All extremely engaging playstyles I can confirm! My particular favourite is the one where you start as a two-handed warrior and by Whiterun you use two-handed bows!
Personally, I have always preferred class systems that are more like backgrounds or archetypes that act as a starting point for your character. The class might give you a bonus to certain skills and few abilities out the gate but it doesn't restrict you from taken skills/abilities from other archetypes as you level up your character. Honestly the main reason why I enjoy classes in rpg is from more of a role playing perspective then a mechanic perspective, tbh. I just like to be able to give my characters a past in the world and having a bonus to skills and abilities that reflect that past. It just a cool feeling when my barbarian is skilled with greataxes, light armor, survival skills, and has a rage ability at level 1.
one big factor to class systems is they work best with a Party system. With most AAA RPG games being 3-D lone wolf type games put the player at a weakness if they are to specialized- In the past turn based RPGs did not punish the player for being a non-magic user since you could recruit wizards, druids and Clerics, or for not having a ranged attack since you could recruit archers and rangers. When you are a lone wolf you need broad specializations or you get screwed in many situations.
one game that did this well was the Mass Effect series- since your specialization was always balanced with what team mates you chose to bring on a particular mission.
Someone saying that a game mechanic is "outdated" is definitely not a designer. Frankly, classes are useful for preventing homogenization between playthroughs. The Skyrim meme that everyone ends up playing as a stealthy archer is great evidence to support this. Classes should not be seen as blocking off certain abilities, but instead granting access to exclusive abilities and gameplay functions. In tabletop RPGs a well designed class offers the player an ability or mechanic that is unique and only accessible by being the class in question. In videogames the same principle holds. In World of Warcraft the Mage, Warlock and Priest classes are superficially similar, they wear cloth and cast magic, but each have special utilities that make them excel at something different. Warlocks can summon other players around the world, Mages can conjure food and water, and Priests can cast healing magic. If you remove classes you will find that every single character becomes a pile of the best stuff, every time. The homogenization is taken to the extreme via players natural inclination to optimize. Any system that does not allow the player to acquire every skill and ability has a class system anyway, it's just hidden from the player.
There's no guarantee that one of the classes isn't a pile of the best stuff. More precisely, I have not seen a class system without an imbalance of classes.
Honestly, I'm kind of confused that people really think the class systems in rpgs are outdated and need to be done away with. There's a few open ended "whatever skills you want" type games that I've liked and thought were better for it, but I've also seen plenty that try to use that as a back of the box feature and fall flat with it. Creating a character that can specc into anything can be fun in a shallow sandbox game like skyrim where character and world interactions and combat are brief and low detail, but for something deeper I'd like for something like a rogue to play differently from a mage and have mechanics that play into itself rather than having to share its toys with the mage and either have a completely insular set of mechanics that you wouldn't either bother speccing in at all unless you were going full rogue, or something that's shaved down and feel more like an add on you throw onto another class template. That's not even talking about the narrative, where there would absolutely be a big difference between a guy who has daggers and lockpicks as opposed to someone who throws fireballs. Part of the fun of dragon age for me had always been looking at the mage and templar conflict from an outsider and mercenary perspective, that would be completely shot to hell if the game just treated my character the same as a mage.
Throughout this video I was shouting min maxing at the screen, because that's whats happening: as a player we go into Skyrim thinking "I want to play a wizard" and so you focus down all the stuff that can max magic and dump physical. So why does literally everyone end up a stealth archer? It universally works and you can build your character into without even trying or meaning to- it's second nature to snatch and horde anything with a weight of 0, meaning you will have just SO many arrows and after that all you need is a random bow and BAM stealth archer, sure you CAN put points into stealthing or bow damage but like. . .you don't need to? Where as with magic or swords you NEED to pump magika or stamina but you can feasibly play stealth archer with 0 investment making it free to play even when min maxing for another "class"
I am in favour of both and it depends on the type of game that is being made. Although I will note that I am actually a little biased towards locked specific classes, things like warrior/thief/mage actually incentivise me to get creative on how best to roleplay/optimise this specific class without becoming a Jack of all trades. What’s interesting is the full quote “Jack of all trades, master of none, better that than a master of one.” Might lead you to believe that it would be better if we gave the player the option of JoaT, but here’s the thing, being incredibly powerful is also incredibly boring. Being a master of one, means you have to plan around your well defined skill set in order to tackle any problem.
Classes, or builds give games better replay value because there's just some things you cant do, in Skyrim you can top all skills and become leader of all the guilds (in most cases without even having to use skills associated with those guilds) in one playyhrough, I replay every other ES game (yes even arena) but in Skyrim it feels like ive already done everything
A much better example than Skyrim would be Divinity: Original Sin 2. I think that does the classless thing very well and is the direction that we should look toward. It still has "classes" at the beginning to determine your starting weapon and some suggested skills, along with being your ability choices for any followers you pick up. You can, however, on custom characters, fully optimize and change these to fit your playstyle. Even on the followers you recruit, you gain the option to alter their starting stats once you reach Act 2. D:OS2 is one of my favorite games because of that freedom. For tabletop games up this same alley, look to World of Darkness. I think more systems should resort to a more freeform system like that. Have abilities that you can mix and match that aren't locked behind a class. In D&D, for instance, I don't want to have to dip 6 levels into way of shadow monk to get shadow step. It's a cool ability that could work very well for certain character ideas I have, but you've gotta homebrew and work with your DM to get that if you're not a monk. Some of the characters I have that I WANT to have a shadow-step like ability, it would not make sense for them to be a monk. A classless system solves this lack of freedom. I can't say Skyrim was the best example they could have used, but I definitely agree with their sentiment. Classes are just predefined suites of abilities. Those abilities should not be locked from level one. I think classes are fine to have as guidelines, but a system should be built with customization in mind. Have a freeform system of abilities and feats, like D:OS2, but then have some "classes" that are just a "hey, here's some abilities that when paired together, create that typical RPG class you have in mind."
Here's one way you could mitigate the problem: restrict the number of weapons/spells/perks the player can equip at any one time. Rather than being able to pause the game, open the inventory, and pull out the perfect tool for any situation, the player would be restricted to a loadout they've built beforehand. They could still unlock every option in one playthrough, but would be quite limited in their options during a single fight or adventure. They would have to prioritize specific perks they like and pick ones that have good synergy with each other. Combinations that make the game too easy can be eliminated by making those weapons take up the same slot. Limiting the player's opportunities to change loadouts would be important too - maybe restrict it to their house/camp/base/what have you. I think a system like this would allow players to come up with their own "classes", while ensuring that every combo has weaknesses.
This goes back to one of the core appeals of RPGs: not just choice, but meaningful choice. A system that provides at least some direction to your player is usually better than a system that provides no direction because it allows the designers and players to engage in more meaningful experiences. I applaud Bethesda for trying to revolutionize their systems as the years go by, but there's a good middle ground in there somewhere (many people would say Morrowind or Oblivion).
But the player does not know all the features of the class and the unobvious consequences of certain choices in his leveling, so the choice of a class is the choice of a pig in a poke.
@@neron93939 Why would you assume that? There's plenty of games that tell you what your class features are out the gate. And many great systems tell you your derived stats in detail, the outcome of your leveling.
@@neron93939 The same could be said of any aspect of the game, but you're choosing one of the things designers usually spend a lot of time on. I could definitely see it being a worse issue for MMOs, but your average RPG with classes is not suffering to the same extent. There may be one or two underwhelming classes in a game but does that mean classes are broken or does that mean game development is rushed? Because there's unbalanced systems in every game, classes or not
@@kolardgreene3096 In addition, one of the important elements of an RPG is character creation. Class is too big and too meta-game "brick" in my character. Sometimes I have to create a character to squeeze it into the framework of the class. Sometimes a class seems like an unnecessary layer of game mechanics.
One important thing to point out is that Skyrim is a SINGLE player game. Whereas DnD is a CO-OP game. Skyrim's system works because you need to be able to take care of yourself in a big world of adventure, so removing classes for more access to flexible builds makes sense. In DnD you're working together with a group, and if you had the same flexibility here then there's a good chance you'll end up with players making very similar builds, since they no longer require the support of other players to make up for the down-sides of their class, they can just train whatever skills they're lacking in as if it was a single player game.
I guess it kinda depends on the type of rpg you talk about, games like skyrim where you only make and play as a single character I see flexibility to be nice, let's you focus in one area if you like or multiple if you prefer. But in rpg's where you go in with a party of characters, I think having more rigged class structures are better, let's you more easily figure out what character is going to tank all the hits and which class is gunna be doing all the healing. Sub classing can allow a limited amount of flexibility, but I still feel that in those types of rpg you will end up subclasses to either cover a classes weak point or to strengthen what they are good at. An assassin is usually already really fast and great at dealing critical hits with daggers, subclassing them as an archer usually just means they can still move very fast and deal lots of crits, but now they can also do it at range. Meanwhile giving a tank class a mage subclass doesn't really help them much, as they normally have low mp and intelligence to begin with.
Well tbh this is just my opinion, but the best job system goes to final fantasy tactics for sure. I only played the GBA version so i cannot say anythings about the ps1 version / wotl version. But even with GBA limited resources the game classified each jobs beautifully, and even thought it may seems that tier 2 / 3 job is superior they managed to make sure tier 1 have speciallity that tier 2 and 3 cannot do. The jobs are so different that you can find gimmicks in other guides even though in other articles they deemed useless. They also have different stats growth and tier 1 stats growth is higher in some aspect against tier 2 / 3 jobs. So they are not outclassed / powercrept like in other games
For a supposed outdated mechanic I feel there are not enough games with it. Take dragons dogma i have never played a game like it the way it plays is unique the only true flaw i have with the game is i played it too much which is why I would love to see more games like it.
I'm oldschool... also getting old lol, if a game is open ended without a class system i don't enjoy it as much. I like having a reason to re-roll a new class and go through the game again or different combinations with party members etc... etc... it was A LOT of the replay value back in the day and... it just doesn't wash off i guess lol idk. In EverQuest Online Adventures in particular the sense of class accomplishment and uniqueness was palpable. You KNEW you filled a role and were needed in some regard at all times. At the end of the day i want a reason to go there, and back again... AGAIN!
There are games, mostly ttrpgs as far as I've seen but I'm not the biggest gamer, who have a classless base game, but provide "example paths" for people who like class systems. I also like it when a class-based game has a "create a class" system. Because you still get an extreme freedom of choice, but you also can always stay true to your concept and not always gravitate towards the same playstyle over and over again like with what famously happens to new skyrim players with the stealth archer. You don't have to worry about becoming a stealth archer if your created custom class never gets any significant bonuses to archery.
D&D was supposed to be a social game: by picking classes you were locked into a playstyle meaning you had to work together as a team to overcome problems. Today's kids want it all, want it now and won't have any limitations, even if those limitations create fun game experiences.
the problem with your argument is that when making a strict class system there will ALWAYS be something unaccounted for. If let's say that in 5e campaign, I wanted to play a savage barbarian/paladin who's spreading the holly word of his own god. There's no reason that this character should have an armor class proficiency other than, the class says so. And because the designers already spent "design points" to give me feature i don't care about my character is weaker for it. I think the best of both worlds are character presets. It' is basically: "here's a bunch of curated experiences we created for you that we know work well, but you can venture outside of predefined paths and experiment if you want to".
In all honesty the only TES game where premade classes mattered was Arena. Daggerfall gave it the killing blow by introducing both the Custom Class and the early form of skill advancement. In Morrowind and Oblivion the premades were meaningless as they hampered the player's advancement, while custom classes were a massive powergaming tool. And you could max up everything in both games (it was just rather annoying in Morrowind). I think it will ultimately depend on the type of game. In MMOs and single player RPGs where you control a party, classes have their place. Every character in the party has a specific role. In single player open world character where it's the player on it's own I think a hard class system is a no. Give me archetypes, starting presets and ways and reasons to specialize on a specific archetype in a class-less or class-lite system, but don't beat me over with a ward stick for an uninformed choice at the start of the game. And ultimately here is the thing. "Hard Classes" should go and be replaced by specialize towards specific archetype. Give the player the chance to figure out what interests them in the game and feels fun and let them go towards. It's more organic, more immersive and interesting and leaves open the possibility to still alter the path if the playtstyle doesn't feel entirely right or perhaps some kind of RP opportunity comes up. The problem with older games was that they almost always expected you to know from the start what you are going to do, which when it worked you was nice, but when it didn't and you had to restart the game...
A game, by its definition, is an intellectual activity where at least 2 outcomes are possible "Win or Lose" where chance plays an important role to make the player think what will be their strategy in any situation. Having said that, multiclassing can be more interesting and all, but when you have the freedom to max out every stat is like playing chess with all Queens as your pieces against regular pieces. Not having limitations imposed by the classes takes out the element of chance/surprise because you'll be prepared for everything, therefore you won't need to create a strategy or even think, making it less of a game imo.
@@marykateharmon True, but RPG has long been a separate genre of games where the mindset of wargame or video games does not work. In an RPG, it is very rare to see a loss or a victory, because the gameplay itself is important. Even the death of characters can be part of the gameplay.
While the "classes" of Skyrim are clearly inspired by traditional class systems, I think it's unfair to count all in-game names of archetypes as literal classes. Characters in a world don't really know the underlying rules. In D&D, classes end up being acknowledged pretty explicitly in some settings but in others they're only a mechanic while the characters only see other characters as characters, not classes. Battle mages and wizards are "classes" but they're also pretty clearly an in-game title that realistically could be explained without breaking the fourth wall.
