Mordiceius' Gaming Blog Flying Away on a Wing and a Prayer

Are Classes Good or Bad for MMOs?

A few months back, I was working on a series of blog posts outlining what I would want in a dream MMO. After a series of discussions with Rynala, co-workers, guild mates, and other bloggers about the mechanics of MMOs and how the games can choose to fail or succeed, I decided instead of dreaming, I would write up all the documentation for the MMO of my creation. I am still working on this but do not have anything to post on it at this time since I have about 10+ posts worth of content spread across a multitude of ideas but none of them are fleshed out enough to post yet. Today's thought comes from toiling away on this.

Are classes a good or bad design choice?

Classes are most commonly seen as an assortment of various skills and abilities given a name to differentiate it from other assortments of skills and abilities. Often times, different classes can have different play styles. While druids and paladins in World of Warcraft both have healing spells, the style in which they do their healing is drastically different with the paladin doing big single target heals and the druid using heal over time spells. But is it a good thing to restrict abilities by class? Sometimes there may be encounters where the abilities of one class may be superior to the abilities of another class, leaving the second class feeling worthless and discouraged.

A lot of people I know are big fans of class-less systems. All the skill branches are out there and it is your decision to choose what types of skills you want to pursue. You could work on advancing fighting with a giant battle mace while working on your fire magics or perhaps to work on both fire and ice magics and forgo weapons altogether. What skills your character progresses is completely up to you instead of having a list of class skills you pick up as you level. The problem with this is that MMO players have a habit of optimizing their experience and soon you will have a majority of players running around with the "One Spec"(TM) and there being a lack of overall variety in what people play.

I used to be against the concept of classes but the more I ponder over the idea, I am more accepting of the idea of classes in MMOs. In reading about Darkfall lately, it already seems like people are finding that "One Spec" that is overall superior. While classes can cause some strife between players, I think that having a distinct difference between different players is a good thing. Sure, Bob and I can both play rogues and be essentially the same, but right now Bob plays a mage which has a different play style than my rogue.

Though the concept of Runes of Magic's dual class system is very intriguing to me. Not only do you get to pick two classes to be, but the game offers special synergies when combining certain classes. I do not remember any of them offhand, but an example would be if you played a priest with a knight secondary, you might get a special defensive shielding spell based on the holy spell power of the priest and the defense of the knight whereas if you played a warrior with a priest secondary, you might get a special weapon attack to infuse your weapons with holy energy. Also, if I recall correctly, you could swap which of the two classes was your primary. You might play a warrior/knight today and a knight/warrior tomorrow. You can swap your primary and secondary as each class has to be leveled separately.

Perhaps a superior method would be an advancement on the ideas of Runes of Magic. Maybe give the player access to every class in the game and let them level up each class individually and then pair up any two classes when they want.