Multiclassing (Adv) or Mass Killing? Which is killing HZ?

[Snowdonia Honeythorn]

We've all heard the arguments against and for multiclassing and how it's what's imbalancing HZ. I have a new theory that says it's not the multiclassing but the mass killing that is doing this.

What are your thoughts?

I'll surely elaborate further with my theory later but atm I haven't the time. Just wanted to get the discussion (or thought processes) started by posing the issue.

[Snowdonia Honeythorn]

Bipeds aren't the only players that can mass kill as a Dragon friend was sure to rub my nose in the other night.

This isn't about bipeds' ability to multiclass. Multiclassing is just the vehicle of flexibility in mob selection for mass killing. Mass killing is a problem of its own right and quite obviously has always been closely associated with multiclassing. My argument is that it is not as closely associated as people try and make it and it the real problem that needs addressing.

Again, I'll have to elaborate later. It's not my turn on the puter. :P

[Doombreak]

The game allows multiclassing but in the end its down tot he player weither he/she chooses to multiclass there are some out there who do not multiclass and just stick with 1 school at lvl100..imo mass killing without a challenge is doin somehting wrong. Its not just bipeds who mass kill even my lvl100 adult dragon who has about 11mill hoard can hold his own against about 12 fyakkis, spiders on corvus etc. we need mobs that would pose a challenge for people not things that people could wipe the floor with in a few secs

[Snowdonia Honeythorn]

Yeah Doombreak, I'm one of those people you mention...

I'm a single classed Spearman. I'm a completely one on one fighter. If I get an add it's basically a run or die situation. My defenses are against primary target only so any adds pummel me to death. :) This is my limitation. It's a heavy one in this world but I accept it and it doesn't exactly bother me. It actually helps me to see the game in a different way from most everyone else.

But, this friend I mentioned before is what brought the mass killing to a new light for me. Recently I was out hunting for XP with my Spearman at gem golems on Trandalar. Pulling single Aquamarine golems. While doing this I noticed the HORRID drop rate on ornaments. Now, had I been a mass killer, I would not have noticed this terrible drop rate because killing more mobs in a pull means more drops for that pull. But single pulls, the drops were AWFUL! I had been out there prolly a total of 6-8 hours out of two days and barely managed to scrounge up 25 ornaments. A dragon friend of mine, when I complained in group about how bad the drops were, went to some T4 spot, mass killed, and in 30 minutes to an hour had over 100 ornaments.... Of course, he only did this to rub it in my face. Another friend of mine in the group, who IS multiclassed, made mention that she would have issue killing more than about 3 or maybe 4 at a time. Anymore than that and it would be run or die.

So then it hit me. It is this ability to mass kill that has caused so much trouble with the balancing of adventuring. Even a statement by Amadan about ornaments in the, "What gifts did you get?" thread proves how mass killing is not only taken for granted, but seen as the norm ("The ornaments aren't that hard to get"). Of course they aren't, if you're capable of mass killing.


Now, what if there was no incentive to mass killing? What if, if a single player had more than say 3 or 4 mobs agroed at one time once dead those mobs would net you no XP and no drops? For groups, depending on the amount of people in range hunting with you the number would get slightly larger but only slightly. I'm sure there would be people who might think of a way around the mass killing limitation, but a loss of incentive could only mean a loss of interest in hunting this way.

It just seems the root to the entire problem to me. Any other thoughts?

[imported_tjl]

I would call them "enablers"
they are the few abilites and spells that not only make mass killing possible, but reduce the downtime, and increase the profitability. Especially when the enabler's are used in a class it was not gained in, or designed for.

[Menkure]

Mass-killings is but one of the many pieces of the puzzle. It is one of the larger pieces though , but it is the by-product of many many mistakes.


I've been playing Horizons since its release. I was one of the first to create a character on the Spirit shard, when it first came up.. that was 745 days ago today. In that time, I've witnessed many things that have led, both directly and indirectly, to where we are today..

