have skills, items have attributes. I don't necessarily agree with classes, it's just a convenient label for an amalgamation of skills that a character learns.

There needs to be a better way applied to MMORPGs; there isn't enough flexibility in classes for me. I don't want to go to a Ranger school to come out with exactly the same skill set as every other Ranger. Let me worry about assigning my character a label.

I think you can look at it as certain skills are only able to be used with certain weapons.

So, to be simplistic, you aren't going to do "sword thrust" with a mace. You aren't going to do "skull bash" with a dagger. Equip the appropriate weapon and now you can use the appropriate skills.

it seems like semantics but that's because it is.

One of my favorite necro skills in ESO is the Death Scythe and its morphs because it's a spammable that damages anything in front of you and heals you based on how many you hit.

The scythe just materializes when you use the skill. You can have a staff or bow equipped and it makes no difference. It's magic!

eoloe · August 2022

I would prefer a free skill system.

- not based on class

- not based on weapons

That said, if I had to choose, I would prefer the class-based, because it feels weird to become a mage just because grabbing a staff. And then becoming a warrior, just because...

Theocritus · August 2022

Well the genre used to be for ROLE playing games...That disappeared somewhere along the way after WoW came out in 2004......

TheDalaiBomba · August 2022

Sovrath said:

Mendel said:

I detest the entire concept of an equipped weapon 'granting' skills. Characters have skills, items have attributes. I don't necessarily agree with classes, it's just a convenient label for an amalgamation of skills that a character learns.

There needs to be a better way applied to MMORPGs; there isn't enough flexibility in classes for me. I don't want to go to a Ranger school to come out with exactly the same skill set as every other Ranger. Let me worry about assigning my character a label.

I think you can look at it as certain skills are only able to be used with certain weapons.

So, to be simplistic, you aren't going to do "sword thrust" with a mace. You aren't going to do "skull bash" with a dagger. Equip the appropriate weapon and now you can use the appropriate skills.

it seems like semantics but that's because it is.

In DAoC, the weapons arguably meant more than they do in most modern MMORPGs (damage types actually meant something, not *just* the vastly different weapon skill lines themselves), and yet your class still provided a host of core skills that set a 2h sword wielding Paladin apart from a 2h sword wielding Armsman.

They managed to do both well. ESO does a good job too, I just never liked being limited to the 6 hotbar abilities + ultimate.

OldKingLog · August 2022

Sovrath said:

You're leading with your question.

You prefer the first you don't like the 2nd.

In any case, weapon swapping doesn't "have" to be limiting. A developer could literally have someone weapon swap and pick from loads of abilities. You could differentiate from all sorts of abilities and skills.

You could have a class that has literally the exact same abilities as every other class.

In lineage 2, every class looked like every class as far as skills.

So weapon swapping by itself doesn't guarantee limited play nor do classes guarantee expansive choices.

I absolutely despise hot bar weapon swapping, limited skill number systems like ESO. For me it makes the game boring, two dimensional and makes most of the weapon skill tree useless as other skill lines have much more useful powers.

Of all MMORPGs I think LOTRO did the best to make classes flexible. Your heavy armored juggernaut of a Guardian could also wield a bow, just not with anywhere near the same fineness as say a Hunter. And you could do so on the fly, no annoying weapon swapping. I'd love to see a game build upon that kind of system.

[Deleted User] · August 2022

The user and all related content has been deleted.

cameltosis · August 2022

What I prefer is ROLES in my ROLEplaying game.

Whether the role is attached to the class, or to a weapon, doesn't really bother me much. As long as there are clearly differentiated roles, and not just cosmetic differences. Historically, classes tend to provide better roles, but not always.

DigDuggy · August 2022

I don't care much for FFXIVarr, but I do like a lot of their mechanics. One of which is their class system tied with the inventory system. That stores different class equipment. I think this is the standard for class based systems.

KnightFalz · August 2022

olepi said:

Newer games, like ESO and New World, rely on weapon swapping to determine what your skills/abilities are. They might have classes, but those are shallow and only provide a small amount of differentiation. If you are a magic user, you will have to wield a staff. And then you are like all other magic wielders with that staff, no matter what your class is. The class skills just add some flavor.

ESO classes aren't shallow.

In the case of ESO, the only abilities you can't have on a bar are those for other weapons. None of the abilities on your bar have to be from that weapon. Magicka characters are no longer limited to staves. The class skills and passives have always differentiated the classes greatly, just the race passives do the races.

Looks like you need to do some brushing up there.

KnightFalz · August 2022

Mendel said:

I detest the entire concept of an equipped weapon 'granting' skills. Characters have skills, items have attributes. I don't necessarily agree with classes, it's just a convenient label for an amalgamation of skills that a character learns.

There needs to be a better way applied to MMORPGs; there isn't enough flexibility in classes for me. I don't want to go to a Ranger school to come out with exactly the same skill set as every other Ranger. Let me worry about assigning my character a label.

Weapons don't grant skills in ESO. Each weapon has abilities associated with it, but you need not learn any of them. You can use any active abilities you want with a weapon save those from other weapons.

Accordingly archers can be quite diverse in the game. If you use a bow on both bars it essentially doubles your ranged versatility.

You could instead have a bow on the front bar and a staff on the back, and have a different type kind of ranged adaptability.

Luiden · August 2022

Technically DAOC also had weapon swapping. With my nightshade I had 6 or 7 different weapons I would use.

The heart of what you are getting at is that old games like DAOC had a million times more complexity and depth than pretty much anything released in the past decade. Which is kind of ironic considering they don’t have near the features that todays games have… kind of an interesting statement right?

cheyane · August 2022

I don't mind weapon swapping or classes. I just want tabs for the weapons and not have it occupy all my inventory with like 7 different weapons and remove valuable space as a result.

TheDalaiBomba · August 2022

Luiden said:

Technically DAOC also had weapon swapping. With my nightshade I had 6 or 7 different weapons I would use.

The heart of what you are getting at is that old games like DAOC had a million times more complexity and depth than pretty much anything released in the past decade. Which is kind of ironic considering they don’t have near the features that todays games have… kind of an interesting statement right?

A mile wide and an inch deep, as the saying goes.

Modern MMORPGs seem like they're chock full of content, until you find out that content is largely watered down mimicry of other genres.

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Do you like weapon swapping? or Classes?

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Do you like weapon swapping? or Classes?

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV