A possible solution to the multi-class 'problem'

[Phillip]

me too.

[evilkarl]

AE / Tulga have not yet understood they nee to raise that cap and add new high level content. Not the same dam stupid golem of different color, but a different mob.

What makes you think raising the level cap will solve any issues? 20 more levels of the same content? 40 more levels of the same content?

Before they can raise the level cap they need content for those levels unless you want to see every t6 mob spawn camped by all level 100+ advs like marrows or wolves used to be.

I personally hope that when the cap goes up its more than grinding another 20 or whatever levels but there are class quests and things I can do to serve the empire.

[Carinde]

Hello all.

I'm sure I'm going to touch on subjects already mentioned, so please pardon the repetition. I feel that multiclassing has run rampant because of several factors that should be addressed. While not all of them, I believe that some of the main are Content, Lore, and the Multiple Experience Bonus.

Content seems to be one of the most overlooked aspects of Horizons. There is truly just very little to do, and far less to keep a person entertained. For all intents and purposes, Istaria is a very barren land. Only a few areas are captivating enough to stop people in their tracks or invite curiousity (The Wedge, Floating Island, Aughundell Waterfall / Battlefield, Sslanis Jungle, etc.), but when you arrive...there's nothing for you. A trainer or a portal to another area, but nothing in the immediate area. The townspeople are void of any life or emotion other than a generic wave, and even the cities themselves are dead. Taverns have no one in them, houses have no purpose other than storage...there's just nothing that inspires or awes here. You can walk into anyone's home that isn't "red-walled", there are no doors to knock on. When you walk into a house, you can't sit down on the chairs, or lay on the bed / couch. There's no action to stand against the wall and gaze out of the window to the land beyond. There's also no feeling of space inside a home. I can't invite several people in and have a conversation without knowing that everyone within "say" range will hear it, rather than knowing a conversation held in my home will stay there. Our market is non-existant, thanks in part both to the Online Consigner Search as well as the Marketplace channel. No more do you see the crafters in Kion or Sslanis shouting about their latest weapons or armor they have crafted for us, instead it's a simple search online for an item that's been consigned, or a small question in Marketplace. Quick, simple, and virtually removes the need to travel to cities other than to pick up an item.

Our Lore is all but available to us, and we're given a stripped down, never able to be seen again story from Ryson when we first arrive. The story of Istaria's gifted hasn't really advanced since the Dryad ritual, and even that was a disappointment, as was the Satyrs. The Saytrs were the first to be freed, but what have we done with them as a race? Nothing. They were added to the list of useable characters, and then forgotten. Where is their fallen city that they may want to rebuild? Every single race other than Dryads and Satyrs have a city to call their own. Give us a blighted or utterly ruined landscape and let that be their ravaged home that we can unite to build (give them Elnath if nothing else). The same as we did with Feledan, it gaves us purpose and sense of direction. Crafters had a reason to craft while adventures stood guard and protected them. Then we had the Dryads, who came with their very own island across from the Bridge of Hues. Unfortunately, just like the Satyrs, nothing was done with the Dryads after they were released. I wouldn't be surprised if less than 10% of the entire current server population even knows what the Bridge of Hues is for, or the land on the other side of it. Once again, potential for a city...or anything of value to the players. As far as the story goes, where are the Aegis? Not these pathetic minions, or even the Undead, but the real-deal Aegis. I'm not saying that we should locate their stronghold and storm it tomorrow, next week, next month, or even a few months out. However, a few skirmishes with them would be nice, and a chance to do something about our home would be even better. Rachival has been in waste since the beginning, and not a word has been said of it. I remember seeing a Mage Trailer before joining Horizons in retail that amazed me. I'm certain several of you have seen it. Wonderful spells that were a joy to behold, and not all of them "epic", as the trailer showed the Mage in different stages of development. Where are they? Sitting on our hard drives in an indefinite stasis, waiting to be released for over a year. There are so many things that could be added to keep people focused on playing the game and not spending so much time trying to fly through schools.

No quests to advance our story leads to boredom, and many choose to multiclass (or multicraft) in that downtime.

The Multiple Enemy Bonus was a huge mistake in my eyes. Not only did it virtually nullify the penalty of ratings, but it made advancing through schools incredibly easy, cut down on social grouping, and suddenly glorified the need for the area spells and casters. What does a reduction of experience matter if you can eliminate it by gathering several enemies around you? This became readily apparent at the release of the Crimson Scourge, and then ridiculously amplified by the exceptionally weak, but high-reward enemies on the Satyr island, Elnath in particular. High ratings were once looked down upon, so several people decided to stick with their current school. After those two events, a high rating became the "in-thing" to have, and some have spent several gold just to get one. The social grouping was also reduced to some extent, since you were pretty much a drain on the experience if you didn't have high damage area spells or couldn't "tank" / heal. Now of course, we have the surge of casters who wield these chainable area spells who are suddenly sought out more than any other type of school in Istaria. You can find proof of this every single day in the Marketplace channel. You'll see several calls of Healers asking if any need assistance, multiple times at that, yet they mostly go ignored. Let someone ask if they need a caster with Thunder / Ethereal Paroxysm, or any bomb spell and they will be snatched as soon as the message appears in the channel. Cut that time in half easily if they are able to use Daunting Mist, because they are then loved even more. While these things would still be happening to some extent if this bonus were not here, it wouldn't be going on the degree that is has been.