As Kumu posted, it is multiclassing that allows this... and multiclassing on both fronts. Both Adventurers and Crafters. Way back in the day, it was not so bad. When the highest level mob was a level 80 myloc lifetaker, or a lvl 80 bone marrow, multiclassing as an adventurer was pretty well hindered. It took a LOT of work to reach level 100.

Same with crafting. When all we had was cobalt ore.. and worse, you had to mine iron, then smelt with nickle to produce steel, THEN smelt those steel bars with cobalt ore to produce cobalt bars.. it was a miracle anyone was able to level a single crafting school (like fitter) to 100.

With these limits inplace in the game, multiclassing like it is today just was not feasable. True, it was possible, and there were a couple of adventurers that were a little multiclassed.. but it certainly was not as bad as it is today.


Then two things changed. The first Crimson Scourge was added, which brought mobs up to level 100, and experience was reworked to add a bonus for multiple enemies.

Now, the multiple enemy bonus was.. In my honest opinion.. the trigger. The massive bonuses one could get from taking on multiple enemies tipped the scales and made multiclassing feasable... and with the higher level mobs, adventurers had the perfect bait to try it on.

The multi-enemy bonus was way too high, and should have been toned down a lot. However, the community at that time had been begging for such a feature.. and were very happy to finally have that. Several people posted on Tazoon that it was too much, but they were quickly struck down, beaten, and hung by the neck.

This was right before the servers were merged into the present day Order and Chaos.. The start of a period I now call the "Age of the Multiclasser"

After the merger, another mistake was made. Many of the mob spawns were reworked.. including the Satyr Isles. Adventurers could go to Elnath (nicknamed Elnasty by many) and just grab tons and tons of the spiders and mylocs and just mass kill them till their heart's content.

With the multiple-enemy bonus, this gave a lot of players the ability to mass-farm enemies for experience.. Worse, there was no penalty really for low level players.. and we saw a ton of people shoot up from a just-rolled level 1 adventurer to level 100 in a matter of weeks (and for some really dedicated players, it only took them days to do it, if they were in the right groups)

Those that got to level 100 in a matter of days.. I don't know of any of those that still play. They saw all of Istaria on Elnath, and flew into adulthood faster than a 1994 Dauer 962 LeMans hitting 60 on the Autobahn.

Pwerleveling was not just for the biped. I knew of LOTS of young dragons who were powerleveled, as both adventurers and crafters. Artifact Entertainment made another mistake by not making the requirements steep enough for adulthood. You can't argue this, not when there were so many level 25, level 30 adventurer dragons who were adults. Even today I saw an adult dragon on Order who was level 37.


So.. now you have a lot of multiclassed players. People with ratings of 130, 150, even over 200.. and that's when they are in low level schools. (One player on Order is a level 30ish Paladin, with a rating of 210).


And as for the crafting side of things. Adding tier V resources and master forms has only sped up the multicrafting. It is still difficult to level that first school, but once you have it leveled, everything else falls into place. Master mithril, and you can level up any of the metal schools with ease. Considering many base schools use metal, as well as other resources, go outfitter, level off of mithril then once you can do ironsilk, go weaver with a single Tarbash marble disk of unspun ironsilk.. by processing those to spools, if you are at 2:1. you will level weaver from 1 to 50 in just that one load.

There was absolutely no penalty for crafting, and even today there isn't much of one now. Granted, you can't deconstruct everything for experience like you used to.. but you can still level fast. The decon-nerf isn't that much of a hinderance.. more of an annoyance than anything else.

Then.. there was the pawnbrokers. Mass-selling of items, like a full load of mithril mining picks, can net you a lot of silver. Granted, it might not have been as much coin as mass-killing things, but it still added to the fall of the system and where we are today.

And you know what? While the pawn broker nerf was needed. In the end, it only has hurt the people that really could use the coin now, but can't get it. In the end, the uber-crafters that do have the coin still have the coin. One person on the marketplace channel today said that, before he left the game, he had "half the gold in Istaria" and still probably does. Does the pawnbroker nerf hurt him? Maybe, but he's got his mattress full of coin to lay on and isn't too worried. Those of us who have spent all that we had just to eek by.. (I only have 200silver.. that's all), it will take us months to get the coin saved up.