Classes are an essential part of the role playing experience. You play the role of someone. And that special someone is the character in the game. Considering how many builds are out there for Skyrim only shows that a lot of people have a NEED for it. A protagonist with both strengths and weaknesses is a lot more interesting that a protagonist who's good at everything (known as a Mary Sue). And there's even a meme on how people try to play different characters in Skyrim, but always end up as a sneak archer due to game mechanics and how the game is balanced. And there are also mods available to add classes, but only as starting stat bonuses. In earlier elder scrolls games you had to pick a class, but you could still spend time and money on levelling up skills that doesn't belong to your class. So you could still play as a mage who is good at using a bow, but it takes more practice and your bow skill does not affect your levelling progress. I do hope classes are re-introduced to elder scrolls 6.
That would be great. And I hope the guilds would be more fleshed out again, And so that you actually have to earn your promotions. I remember that both Daggerfall and Morrowind required skill levels as well as reputation in order to advance. If an RPG should be class less, then it should probably be like Kingdom Come, where you really have to practice and earn recognition, and through that earn a "class title".
@@caligulawellington3171 I actually think Bethesda could take some notes from obsidian tonight in regards to factions, I think obsidian does a lot of what you talk about quite well when establishing them! I hope it has those things too, excited to see more on TES 6 hopefully soon!
I don't know how the factions are in obsidian, but I bet they are a lot better than being a glorified errand boy for a bunch of musicians who that can't keep track of their instruments, or that the newly elected arch mage for the mages guild is Thunk, the orc barbarian. ;)
"Classes are an essential part of the role playing experience. You play the role of someone. " I have a character concept. I choose race, background, skills, strengths and weaknesses, choose equipment. At what stage should I choose a class and what will it mean?
Great explanation mate, it's always nice to have some guidance and a starting point instead of spending hours trying to figure out what to do or lose a lot of time as you make irreversible decisions.
They aren't outdated. It's just an option. I prefer not to use classes but my players really like them. My home brew system uses classes instead of ability scores. It's actually worked out incredibly well.
While I don't mind a classless rpg there is no way that classes are OUTDATED. My favorite rpg's are the ones based on classes and let's me as a player slide into the fantasy and origins of the character I play.
I hated how Skyrim removed the class system, because I felt like it stripped the character of any sense of personal identity or focus. Even the iconic 'chosen one' isn't supposed to be perfectly skilled at everything. Those who are depicted as being perfectly skilled at everything tend to be mocked and chastised as Mary Sue characters, rather than celebrated for their creative freedom. It also broke the role playing immersion for me, when every race in the game starts out with at least two basic level spells, despite the fact the game makes it clear in no uncertain terms that Nords heavily distrust magic, while the lore states that Redguards flat out hate it. If I'm playing one of these two races, then why do I start the game knowing how to magically heal, or shoot fire from my hands? On a related note, WHY would my character have ever learned how to do so, if my intention is to play a straight warrior, who never uses any magic skills?
I liike classes. It is one of my favorite things about RPGs. I wouldn't think it is outdated. I never played Skyrim. However based on the video, I would say that there are classes with a bunch of multiclassing options. That is nice. I find that that classes are interesting not just for thier playstyles, but also for how they interact together. So I like to take another approach. Pokemon allows for a single player to use multiple fighters in a battle. They can have up to six. Fighters are usually played one at a time. However there are formats like double battle, which allow for using more than one at once. Pokemon types are elements, and they operate using elemental paper-rock-scizzors. There is a challenge of having a player's team varied in element to better face a variety of opponents. I do enjoy the challenge of putting together a team. When I try designing my own game, I allow for fighting with multiple fighters. This adds more variety an team interaction. Part of the variety is element based. Another part is class based. I do allow for players having multiple fighters in battle at once. There is a benefit in having a variety of classes. The fighters work as a team. This is the kind of teamwork I tend to see only in players working together. However I would like the opportunity to have this kind of teamwork in solo play. So I came up with the idea of one player controlling a whole party of characters with different classes. I have combat turn based, to make the juggling manageable. I don't knowmif anyone else did this, but I came up with the idea on my own. Controlling a team of fighters gives a nice clarity of classes while still having a lot of flexibility with options. I get the one main drawback is battle speed. However I don't mind. I love turn based combat. It helps me with fun strategy. Turn based combat doesn't seem like a drawback to me.
The thing about the class system in games and video games that involve combat mechanics is that there always exists a class system in every single game. Even when Skyrim removes class archetypes, the fact that "players could gravitate towards the playstyle they enjoy" means the class system still exists within the game
I can tell you for a fact that in my classical music training, I was not taught by the music school to wield a sword or drive a car. And altho I did pick up a smidgen of several languages, it was only a very limited word-set based entirely around the narrow uses music has for them. I went into college with a background in music and education, and I graduated as a level 1 Music Educator. But that's a very narrow interpretation. In fact, I came out of my college years with a wide variety of skills at various levels of competence and irl usefulness. Which system is more realistic? Neither one. Both are completely artificial, and therefore, equally useful or worthless, depending primarily on how well they are designed based on the needs of the game.
I am one of those players who gravitate towards a more obscure class design, and I often have to try to design this for myself. But I still disagree with the statement that classes are outdated. In dnd, the different subclasses cover an incredible amount of gameplay styles, not to mention homebrewing. You can use feats and multiclassing to further this specialization into those obscure archetypes.
🤨 clearly the article writer haven't played morrowind or used ordinator. Anyway, the classes is part of the lore, that's why it is restricted in D&D. If the article writer have read D&D novels, such as the Drizzt novels, he would find out that class restriction is part of the lore. How in the efin hell can a Barbarian from Icewind dale multiclass as a mage or paladin. The lore is very important in (R)ole(P)laying, otherwise it's going to be just a (G)ame. Clearly, the author of the article may be a gamer but not a role-play gamer.
I loved maxing out all my skills in Skyrim, archery for flying/op monsters, I liked swapping to battle mage at times, but I think best was the shield bash, crouch, backstab combo. Lol super cheap to be able to sneak right in front of a stunned enemy.
"One of the most critically praised things about that game". Yeah because giving the player the ability to make a tank character with a 2 handed weapon that has max sneaking, magic, alchemy, smithing and is the master of all the Skyrim guilds is a GREAT design decision. Making choices should have consequences, if you want to be a 300 pound hulking orc you shouldn't be a world class assassin or thief, it's just not possible. I think limiting the player also helps create more immersion, if you choose to be a khajiit that sneaks around, steals stuff and uses charisma to sweet-talk people you will have a clear image of what your character is and what he can and cannot do, which encourages role-playing rather than doing whatever the hell you want which totally dilutes the image of what your character is because you can do and be anything. It's not easy to pull off for the creators of the game, you have to implement quests that give you multiple choices, think about balancing etc etc, but Fallout New Vegas did it pretty well in a limited timeframe working with Bethesda's old-ass engine. So I think it just comes down to dedication but I really think that limitations are vital for RPGs. I replayed Fallout New Vegas multiple times trying out different builds, choosing different factions to align with and making up stories about who my character is and why he/she became like this. Whenever I play Skyrim I just default to making a sneaky character focused on combat, while maxing out smithing and alchemy because it's OP. Great video, thanks for bringing up this topic :)
I certainly agree with you! One of my favourite things about role playing specifically is having those trade offs! And classes are another opportunity to introduce them whether physical or political! Appreciate the kind words my friend! Glad I could bring it up!
And you could do it also in Morrowind and Oblivion. its far more annoying in the former, but well put together custom class and a lot of money and you could also became the Grand Master of everything that wasn't story locked out (like the Great Houses). The maxing out argument only matters if you decide to do absolutly everything on one character. Most playthroughs actually haven't that issue, bc I don't know most people who care about role playing also can set the limits themselves. Right (enchanted) gear and even a 300 pound orc with warhammer can be a very effective thief. I could go on what shenanigans you could do in D&D 3.5. Fallout NV team had basically a lot of work already done, the game system, the assets etc. They only really to add few things and could focus on the story so development wise it's more a weird standalone expansion than a separate game.
@@Kummitusv6lur Oblivion at least tried to balance it with major/minor skills, not saying it's a good system but at least they tried at that point, unlike Skyrim. - I agree that you should be able to create exceptional characters that can be great at everything, but you should have a huge penalty to the progression of the skills that are not fit for you. - When it comes to factions I'm okay with being master of all factions that don't have conflicting values, like the Thieves guild states that you cannot kill but the character is also the Master of the Dark Brotherhood running around in their gear? Dunno kinda ruins the immersion for me totally. - I'm against maxing out and being able to do everything in one playthrough because it actually offers an incentive to replay the game from a fresh perspective with a new class and doing new quest, but this is subjective so I won't argue. - Regarding New Vegas I agree that they had most of the technical work already done, but they also created an amazing world, awesome quests, a branching narrative, the faction system, lots of characters, assets etc in a very limited timeframe, then they got screwed by Bethesda which just makes me mad considering that they could've created more of these awesome expansions for Skyrim or Fallout 4 but Bethesda just won't allow someone to make better games than them using their trademark.
Actually, most games tackle that impossibility quite well and naturally. In FFT, Tactics A2 or Fell Seal, if you change a unit that was a fighter oriented one for at least 20 levels into a mage, it becomes a very mediocre magic user that won't do much physical damage too. The only way to make a "Master of Everything" is by doing some little cheating in the game that also takes an insane amount of time, therefore it is almost never an issue in normal playthrough.
@@JustGabe yep, this is exactly the type of system that I like. It makes complete sense logically and it creates a narrative for your character that consistent. Mainstream games like Skyrim though are too scared to let players commit mistakes and don't want to limit anyone, therefore we get this mishmash of "You can be whoever you want to be!!!". I understand the decision commercially but it creates a shallow roleplaying experience.
I think an interesting game design would be everyone is a base character with a ton of skill options but based on your stat and weapon chocies the game offers a class later as an option for bonus dmg and abilities. like im a base char with a lot of stats in dexterity less in health more in bow mastery...the game says hey wanna be a stealth archer you'll get cool sneak skills and passives but you don't have to. We just noticed you play this way kinda like a personality test lol
I think I liked it if they let you choose by gameplay. Just think of how Skyrim skills progress but limits you a lot like if you commit to a great sword build you can't go back...
I'm working on a small text based rpg system and i was unsure about what to do regarding class systems until i stumbled upon this video. I have an idea of what I want to do now thanks
I personally prefer the side of freedom, but I can acknowledge that there is a certain amount of "protecting the player" that needs to happen for a game to function correctly. Great video!
Great video! I think someone already mentioned it but probably the most likely explanation for the wording of the article is click bait. Also, how rude can you be to say that developers are TOO LAZY to fix a game design choice? I was baffled by some of the headlines that you showed at the start of the video. It's great to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks!
Thanks! Yeah I totally understand that click bait is the reality of their industry but I think it’s super dangerous in articles shared as much as this to put that something is outdated without really elaborating much! Glad I could bring it to your attention!
I don't really have a clear opinion about this topic . On one hand I like D&D-like or classic rpg classes in a game and think they can potentially help you define your character but on the other one I really do prefer dual / multi-class systems or even a "no classes" system ( such as Skyrim's or any other TES game's *when* you remove the level cap ) . This last case scenario however is more of something I like doing cause I enjoy to experiment and mess with the various things the game has to offer ( I maxed warrior...what if I wanted to max thief or mage next without having to make a completely new character / respec and lose all of my warrior perks ? What if I wanted to combine the two or the three ? What if I could mix this sub-specialization to this other one ? And so on... ) , I am curious by nature . Again , playing by the rules is fun and I often create plenty of characters I play legit by respecting the limits the game gives me , my characters will often have their strengths and their weaknesses...but if after spending a ton of hours playing by being restricted by these rules I feel like I could have a little bit more fun by bending them a bit more to my taste ( as in by giving myself more freedom or even by limiting it more....maybe I want a harder experience... ) then what's the harm ? It's just my own way of having fun in a game . Maybe I am interested in roleplay , maybe I am not , maybe I want a demigod character , maybe I want one who has a harder time dealing with the enemies cause by now they pose no longer a threat to my knowledge of the game , ecc . It's all relative. There really is no right or wrong way to go about it .
I’d certainly agree with that line of thinking! I think it’s just hard as designers to think there are no right answers or everything is a right answer(even if sometimes that’s true) thanks for sharing your thoughts!
One of the reasons I like classes is by being restricted in what you can and can’t do it makes replaying a game fun interesting and different. For example play a game as a wizard and don’t bother picking locks since you can cast a spell the dose it for you giving you freedom to unlock just about anything. play it again as a rouge and do to you being a rouge you have very little Health and can’t take much of any damage so stealth assassinations and lock picking/ pitpckiting are best play again as a paladin and you can go in guns blazeing. Play as a bard and why fight at all when you stand a good chance of talking your way out of a fight entirely
archtype is not the same as classes. DnD classes tries to capture the main character archetypes, but you can't create your own, you have to find one that you like to play with.