There is the more than obvious issue of balance for multiclassed vs. single, but I don't have even a remotely close to fair idea of that, so it's best not to speak on it. I will say that too much power is given to the multiclassed, and it almost borders on illogical to stay a single schooled character nowadays, especially if your aim is to be able to kill anything beyond a Jade Golem. There should be more motivation to stay focused on single standard or prestige school. I do agree that there should be some type of limitation, penalty, or restriction to those who multiclass, I'm just not certain of what that should be or how to go about implementing it without placing an overly negative impact on the player. I think that is something that should've been taken into higher consideration before we were even given the opportunity to multiclass.

Whatever the end solution is, if one is found at all, we'll all need to understand that the changes will not be 100% agreed upon, and it will take both time and an open mind to get the benefits of the change.

EDIT: I also agree with Crazyfingers about that loot table, and for Heavens sake please give us something else to do, whether it's fight the Aegis or rebuild Rachival from the ground up.

[Kulamata]

I found your post thought-provoking Carinde, not least because of your accomplishments.

I agree completely about such things as Old Rachival, the discontinuance of lore maintenance, let alone extension, and the desire to storm the strongholds of the AE. Actually the wedge, with its passage to the Eastern land beyond (all narrow strip of it [:)]) seems the perfect stronghold to storm. Especially since the terrain was changed, and there's now a road (!) to it. So rescuing Old Rach, and satyr cities, (and Kwellen city?? and Welgar city ???) would be wonderful, if beyond current resource capabilities. I guess I agree word for word on all of your paragraphs 2, 3, and 4.

There are some more wonders to see though; the spiral city (speaking of unused resources), the Trandalar Rift, the Shepherd's Mountain icefalls, and the Abandoned island is a small work of art. Aug waterfall is nice, and I likethe towers.

I don't know what to do about multi-classing, rating or farming issues. What deeply concerns me about changing them is an ugly history of such changes. It is hard for me to see changes to those things attracting more players thanthey would alienate. At the very least,such changes should be preceeded by player discussion andfeedback. Further, they should be done very cautiously, and gradually, with extensive testing, not only for bugs, but balance and acceptability. AE's record in this area was abysmal, and I'm still not at allsureTulga could pull it off with a net positive effect on the player base. I don't see anything wrong with the Multi-Enemy bonus as such. Perhaps a bit of tuning, (what do you think about the cap on the amunt that went into effect recently?) but more critters are more difficult, and the experience awarded should recognize that.

Your comments on making single-classing more rewarding could be part of the the tier VI extensions. In a way, that is happening with Dragons now. And multi-classing has another purpose besides becoming uber; it allows the "completion" of the character as the player sees fit. (I felt that I would be more Rangerish by taking healer, spiritist, and shaman; still a strong support, nature based mid-capability generalist style of player though.)

[Carinde]

As far as the experience cap that was recently put out, that seems to be doing its job very well. You can definitely see the difference in gains when you just stand around and when you really contribute to the battle.

Unfortunately, I'm also at a loss about the rating, 'farming', and multi-classing. The ideas I've seen have some valid points, but at this stage in Horizons, it would seem like it's going to take a complete redesign of what we currently know. The post-100 progression ideas are good ones, but what does that do for those who aren't at 100? It's all just a very large mess at the moment, and no solution yet has managed to tackle all aspects of the problem.

In all honesty, I'd like to get an open and fair discussion with Tulga and the players regarding such an issue. Until we can get them involved in this, our ideas end up going nowhere, and some of this just ends up becoming bickering and needless battles of the mind.

EDIT: You are so right about the spiral tower, I completely forgot about it. To further elaborate on that, we should get some uses for the remaining towers in general. They are a key part of Istaria's history and we do nothing with them, except for a couple of minor tasks at the start of our journey here.

[Tryagain]

what an interesting thread. I especially liked your reponse above Carinde. You hit the nail square on with content and there being NONE in horizons. Lets not beat around the bush here there is NO content in horizons. Not when you compare it to high quality titles like WoW and EQ2.

Problem is TulgaAE used multiclassing as a substitute for not only content but class balancing. It seemed to me to be thus...

We do not need to work on content right now because... the person can just multiclass. Not realizing that it gets old and only the die hards keep their accounts active.

We do not need to work on class balancing right now because.. the person can just take another class to offset their classes percieved weaknesses.