And even then.. what real good is that coin? Okay, if we want a set of armor made, and need comps.. we can give it all to Nadia.. but why when we can hunt the mobs and get the comps ourselves? And going back to the mass-killing thing again.. those that CAN mass-kill things in large quantities have it made. Those of us that have specifically chosen a single school, and want to stick with it, are looking at Nadia and then at a very empty purse.

There are still no real moneysinks in the game. Yes, there is Nadia.. but when you can hunt everything that she sells.. really, how vital is she to the economy?


And the one that said he has half the gold in all of Istaria? He was one of the first multiclassers during the beginning of that specific "Age".

I'm very lucky as a monk/disciple to take on one mob. As with Snowdonia, my evasion works on the one I'm facing and specifically am attacing/engaged with, while all other mobs I'm not engaged with directly can have at me and pound me into the ground (and for someone wearing leather armor, that's pretty easy to do.) While others made massive amounts of coin with the mass-killings, the only thing I had that was even close to comparable in terms of making money was the pawnbroker (granted, something I didn't like to do at all, but when it's your only real option to making money...). With the pawnbroker nerf though.. that avenue is no longer an option.

Now, while the pawnbroker nerf was needed, it still did not address players making large amounts of coin through mass-killings. While I have seen the coin rate on some mobs drop down a notch, this in the end hurts the single-school adventures, and those who can only take on one or two mobs at a time. While it also does hurt the multiclassers, they already have their gold coins. In the end, the rich will remain rich and the poor will remain poor.


And the options for those people who have only one or two adventure schools... or those who are limited to one or two enemies at a time.. we have only one real option. "If you can't beat em, join em!". It's either that, or continue to eek by.


Believe me.. it is extremely aggrevating. I despise multiclassing, because in certain circumstances, it can be very overpowering. And to this day, I'm in turmoil over staying on the low end of the food chain, or becoming the one thing I despise. Unfortunately, with the pawnbroker nerf.. I don't really have much choice now.


So anyway.. Lets go a little deeper in our analysis. What allows the mass-killings? There's one ability that is at the very root of it all. Multicast.

This one ability is masterable, and thus carries over to soo many schools. It worked for the longest time on certain abilities (now semi-corrected), as well as the Epic spells like Dark Cyclone (Shining Blades is broken with MC, thus isn't working). Add this in with the many many AOE spells that you have, like Flame Bomb, Energy Bomb, Ice Bomb, etc.. then add into the mix the ability to go to a class that can use all of these with the ability to wear full plate.. like BattleMage, and you have a tank and a damage cannon rolled all into one.

Gee.. the one I was talking about? The one that has 'half the gold in all of Istaria'... can you guess what his favorite class was? *nods* yep!


And I truly think this is what the true issue is. Class Balancement. If there is a cornerstone to this great building we call multiclassing/mass-killing, that would be it.

Things are not balanced. Multicast should never have been masterable.. and the same can be said for a myrid of other abilities.

But in the end, it is.. and if the devs were to change it now, it would spell doom for the remaining membership... much like the forced respec did to SWG.


-Menkure

[Doombreak]

Myself im a lvl100 Paladin and a lvl100 Druid im quite happy with these..i mainly use Paladin for all my needs..hardly use any druid support abilties i cannot use health, minor health etc as paladin..i can use dark cyclone but i prefer not to half the time cause of long delay speeds..druid i use for valkor hunts etc because paladin wih only 2 heals and rez isnt a preferred group memer for sog, reklar etc so i took druid up for that soul reaosn..still havent had luck with random tho lol.

The thing that makes hz one of the best games out on the market is its wide choice of things to do..like Snow she has chosen to stay a pure single class..me, ive chosen to do 2 - 4 at tops..some people even refuse to lvl adv all 2gether and i do know a few of those. Hz allows a player to play the game how he/she wants to. If some1 has all schools to lvl100 its somethng to be proud of because wen the rating passes certain amount they lose xp for al mobs in the game then they have to seek out trophies and i know from experience from helping a mate these are not easy because their drop rate sucks too.