Skimmed through the list and it's clear that the author is conflating video game RPGs with tabletop RPGs, using Skyrim as a counterpoint against Dungeons & Dragons, which is kinda silly. The reason it's silly is because Dungeons & Dragons is a *team* game (as well as an actual tabletop roleplaying game, but I digress) and in Skyrim you are running around alone most of the time. This means that you don't have other characters (players) to make up for things that you lack, so the game is instead designed around the idea that a single character is able to accomplish anything in the game. Even in tabletop RPGs that are classless, you still lock yourself out of certain things by the choices you make. You can't increase every single skill or ability like in Skyrim, and even if you could, it's unlikely that your fellow players would tolerate you standing in a corner jumping for hours on end just to up your jump skill. Further evidence that the author is conflating TTRPGs and video game RPGs is the following line from the article: "Alignment systems might be the best system in any RPG." Any person who has ever played D&D will know instinctively how wrong that statement is, since no one wants to have "the alignment debate" *again*
As a dnd enthusiast can concur with that, great point, great connections made from the article. I didn’t realize how much the author connected then! Good catch!
I think you missed his point, which to be fair he didn't make very well. Sure, in Skyrim you generally fall under a specific archetype in the mid game if you make synergistic choices. You'll then argue that any other combination of choices are a "multiclass" of those 3 main classes to some degree. I think the real takeaway from his statement should have been that the traditional DND class system gives you very little in the way of choice once you have locked in your class and advanced class. You essentially make two primary decisions that define your characters available pool of combat skills. That's dated if applied to a modern video game. (which DND is not) Classes are a symptom of the current limitations that designers face when trying to create a comprehensive RPG that maintains accessibility while also presenting meaningful choices to the player, as you said. As game design progresses, I personally hope they become less and less necessary.
I, honestly, enjoy both types of systems in games. I like games like Diablo which offer skills based on your class and keeps that tradition. But, I also enjoy games like Skyrim or Dark Souls, which technically have classes but you are able to use skills, spells, and weapons regardless of class as long as you have enough points invested in the required stat. It's like you can rebel against tradition or what is expected of you and lay out your own path. And you can still play a traditional class as well if you choose to. Like I said, I enjoy both. They can both deliver immersive and focused role-playing experiences. And, sure, you can say class-locked skills is a limiting system. But, I don't mind that limitation just like I don't mind the freedom of a skills-based system.
I heavily disagree that the mere existence of three colored backgrounds counts as some sort of "class system" Beyond traditional skills for each of the three oldest D and D classes being grouped under the same color, there's nothing stopping you from playing with two handed weapons, alteration and restoration in the game, or sneaking and illusion, or potion making, enchanting and smithing. You seem to be confusing aesthetic details with actual gameplay mechanics, like forcing mages to not wear armor. In Skyrim mages can indeed pack on the armor, with the only real "cost" being that they'll want to level up in said armor. Heck, you can combine it with alteration and restoration to make a stone wall of a character using skills traditionally given to squishy mages. You seem to be saying that even the possibility of making something reminiscent of a traditional D and D character class automatically invalidates a free form system. Good luck avoiding all 40+ years of dozens of D and D classes in everyone of your gameplay mechanics. Come to think of it, you could probably put the entire game into a different setting and still come up with these things. Your melee tough class could be a cyborg, long range high damage is sniper/ orbital support, healer uses nanobots. Point is, the idea of freeform character design isn't to forbid traditional classes, but to allow different variations to be created with a lot less hassle than a strict class system. Plus some attributes naturally go together- if you have a low health character, you'll want to keep them away from the enemy. Even if you do the opposite, that's pretty damn similar to a thief. I feel you're severely overstating the positives of restricting a character when the game begins with a class... when they can do that themselves. Nothing is stopping them from only leveling warrior skills, or mage skills. The class choice doesn't really serve much of a purpose, beyond a check mark, perhaps useful for players new to these sorts of games. Thing is, the cost of the system you devised, is that the player is only given a third of the full skill tree, when there are many combinations of various different class skills that are useful. Heavy armor and alteration build on each other, as does illusion and stealth, or the dreaded stealth and archery. You seem to think having the full eighteen skills available is massively overwhelming, but I haven't heard anyone else say that. Hell, I've heard many people say Skyrim is already too simplistic; it has a sizeable anti fanbase that see Morrowind as their guiding light. And dislike that you can't quit your job as a dungeon crawling world saver, and become a wandering potion salesman. Or kill everybody, even main quest characters.(1) Try telling them you're going to restrict every character to only six skills. Moreover, I really wonder how much clarity people need when the three archetypal classes are embedded in tabletop and video gaming culture and easily made in Skyrim. As for viability, Skyrim took a big step towards that by getting rid of classes and just having races. With both you've got massively synergistic overlaps (like orc and warrior, or Bosmer and thief) but also terrible choices (like orc and thief, or Bosmer and mage) Classes just adds on another layer of permanent choice right at the beginning, when new players are likely to mess up. Why not allow them to pick a race, which already points you in certain directions, then go from there? (1)th-cam.com/video/D7fCltG15wg/w-d-xo.html
You make some great points and thank you so much for the detailed response and comment! I want to stress that I am certainly not trying to invalidate free form systems, I do love many games that use such a system and have developed a few myself, as for your arguments about locking players from the beginning I actually don't think it's always necessary, my argument is NOT I repeat not on the side of the restriction, freedom of choice is important to me and my design philosophy, what I will say is that the article(even if clickbaity as some others have mentioned) is misleading, and the alarming rate in which it was shared I believe spreads information, saying that classes are outdated (even if it infers classes at the beginning of the game) is one worth arguing against especially because there are many people who don't or cant enjoy freeform systems(not to mention many freeform systems will or can eventually lock you at some point into a D&D Inspired Class or multiclass. As for picking a race and go from there, hell yeah! I always am looking to support designers in their exploits and if they can make a system work in which classes aren't involved at all and still have complex divergent gameplay sign me up! Again appreciate the comment these are the kinds of discussions I really love participating in!
@@GameDesignFoundry Besides your mentions, I haven't heard of many people who can't enjoy free form class systems, and a lot of it feels theoretical. Sure, there could be a group of people who want a laid out set of skills they should level up from day one, but there is also probably a group that wants to be able to not have to look up the exact class, race, birthsign combos that make for a powerful character. Which one is larger? I don't know, and I feel too much speculation on this could easily get detached from the real situation and in the weeds of either of our opinions on which design is better. I think a large part of my dislike of set classes is because they so often overlap in areas of specialty with the races; if you play as a wood elf, you're just better as a stealthy archer, as opposed to an orc, who's better as a warrior. Why not then simply combine the effects of class and race into one thing that determines which skills you are more proficient in? Hell, I could see race being used for much more than just proficient skills a passive resistance and a once a day ability. What if elves were plant people who got a bonus to regeneration in sunlight, or could beguile other races with their flower power? Rethinking it, Skyrim's race selection leaves out potentially interesting hooks for gameplay, like the Bosmer being completely carnivorous, or the altmer being able to interact with the Thalmor. I feel part of my initial dislike of classes in many rpgs, is that they seem to be another layer of skill perks like races, when they could be so much more. What if you were a teifling, who was weakened by holy objects, or a lizardman who could use more poisons on your weapons? Hmm...
@@adams13245 Class are great for multiplayer RPGs or RPGs with party members. The reason is that by only allowing certain players to be able to do certain things, you can easily make a game where everyone is viable even if the classes are not perfectly balanced. In solo RPGs I'd actually prefer more of an emphasis on items and equipment. The issue with skill builds in those games is that unless you read a guide, you don't know what will be useful in the endgame. That is unless the game has the same repetitive gameplay throughout. By putting more emphasis on a player's equipment, you can just change loadouts to effectively change class. I like to play RPGs for the discovery aspect, but if a skill tree doesn't reveal all the skills to you in the beginning, you have no idea what you are building toward. If it does reveal all the skills, there is no mystery as to skills you will unlock later in the game. If, however, the game has powerful magic items you can equip, it can surprise you while allowing late game flexibility. I also play a lot of games and thus I typically only play a game once. In solo RPGs I'd prefer if I could do anything the game offers, rather than restricting me to my skill choices.
Freedom never was the goal. Self Determination Theory thought us autonomy is what humans need. Classes may help us want to play what we play. -And that is what autonomy is.
I used to be very anti-class. Playing tabletop rpg games like Buffy I really gravitated towards creating your character from bits and pieces. But with games like Skyrim (who absolutely is not an rpg, at least not classically so), people will without classes trend in the same direction. Indigo Gaming pointed out that all it does is make sure that everyone is EVERY class all at once. You can do archery, you can do magic, you can do swords. I love rolling characters, as a person who dabbles in game design my core philosophy is that no character should be able to do everything. For each thing you can do, there needs to be a thing you can't. Wrong race can't join the racist faction, burly barbarian can't join the mages guild. I think an important part of making a game is telling the player "no", followed by "because you chose that other thing instead". Classes are a great way to do this. I love experiencing how playing a Mage is different from a Hunter, for instance. It is great fun. Classes allow you to express who you want your character to be in this world, taking them out means there is no room for expression. Now I'm just every class all at once, and isn't that overpowered and boring? In short, limitations are good, inconveniences are good, telling the player to take their burly ass orc out of my mages guild before they banish him to the plane of unending torment, is very good.
"For each thing you can do, there needs to be a thing you can't. Wrong race can't join the racist faction, burly barbarian can't join the mages guild." Сharacter's race is a self-evident part of the game world. Сharacter cannot join the guild because he looks bad, has bad manners, has not studied magic in the past and shows poor results in the exam. And he is not a barbarian, but a respected warrior of his tribe, who likes to rob people like a rogue. "I love experiencing how playing a Mage is different from a Hunter, for instance." I want the experience of playing a hunter who hunts using magic. What class will it be?
I think the point the article made can best be summed up as Hard Class Systems being a bit outdated. Anyway, on to my thoughts on the matter: Class systems aren't inherently bad or anything, but there are games they are more appropriate than others. The Elder Scrolls from Morrowind to Skyrim, I would say, is an example of a series where they are ultimately a pointless addition to the game because the games are fundamentally built to allow the player to morph their character into anything as they play and get interested in new parts of the game while only giving you direct control over the development of a single character. Followers are too unreliable for non-combat tasks without a major overhaul. In Morrowind and Oblivion, only the starting value and progress differentiated class and non-class skills. This might've been fine if we were locked to the 21 pre-made classes, pretty much all of which are suboptimal in one way or another early on, but our option to make custom classes completely blows this out of the water. The number of skills a class includes also helps undermine the importance of even the pre-made classes, because getting ~1/3 of all the skills is a lot and causes a great deal of overlap. There is also the problem classes with more than one of the melee skills, which comes with a heavy opportunity cost (early on), making hybrid classes almost universally superior. So how could one "fix" classes in the Elder Scrolls? This is a bit difficult, because we're working with 2 primary restraints. 1) We're building a single character, and 2) the games are built to allow us to do any and all content we wish, so long as they are not mutually exclusive for story reasons (f.ex. the Great Houses in Morrowind or the two sides of the Civil War in Skyrim). A too strict class system could end up effectively locking certain questlines off from players, because we can't rely on a party to round out our characters. So to keep a class system from interfering with the identity of the series, they can't meaningfully restrict our access to, at the very least, basic competence in all three skill groups: Combat, Magic and Stealth. One of the fixes is to simply remove the classes, which is what they went with and I'd say it mostly works in Skyrim. Perks accumulate slowly enough to force a decent amount of skill specialization until you're at a very high level, certainly more than Morrowind and Oblivion ever did, though many of the perks themselves are uninspired. It also works fairly well with the way we improve our skills in TES; by using them. This is admittedly undermined by certain skills, like lockpicking, being easily ignored in favor of player skill. Another possible fix is to do something akin to what the Elder Scrolls Online did, by making each class a collection of unique skills independent of traditional stuff like weapon training, alchemy etc. This could take the role of anything from a set of passive effects that just boost you in particular skills (a Thief would never outperform a Warrior with sword'n'board, for example, even with identical skill level and perks) to give access to class specific powers. For instance, a Barbarian might get access to a Rage power. Rage would be useless when doing the Thieves Guild, but as long as it doesn't restrict our access to Sneak and Lockpicking, it doesn't cut off access to the game's content. The latter option already exist in TES to some extent, with 1) races, 2) birthsigns and 3) standing stones. Morrowind has 1 & 2, Oblivion has 1, 2 & 3 and Skyrim has 1 & 3. Taking Skyrim as an example, you could (not necessarily the same as should, mind you) treat the races as your primary class and your standing stone as your subclass. Some examples: *Nord - Skald (Battle-Bard)* You can harness your Voice to let out a Battle Cry, staggering and inflicting fear on anyone within range. You receive 50% resistance to cold. Your training as a Skald gives you a starting bonus to two-handed, one-handed, block, smithing, light armor and speech. *Orc - Barbarian* You draw upon a primal fury to enter a Berserker Rage, increasing damage done with, and decreasing damage taken from, weapons. Your training as a Barbarian gives you a starting bonus to two-handed, one-handed, block, smithing, enchant and heavy armor. *Bosmer - Ranger* Your connection to the natural world lets you turn any animal to your companion for a short time. You receive 50% resistance to poison and disease. Your training as a Ranger gives you a starting bonus to archery, alchemy, light armor, lockpicking, sneak and pickpocket. *The Atronach - Witchhunter* You have dedicated yourself to harnessing and combating magic. You gain 50pts of max magicka and a 50% chance to absorb hostile magic, but you suffer a 50% reduction in magicka regeneration. *The Ritual - Necromancer* You have dedicated yourself to unlocking power over the undead. Once per day, you can raise all corpses, up to level 75, within 75 ft. to fight for you for 200 sec. You could see a Nord with the Atronach stone as a Skald with the Witchhunter subclass, if we decide to look at it in this way. Would I mind a class that effectively works the way races work now? No, I think that would be an alright way to have classes in TES, but I don't think it should be much more restrictive than that.
