What classes from all other MMOs would you bring back into a new Game?

Just going to pile on with the previous submissions of:

Bloodmage VG - What a fun class to play, fluid dynamics while wearing a hood.

Enchanter EQ - There were two kinds, one that charmed, one that didn't and there was a big difference in ability.

Wizard EQ - Pushing to number two on the raid target hate list with concussion, sometimes splatting when stepping over the invisible line. Boring class to play otherwise, necros and rogues had it easier for hate mgmt.

Necro Most MMOs - I loved them.

Rogue WoW - Stabby spammy sneakaround fun.

But I can't believe no one mentioned:

Bureaucrat AO - A summoned pet, a fixed duration charmanda random duration one. You looked like a boxer and when you started losing pets, you knew it was time to scoot.

I know the fixed classes are an old thing but that's my preference, each can stand out and no muddied waters on roles. This usually requires teamwork, which is a good thing imo. Just my opinion...

tad10_sl said:

It's a different and worse problem for skill (buffet) systems. In a class system one or more classes can feel useless for a particular period but that's fixable without creating a new flavor of the month in theory, if not always in practice. In buffet systems you will always create a new flavor of the month with any change.

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Personal preference will still play a strong influence overall. People tend to gravitate towards what they enjoy. FoTM's usually end up being twinks or some such nonsense.

Let's take a quick look at D3 for a simple dataset. You have a game that's slightly buffet style and even there the most popular builds are used by roughly 1~2% of people playing that class. It shoots up to 10% if you account for slight variations (same skills but different runes or 1 skill difference) but even then. I liken it to the EQ spellbook system. You can have 50 spells but at any given time you can only use 8. Sure there's going to be 3 or 4 spells that may permanently be on your cast bar but depending on how you play, who you play with and what you enjoy doing the others are more mutable.

I wouldn't use fotm as an argument against buffet style. Partially because I don't think fotm is necessarily a bad thing. It affects class systems just as much too.

If I were to argue against buffet I'd say because it leads to paralysis of choice (i can't tell you how many times I've restated in DDO because of all the choices you can make in the first 4 levels).

Thematic classes also have their place. Honestly I'm more against roles then I am against classes. I hate concepts like tank/healer/dps. I was having a lot of fun in DCUO for example, then I learned I had a 'stance' button. I was like, "Cool what does it do? Oh, it halves my damage and only lets me use heal spells. Great." and promptly quit on the spot. You want to lock me into using plate armor and all my spells glow yellow when I cast them? Fine. But don't lock me into a shitty role. I mean look at all the people here talking about how awesome the Enchanter was as a class. I'm fairly certain none of them are going, "Yeah, I fucking miss buffing everyone then logging out so I don't lag the raid!"

Gavinmad_sl said:

I'd pretty much just bring back City of Heroes, but before they started nerfing whatever powers were the best every single fucking issue. Never seen a game get driven so hard into the ground by incompetent dev work than CoH.

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It was jack. Once he left things started to get a lot better. And I've seen a game that was even worse about it. It was called Champions and guess who made it.

And yeah, I also miss CoH. Their basic game systems were just solid. If you threw a DCUO combat skin onto their backend that's the only Super Hero MMO you would ever want or need. One Ring to Rule Them All territory.

Herv_sl said:

Bureaucrat AO - A summoned pet, a fixed duration charmanda random duration one. You looked like a boxer and when you started losing pets, you knew it was time to scoot.

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I think Metaphysicist was better than Bureaucrat.

Dual wielding pillows

I always preferred DAoC's enchanter to most Necromancers in MMOs. They were pretty flexible but in general you would spec to a certain level to get a damage shield on your pet. So you'd send him in and cast the shield and have 5+ mobs unload on him. You'd then spec into the Mana line which would give you access to a very strong PBAOE. So after the damage shield has widdled down the mobile HP to like 30% you'd just walk up and PBAOE everything down. Also gave a pet heal and with certain realm rank unlocks (mana regen, mana on demand) you could solo even without a buffbot. With a buffbot things got even more effecient.

I also really liked the Mentalist from DAoC. They got the ability to charm mobiles (I love charms in games), HoT, DoT and a strong nuke. They were better for soloing high level mobs (purple cons) where Enchanters were better at raw farming low level (orange- cons ... orange being two below purple) mobs.

Bear Shaman (Age of Conan)
- 2H melee, medium armor, brawler/healer hybrid.
- Decent mobility with run speed and a charge.
- Light CC
- Strong melee burst but little dps in between.
- Cone and PBAoE healing. Mostly HoT's with one large burst AoE heal.

Everquest 1 Necromancers and Bards, you could do anything with them, in many differents ways.
Fixers in AO.
I guess I prefer classes that don't have a definite role...and can do amazing things if you have the balls to try.

I think more than anything I miss crowd control and pulling being the delicate art form not needed when I could walk from Lord's room to Executioner's room and not encounter a single frog due to 75 people being in Lguk.

Zehn - Vhex_sl said:

Let's take a quick look at D3 for a simple dataset.

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Let's not since that's not an MMO.

I'm well aware of your feeling on roles, and we couldn't disagree more. Rules (aka limits) are what make for interesting games: roles in an MMO are the set of rules (aka limits) for playing a character - the fun part is figuring out those limits and doing your best to push against them, legitimately. So, for example, if you are non-levitating class in an MMO, it's a huge fucking deal when you get some kind of self-lev clicky. That's a meaningless achievement in a game where you can get levitation of the buffet.