So in summary "is multiclassing killing hz?" I dont think so it is multiclassing that get people intrested in the game even at the beginning they can take various schools up and then can decide what is good for them.

"is mass killing killing hz?" a divided subject rele..this brings in the risk vs effort reward coming into play..if some1 nukes about 12 lvl10 mobs and hopes for good loot they would be disspointed but a single class spearmen (usng snow as an example) taking a long time to kill a lvl120 fyakki with a 2nd lvl116 fyakki add would expect to get something worthwhile from that encounter. Even myself as paladin without using nukes etc can mass kil undead using the right weapon and techniques (mithril 2hander with simmering spectrum IV + stand against darkness + melee flurry 3)

This all comes down to how a player views another player on how he/she plays the game. What player A might find bad Player B might find fun.

[Snowdonia Honeythorn]

But see Menkure, if mass killing was only capable by multiclassers, I could agree with that. It's also easy to just point the finger at multiclassing as the culprit and leave it at that. But it's not. Some single classers CAN mass kill. ANY class capable of casting, especially AoE spells, can mass kill. This includes Dragons, Druids, Mages, Mage related prestiges, etc. My mass killing friend who rubbed my nose in my, what they percieved as, less than adequate killing prowess was a Dragon. Not a biped with 8 100s under their belt. Of course, some could argue that a dragon is nothing more than a single class multiclasser, but that really is neither here nor there when a single classed biped is still capable of mass killing with the right spell/ability compliment.

It doesn't really matter what TYPE of mobs a character is capable of mass killing. Even if they are the lowliest of the low, easiest of the easy spiders and fyakki's, fact remains they are STILL capable of doing so (mass killing). As I said previously and a friend said as well, multiclassing only allows for a players flexability in mob choice to mass kill. An 8 x 100 will have far more mass killing choices than a Dragon or lower number 100s player. But in ANY case of capability, XP on a rating 80 mob is the same whether it be a rating 80 fyakki or a rating 80 mob-from-hell. The only thing that changes is how much of a bonus you get from the amount of mobs you have agroed at any one time.

So now this statement begs the question, where is the incentive for mobs-from-hell that can't be or are very difficult to mass kill being preferential to mass killers? Possibility of better loot perhaps? I suppose, but even now that's not as much of an incentive as one would think given the amount of mass killing of lower mobs that still goes on. So does that mean the loot isn't good enough or doesn't drop enough? Again it's possible, but even if these two things had their anty's upped, would that deter mass killing? Of course not! The money is still where the quantity is. The XP is still where the quantity is.

Everytime a thread comes up about multiclassing, or killing capabilities, or farming capabilities, what does it ALWAYS boil down to? How many mobs you can kill in one pull and how many kills you can amass in one play session. That's it. Nothing else. It always all leads back to those two words... Mass Killing.

TGs answer thus far has seemed to be to balance mobs to the mass killers (I use to say mega multiclassers but given my new insight, I don't believe that's so anymore) of the world. The only thing that has, and will continue to, caused is more multiclassing by more people to facilitate their ability to mass kill. Players like Menkure and I are a HUGE minority and continued balancing to mass killers will make players like us extinct as it becomes harder to even survive (not only against mobs but as viable participants in the economy of the game) as a one on one fighter. I think it's time to start looking at detering mass killing benefits to start giving incentive to seek more challenging encounters instead of sitting in one spot, wiping a spawn clean repeatedly.

That's not a total fix of course. I doubt any one thing could be a complete fix. But it is definately a step in the right direction.

[Sigi1985]

TGs answer thus far has seemed to be to balance mobs to the mass killers....

And I think that's the biggest problem. I really don't mind people multiclassing, mass killing, I don't see the fun of it but so be it. What I really don't like is - correct me if I'm wrong - that is seems that those people are the biggest whiners, they are bored, there is nothing to do, there is no challenge.... (But hé, didn't they do that to themselves?) And because they are rather loudmouthed they get listened to.