Multiclassing concept is GREAT !! there is nothing wrong at its core. But because there has been NO CONTENT in horizons to date Multiclassing has become the games achilles heal. If the game had been done right at release there would have been so much to do with content and a dynamic war with the WA that people would'nt have had time to even consider more than 2 classes. Just like crafting it is silly to see some with a level 100 in every single crafting class.... just like it is to see an adventurer with a 200 rating which means 10 to 11 100 classes. Why did these people bother ? cause thats the only thing to do in Horizons. It takes away from the immersion factor of horizons as well... its just not a credible experience.

So what can they do now ? to nerf MC now would be a huge mistake. Instead some basic simple suggestions have been thrown in here.

Raise the level cap
Fix the loot tables
Add basic content
get this war up and going with the WA.
Balance your risk vs reward equation.

[Phillip]

the biggest issues right now is the engine, the client, and somewhere within must fit the ARoP. i don't doubt the devs are working very hard however, being misguided for so long without the notion of integrity hey, i want to believe. but for nowi can only pray for a miracle.

oh well, at least we got DDO & MEO coming in 2006, around the time Lairs come into play.

[evilkarl]

Content is presently lacking I agree and classes definately need to be balanced much better than they currently are. Dragons need the last of their ability quests added and their AROP/lairs but most of all we ALL need something to do that isn't pointless grinding.

If content was added such as the dynamic enemey and classes were balanced, last of the dragon stuff added and something other than pointless grinding added then perhaps they would be in a better position to be able to make changes to the multiclassing system.

I would like to see a continuation of the satyr and dryad story lines, Perhaps building them homes or something. Freeing Rach would be great I have been wanting to see it happen for a long time these are events and would keep us entertained for as long as they kept the event going while I would love to see these in place and be able to do them we need something that doesn't require dev interaction (only maintenance maybe) to keep us busy.

[Gengel]

(1) I keep hearing a repeated issue: gaining abilities/experience without practicing the particular skill. And tangential, not learning all of the skills/spells for a class but still being proficient.

(2) And ratings interfering with starting a secondary(n)-class. The lower-level adventure class is not able to "train" because these abilities do not match the effective enemy (due to rating) that must be fought. Therefore, the Adventurer must fall back to stronger primary abilities.

* ching, ching * my two coppers -- Gengel

[treborc]

how are wedragons not multi classers
we become dragons we get base schoolin i gemworking mining metalworking essance harvesting and shaping quarrying and scalecraft and spellcraft now the only things that suck is we cant do finish work except for scalecraft and spellcraft
however we cant use 90% of the spells we scribe adn being a helian that seems to be opposite of what little lore we have

we got a lot of schools and yup they all level at the same time
so quit cryin about bipeds multi classin it can be to our benefit if we need help

finally give us lairs lore and the withered aegisso that we may kicks it ******

[Pharcellus]

how are wedragons not multi classers
we become dragons we get base schoolin i gemworking mining metalworking essance harvesting and shaping quarrying and scalecraft and spellcraft now the only things that suck is we cant do finish work except for scalecraft and spellcraft
however we cant use 90% of the spells we scribe adn being a helian that seems to be opposite of what little lore we have

we got a lot of schools and yup they all level at the same time
so quit cryin about bipeds multi classin it can be to our benefit if we need help

finally give us lairs lore and the withered aegisso that we may kicks it ******

You miss the point(s). Though this thread isn't about Dragon vs Biped (I don't want it to become another one of those), here are the points of multiclassing that Dragons miss out on:

1) Continued advancement beyond 100, which gives:
2) More abilities.
3) Better stats.
4) Better skills.
5) Access to more content (items, quests, etc).
6) More effectiveness in the game world, which translates to more wealth, influence, capability, etc.

[refuse]

You miss the point(s). Though this thread isn't about Dragon vs Biped (I don't want it to become another one of those), here are the points of multiclassing that Dragons miss out on:

1) Continued advancement beyond 100, which gives:

Actually Bipeds can't have stats beyond 100. So they can't go beyond 100, their rating can, but they are capped at 100.

2) More abilities.

Depends, probably most abilities can be gained with 4 classes.

2 of those classes (at least) are contained within the basic dragon (Druid/Warrior).

The spell casting of the mage (Primal) gives better variations and abilities dragon's don't have.

Bipeds have to do some Cleric to dor Rez, so.

3) Better stats.

Actually they can't get better, they can just get them all to the same level.

4) Better skills.

Same point as abilities.
Mage/Warrior/Druid/Spiritist gives you most the skills. Cleric for Life (beyond the listed abilities)

5) Access to more content (items, quests, etc).

Not sure about that.
Not sure what quests really are in game for bipeds. Blood mage 0, healer 0, so that is my two main classes. Druids and conj get epic spells, but . . .

6) More effectiveness in the game world, which translates to more wealth, influence, capability, etc.

:)