Take the Enchanter example you gave: they may not miss buffing the raid, but I'm sure they enjoyed the special feeling of being desperately wanted much of the time. In addition to the fun of probing the limits of the class, roles also allow folks to feel like special little snowflakes.

Yada. yada. yada.

We've had this discussion before, and I won't convince you (and vice-versa) so I won't waste your time with more blather. On the upside, as far as you're concerned, it seems like most MMOs want the whole be all you can be BS so you should be swimming in MMOs.

TecKnoe_sl said:

WHOA MAN THE BEASTLORD IN EQ WAS WAAAAAY BETTER

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Probably true but I never got to play it to more than level 20.

tad10_sl said:

We've had this discussion before

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I picked D3 because you can easily look at the numbers. You can take any other game though. Even in a class system people will gravitate towards what they enjoy and play that the most even if it's sub-optimal otherwise nobody would have played a ranger or SK. Will it be skewed towards the more OP builds/classes, sure. That's just human nature. Any game is going to have at least a dozen "What's the most broken OP class/party/whatever" threads.

My only point is that buffet style does not have the monopoly on fotm or insane power swings from patch to patch.

Too much choice however is crippling early on. You sit someone down and say "here's 200 abilities, pick 3" you're going to have people stuck at character creation for weeks.

There's a middle ground to be found I think and it can sway either way. I dislike exclusion mostly. That enchanter probably felt great about feeling needed...until he found out the raid already has one and you don't really need two so maybe next week you can tag along bub.


Edit:

Oh and to contribute to the thread, my favorite class would have to be Pale Master Wizard/Rogue in DDO (amazing CC, great survivability, can trap and dps? Yes plz) or late TBC/early WoTLK era Paladin in WoW. Before the major revamping/streamlining happened. Back then I had like, 7 or 8 cooldowns I could use to keep the raid alive. Amp'd aura's, sacrafice, bop, di, etc....then they streamlined it all and I had like...one cooldown? But I had a healing rotation now!...yay?

More votes for:

- EQ: Enchanter
- EQ: Bard
- DAOC: Animist
- DAOC: Healer
- WAR: Disciple of Khaine / Warrior Priest

I enjoyed the shaman in VG though I really can't remember how it played...

EQ Druid kiting and root rotting was a lot of fun for me. I raided with a cleric but kind of hated it... EQ shaman though was fun.

Honestly the only classes I really thought were awesome were Rift leveling builds - especially the AoE warrior build that had similar mechanics to EQ SK epic 2.0 swarm kiting, where the more you pulled the more survivability you actually had. Fuck if I can remember specifics at the moment.

The paladin from WoW (because sometimes, some of your players really do just want 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4 gameplay in their social mmo).

The bloodmage from Vanguard (already mentioned a bunch in the thread, but leeching health from enemies to heal your party is a great concept that isn't used often enough and should be.

Strange when people say bard they almost always use EQ. I personally liked the VG bard where you could create your own songs to either perpetually buff the groups decently, or burn mana and do crazy buffs. It wasn't perfect(what the fuck in VG was?) but the VG classes were extremely well thought out and designed in my opinion, even if poorly implemented and balanced at times.

Did other people not like the VG bard? If not, why? What made the EQ bard so much better? Other than just being a jack of all trades as probably the most unique eq class.

No need to beat the dead horse but the way VG went is sad and did some damage to the industry and certainly the reputation of those involved. But I loved the combat(for the most part) and classes(big time).

Alavaz_sl said:

I enjoyed the shaman in VG though I really can't remember how it played...

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I loved all of VG classes. The shaman was pretty badass too.

If I recall you could pick between 2 or 3 spirit animals or some shit. So if you picked the bear you were more melee/tanky/buffy, or if you picked the cat your were more dps or something. Wish someone would redo the VG classes and combat(most of the combat anyway) in a non-shitty game.

Rangoth_sl said:

Strange when people say bard they almost always use EQ. I personally liked the VG bard where you could create your own songs to either perpetually buff the groups decently, or burn mana and do crazy buffs. It was perfect(what the fuck in VG was?) but the VG classes were extremely well thought out and designed in my opinion, even if poorly implemented and balanced at times.

Did other people not like the VG bard? If not, why? What made the EQ bard so much better? Other than just being a jack of all trades as probably the most unique eq class.

No need to beat the dead horse but the way VG went is sad and did some damage to the industry and certainly the reputation of those involved. But I loved the combat(for the most part) and classes(big time).

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EQ bard had twisting (before that melody stuff, but that was way past the pinnacle of EQ) and being able to twist 3 or 4 songs, swapping targets on the fly for a mez was unique and fun, not saying it took monumental skills, because it didn't, but there was a certain difference between good and average bards. I didn't play VG, because I was literally scared away by the unplayable beta, so I can't compare.

I remember twisting, and I don't think the EQ bard was bad, but really it was just what all classes in today's game are.....you had buttons to press/something to do Everyone else in EQ hit the kick button or some spells. Felt bad for most melee honestly.

I just think the VG bard and other classes don't get the respect they deserve because the game was such a pile of shit.