So let them masskill but please don't reward them for it and thus making it harder for the more modest player.

[Snowdonia Honeythorn]

And just to show how ignorant I am of exploiting things... Kumu, I had NO idea dragons could chain cast all tiers of an AoE. I've always hunted on the principle of, if I have an upgraded version, it replaces the previous version and the previous version gets booked (in other words, no longer is used).

I suppose I wasn't fighting to my "full potential" as a dragon either. Although, I felt Esmari could hold up far better against multiple enemies than Merri ever could even without this knowledge... Not entirely sure I really want to utilize this knowledge either even if it is fairly tempting.

[Nayuaka]

Heh I never knew until recently that you could cast different teirs of spells..I always deleted my lower teirs as soon as I got the higher teir of the spell. I only found out because I heard a few people saying they were gonna "nerf" aoe spells and I asked how they could possibly nerf them. Anyway dragons can mass kill easily without having to use teirs of spells, especially ancient dragons.

I myself kill T4 blights all the time. I find it somethign fun I can do for a bit of a reward. Right nowI'm mostly doing it to try and bring my hoard up to level with my level. However I always make a point to either share the field if more people want to kill them and I mean share in a way so that all parties get an adequate amount, or if someone else wants it for xp I leave entirely. I figure farming things like blights is okay but only if you're not encroaching apon other people.

[Dragonboy]

The best I did in mass killing was I guess 400s in 4-5 hours by constantly killing either skulks (max 2-3 at a time "I hate their debuffs!!!") or Naghkul Ogres and pygmies (once managed 3 ogres and 2 pygmies in 1 attack)...
While before the pawnbroker nerf I could make 150s per load of T4 gems (crafted in less then an hour)in Kirasanct...

In my honest opinion all cash dropping mobs should recieve large amounts of stuns and debufs, making them easier to take 1 at the time, but very hard to mass kill...

Personally I just loved the old SWG...

250 skill points which you could spend on any proffesion you liked...
Thats what kinda is called LIMITED multiclassing.
Part Teras Kasi, Master Swordsman and maybe some fencer or pikemen combined with Medic/Doctor and you were a good melee fighter able to hold your own...
Or you could take Squad leader& Bountyhunter and you could become demi god...
Classes there were also imbalanced...

I think that every game which has multiclassing has this problem unless you make ALL combat abilities NON transferable to another school/proffesion...
It would at least be a beginning, but the game less fun...
It is always a few rotten appels that ruin it for the rest of us...

[metagruen]

Mass-Killing is not something that ruins HZ.
Neither is Multi-Classing.

As another poster said it is up to the player how to play the game. If yoour goal is to be able to takeon loads of mobs at once you can tailor your character to do so.
But even if there is one school able to go against many mobs at ones others are perfect for 1on1.
A guildie archer is perfect to hunt skulks because he kills them before they even reach him, while I (KNoC) have a hard time due to their debuffs.

So in answer to the inital question I think it's not the question whether the "killing" in masses is the thing that might need to be adressed but rather the "downtime" or "constant killing".

I think, that the biggest gripe I have about the multiclassing system (which directly converts to the option for masskilling) is the option for almost all classes to receive healing power through taking healer/cleric levels.

Basically every biped MC has some levels in healing. And the few spells alone can reduce downtime a significant amount.

This is what bugs me. Example:
I am 100 KNoC.
If I had 100 Mage levels , too I could go out with my 3xteched mithril plate, my sword, my shield and start casting my AE spells, etc.. BUT I will get beaten, too. If I had no healing option I would have to pause between the fights.
Imagine me being a 100 Healer, too.... I could just go on and heal up and start again.

My biggest gripe of HZ system anyway. I think only real healing hybrids such as shamans, druids, etc... should be able to heal themselves and fighter hybrids like reaver, knocs, battlemages should not be able to heal themselves.

Result: True masskilling classes would have to deal with more downtime between mass-kills.

