Class idendity

General
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Hey folks,

some days ago something came to my mind I wanted to talk about. First of all I like the freedom the game offers but it delivers some problems as well, at least for me.

I grew up with Pen & Paper roleplaying game sessions from D&D to Cyberpunk and every time classes had something specific to them. The mighty warrior in his shiney plate amor, the druid who wasn’t allowed to wear metal and stuff like this with all the benefits and flaws classes offered in different games.

So maybe you guys understand where I’m coming from when I write the following stuff and might be able to understand my point of view just a little bit better.

Most classes feel pretty much the same equipment wise. Use the stuff with the highest armor to begin with. It mostly feels strange to put the plate armor on my mage while shooting lightning for example. Sure it’s magical lightning but it needs to have some kind of conductivity because is not it won’t hurt anyone outsight of eye sight ^^. It simply feels wrong for me to have all classes wear the same type of armor just because.
I think there needs to be some diversity or some benefits and flaws linked to armor types. No jumping and dashing in platemail untill you have 5 strength or something in those lines, where lighter armor let you focus on mobility with ease.

On top of that, while there are a loooot of different weapons, I find it restrictive to have certain weapons mods bound to specifc weapon types. Sure stun chance on hammers makes sence but why is there no sword mod for stun for example? Crit chance on spears… I never found a onehanded weapon with that mod on, maybe these are there who knows but I never saw those.

There is a lot of freedom in the game to pick the stuff you want to but sometimes you are pretty restricted by your class or skills. My example might be the Druid… why should I pick something outside of spear weapons to beginn with? I haven’t found any other weapon with a meaningfull crit stat on it outside of those, so I’ll never be able to wear a shield if I want to because it would gimp my crit depended build and make it worse. Sure a shield don’t offer much for a Werbear but I see no other choice outside of spears.

Well that’s that now for class diversity in more narrowed down view. We have walking platemails that shoot spells or hack down stuff and that’s it. Sometimes they wear S&B sometimes they wear twohanders and some are followed by an army of companions. I think there is to little meaningfull difference between the classes outside of the modell used for it.

All classes and the meta builds we do for them benefit from the same stuff and it feels strange. Sure you want to offer ways to play ddifferently but those could be handled differently. A classic bathrobe wearing mage could add a shielding spell to it’s bathrobe giving it some meaningfull armor. A platmeale wearing knight that is struck by lightning should feel the pain even more. The rouge who trys to sneak with Plat boots on should have BIG problems to approach without making a sound.

Right now it just feels like “Put on that platemail and have fun!”.

I miss some outstanding skills for classes. With Bear/Spriggan and the other shapechanging Spiritualist thing there were plenty of possibilitys to change up classes the most. Class specific equipment restrictions with pro’s and con’s would be a good way to change up things (sure that’s a bit of 80s style P&P stuff but it works pretty well). I understand the games design choice because it’s far easier to balance but it removes the “RP” out of ARPG for me and makes it arcade style.

There are lots of possible ways to spice things up but I would understand if you simply say “No!” because it would be to much work to shake up the foundations of the game and I’m pretty sure a lot of people like the game because it’s built like it is. This is not ment for feedback but you can take it for it if you want I just want to talk about this because it crosses my mind every now and then and I’m intrested how wveryone else is thinking about it.

Thx for rading and sorry for the wall of text :D. I’ll think about a Tl:Dr ^^.

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This is fun to read, because, I have started playing back in 2002, with Diablo 2. And for many games after, I have been dissapointed (or just noticed) the differences in choices for design. It being made more “simpler and arcade”. Less depthy for my taste.

From reading your post, what I would consider “depthy” would probably be already quite a portion more mundane, simple and arcade than you would have liked it, starting with Diablo 2.

I was 9 in the year 2002. Comparing the basic music Charts back then (like the top 100) with today, I Always say that music went downward. And probably it wasnt even that good in 2002, but for me, it was good. Probably as good as todays Charts are for others (or as bad from an objective Point of view). I`m sure in 1982, it was even better, and 2002 feels like shit for People of the 1982´s. Or Maybe it was just as good or bad as it was 2002 and as it is now.

The thing is, I myself cant think of how “rogue has a hard time getting through without being noticed” with heavy, loud steel boots would do me a hard time imagining how it would fit pragmatically, and also principally into the game theme. Or how Knight with Heavy Armor would be penetrated by lightning more heavily, from a balance-point of view.

But I can understand the perception, coming from the games you have been mentioning.

To roll it up differently again, Maybe it has a Point. Maybe that´s also just a philosophical Point, from a design-Point of view. Because, in a sense, through the passive trees and their choices (and inherent Benefits and differences), there is not only inidividual class identity, but there is individual class identity within each class, and within each choice one makes - plus the skills and their tree choices!