@@ViewtifulZeke Even as a player, it's deceptively self-defeating. That unfettered freedom poisons your ultimate result just like a lack of structure in your life leads to a lot of doing nothing much of the time.
I think people's tolerance for novelty matters as well. Those who prefer more familiar and less novel likely connect with stereotypes better, while those (like me) who prefer more novelty, want to escape the stereotypes. And what are classes if not stereotypes encoded in the mechanics?
What was that author talking about? Morrowing and oblivion classes were only skill presets. It wasn't truly classes like in DnD because there was nothing that wasn't accessible by any character. If you chose a thief in morrowind or oblivion, there is nothing stopping you from developing any other skill or learning any spell, as long as you have the stats for it. And you can get those stats. If anything, skyrim don't need all those presets because, well, skyrim builds are just supper blend and every character plays pretty much the same.
Saw this through a reddit post - don't know if that was you but - nice video :) Never seen the appeal of rigid class systems that hard locks skills out of players potential - but I don't bemoan their existence.
D&D 3.5 is my favorite system. It has the most complex multiclass system ever created. As they started simplifying their system for video games, they took away much of the freedom from their players. Many of the old classes were better, in my opinion. They did improve their battle system to a great degree however. At the same time they removed and nerfed many spells and skills. For example, in 5th ed, you can no longer buff up with a bunch of spells like you could before. I fear that they are moving to remove classes. Look at the Divinity system. It is a great game, but since it is turn based, I think it would have been better served with classes. Action games can get away with more in systems like Skyrim, but turn based systems should not work that way. The Dragon Quest series is another example of a split from the traditional system. Dragon Quest 7 had a complex class system that made the game fun. It even included monster classes. Dragon Quest 8 started moving away from that. Had I already not been a fan of the series, I would never have played it because of it. Dragon Quest 9 returned to a more traditional system and it was great. Dragon Quest 10 also used a class system and in my opinion, it is absolutely needed in a multiplayer environment (too bad the West will never see it online). Dragon Quest 11 moved away from classes and uses something more like Final Fantasy with a skill tree system. It does provide a lot of freedom, but toward the end of the game it becomes more homogenized. I think they should use a multiclass system in new games, but with skill trees to modernize it. Grim Dawn is a good example of how you can pull that off in an action game. In the future, I will be playing games like Pillars or Eternity, Pathfinder Kingmaker, and Grim Dawn. I am not a fan of the classless system that developers are trying to serve us up.
You make some great points! Oftentimes developers go into "modernization" or the largest possible audience mode in RPGs and while the systems do show success they do leave players behind who love that structure and identity they find in a class structure. Grim Dawn, POE, and PFK are all amazing examples of games that I think have created systems that work towards that need! Thanks for the comment!
I just read the article and he's actually right... because he was referring to a SET class system, in other words, where each character has a set of unchangable traits and no chance for a mage to learn sword skills. And THAT is actually starting to feel outdated.
I think that's where I'd be coming from if I made the argument. I get that you could start a character off calling them a warrior, and buff their traits there at the start of the game, but I've never not chaged against a system that blocks potential growth because your the wrong character type (unless its a multiplayer co-op type experience perhaps)
Yeah! I mention halfway through the video that I think that’s the point they’re trying to make! But I think the way they had phrased it was a little too ambitiously just putting “classes” as the number one most outdated feature then mentioning a system built upon the foundation of class? I understand the authors intent I’m just not sure I agree with their phrasing! But I agree with you solid classes can sometimes feel outdated, but class systems themselves? Not sure I agree with that
@@JustGabe ah I see, I think it’s somewhat dangerous to click bait such a topic in a widely shared list of mechanics the author says are outdated, perhaps a little more explanation might have been in order
It's weird how you have to improve your Miscellaneous skills more than Major or Minor skills to get better Attributes. So what skills should I take as my Major/Minor skills? I don't know. The ones I can improve easily in every attribute so that I could choose which one I need at the moment? This looses the point of having a class. At that point maybe Miscellaneous Skills should not reward attributes. Or keep improving the level along with attributes. This is just a weird system.
"classes are outdated" Tell that to every T-RPG and tell me how it goes, huh? I honestly found Skyrim system to be boring, finished the game cause I bought it, never went back to it, the leveling system felt to me like the transition from windows XP to windows 8.1, way too simplified, fake freedom and overall dull, never felt fully taken by the game, especially thanks to that lame system. Classes are fun, especially if used in certain ways for certain games, to each their own system, but the problem, overall, lies in the quality. Btw, read that article, nothing on it makes much sense tbh.
You’re entitled to your own opinion but honestly Skyrim’s freedom is the opposite of fake. You can go anywhere in the world of Skyrim, you can take side quests, you can kill almost any npc, and there are loads of choices within the side quests as well. And even if you don’t like the game Skyrim is very open to modding because of how easy it is, you have freedom even outside the game in forms of mods. But either way, you can feel however you want about the game I just wanted to put my input here.
Skyrim was a great game, one of the few classless games is till enjoy today. But classes and races and identity are HUGE for me, being an oldschool RPG guy. I want a sense of unique identity when i play.
@@Pixel3572 thank you for respecting my opinion while stating your point, i would like to clarify what i meant: the "fake" feeling i was referring to was about character customization, and with that i mean that i can clearly feel the characters i make are a different thing and that i simply control them, like some kind of automaton that i use to interact with the world, hence the "fake" feeling. This "lack of personality" customization ain't for me, so maybe classes, jobs, heavier race implications etc. Would have at least subsided this feeling, but that's just me i think.
That article is dumb as hell. For starters, DnD is not a single player game, it’s a social game where you are working with a party of around two to three other players. Every class is designed to have limitations in this regard, because the entire point is that you are a piece of a whole. It’s not outdated or inferior to games like Skyrim; the two games have completely different goals for play experience. Skyrim’s system is catered to a single player experience where there is no party management. Its system makes sense for the goals of that game, and even then its lack of limitations with character building doesn’t leave room for players that want more nuanced mechanics to play.
I don't believe I fully agree with you tbh. I too believe that classes are the most outdated RPG mechanic in videogames. I find myself being wildly in favour of loose classing like in Soulsborne games, Divinity, or Skyrim. There's a mod called CORI for Skyrim which is actually my ideal way of playing Skyrim. I think the only real takeaway from this video was that it's difficult to design the game once you have open classes, but that's more of a designer's concern and not as much the end user's. A lot of the terms used in RPGs, while conveying a certain idea can mean very different things in the players' minds and the designer's mind. To someone with a primarily D&D background, spell-slot systems feel natural and organic, while to me, someone with a primarily videogame (or Brandon Sanderson) background, spell-slot systems feel kinda icky and too discrete. Like physics doesn't work in a discrete manner, why should magic? Similarly, it has happened to me way too damn often about what I imagined a wizard to play out as and how it really played out as. This is not something you can know before you even start the game. I'd rather start as a blank slate and build my character out over time rather than when I have zero idea what's what.
Defiently a respectable argument against! Starting as a blank slate can certainly be good for experienced players such as yourself and does offer a lot of avenues in design! Thanks for sharing!
I will agree that setting your class at the beginning the game is boring and outdated. You should have the freedom to change your class and multiclass at your will or stick to what you want. Like you said, it gives some freedom and agency but still restricts you to things that are viable and fun.
I think a good and clear example of the dangers and trade off of using a open access class system is just to imagine the Path of Exile skill tree, all clarity is lost and the player will be completely confused and lost on "how do I build my character the way I want to play the game?"
100% don't agree with this video. Character customization is something most JRPGs fail at and do lock characters into a "class" or "job". As a player and beginner dev, I want my players enough freedom to design their playstyle without too much freedom that they go overboard. It helps game replayablility to also allow this concept to take shape. What you're promoting makes a borefest of a game and relies on ye olde Holy Trinity. The Holy Trinity has more potential than being completely locked behind the dev's railroads.
i miss depth like class stats race trees like dagger fall /DDO /hellgate london/ planetside:) games r getting like supermodels nice to look at but shallow jerks :( i just like finished 10 games all over in a week u get to max lvl & ZZZzzzZZz uninstall WTF devs. i want planetside2 never ending flat leveling system in every game & like DDO class race stat system & hellgate londens gear system DCUO action combo combat:) .im getting sick of cash grabs that rely on good looks :(
No. Give the player what they want. Give them more ways to influence the compilation. Quit limiting them to a single body. Quit limiting to the same classes over and over again. Quit telling them if they don't play this way then they lose. Remove death. Watch Ponstory Games seminar.
Although I don’t agree with you I certainly respect your preference! For me limitations and death make for engaging stories! Although I love games where I’m free to influence worlds and explore them how I’d like it’s more true that I enjoy having limits to what I can do! Sometimes I just want to play a paladin and have the world react to me as if I was a paladin. The problem with infinite freedom is its costly and devs cannot always afford to have the world react to a players actions! It’s why a game like Skyrim can feel a little shallow after you make a choice that would “affect the world” whereas the same choice in a game like pillars of eternity sees a drastic change in narrative. Long story short, freedom is great! Limitation is great! You cannot have one without the other for a compelling video game. And player death is a great and simple way of displaying limitation! Appreciate the comment!
@@GameDesignFoundry Death is terrible. I can't play the game if I'm dead. A game is a computation. If I'm compermised from participating in any way with any of the assets the dev gave me. If the "game is not balanced I'm not playing. Again watch Ponstory Games seminar.
Certainly a way of thinking about it! I for one love death in games, failure is a powerful tool designers can use to inspire creative solutions and dynamic approaches to problems! It’s very rare I succeed in a game and change my approach, but if I fail now we’re talking, I look at my abilities, inventories, whatever I have access too and try something new that I might even end up liking more than what I had been using! Death is a game design tool that when used correctly motivates and empowers players! :D
@@GameDesignFoundry You can't be creative using math. If there's a right way to play you win and if there's a wrong way to play you die, then that means the compilation can be mathematically solvable. Which one of us wants games to be better? We dident get to this point because people thought stuff was fine. No we got to where we are today because we saw room for improvement. All gaming invocation has been composition for the players death. I want the best entertainment. Pon wants to make the ultimate games and stories. I want to make the ultimate stories and posible games as well. You people are so strange. You put such an enthuses on entertainment in your life's but never demand anything better.
@@futurestories2380 I disagree with your first point, but still appreciate you taking the time to comment! The great thing about making games is we don’t need to agree, there will always be room for endless systems. Those with death, without it, etc. I’m a huge advocate for helping designers make better games it’s why I started this channel actually to help others and myself as I make games!
In Skyrim you can choose from any of these greate classes: stealth archer, stealth archer, or ... stealth archer.
All extremely engaging playstyles I can confirm! My particular favourite is the one where you start as a two-handed warrior and by Whiterun you use two-handed bows!
I prefer dagger assassin. Its like the all powerful stealth archer, but I'm the arrow lol
@@GameDesignFoundryahh, the good ol two-hand master (of bows)
The problem is none of them play in unique, challenging ways like custom designed classes do.
Personally, I have always preferred class systems that are more like backgrounds or archetypes that act as a starting point for your character. The class might give you a bonus to certain skills and few abilities out the gate but it doesn't restrict you from taken skills/abilities from other archetypes as you level up your character. Honestly the main reason why I enjoy classes in rpg is from more of a role playing perspective then a mechanic perspective, tbh. I just like to be able to give my characters a past in the world and having a bonus to skills and abilities that reflect that past. It just a cool feeling when my barbarian is skilled with greataxes, light armor, survival skills, and has a rage ability at level 1.
Totally understandable! Thanks for sharing! :D
one big factor to class systems is they work best with a Party system. With most AAA RPG games being 3-D lone wolf type games put the player at a weakness if they are to specialized- In the past turn based RPGs did not punish the player for being a non-magic user since you could recruit wizards, druids and Clerics, or for not having a ranged attack since you could recruit archers and rangers.
When you are a lone wolf you need broad specializations or you get screwed in many situations.
one game that did this well was the Mass Effect series- since your specialization was always balanced with what team mates you chose to bring on a particular mission.
Someone saying that a game mechanic is "outdated" is definitely not a designer.
Frankly, classes are useful for preventing homogenization between playthroughs. The Skyrim meme that everyone ends up playing as a stealthy archer is great evidence to support this. Classes should not be seen as blocking off certain abilities, but instead granting access to exclusive abilities and gameplay functions.
In tabletop RPGs a well designed class offers the player an ability or mechanic that is unique and only accessible by being the class in question. In videogames the same principle holds. In World of Warcraft the Mage, Warlock and Priest classes are superficially similar, they wear cloth and cast magic, but each have special utilities that make them excel at something different. Warlocks can summon other players around the world, Mages can conjure food and water, and Priests can cast healing magic.
If you remove classes you will find that every single character becomes a pile of the best stuff, every time. The homogenization is taken to the extreme via players natural inclination to optimize.