[Vandellia]

What is missing in the discussion is the intent and reason for the whole thing I ama multi classed adventurer and crafter simply so that i can survive to craft, yes crafting is my passion i personally find slaughtering mobs hours on end boring and i might be able to take on 1 or 2 creaturs at a time and kill them but definately not like some of the people i have seen pull massive mobs, thing is mass killing is about the money and the drops which again relates to money, mass killing amounts to mas farming for rare techs/forms etc its simply a fact of life, those that can do and have the mind set that standing in one area for hours and mindlessly killing huge mobs is fun, i personally would rather watch paint dry, its about money and or bragging rights primarily, cornering the market control not for all but forsome. Ifthe mass killers had something tothat was a challange it would be different and its not multiclassers that massive kill i have seen a few sinlke class or low ar multiclass stand at low level mobs for hours to farm techs its an attitued of a over all symptom of nothing challaging

[Jayne]

This cracks me up! So Manga says its a bug......?

Not to bring up old news but it wasn't a problem for them to change the stacking of multiple boars masks, which only really effected maybe 5 people in our whole shard, (so why bother with it). But they will say stacking of these spells is a bug and not fix it. I can tell you even with boars mask I can't even come close to mass killing mobs.

I have seen folks round up 30 Giant fire, Giant flame beetles, wolves and whatever else got agro and wipe them out in seconds. And as I mentioned to each his own.

Snow, I totally understand where your coming from. I am a berserker, I am strickly a one on one fighter. And sometimes i can do 3, but I do them one at a time. I have been in game a little more then a year and to be frank the only reason I started to multiclass as we call it was from BOREDOM! I got to a point where I just had nothing else to do and wanted to improve my character and class. So now I am multiclassing into other classes that I can master some other abilities to use and basically give me something else to do from getting bored again. NO I am not taking every class to 100. I am only taking the class to the point of mastering an ability from that class. Not all class will do me any good so those are out. And no multiclassing in itself is boring. Once your rating gets to a certain point its hard to gain xp unless your fighting the toughest thing. I find it better to take my main class and kill for trophies and gain xp that way, but guess what, Thats boring too :(

Yes I saw this problem ages ago when I had watched a friend pull all those mobs and literally get tons of comps, which is what i do for money(I don't craft). So here I am working my butt off fordays to get 10 comps and he gets 100 in an hour. Luckily he was a friend and didn't rub it in my face. Just because he could do that, didn't make me want to leave my class and start a farmer character.

What can be done? Nothing. Its far to late for that. Lots of what is in game really would have never been done but things were rushed and frankly I don't think all the problems that have been created was anticipated. They just popped up in time. And lets face it one of the major attractions to playing HZ is that you can basically customize your character to suit your needs. I am sure if two people had everything up to level 100, each would be totally different in what would be there main and how they would play it.

LOL, Here's a funny. I am a berserker. I am totally comfortable being one and I think I do a ******** good job at killing. I can take on almost any mob with success. I have studied all of them and I live my character so its all in memory. Yes I still get killed, but thats what makes it fun. Now recently I was able to log into a friends account and use his character which is happens to be a caster! Me being the melee queen I was totally lost. This guy can go out and mass kill as you say, but I get in character and I was lucky to kill one mob. Talk about frustrating. I still havent been able to do it! I get my butt wiped every single time and im only pulling 3 mobs!. Sad huh, ROFL

Jayne

[Goriax]

This cracks me up! So Manga says its a bug......?

Not to bring up old news but it wasn't a problem for them to change the stacking of multiple boars masks, which only really effected maybe 5 people in our whole shard, (so why bother with it). But they will say stacking of these spells is a bug and not fix it. I can tell you even with boars mask I can't even come close to mass killing mobs.

To me the reason they did one and not the other is self evident. If it only affects 5 people on the whole server it's a no-risk change. At worst they'll get 5 people mad enough to do something about it. Whereas changing the stacking of spells in wide use, or what will carry over from one school to the next, or the ease with which it's possible to level one school once you have anotherat high level, will upset a lot more people. They're going forward with some changes to fix the problems in the crafting side but who knows if they'll ever be brave enough to fix the adventuring side.

