Best example of X class in a MMO
Thursday, August 14th, 2008 - 11:22pm
Ever since playing a skald in Dark Age of Camelot I've had a soft spot for bards. Unfortunately I haven't run across any other bard classes in mmo's that have quite hit me the way that one class did. Of course I haven't tried LOTRO or Vanguard yet so maybe there's still hope for me. But what I'm wondering is if anyone else has found that a particular character that just epitomized a class for them in an MMO. The most fully realized tank? Rogue? Caster? What character have you played that other games have had a hard time living up to? Gimme' some stories here people. Or just suggestions on what games I should try and what classes to play to experience the "ultimate" in a particular class.
MMO's are a sidequest to life. -Elysium
I read the title of your thread and the first best implementation of a class that came to my mind was the Bard in Vanguard.
You are able to write your own songs, which consist of several buffs that you combine, each one with its own costs to maintain. I think it's a great meta game and I had a lot of fun playing that class. I just wish the game had more people playing because the Bard could improve the team's performance so much! I mostly soloed while playing it...
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The whole space combat crafting and piloting professions in Star Wars Galaxies. Admittedly this is kind of a gimme, since it'd be hard to make piloting an X-Wing blowing the crap out of TIE Fighters into something that wasn't fun (though admittedly not impossible for Lucas), but to their credit the SWG team really nailed it.
Bards in Ultima Online were pve gods a while back. We could calm enemy creatures as well as incite them to fight eachother. I can remember running around a battlefield completely secure in my enemies' focus being off of me, and frantically looting every creature.
In PVP, sh*t...what did we do in pvp as bards? Its been a decade, I dunno.
"I'm for the guy who can tell the lion from the lamb." -Charles K.
Vanguard did a lot of things right for many classes.
The Necromancer was able to harvest body parts then graft them onto his abomination.
The Blood Mage was just an overall good take on the Cloth wearing caster healer.
I think the only class people really had a problem with in Vanguard was the rogue, but at least they tried to make each class very unique and gave them all abilities that made them stand out from other MMOs
I also really liked both the Summoners in EQ2. The Conjurer in particular had a high level spell Communion that would summon all its pets at once (depending on how you spent your AAs and which deity you worshiped you could have up to 5 total pets) I also liked that in pvp the Tank pets (and Tanks players too) could taunt and force players to target the pet. That was the first time I saw that in a game.
DDO was the only MMO I can think of where you could make a caster/archer but this is because it uses DnD rules with feats and multi classing etc so I guess I cannot count that as a true MMO Class. But I would love to see an Arcane archer done well in an MMO.
*edit* I guess Guild Wars could count too as you could mix Ranger with one of the casting classes.
What I want to see more of is games where you can mix and match skill sets to really stand out from the crowd.
Wow, I really like the way you guys described the bard and necro in Vanguard. Looks like I'll be trying that one next. My EQ2 raiding character was a necro so I'll enjoy seeing their take on that class as well.
Another class I felt was just spot-on was the commando in SWG before the NGE. At one point I was playing a commando/teras kesai master and running around that game I actually felt like a commando. Flamethrower, launcher pistol, acid rifle, grenades... I was just a big ball of walkin' destruction. Ah so many good memories.
Also, oddly, for me some of the most enjoyable caster-type characters I ever played were the blasters from CoH. You can throw around fireballs, ice rain, energy blasts, fields of fire... and you can toss 'em around for a good long while before tiring out. Oh, and of course being able to fly. With that kind of stuff you could easily make characters that would probably qualify as archmages in most other mmo's. I definitely didn't feel like a fragile robe-wearer with that class.
MMO's are a sidequest to life. -Elysium
In general, I think the Villains from City of Villains -- specifically, the Brute -- was a fantastic "archetype" character. I've never been sufficiently satisfied with the seperation of melee dps and "meatshield" toons, and the Brute successfully married the two in a (I will use the most obvious example) Incredible Hulk way. The brute was big and slow, but could take a punch -- and the more you punched him, the angrier he got, until he was the highest damage character available.
[edit] for typos.
Herald of Xtoli from AoC, was the perfect merger between caster and melee fighter that I have seen.
It also was probobly the only balanced class that FunCom made for that game.
Reminded me of my old ShadowKnight in EQ1 well what I had hoped he would become but Sony had other ideas for the class.
lancejt wrote:
Clerics in Vanguard - straight from D&D (paper and pencil).
As a previous poster said, Vanguard did a lot of classes right, but as a long-time cleric/priest player the Vanguard version really hit the spot.
-> Lent
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Blackhand Horde: Lent (70 Priest), Durok (61 Hunter)
I always loved the cleric in Everquest. Really felt like a D&D cleric for the most part, and I enjoyed playing that class a lot. No mmo healer has quite felt right since then, but the WoW paladin feels fairly close at times.