Any system that does not allow the player to acquire every skill and ability has a class system anyway, it's just hidden from the player.
Great analysis and thoughts on the subject thank you so much for sharing them here!
@@GameDesignFoundry Thanks for the video
There's no guarantee that one of the classes isn't a pile of the best stuff. More precisely, I have not seen a class system without an imbalance of classes.
Honestly, I'm kind of confused that people really think the class systems in rpgs are outdated and need to be done away with. There's a few open ended "whatever skills you want" type games that I've liked and thought were better for it, but I've also seen plenty that try to use that as a back of the box feature and fall flat with it.
Creating a character that can specc into anything can be fun in a shallow sandbox game like skyrim where character and world interactions and combat are brief and low detail, but for something deeper I'd like for something like a rogue to play differently from a mage and have mechanics that play into itself rather than having to share its toys with the mage and either have a completely insular set of mechanics that you wouldn't either bother speccing in at all unless you were going full rogue, or something that's shaved down and feel more like an add on you throw onto another class template.
That's not even talking about the narrative, where there would absolutely be a big difference between a guy who has daggers and lockpicks as opposed to someone who throws fireballs. Part of the fun of dragon age for me had always been looking at the mage and templar conflict from an outsider and mercenary perspective, that would be completely shot to hell if the game just treated my character the same as a mage.
Throughout this video I was shouting min maxing at the screen, because that's whats happening: as a player we go into Skyrim thinking "I want to play a wizard" and so you focus down all the stuff that can max magic and dump physical. So why does literally everyone end up a stealth archer? It universally works and you can build your character into without even trying or meaning to- it's second nature to snatch and horde anything with a weight of 0, meaning you will have just SO many arrows and after that all you need is a random bow and BAM stealth archer, sure you CAN put points into stealthing or bow damage but like. . .you don't need to? Where as with magic or swords you NEED to pump magika or stamina but you can feasibly play stealth archer with 0 investment making it free to play even when min maxing for another "class"
DAMN I can’t believe I didn’t say that once, oh well a topic for a future video I suppose! Thanks so much for sharing!
I am in favour of both and it depends on the type of game that is being made.
Although I will note that I am actually a little biased towards locked specific classes, things like warrior/thief/mage actually incentivise me to get creative on how best to roleplay/optimise this specific class without becoming a Jack of all trades.
What’s interesting is the full quote “Jack of all trades, master of none, better that than a master of one.” Might lead you to believe that it would be better if we gave the player the option of JoaT, but here’s the thing, being incredibly powerful is also incredibly boring. Being a master of one, means you have to plan around your well defined skill set in order to tackle any problem.
Classes, or builds give games better replay value because there's just some things you cant do, in Skyrim you can top all skills and become leader of all the guilds (in most cases without even having to use skills associated with those guilds) in one playyhrough, I replay every other ES game (yes even arena) but in Skyrim it feels like ive already done everything
A much better example than Skyrim would be Divinity: Original Sin 2. I think that does the classless thing very well and is the direction that we should look toward. It still has "classes" at the beginning to determine your starting weapon and some suggested skills, along with being your ability choices for any followers you pick up. You can, however, on custom characters, fully optimize and change these to fit your playstyle. Even on the followers you recruit, you gain the option to alter their starting stats once you reach Act 2. D:OS2 is one of my favorite games because of that freedom.
For tabletop games up this same alley, look to World of Darkness. I think more systems should resort to a more freeform system like that. Have abilities that you can mix and match that aren't locked behind a class. In D&D, for instance, I don't want to have to dip 6 levels into way of shadow monk to get shadow step. It's a cool ability that could work very well for certain character ideas I have, but you've gotta homebrew and work with your DM to get that if you're not a monk. Some of the characters I have that I WANT to have a shadow-step like ability, it would not make sense for them to be a monk. A classless system solves this lack of freedom.
I can't say Skyrim was the best example they could have used, but I definitely agree with their sentiment. Classes are just predefined suites of abilities. Those abilities should not be locked from level one. I think classes are fine to have as guidelines, but a system should be built with customization in mind. Have a freeform system of abilities and feats, like D:OS2, but then have some "classes" that are just a "hey, here's some abilities that when paired together, create that typical RPG class you have in mind."
Here's one way you could mitigate the problem: restrict the number of weapons/spells/perks the player can equip at any one time. Rather than being able to pause the game, open the inventory, and pull out the perfect tool for any situation, the player would be restricted to a loadout they've built beforehand. They could still unlock every option in one playthrough, but would be quite limited in their options during a single fight or adventure. They would have to prioritize specific perks they like and pick ones that have good synergy with each other. Combinations that make the game too easy can be eliminated by making those weapons take up the same slot. Limiting the player's opportunities to change loadouts would be important too - maybe restrict it to their house/camp/base/what have you.
I think a system like this would allow players to come up with their own "classes", while ensuring that every combo has weaknesses.
This goes back to one of the core appeals of RPGs: not just choice, but meaningful choice. A system that provides at least some direction to your player is usually better than a system that provides no direction because it allows the designers and players to engage in more meaningful experiences. I applaud Bethesda for trying to revolutionize their systems as the years go by, but there's a good middle ground in there somewhere (many people would say Morrowind or Oblivion).
But the player does not know all the features of the class and the unobvious consequences of certain choices in his leveling, so the choice of a class is the choice of a pig in a poke.
@@neron93939 Why would you assume that? There's plenty of games that tell you what your class features are out the gate. And many great systems tell you your derived stats in detail, the outcome of your leveling.
@@kolardgreene3096 Yes, but the designers themselves don't play 1000 hours in each class. This is worst manifested in MMO with a competitive aspect.
@@neron93939 The same could be said of any aspect of the game, but you're choosing one of the things designers usually spend a lot of time on. I could definitely see it being a worse issue for MMOs, but your average RPG with classes is not suffering to the same extent. There may be one or two underwhelming classes in a game but does that mean classes are broken or does that mean game development is rushed? Because there's unbalanced systems in every game, classes or not
@@kolardgreene3096 In addition, one of the important elements of an RPG is character creation. Class is too big and too meta-game "brick" in my character.
Sometimes I have to create a character to squeeze it into the framework of the class.
Sometimes a class seems like an unnecessary layer of game mechanics.
One important thing to point out is that Skyrim is a SINGLE player game. Whereas DnD is a CO-OP game. Skyrim's system works because you need to be able to take care of yourself in a big world of adventure, so removing classes for more access to flexible builds makes sense. In DnD you're working together with a group, and if you had the same flexibility here then there's a good chance you'll end up with players making very similar builds, since they no longer require the support of other players to make up for the down-sides of their class, they can just train whatever skills they're lacking in as if it was a single player game.
That is a very important factor! One I certainly forgot to touch on in the video, really appreciate you sharing this!
The problem is that some classes are more useful than others. And certain class builds are stronger
I guess it kinda depends on the type of rpg you talk about, games like skyrim where you only make and play as a single character I see flexibility to be nice, let's you focus in one area if you like or multiple if you prefer. But in rpg's where you go in with a party of characters, I think having more rigged class structures are better, let's you more easily figure out what character is going to tank all the hits and which class is gunna be doing all the healing. Sub classing can allow a limited amount of flexibility, but I still feel that in those types of rpg you will end up subclasses to either cover a classes weak point or to strengthen what they are good at. An assassin is usually already really fast and great at dealing critical hits with daggers, subclassing them as an archer usually just means they can still move very fast and deal lots of crits, but now they can also do it at range. Meanwhile giving a tank class a mage subclass doesn't really help them much, as they normally have low mp and intelligence to begin with.
Well tbh this is just my opinion, but the best job system goes to final fantasy tactics for sure.
I only played the GBA version so i cannot say anythings about the ps1 version / wotl version. But even with GBA limited resources the game classified each jobs beautifully, and even thought it may seems that tier 2 / 3 job is superior they managed to make sure tier 1 have speciallity that tier 2 and 3 cannot do.
The jobs are so different that you can find gimmicks in other guides even though in other articles they deemed useless. They also have different stats growth and tier 1 stats growth is higher in some aspect against tier 2 / 3 jobs. So they are not outclassed / powercrept like in other games
For a supposed outdated mechanic I feel there are not enough games with it. Take dragons dogma i have never played a game like it the way it plays is unique the only true flaw i have with the game is i played it too much which is why I would love to see more games like it.
I'm oldschool... also getting old lol, if a game is open ended without a class system i don't enjoy it as much. I like having a reason to re-roll a new class and go through the game again or different combinations with party members etc... etc... it was A LOT of the replay value back in the day and... it just doesn't wash off i guess lol idk.
In EverQuest Online Adventures in particular the sense of class accomplishment and uniqueness was palpable. You KNEW you filled a role and were needed in some regard at all times.
At the end of the day i want a reason to go there, and back again... AGAIN!
There are games, mostly ttrpgs as far as I've seen but I'm not the biggest gamer, who have a classless base game, but provide "example paths" for people who like class systems. I also like it when a class-based game has a "create a class" system. Because you still get an extreme freedom of choice, but you also can always stay true to your concept and not always gravitate towards the same playstyle over and over again like with what famously happens to new skyrim players with the stealth archer. You don't have to worry about becoming a stealth archer if your created custom class never gets any significant bonuses to archery.
Thats a really good point! I should of included that as a point of conversation in my video! :D tysm for the comment!
D&D was supposed to be a social game: by picking classes you were locked into a playstyle meaning you had to work together as a team to overcome problems. Today's kids want it all, want it now and won't have any limitations, even if those limitations create fun game experiences.
the problem with your argument is that when making a strict class system there will ALWAYS be something unaccounted for.
If let's say that in 5e campaign, I wanted to play a savage barbarian/paladin who's spreading the holly word of his own god. There's no reason that this character should have an armor class proficiency other than, the class says so. And because the designers already spent "design points" to give me feature i don't care about my character is weaker for it.
I think the best of both worlds are character presets. It' is basically: "here's a bunch of curated experiences we created for you that we know work well, but you can venture outside of predefined paths and experiment if you want to".
In all honesty the only TES game where premade classes mattered was Arena. Daggerfall gave it the killing blow by introducing both the Custom Class and the early form of skill advancement. In Morrowind and Oblivion the premades were meaningless as they hampered the player's advancement, while custom classes were a massive powergaming tool. And you could max up everything in both games (it was just rather annoying in Morrowind).
I think it will ultimately depend on the type of game. In MMOs and single player RPGs where you control a party, classes have their place. Every character in the party has a specific role. In single player open world character where it's the player on it's own I think a hard class system is a no. Give me archetypes, starting presets and ways and reasons to specialize on a specific archetype in a class-less or class-lite system, but don't beat me over with a ward stick for an uninformed choice at the start of the game.
And ultimately here is the thing. "Hard Classes" should go and be replaced by specialize towards specific archetype. Give the player the chance to figure out what interests them in the game and feels fun and let them go towards. It's more organic, more immersive and interesting and leaves open the possibility to still alter the path if the playtstyle doesn't feel entirely right or perhaps some kind of RP opportunity comes up. The problem with older games was that they almost always expected you to know from the start what you are going to do, which when it worked you was nice, but when it didn't and you had to restart the game...
You make a lot of great points! I think we’ve all stubbled our toe on that last point you mentioned in RPGs!
I agree 10000%.
A game, by its definition, is an intellectual activity where at least 2 outcomes are possible "Win or Lose" where chance plays an important role to make the player think what will be their strategy in any situation.
Having said that, multiclassing can be more interesting and all, but when you have the freedom to max out every stat is like playing chess with all Queens as your pieces against regular pieces.
Not having limitations imposed by the classes takes out the element of chance/surprise because you'll be prepared for everything, therefore you won't need to create a strategy or even think, making it less of a game imo.
A la playing Fallout 3 with indestructible Winterized T-51b armor and just tanking/one shotting everything
You are confusing RPG with wargame.
@@neron93939 RPGs started out from wargaming though so the comparison is apt and ought to be considered.
@@marykateharmon True, but RPG has long been a separate genre of games where the mindset of wargame or video games does not work.
In an RPG, it is very rare to see a loss or a victory, because the gameplay itself is important. Even the death of characters can be part of the gameplay.
While the "classes" of Skyrim are clearly inspired by traditional class systems, I think it's unfair to count all in-game names of archetypes as literal classes. Characters in a world don't really know the underlying rules. In D&D, classes end up being acknowledged pretty explicitly in some settings but in others they're only a mechanic while the characters only see other characters as characters, not classes. Battle mages and wizards are "classes" but they're also pretty clearly an in-game title that realistically could be explained without breaking the fourth wall.
Classes are an essential part of the role playing experience. You play the role of someone. And that special someone is the character in the game. Considering how many builds are out there for Skyrim only shows that a lot of people have a NEED for it. A protagonist with both strengths and weaknesses is a lot more interesting that a protagonist who's good at everything (known as a Mary Sue). And there's even a meme on how people try to play different characters in Skyrim, but always end up as a sneak archer due to game mechanics and how the game is balanced. And there are also mods available to add classes, but only as starting stat bonuses.
In earlier elder scrolls games you had to pick a class, but you could still spend time and money on levelling up skills that doesn't belong to your class. So you could still play as a mage who is good at using a bow, but it takes more practice and your bow skill does not affect your levelling progress. I do hope classes are re-introduced to elder scrolls 6.