A few months ago DB mentioned in an interview that the current multiclassing situationis not at all what was intended. They wanted to make it easy for people to try out different classes without having to start a new character. They did NOT allow multiclassingso that peoplecould become demigods. He got a VERY strong response against that. As we're startiong to seein this threadin some of the last fewresponses. People like easy power and won't give it up without a fight. Which is probably why TG hasn't done much to follow up.

The time to do it right was when it was introduced. Once introduced it's VERY hard to change it if it affects a lot of players; unfortunately, the exploits which affect a lot of players are just the ones which can most destroy a game.Unfortunately, rather then sticking to their planthey listened to a bunch of whiniers many of whom aren't even playing anymore. This started during beta when it was decided to allow more transfer between schools in response to player whines.

If they're unsure how far to go when introducing a new school they should be conservative. Start out very restrictive and gradually ease things up. It's easier to give then take away.

I don't know how they can change it now without a mass biped rebellion. SoE had one solution for all the exploits in EQ. They started another game without the exploits. Not that EQ2 doesn'thave it's own problems but it sure fixed the most widespread of the EQ1 exploits. However, I doubt TG has the resources to do an HZ2 at this time.

[mbaucco]

Why not just make mass killing harder then? Rather than take things away from players (bad idea, TG would lose customers) just make mass killing harder. One way to do this would be a scalable multiple enemy bonus for each monster engaged with a player. Basically the more you pull, the higher their to-hit and damage bonus becomes. Not only would this help prevent mass killing it would encourage grouping versus higher level monsters.

-Matt

[Joaqim]

A few months ago DB mentioned in an interview that the current multiclassing situationis not at all what was intended. They wanted to make it easy for people to try out different classes without having to start a new character. They did NOT allow multiclassingso that peoplecould become demigods. He got a VERY strong response against that. As we're startiong to seein this threadin some of the last fewresponses. People like easy power and won't give it up without a fight. Which is probably why TG hasn't done much to follow up.

Well if i remember well, DB stated that most of the spoken was thoughts for a future game. Well, if multiclassing was really just introduced to try out other classes with same character, why they haven't made all abilities unmasterable?

So here I am working my butt off fordays to get 10 comps and he gets 100 in an hour. Luckily he was a friend and didn't rub it in my face. Just because he could do that, didn't make me want to leave my class and start a farmer character.

Well as Zerker your playgroundis more around the Vexators, Abominations and Ogres... not the crappy Spiders, Fyakki or Beetles, esp. as the tough stuff sells for a lotmore then the mass farmed thingies.

[Jayne]

Well as far as the arguement about the boars mask, they only piss off 5 people, we can say why bother doing it since only 5 people have multiple masks.

And yes I stick to the satyrs for the most part :)

Jayne

[Goriax]

Well if i remember well, DB stated that most of the spoken was thoughts for a future game. Well, if multiclassing was really just introduced to try out other classes with same character, why they haven't made all abilities unmasterable?

I don't recallany mention of it beingabout another game but since I"m going from memory I suppose it's possible.However, if you go back and look at articles DB and others wrote about HZ during development, discussionsof the school system wereALWAYS about how youwouldn't need to create another character just because you wanted to try another class. Or more flexible (you're about to go out adventuring and the group needs a healer, so you quick run over and swtich schools and presto, you're a healer). It wasNEVER about making yourself more powerful by having more classes.

It was definately the case that they changed it during beta to allow you to use more abilities outside your school. For awhile leading up to that there was a big whinefest (actually the entire beta was one huge whinefest but that's for another thread) about "why should I forget something just because I changed my school". They caved in. They do too much of that.

Unfortunately at this point I'm arguing from memory. A lot of the pre-beta articles written by DB and others are still on the web and if I get myself inspired I'll see if I can dig some out as well as that DB article. Although right now I'm more interested in heading back into HZ.