From an Equipment Point of view… I think that games nowadays, as RPG, it is a theme of “optimizing and making your character stronger”. Giving inherent negatives to the classes (e.g. this class wearing this item gives this deficit), it has a point when it Comes to logic and character (e.g. the Special character of playing a Knight and being more vulnerable to Lightning, but stronger against physical and melee attacks). But Overall - playing a Knight makes you more Overall defensive to all Kind of attacks, and being a Mage makes you more squishy, despite wearing the same armor type. So in a sense, there is already identity by the cons and pros inclusive within the class you are playing, the character you´ve Chosen. And today it would Maybe feel more like “being punished” by e.g. giving deficits for playing a certain class (although it would render that classes “identity”). And I think that the same can be achieved, and in fact, is being achieved in a different manner already.

I dont know if that quite hits your point. I think I can quite understand you, and I also think that what you are searching, you might find it in other ways, in a different perspective, and get that identity from places found not in comparison, but from the very individual aspects of the game that DO make class identity unique, instead of insisting for it to be it “this way”.

In regards of class identity, I think LE makes a good effort of moving back to more RP, as most games out there nowadays are indeed more of arcade. And that`s what I personally admire About design choices being made, and Im sure future uniques and legendary items might just have a taste of what youre Looking for (e.g. items unique to rogue that make him way more flexible and faster than any other class; unique chest that makes your Knight more prone to elementals, but even more strong against physical Damage and melee, or providing mage with additional magic power in Exchange for defensives)… providing more identity to the (in my opinion) already (compared to games nowadays) vast and complex way of giving your character more individuality and identity.

That would be my POV…

I know, also TL:DR :smiley:

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We’re not ready to discuss the full details of how class specific items will work in Last Epoch.

However I can confirm that we are currently planning for there to be armour and weapons that are specific to individual base classes and mastery classes.

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LE is a nice game overall and I understand the design part of it and the topic isn’t THAT important to me, it’s just something that crossed my mind ;). Sure the passive trees and skills they offer make the classes and archtypes different in a pretty nice way.

I see all the benefits of the systems but this is more some kind of a philosophical thing ;). I’m sure a PC game can never offer as much freedom as a P&P tabletop game because there are still technical boundries it’s just a “feeling” that there could be so much more and some things seem rather streamlined into a box rather then they just use a bigger box :).

Right now LE is a quality product compared to a lot of stuff that released in the past and may be release in the near future… at least for me ;). If this wasn’t the case my brain won’t work on the topic :D. And after all it’s easy in some parts like for example the good old knight… starting in his padded cloth armor with a rusty sword and buys himself a chainmail, a sword and a shield after resolving some quest moving up to a chainmail stuffs partial plates armor on it and finaly ends up in some heavy plate mail armor that’s magicly imbued. If I put this into LE perspective there could be diferent kind of leathers for primalists they made their armor of. Different magical imbued cltoh armor for casters and stuff like this. This would be a simple solution to mirror things ingame because for example my Druid don’t look like he’s wearing plate armor at all :smiley: not to start with my mage ^^. This would change up things a notch in my eyes.

The classes themself and the differences in the skills they use are pretty well done, but I would happiely see some restrictions there, like Void Knight skills are a nono for a Paladin, Shamans are to Totem focused to use specific pets, Mages who prefer melee style magic don’t have that much ranged spells anymore because magic is hard to learn, something along those lines to feel a difference in gameplay as soon as you choce a specific class this might as well improve replayability.

This is a lot of work and I know I won’t get anything I’m 100% happy with but right now… I feel there could be more.

After all it looks like I made somehow a valid point. Nice to hear you working on some stuff and maybe you’ll hear some more input on this topic that may inspire you. Keep up the good work so far your game is already in a great spot.

Thx for reading again TL:DR still seems to bea problem thou :D.

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A good way to fix this system is add a atrib requirements. Plate has a STR requirement, Light Armor Intel and so on and so forth. It’s the most common way to make armor feel more class based. Another one would be weight requirement but that would mean a totally new system added to the game. Not sure that’s feasible at this point.

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Spears with +3 To All Skills In Void Knight incoming POOOOG

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From this point of view and my experience in the past platemail needs much more int to put on as a bathrobe :D. Sure mechanicly this would make sence but there should be no downsides to it as someone else mentioned. Magicly hardend cloth armors can be as durable as platemail for my taste no problem there it’s the presentation I think is flawed.

When you look into the char screen almost everything looks identical in the end and I think that’s a shame that makes all classes a mashup rather then outstanding. On top of it my toon looks like hes wearing half leather half pelt armor what makes things even worse when you equip a platemail ^^.

After @Trasochi statement I hope there will be some more designs that show diversity :).

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