You make some great points! I also hope the class system is introduced in TES 6! Was one of the elements I loved in previous titles!
That would be great. And I hope the guilds would be more fleshed out again, And so that you actually have to earn your promotions. I remember that both Daggerfall and Morrowind required skill levels as well as reputation in order to advance.
If an RPG should be class less, then it should probably be like Kingdom Come, where you really have to practice and earn recognition, and through that earn a "class title".
@@caligulawellington3171 I actually think Bethesda could take some notes from obsidian tonight in regards to factions, I think obsidian does a lot of what you talk about quite well when establishing them! I hope it has those things too, excited to see more on TES 6 hopefully soon!
I don't know how the factions are in obsidian, but I bet they are a lot better than being a glorified errand boy for a bunch of musicians who that can't keep track of their instruments, or that the newly elected arch mage for the mages guild is Thunk, the orc barbarian. ;)
"Classes are an essential part of the role playing experience. You play the role of someone. "
I have a character concept.
I choose
race,
background,
skills,
strengths
and weaknesses,
choose equipment.
At what stage should I choose a class and what will it mean?
Great explanation mate, it's always nice to have some guidance and a starting point instead of spending hours trying to figure out what to do or lose a lot of time as you make irreversible decisions.
Thanks so much! Truly appreciate that! I wholeheartedly agree!
But there is no guarantee that the chosen "starting point" will not require spending hours on irreversible elections.
They aren't outdated. It's just an option. I prefer not to use classes but my players really like them. My home brew system uses classes instead of ability scores. It's actually worked out incredibly well.
I'm curious, how does that work?
While I don't mind a classless rpg there is no way that classes are OUTDATED. My favorite rpg's are the ones based on classes and let's me as a player slide into the fantasy and origins of the character I play.
I hated how Skyrim removed the class system, because I felt like it stripped the character of any sense of personal identity or focus. Even the iconic 'chosen one' isn't supposed to be perfectly skilled at everything. Those who are depicted as being perfectly skilled at everything tend to be mocked and chastised as Mary Sue characters, rather than celebrated for their creative freedom. It also broke the role playing immersion for me, when every race in the game starts out with at least two basic level spells, despite the fact the game makes it clear in no uncertain terms that Nords heavily distrust magic, while the lore states that Redguards flat out hate it. If I'm playing one of these two races, then why do I start the game knowing how to magically heal, or shoot fire from my hands? On a related note, WHY would my character have ever learned how to do so, if my intention is to play a straight warrior, who never uses any magic skills?
I liike classes. It is one of my favorite things about RPGs. I wouldn't think it is outdated. I never played Skyrim. However based on the video, I would say that there are classes with a bunch of multiclassing options. That is nice. I find that that classes are interesting not just for thier playstyles, but also for how they interact together. So I like to take another approach. Pokemon allows for a single player to use multiple fighters in a battle. They can have up to six. Fighters are usually played one at a time. However there are formats like double battle, which allow for using more than one at once. Pokemon types are elements, and they operate using elemental paper-rock-scizzors. There is a challenge of having a player's team varied in element to better face a variety of opponents. I do enjoy the challenge of putting together a team. When I try designing my own game, I allow for fighting with multiple fighters. This adds more variety an team interaction. Part of the variety is element based. Another part is class based. I do allow for players having multiple fighters in battle at once. There is a benefit in having a variety of classes. The fighters work as a team. This is the kind of teamwork I tend to see only in players working together. However I would like the opportunity to have this kind of teamwork in solo play. So I came up with the idea of one player controlling a whole party of characters with different classes. I have combat turn based, to make the juggling manageable. I don't knowmif anyone else did this, but I came up with the idea on my own. Controlling a team of fighters gives a nice clarity of classes while still having a lot of flexibility with options. I get the one main drawback is battle speed. However I don't mind. I love turn based combat. It helps me with fun strategy. Turn based combat doesn't seem like a drawback to me.
The thing about the class system in games and video games that involve combat mechanics is that there always exists a class system in every single game. Even when Skyrim removes class archetypes, the fact that "players could gravitate towards the playstyle they enjoy" means the class system still exists within the game
Why should the player's choice be limited to pre-created classes?
I can tell you for a fact that in my classical music training, I was not taught by the music school to wield a sword or drive a car. And altho I did pick up a smidgen of several languages, it was only a very limited word-set based entirely around the narrow uses music has for them. I went into college with a background in music and education, and I graduated as a level 1 Music Educator. But that's a very narrow interpretation. In fact, I came out of my college years with a wide variety of skills at various levels of competence and irl usefulness. Which system is more realistic? Neither one. Both are completely artificial, and therefore, equally useful or worthless, depending primarily on how well they are designed based on the needs of the game.
I am one of those players who gravitate towards a more obscure class design, and I often have to try to design this for myself. But I still disagree with the statement that classes are outdated. In dnd, the different subclasses cover an incredible amount of gameplay styles, not to mention homebrewing. You can use feats and multiclassing to further this specialization into those obscure archetypes.
Couldn’t agree more! Thanks for sharing!
🤨 clearly the article writer haven't played morrowind or used ordinator.
Anyway, the classes is part of the lore, that's why it is restricted in D&D. If the article writer have read D&D novels, such as the Drizzt novels, he would find out that class restriction is part of the lore. How in the efin hell can a Barbarian from Icewind dale multiclass as a mage or paladin. The lore is very important in (R)ole(P)laying, otherwise it's going to be just a (G)ame. Clearly, the author of the article may be a gamer but not a role-play gamer.
I loved maxing out all my skills in Skyrim, archery for flying/op monsters, I liked swapping to battle mage at times, but I think best was the shield bash, crouch, backstab combo. Lol super cheap to be able to sneak right in front of a stunned enemy.
That is a pretty amazing part of that game not going to lie!
"One of the most critically praised things about that game". Yeah because giving the player the ability to make a tank character with a 2 handed weapon that has max sneaking, magic, alchemy, smithing and is the master of all the Skyrim guilds is a GREAT design decision. Making choices should have consequences, if you want to be a 300 pound hulking orc you shouldn't be a world class assassin or thief, it's just not possible.
I think limiting the player also helps create more immersion, if you choose to be a khajiit that sneaks around, steals stuff and uses charisma to sweet-talk people you will have a clear image of what your character is and what he can and cannot do, which encourages role-playing rather than doing whatever the hell you want which totally dilutes the image of what your character is because you can do and be anything.
It's not easy to pull off for the creators of the game, you have to implement quests that give you multiple choices, think about balancing etc etc, but Fallout New Vegas did it pretty well in a limited timeframe working with Bethesda's old-ass engine.
So I think it just comes down to dedication but I really think that limitations are vital for RPGs. I replayed Fallout New Vegas multiple times trying out different builds, choosing different factions to align with and making up stories about who my character is and why he/she became like this. Whenever I play Skyrim I just default to making a sneaky character focused on combat, while maxing out smithing and alchemy because it's OP.
Great video, thanks for bringing up this topic :)
I certainly agree with you! One of my favourite things about role playing specifically is having those trade offs! And classes are another opportunity to introduce them whether physical or political! Appreciate the kind words my friend! Glad I could bring it up!
And you could do it also in Morrowind and Oblivion. its far more annoying in the former, but well put together custom class and a lot of money and you could also became the Grand Master of everything that wasn't story locked out (like the Great Houses).
The maxing out argument only matters if you decide to do absolutly everything on one character. Most playthroughs actually haven't that issue, bc I don't know most people who care about role playing also can set the limits themselves.
Right (enchanted) gear and even a 300 pound orc with warhammer can be a very effective thief. I could go on what shenanigans you could do in D&D 3.5.
Fallout NV team had basically a lot of work already done, the game system, the assets etc. They only really to add few things and could focus on the story so development wise it's more a weird standalone expansion than a separate game.
@@Kummitusv6lur Oblivion at least tried to balance it with major/minor skills, not saying it's a good system but at least they tried at that point, unlike Skyrim.
- I agree that you should be able to create exceptional characters that can be great at everything, but you should have a huge penalty to the progression of the skills that are not fit for you.
- When it comes to factions I'm okay with being master of all factions that don't have conflicting values, like the Thieves guild states that you cannot kill but the character is also the Master of the Dark Brotherhood running around in their gear? Dunno kinda ruins the immersion for me totally.
- I'm against maxing out and being able to do everything in one playthrough because it actually offers an incentive to replay the game from a fresh perspective with a new class and doing new quest, but this is subjective so I won't argue.
- Regarding New Vegas I agree that they had most of the technical work already done, but they also created an amazing world, awesome quests, a branching narrative, the faction system, lots of characters, assets etc in a very limited timeframe, then they got screwed by Bethesda which just makes me mad considering that they could've created more of these awesome expansions for Skyrim or Fallout 4 but Bethesda just won't allow someone to make better games than them using their trademark.
Actually, most games tackle that impossibility quite well and naturally. In FFT, Tactics A2 or Fell Seal, if you change a unit that was a fighter oriented one for at least 20 levels into a mage, it becomes a very mediocre magic user that won't do much physical damage too.
The only way to make a "Master of Everything" is by doing some little cheating in the game that also takes an insane amount of time, therefore it is almost never an issue in normal playthrough.
@@JustGabe yep, this is exactly the type of system that I like. It makes complete sense logically and it creates a narrative for your character that consistent. Mainstream games like Skyrim though are too scared to let players commit mistakes and don't want to limit anyone, therefore we get this mishmash of "You can be whoever you want to be!!!". I understand the decision commercially but it creates a shallow roleplaying experience.
I think an interesting game design would be everyone is a base character with a ton of skill options but based on your stat and weapon chocies the game offers a class later as an option for bonus dmg and abilities. like im a base char with a lot of stats in dexterity less in health more in bow mastery...the game says hey wanna be a stealth archer you'll get cool sneak skills and passives but you don't have to. We just noticed you play this way kinda like a personality test lol
I think I liked it if they let you choose by gameplay. Just think of how Skyrim skills progress but limits you a lot like if you commit to a great sword build you can't go back...
I'm working on a small text based rpg system and i was unsure about what to do regarding class systems until i stumbled upon this video. I have an idea of what I want to do now thanks
Warms my heart to hear! Wishing you nothing but success with your project!
I personally prefer the side of freedom, but I can acknowledge that there is a certain amount of "protecting the player" that needs to happen for a game to function correctly. Great video!
Thanks so much for the kind words!
Great video! I think someone already mentioned it but probably the most likely explanation for the wording of the article is click bait. Also, how rude can you be to say that developers are TOO LAZY to fix a game design choice? I was baffled by some of the headlines that you showed at the start of the video. It's great to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks!
Thanks! Yeah I totally understand that click bait is the reality of their industry but I think it’s super dangerous in articles shared as much as this to put that something is outdated without really elaborating much! Glad I could bring it to your attention!
I don't really have a clear opinion about this topic .
On one hand I like D&D-like or classic rpg classes in a game and think they can potentially help you define your character but on the other one I really do prefer dual / multi-class systems or even a "no classes" system ( such as Skyrim's or any other TES game's *when* you remove the level cap ) . This last case scenario however is more of something I like doing cause I enjoy to experiment and mess with the various things the game has to offer ( I maxed warrior...what if I wanted to max thief or mage next without having to make a completely new character / respec and lose all of my warrior perks ? What if I wanted to combine the two or the three ? What if I could mix this sub-specialization to this other one ? And so on... ) , I am curious by nature .
Again , playing by the rules is fun and I often create plenty of characters I play legit by respecting the limits the game gives me , my characters will often have their strengths and their weaknesses...but if after spending a ton of hours playing by being restricted by these rules I feel like I could have a little bit more fun by bending them a bit more to my taste ( as in by giving myself more freedom or even by limiting it more....maybe I want a harder experience... ) then what's the harm ? It's just my own way of having fun in a game . Maybe I am interested in roleplay , maybe I am not , maybe I want a demigod character , maybe I want one who has a harder time dealing with the enemies cause by now they pose no longer a threat to my knowledge of the game , ecc .
It's all relative. There really is no right or wrong way to go about it .
I’d certainly agree with that line of thinking! I think it’s just hard as designers to think there are no right answers or everything is a right answer(even if sometimes that’s true) thanks for sharing your thoughts!
One of the reasons I like classes is by being restricted in what you can and can’t do it makes replaying a game fun interesting and different. For example play a game as a wizard and don’t bother picking locks since you can cast a spell the dose it for you giving you freedom to unlock just about anything. play it again as a rouge and do to you being a rouge you have very little Health and can’t take much of any damage so stealth assassinations and lock picking/ pitpckiting are best play again as a paladin and you can go in guns blazeing. Play as a bard and why fight at all when you stand a good chance of talking your way out of a fight entirely
archtype is not the same as classes. DnD classes tries to capture the main character archetypes, but you can't create your own, you have to find one that you like to play with.
Classes rule. Especially when you can change and/or mix and match
Skimmed through the list and it's clear that the author is conflating video game RPGs with tabletop RPGs, using Skyrim as a counterpoint against Dungeons & Dragons, which is kinda silly.
The reason it's silly is because Dungeons & Dragons is a *team* game (as well as an actual tabletop roleplaying game, but I digress) and in Skyrim you are running around alone most of the time. This means that you don't have other characters (players) to make up for things that you lack, so the game is instead designed around the idea that a single character is able to accomplish anything in the game. Even in tabletop RPGs that are classless, you still lock yourself out of certain things by the choices you make. You can't increase every single skill or ability like in Skyrim, and even if you could, it's unlikely that your fellow players would tolerate you standing in a corner jumping for hours on end just to up your jump skill.