I would almost agree with you but I feel like the cloth restriction was a little heavy. I almost wish they'd nerfed the spells a little and compensated by giving you leather armor. HoX is the reason I kept up with the game and will probably go back to it when I start hearing that the game engine works better and there's more late-30/late-50 environments and quests.
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Vanguard is now in a state where you could easily get a months worth of play out of it. And its now not hard to find for $20. Be warned that the patching process is several hours long.
I will add my vote to VG doing a lot of classes right.
As mentioned above, the cleric, blood mage, necro and bard are exceptional examples. I would also add the ranger to that list. The revamped VG paladin is probably the best until the paladin changes in WotLK. The VG monk edges out other monks but I am hard pressed to find a poorly implemented monk in other games.
Wow has the best mage/wizard/sorcerer. I would argue that the upcoming WotLK Deathknight will be the best anti-paladin.
Its a toss up for me between the WoW warrior and AoC's guardian for the best tank class.
WoW's rogue is the best but there is lots of room for improvement. Nobody has come close to the potential of that class. Maybe one of WAR's positional melee dps classes will bear fruit. (witch hunter or witch elf) Wait, EQ2 had a host of great rogue classes (brigand, assassin, swashbuckler)
WoW has the best druid and shaman. I know a lot of peeps have soft spots for EQ's druid and shaman but WoW's are better.
@Farscry - The VG cleric blows the EQ cleric out of the water. It feels like a WoW paladin with a 55/45 casting/melee twist. And all the melee attacks use the energy bar from a WoW rogue and spells are more powerful and slower and use a separate mana bar.
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I'm not sure if you've played VG, Farscry, but having played a raiding cleric in EQ for three years I can state that the VG one is a far better realization of the class to play. Multi-dimensional in its abilities, capable of soloing, invaluable in groups - even ones that have another healer. Not the one-trick pony that end-game clerics became in EQ.
-> Lent
Blackhand Alliance: Korduroi (70 Priest), Faustus (49 Warlock)
Blackhand Horde: Lent (70 Priest), Durok (61 Hunter)
I have to say I did not enjoy DDO's implementation of the Monk class. As for Rogues DDO did well, only because of the inclusion of so many traps in the dungeons. When they add the "Ways" there was a reason for people to take full or at least mostly rogue levels. Way of the Assassin was very popular. I enjoyed Way of the mechanic as I played a Warforged Rogue.
The Brigand from EQ2 was an excellent Rogue. Had more Debuffs then a lot of casters. They can teleport to a previously mark position at any time. (Caused and uproar on the pvp servers.) The other EQ2 class I forgot to mention was the Coercer. Nothing like turning any monster into your pet. The class forced you to stay focused at all times in case the pet turned you, you only have a few seconds to react or you would be dead. I heard that recently they added a permanent charm to the game but much weaker then if you had the risk of the pet turning.
Vanguard had to do at least one thing right... That thing was their class design. Even though the game doesn't really have the staying power, the design of the classes has been pretty much superior to anything else imho.
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Ack, how could I forget the Burglar from LotRO? That is definitely up there among the rogue ranks if only for the conjunction starting mechanic.
The LoTRO Guardian is a great tank also.
@Arovin - I don't know if you saw that I mentioned the EQ2 rogue classes in my post above. I definitely agree with you that the Brigand/Assasin/Swashbuckler are top notch. They take the WoW rogue's Gouge/Backstab routine to another level with stuns, side and flanking attacks, and attacks that put you into stealth for your stealth specials.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
Is the VG cleric a plate wearer? Because plate + shield is a hallmark of the true cleric class to me. Old-school D&D style.
Yes
Taken from the VG wiki
The quote in there about the undead reminded me that the VG necro had a spell that would temporarily flag the target as undead. I never partied with a cleric but that could be a devastating combo.
I actually picked up a copy of VG for $4.95 during a special a few weeks ago, I've just been waiting for some time to open to start my free month. Just trying out the classes is starting to sound like a good reason to hop on in. This weekend I'll be trying out Tabula Rasa's free 5 day trial and after that I'll probably move on to VG.
Now, I'm not really sure this is a good example of the class but I've also played a lot of healer characters and the most fun I've ever gotten out of a healer was when I played a dwarven priest in DAoC. The combination of healing and cc made regular grind groups fun to heal. It was so much fun having a class that literally controlled the flow of battle and on which the fate of the party depended. If you got distracted for even a moment the party could get overrun with adds and a tank could take a nosedive from a missed heal. It was a dream class for a control freak. I know most other mmo's seemed to prefer breaking up the healing and cc between completely different classes.