Further evidence that the author is conflating TTRPGs and video game RPGs is the following line from the article: "Alignment systems might be the best system in any RPG."
Any person who has ever played D&D will know instinctively how wrong that statement is, since no one wants to have "the alignment debate" *again*
As a dnd enthusiast can concur with that, great point, great connections made from the article. I didn’t realize how much the author connected then! Good catch!
I think you missed his point, which to be fair he didn't make very well.
Sure, in Skyrim you generally fall under a specific archetype in the mid game if you make synergistic choices. You'll then argue that any other combination of choices are a "multiclass" of those 3 main classes to some degree.
I think the real takeaway from his statement should have been that the traditional DND class system gives you very little in the way of choice once you have locked in your class and advanced class. You essentially make two primary decisions that define your characters available pool of combat skills. That's dated if applied to a modern video game. (which DND is not)
Classes are a symptom of the current limitations that designers face when trying to create a comprehensive RPG that maintains accessibility while also presenting meaningful choices to the player, as you said. As game design progresses, I personally hope they become less and less necessary.
I, honestly, enjoy both types of systems in games. I like games like Diablo which offer skills based on your class and keeps that tradition.
But, I also enjoy games like Skyrim or Dark Souls, which technically have classes but you are able to use skills, spells, and weapons regardless of class as long as you have enough points invested in the required stat.
It's like you can rebel against tradition or what is expected of you and lay out your own path. And you can still play a traditional class as well if you choose to.
Like I said, I enjoy both. They can both deliver immersive and focused role-playing experiences. And, sure, you can say class-locked skills is a limiting system. But, I don't mind that limitation just like I don't mind the freedom of a skills-based system.
I heavily disagree that the mere existence of three colored backgrounds counts as some sort of "class system" Beyond traditional skills for each of the three oldest D and D classes being grouped under the same color, there's nothing stopping you from playing with two handed weapons, alteration and restoration in the game, or sneaking and illusion, or potion making, enchanting and smithing. You seem to be confusing aesthetic details with actual gameplay mechanics, like forcing mages to not wear armor. In Skyrim mages can indeed pack on the armor, with the only real "cost" being that they'll want to level up in said armor. Heck, you can combine it with alteration and restoration to make a stone wall of a character using skills traditionally given to squishy mages. You seem to be saying that even the possibility of making something reminiscent of a traditional D and D character class automatically invalidates a free form system. Good luck avoiding all 40+ years of dozens of D and D classes in everyone of your gameplay mechanics. Come to think of it, you could probably put the entire game into a different setting and still come up with these things. Your melee tough class could be a cyborg, long range high damage is sniper/ orbital support, healer uses nanobots. Point is, the idea of freeform character design isn't to forbid traditional classes, but to allow different variations to be created with a lot less hassle than a strict class system. Plus some attributes naturally go together- if you have a low health character, you'll want to keep them away from the enemy. Even if you do the opposite, that's pretty damn similar to a thief.
I feel you're severely overstating the positives of restricting a character when the game begins with a class... when they can do that themselves. Nothing is stopping them from only leveling warrior skills, or mage skills. The class choice doesn't really serve much of a purpose, beyond a check mark, perhaps useful for players new to these sorts of games. Thing is, the cost of the system you devised, is that the player is only given a third of the full skill tree, when there are many combinations of various different class skills that are useful. Heavy armor and alteration build on each other, as does illusion and stealth, or the dreaded stealth and archery. You seem to think having the full eighteen skills available is massively overwhelming, but I haven't heard anyone else say that. Hell, I've heard many people say Skyrim is already too simplistic; it has a sizeable anti fanbase that see Morrowind as their guiding light. And dislike that you can't quit your job as a dungeon crawling world saver, and become a wandering potion salesman. Or kill everybody, even main quest characters.(1) Try telling them you're going to restrict every character to only six skills. Moreover, I really wonder how much clarity people need when the three archetypal classes are embedded in tabletop and video gaming culture and easily made in Skyrim. As for viability, Skyrim took a big step towards that by getting rid of classes and just having races. With both you've got massively synergistic overlaps (like orc and warrior, or Bosmer and thief) but also terrible choices (like orc and thief, or Bosmer and mage) Classes just adds on another layer of permanent choice right at the beginning, when new players are likely to mess up. Why not allow them to pick a race, which already points you in certain directions, then go from there?
(1)th-cam.com/video/D7fCltG15wg/w-d-xo.html
You make some great points and thank you so much for the detailed response and comment! I want to stress that I am certainly not trying to invalidate free form systems, I do love many games that use such a system and have developed a few myself, as for your arguments about locking players from the beginning I actually don't think it's always necessary, my argument is NOT I repeat not on the side of the restriction, freedom of choice is important to me and my design philosophy, what I will say is that the article(even if clickbaity as some others have mentioned) is misleading, and the alarming rate in which it was shared I believe spreads information, saying that classes are outdated (even if it infers classes at the beginning of the game) is one worth arguing against especially because there are many people who don't or cant enjoy freeform systems(not to mention many freeform systems will or can eventually lock you at some point into a D&D Inspired Class or multiclass.
As for picking a race and go from there, hell yeah! I always am looking to support designers in their exploits and if they can make a system work in which classes aren't involved at all and still have complex divergent gameplay sign me up!
Again appreciate the comment these are the kinds of discussions I really love participating in!
@@GameDesignFoundry Besides your mentions, I haven't heard of many people who can't enjoy free form class systems, and a lot of it feels theoretical. Sure, there could be a group of people who want a laid out set of skills they should level up from day one, but there is also probably a group that wants to be able to not have to look up the exact class, race, birthsign combos that make for a powerful character. Which one is larger? I don't know, and I feel too much speculation on this could easily get detached from the real situation and in the weeds of either of our opinions on which design is better.
I think a large part of my dislike of set classes is because they so often overlap in areas of specialty with the races; if you play as a wood elf, you're just better as a stealthy archer, as opposed to an orc, who's better as a warrior. Why not then simply combine the effects of class and race into one thing that determines which skills you are more proficient in? Hell, I could see race being used for much more than just proficient skills a passive resistance and a once a day ability. What if elves were plant people who got a bonus to regeneration in sunlight, or could beguile other races with their flower power? Rethinking it, Skyrim's race selection leaves out potentially interesting hooks for gameplay, like the Bosmer being completely carnivorous, or the altmer being able to interact with the Thalmor. I feel part of my initial dislike of classes in many rpgs, is that they seem to be another layer of skill perks like races, when they could be so much more. What if you were a teifling, who was weakened by holy objects, or a lizardman who could use more poisons on your weapons? Hmm...
@@adams13245 Class are great for multiplayer RPGs or RPGs with party members. The reason is that by only allowing certain players to be able to do certain things, you can easily make a game where everyone is viable even if the classes are not perfectly balanced.
In solo RPGs I'd actually prefer more of an emphasis on items and equipment. The issue with skill builds in those games is that unless you read a guide, you don't know what will be useful in the endgame. That is unless the game has the same repetitive gameplay throughout. By putting more emphasis on a player's equipment, you can just change loadouts to effectively change class.
I like to play RPGs for the discovery aspect, but if a skill tree doesn't reveal all the skills to you in the beginning, you have no idea what you are building toward. If it does reveal all the skills, there is no mystery as to skills you will unlock later in the game. If, however, the game has powerful magic items you can equip, it can surprise you while allowing late game flexibility.
I also play a lot of games and thus I typically only play a game once. In solo RPGs I'd prefer if I could do anything the game offers, rather than restricting me to my skill choices.
Freedom never was the goal.
Self Determination Theory thought us autonomy is what humans need.
Classes may help us want to play what we play. -And that is what autonomy is.
I used to be very anti-class. Playing tabletop rpg games like Buffy I really gravitated towards creating your character from bits and pieces. But with games like Skyrim (who absolutely is not an rpg, at least not classically so), people will without classes trend in the same direction. Indigo Gaming pointed out that all it does is make sure that everyone is EVERY class all at once. You can do archery, you can do magic, you can do swords. I love rolling characters, as a person who dabbles in game design my core philosophy is that no character should be able to do everything. For each thing you can do, there needs to be a thing you can't. Wrong race can't join the racist faction, burly barbarian can't join the mages guild. I think an important part of making a game is telling the player "no", followed by "because you chose that other thing instead". Classes are a great way to do this. I love experiencing how playing a Mage is different from a Hunter, for instance. It is great fun. Classes allow you to express who you want your character to be in this world, taking them out means there is no room for expression. Now I'm just every class all at once, and isn't that overpowered and boring? In short, limitations are good, inconveniences are good, telling the player to take their burly ass orc out of my mages guild before they banish him to the plane of unending torment, is very good.
"For each thing you can do, there needs to be a thing you can't. Wrong race can't join the racist faction, burly barbarian can't join the mages guild."
Сharacter's race is a self-evident part of the game world.
Сharacter cannot join the guild because he looks bad, has bad manners, has not studied magic in the past and shows poor results in the exam. And he is not a barbarian, but a respected warrior of his tribe, who likes to rob people like a rogue.
"I love experiencing how playing a Mage is different from a Hunter, for instance."
I want the experience of playing a hunter who hunts using magic. What class will it be?
I think the point the article made can best be summed up as Hard Class Systems being a bit outdated. Anyway, on to my thoughts on the matter:
Class systems aren't inherently bad or anything, but there are games they are more appropriate than others. The Elder Scrolls from Morrowind to Skyrim, I would say, is an example of a series where they are ultimately a pointless addition to the game because the games are fundamentally built to allow the player to morph their character into anything as they play and get interested in new parts of the game while only giving you direct control over the development of a single character. Followers are too unreliable for non-combat tasks without a major overhaul.
In Morrowind and Oblivion, only the starting value and progress differentiated class and non-class skills. This might've been fine if we were locked to the 21 pre-made classes, pretty much all of which are suboptimal in one way or another early on, but our option to make custom classes completely blows this out of the water. The number of skills a class includes also helps undermine the importance of even the pre-made classes, because getting ~1/3 of all the skills is a lot and causes a great deal of overlap. There is also the problem classes with more than one of the melee skills, which comes with a heavy opportunity cost (early on), making hybrid classes almost universally superior.
So how could one "fix" classes in the Elder Scrolls? This is a bit difficult, because we're working with 2 primary restraints. 1) We're building a single character, and 2) the games are built to allow us to do any and all content we wish, so long as they are not mutually exclusive for story reasons (f.ex. the Great Houses in Morrowind or the two sides of the Civil War in Skyrim). A too strict class system could end up effectively locking certain questlines off from players, because we can't rely on a party to round out our characters. So to keep a class system from interfering with the identity of the series, they can't meaningfully restrict our access to, at the very least, basic competence in all three skill groups: Combat, Magic and Stealth.
One of the fixes is to simply remove the classes, which is what they went with and I'd say it mostly works in Skyrim. Perks accumulate slowly enough to force a decent amount of skill specialization until you're at a very high level, certainly more than Morrowind and Oblivion ever did, though many of the perks themselves are uninspired. It also works fairly well with the way we improve our skills in TES; by using them. This is admittedly undermined by certain skills, like lockpicking, being easily ignored in favor of player skill.
Another possible fix is to do something akin to what the Elder Scrolls Online did, by making each class a collection of unique skills independent of traditional stuff like weapon training, alchemy etc. This could take the role of anything from a set of passive effects that just boost you in particular skills (a Thief would never outperform a Warrior with sword'n'board, for example, even with identical skill level and perks) to give access to class specific powers. For instance, a Barbarian might get access to a Rage power. Rage would be useless when doing the Thieves Guild, but as long as it doesn't restrict our access to Sneak and Lockpicking, it doesn't cut off access to the game's content.
The latter option already exist in TES to some extent, with 1) races, 2) birthsigns and 3) standing stones. Morrowind has 1 & 2, Oblivion has 1, 2 & 3 and Skyrim has 1 & 3. Taking Skyrim as an example, you could (not necessarily the same as should, mind you) treat the races as your primary class and your standing stone as your subclass. Some examples:
*Nord - Skald (Battle-Bard)* You can harness your Voice to let out a Battle Cry, staggering and inflicting fear on anyone within range. You receive 50% resistance to cold. Your training as a Skald gives you a starting bonus to two-handed, one-handed, block, smithing, light armor and speech.
*Orc - Barbarian* You draw upon a primal fury to enter a Berserker Rage, increasing damage done with, and decreasing damage taken from, weapons. Your training as a Barbarian gives you a starting bonus to two-handed, one-handed, block, smithing, enchant and heavy armor.
*Bosmer - Ranger* Your connection to the natural world lets you turn any animal to your companion for a short time. You receive 50% resistance to poison and disease. Your training as a Ranger gives you a starting bonus to archery, alchemy, light armor, lockpicking, sneak and pickpocket.
*The Atronach - Witchhunter* You have dedicated yourself to harnessing and combating magic. You gain 50pts of max magicka and a 50% chance to absorb hostile magic, but you suffer a 50% reduction in magicka regeneration.
*The Ritual - Necromancer* You have dedicated yourself to unlocking power over the undead. Once per day, you can raise all corpses, up to level 75, within 75 ft. to fight for you for 200 sec.
You could see a Nord with the Atronach stone as a Skald with the Witchhunter subclass, if we decide to look at it in this way. Would I mind a class that effectively works the way races work now? No, I think that would be an alright way to have classes in TES, but I don't think it should be much more restrictive than that.
As a Thief the only weapon you have is pickpocketing poisons.
mm. Imaging poisoning your fists for Hand to Hand combat lol.
This is exactly why GURPS is a magnificent double-edged sword. The rabbit hole of infinite freedom has destroyed many players - and GMs.
Indeed. I will happily sit down at a GURPS table as a player, but you couldn't get me to GM it for my life XD
@@ViewtifulZeke Even as a player, it's deceptively self-defeating. That unfettered freedom poisons your ultimate result just like a lack of structure in your life leads to a lot of doing nothing much of the time.
But there is no infinite freedom in GURPS.
I think people's tolerance for novelty matters as well. Those who prefer more familiar and less novel likely connect with stereotypes better, while those (like me) who prefer more novelty, want to escape the stereotypes. And what are classes if not stereotypes encoded in the mechanics?
What was that author talking about? Morrowing and oblivion classes were only skill presets. It wasn't truly classes like in DnD because there was nothing that wasn't accessible by any character. If you chose a thief in morrowind or oblivion, there is nothing stopping you from developing any other skill or learning any spell, as long as you have the stats for it. And you can get those stats.
If anything, skyrim don't need all those presets because, well, skyrim builds are just supper blend and every character plays pretty much the same.
Saw this through a reddit post - don't know if that was you but - nice video :)
Never seen the appeal of rigid class systems that hard locks skills out of players potential - but I don't bemoan their existence.
Appreciate the kind words! Thankyou
Agreed, Skyrim is just a dynamic class system that allows more flexibility than the past more static systems.
Learnable classes (67total)
Knight-
Dragon knight
Hollow knight
Mystic knight
Mech knight
Dark knight
Holy knight
Paladin
Guardian
Barbarian
Soldier
Warrior
Grappler
Commander
Generalist
Assassin
Monk ---guru
Ninja/ Shinobi
Samurai
Archer
Lancer
Scavenger
Tamer/ beast master
Hunter
Dragoon
Priest
Psychic
Medic
Mechanic
Scientist
Engineer
Sharpshooter /marksman
Heavy gunner
Tactical gunner
Thief- raider - pillager - plunderer -looter-
Berserker---Savage
* Demon slayer
* Monster slayer
* Dragon slayer
* Goblin slayer
* Vampire slayer
* Soul reaper
Mystic mage
Grand mage
Silver mage
Black mage
White mage
Elementalist
Shadow Wielder
Sage ( Natural Energy)
Wizard (staff)
Sorcerer (wands)
Conjurer (Hand movements)
Rune caster (stones)
Fortune teller (cards)
Gatekeeper (keys)
Shaman (potions and elixirs)
Chanter (incantations)
Enchanter ( support magic)
Scholar (books / grimoire)
Alchemist ( shapes, and symbols)
Ninjutsu (Hand signs and scrolls)
Summoner ( books, tattoos, hand signs, dimensions, calls, cards, scrolls)
Illusionist
Trickster
Mystic
Dancer
Artist/ painter ( painting magic)
Musician
D&D 3.5 is my favorite system. It has the most complex multiclass system ever created. As they started simplifying their system for video games, they took away much of the freedom from their players. Many of the old classes were better, in my opinion. They did improve their battle system to a great degree however. At the same time they removed and nerfed many spells and skills. For example, in 5th ed, you can no longer buff up with a bunch of spells like you could before.
I fear that they are moving to remove classes. Look at the Divinity system. It is a great game, but since it is turn based, I think it would have been better served with classes. Action games can get away with more in systems like Skyrim, but turn based systems should not work that way.
The Dragon Quest series is another example of a split from the traditional system. Dragon Quest 7 had a complex class system that made the game fun. It even included monster classes. Dragon Quest 8 started moving away from that. Had I already not been a fan of the series, I would never have played it because of it. Dragon Quest 9 returned to a more traditional system and it was great. Dragon Quest 10 also used a class system and in my opinion, it is absolutely needed in a multiplayer environment (too bad the West will never see it online). Dragon Quest 11 moved away from classes and uses something more like Final Fantasy with a skill tree system. It does provide a lot of freedom, but toward the end of the game it becomes more homogenized.
I think they should use a multiclass system in new games, but with skill trees to modernize it. Grim Dawn is a good example of how you can pull that off in an action game.
In the future, I will be playing games like Pillars or Eternity, Pathfinder Kingmaker, and Grim Dawn. I am not a fan of the classless system that developers are trying to serve us up.
You make some great points! Oftentimes developers go into "modernization" or the largest possible audience mode in RPGs and while the systems do show success they do leave players behind who love that structure and identity they find in a class structure. Grim Dawn, POE, and PFK are all amazing examples of games that I think have created systems that work towards that need! Thanks for the comment!
I just read the article and he's actually right... because he was referring to a SET class system, in other words, where each character has a set of unchangable traits and no chance for a mage to learn sword skills. And THAT is actually starting to feel outdated.
I think that's where I'd be coming from if I made the argument. I get that you could start a character off calling them a warrior, and buff their traits there at the start of the game, but I've never not chaged against a system that blocks potential growth because your the wrong character type (unless its a multiplayer co-op type experience perhaps)
Yeah! I mention halfway through the video that I think that’s the point they’re trying to make! But I think the way they had phrased it was a little too ambitiously just putting “classes” as the number one most outdated feature then mentioning a system built upon the foundation of class? I understand the authors intent I’m just not sure I agree with their phrasing! But I agree with you solid classes can sometimes feel outdated, but class systems themselves? Not sure I agree with that
@@GameDesignFoundry he worded it that way for click bait reasons.
@@JustGabe ah I see, I think it’s somewhat dangerous to click bait such a topic in a widely shared list of mechanics the author says are outdated, perhaps a little more explanation might have been in order
@@GameDesignFoundry he did that precisely to get a reaction and more attention. It's a very low but effective tactic.
It's weird how you have to improve your Miscellaneous skills more than Major or Minor skills to get better Attributes.
So what skills should I take as my Major/Minor skills? I don't know. The ones I can improve easily in every attribute so that I could choose which one I need at the moment?
This looses the point of having a class. At that point maybe Miscellaneous Skills should not reward attributes. Or keep improving the level along with attributes.
This is just a weird system.
"classes are outdated"
Tell that to every T-RPG and tell me how it goes, huh?
I honestly found Skyrim system to be boring, finished the game cause I bought it, never went back to it, the leveling system felt to me like the transition from windows XP to windows 8.1, way too simplified, fake freedom and overall dull, never felt fully taken by the game, especially thanks to that lame system.
Classes are fun, especially if used in certain ways for certain games, to each their own system, but the problem, overall, lies in the quality.
Btw, read that article, nothing on it makes much sense tbh.
You’re entitled to your own opinion but honestly Skyrim’s freedom is the opposite of fake. You can go anywhere in the world of Skyrim, you can take side quests, you can kill almost any npc, and there are loads of choices within the side quests as well. And even if you don’t like the game Skyrim is very open to modding because of how easy it is, you have freedom even outside the game in forms of mods. But either way, you can feel however you want about the game I just wanted to put my input here.
Skyrim was a great game, one of the few classless games is till enjoy today. But classes and races and identity are HUGE for me, being an oldschool RPG guy. I want a sense of unique identity when i play.
@@Pixel3572 thank you for respecting my opinion while stating your point, i would like to clarify what i meant: the "fake" feeling i was referring to was about character customization, and with that i mean that i can clearly feel the characters i make are a different thing and that i simply control them, like some kind of automaton that i use to interact with the world, hence the "fake" feeling.
This "lack of personality" customization ain't for me, so maybe classes, jobs, heavier race implications etc. Would have at least subsided this feeling, but that's just me i think.
That article is dumb as hell. For starters, DnD is not a single player game, it’s a social game where you are working with a party of around two to three other players. Every class is designed to have limitations in this regard, because the entire point is that you are a piece of a whole. It’s not outdated or inferior to games like Skyrim; the two games have completely different goals for play experience.
Skyrim’s system is catered to a single player experience where there is no party management. Its system makes sense for the goals of that game, and even then its lack of limitations with character building doesn’t leave room for players that want more nuanced mechanics to play.
I want to play Mario Paint now after the intro
@Cyrus Desmond i don't get it
I don't believe I fully agree with you tbh. I too believe that classes are the most outdated RPG mechanic in videogames. I find myself being wildly in favour of loose classing like in Soulsborne games, Divinity, or Skyrim. There's a mod called CORI for Skyrim which is actually my ideal way of playing Skyrim. I think the only real takeaway from this video was that it's difficult to design the game once you have open classes, but that's more of a designer's concern and not as much the end user's.
A lot of the terms used in RPGs, while conveying a certain idea can mean very different things in the players' minds and the designer's mind. To someone with a primarily D&D background, spell-slot systems feel natural and organic, while to me, someone with a primarily videogame (or Brandon Sanderson) background, spell-slot systems feel kinda icky and too discrete. Like physics doesn't work in a discrete manner, why should magic? Similarly, it has happened to me way too damn often about what I imagined a wizard to play out as and how it really played out as. This is not something you can know before you even start the game. I'd rather start as a blank slate and build my character out over time rather than when I have zero idea what's what.
Defiently a respectable argument against! Starting as a blank slate can certainly be good for experienced players such as yourself and does offer a lot of avenues in design! Thanks for sharing!
DAMN IT! why didn't i get the notification?
TH-cam! Gah How Dare you!
I will agree that setting your class at the beginning the game is boring and outdated. You should have the freedom to change your class and multiclass at your will or stick to what you want.
Like you said, it gives some freedom and agency but still restricts you to things that are viable and fun.
classless systems are better as they offer total freedom
idk
I think a good and clear example of the dangers and trade off of using a open access class system is just to imagine the Path of Exile skill tree, all clarity is lost and the player will be completely confused and lost on "how do I build my character the way I want to play the game?"
Great example! Should of mentioned that In this video! Thanks for sharing!
100% don't agree with this video. Character customization is something most JRPGs fail at and do lock characters into a "class" or "job". As a player and beginner dev, I want my players enough freedom to design their playstyle without too much freedom that they go overboard. It helps game replayablility to also allow this concept to take shape. What you're promoting makes a borefest of a game and relies on ye olde Holy Trinity. The Holy Trinity has more potential than being completely locked behind the dev's railroads.
As long as the gameplay is good, Im down.
i miss depth like class stats race trees like dagger fall /DDO /hellgate london/ planetside:) games r getting like supermodels nice to look at but shallow jerks :( i just like finished 10 games all over in a week u get to max lvl & ZZZzzzZZz uninstall WTF devs. i want planetside2 never ending flat leveling system in every game & like DDO class race stat system & hellgate londens gear system DCUO action combo combat:) .im getting sick of cash grabs that rely on good looks :(
Yet undeniably overrated.
No.
Give the player what they want.
Give them more ways to influence the compilation.
Quit limiting them to a single body. Quit limiting to the same classes over and over again.
Quit telling them if they don't play this way then they lose.
Remove death.
Watch Ponstory Games seminar.
Although I don’t agree with you I certainly respect your preference! For me limitations and death make for engaging stories! Although I love games where I’m free to influence worlds and explore them how I’d like it’s more true that I enjoy having limits to what I can do!
Sometimes I just want to play a paladin and have the world react to me as if I was a paladin.
The problem with infinite freedom is its costly and devs cannot always afford to have the world react to a players actions! It’s why a game like Skyrim can feel a little shallow after you make a choice that would “affect the world” whereas the same choice in a game like pillars of eternity sees a drastic change in narrative.
Long story short, freedom is great! Limitation is great! You cannot have one without the other for a compelling video game.
And player death is a great and simple way of displaying limitation!
Appreciate the comment!
@@GameDesignFoundry Death is terrible. I can't play the game if I'm dead.
A game is a computation.
If I'm compermised from participating in any way with any of the assets the dev gave me. If the "game is not balanced I'm not playing.
Again watch Ponstory Games seminar.
Certainly a way of thinking about it! I for one love death in games, failure is a powerful tool designers can use to inspire creative solutions and dynamic approaches to problems!
It’s very rare I succeed in a game and change my approach, but if I fail now we’re talking, I look at my abilities, inventories, whatever I have access too and try something new that I might even end up liking more than what I had been using!
Death is a game design tool that when used correctly motivates and empowers players! :D
@@GameDesignFoundry You can't be creative using math.
If there's a right way to play you win and if there's a wrong way to play you die, then that means the compilation can be mathematically solvable.
Which one of us wants games to be better? We dident get to this point because people thought stuff was fine. No we got to where we are today because we saw room for improvement.
All gaming invocation has been composition for the players death.
I want the best entertainment. Pon wants to make the ultimate games and stories. I want to make the ultimate stories and posible games as well.
You people are so strange. You put such an enthuses on entertainment in your life's but never demand anything better.
@@futurestories2380 I disagree with your first point, but still appreciate you taking the time to comment!
The great thing about making games is we don’t need to agree, there will always be room for endless systems.
Those with death, without it, etc.
I’m a huge advocate for helping designers make better games it’s why I started this channel actually to help others and myself as I make games!