MMO's are a sidequest to life. -Elysium
I'll second this, the HoX is my favourite MMO character class. Crazy dude in a dress running around with a giant sword lighting everyone on fire? Awesome.
Plus, I Eat Your Heart is the best ability ever.
wordsmythe wrote:
I felt like the Cleric in DAoC was even better than EQs. At least, back before they nerfed Smite.
Also, EQs Druids were a BLAST.
"And my son, too, thinks everything is a launchpad, every bug a meal, and every sunny day a reason to take all your clothes off and roll around in the grass." - rabbit
Oh yeah, the EQ druids were awesome. I think that overall, I liked the EQ druid more than the WoW druid, though both are well done.
Warriors in WoW completely kick ass over any warrior class I've played in any mmo, period. I quite dig the WoW paladin, too. I never played DAoC long enough to really get a good feel for those classes, but I loved the general design.
I really dig the ranger class in EQ2 even more than in the original EQ. Much more like what a ranger should be.
I'm fairly curious to try the Champion class in LotRO. Heavy armor wearing dual wielding crazy dwarven berserker? Bring it.
I was never able to do it at the time, but I loved the EQ bard. Also I don't have much experience with newer games, I think I tried the bard equivalent in LOTRO but I didn't play that game for more than a week.
My friend played a bard in EQ, and we'd often play sitting next to each other. He was amazing, so many songs and the way you could twist 3 together at once meant he was always doing something but he always had the right songs going. Things turned bad he knew just the right songs to play to keep people alive or to really do some damage.
My attempts at a bard failed, but back then I also had a bad connection so twisting songs were impossible.
bnpederson wrote:
I have a soft spot for crowd control / support classes. Sure, nobody really gets what they do, but I'm godly with them when a game bothers to include them. That said, I think EQ2 really pulled out all the stops with Coercers in that regard. They buff, they're mana batteries, they're crowd control, and they debuff really well, even capable of stun and silence locking nearly any mob in the game, and having the only stuns and silences that work on raid bosses.
Unfortunately, like I said, nobody knows what they do. Most games nowadays divide crowd control duties out amongst the group, and don't have one set CCer. Which I think is a mistake. I don't know why you'd give a healer crowd control spells, or want a straight nuker to watch a sheep target instead of deal damage. No, you should leave crowd control up to people who hate themselves enough to endure it.
The problem with the dedicated CCer or the dedicated whatever (aside from damage) is that the way most games balance out your abilities results in you being utterly unable to acceptably solo. Take the Controller class from CoH when it launched, absolutely great CC. You could horribly screw with whole pack of mobs at a time, you just couldn't kill them.
An arcane archer type was possible in the original Asheron's Call, though I doubt many were walking around with archery and war magic.
private String paula = "Brillant";
This made me laugh as this is how I felt when I was tanking on my warrior in wow fairly often. It was after a long streak of bad pugs I just sat there and thought to myself, "Who really hates themselves this much?". I answered with not me and my warrior has been either arms or fury since.
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Elysium wrote:
My counterargument would be something along the lines of "It takes a village." And I really believe that in a perfect MMO world, needed classes like Healers and CCers shouldn't have to worry about covering their ass soloing. Unfortunately, nobody gives a sh*t about making sure that healers are available, they just like bitching when they can't find one. I remember when I picked up a coercer in EQ2, by the time I got to end game, I was one of two coercers available for end game content at any given time. Sure, you could have your choice of 30 different tanks, 50 different wizards, 20 different healers, and more thiefy types than you could shake a stick at. But if you wanted a coercer, it was either me, or the other guy.
As for soloing as a crowd control class? You daisy chain quest mobs. You use one charmed mob to help you kill two others, until he's under 10% health, then you drop his charm, kill him, and pick up a new pet. I was able to kill nonstop for six hours once without waiting for mana or health to regen, and I completed over 30 quests.
MMOs in general are kind of broken in one sense: they have very bad monster AI, so most of the game mechanic is exploiting that AI. You have a big tough guy/gal that tricks the mobs into attacking him/her -- and the mobs hit too hard for anyone else to do that. Then you have a healer to keep the tank alive, and nukers to kill the critters.
It's extremely formulaic, and it's kind of a mess. I'd much rather see better monster AI and more interesting character classes.
It's possible we may not see that until the super-multicore chips start getting more common. Eventually, they'll be able to devote a lot of CPU time to each and every critter you're fighting, which should make these games a lot more interesting, and should free things up for much better character class design.
Hey now, the aggro system works perfectly fine, so long as the mob in question isn't smarter than a rat. Even a rat figures out, eventually, that you've got to take out the guy who's keeping the guy in front of you standing, or the one who is shocking you with a prod.
At the cost of more cycles and bandwidth which means less players per server which means less sense of a vibrant persistent world that they can charge $15 a month for ;P
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