CEO, Goblinworks
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Please use this thread to discuss This week's blog about classes in Early Enrollment.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Is there going to be some type of "respec"? I can see a lot of players wanting to start playing in EE, but not having their ideal class available until later.
In my case, my main is going to be a paladin, and initially I could probably devote some training towards the fighter role, or maybe the cleric. But I'd rather devote the accrued XP to straight paladin skills, and that would mean either being able to respec when paladin is available or simply play my Destiny's Twin alt and keep my main on ice until the paladin class is available.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You mentioned evocation for wizards being first. Has the ordering of the remaining schools been decided? I would imagine that the graphics heavy illusion school is likely last. There have been issues brought up in the past on divination (many spells not translating well into an MMO). Any thoughts on the other 5 schools?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Is there going to be some type of "respec"? I can see a lot of players wanting to start playing in EE, but not having their ideal class available until later.
In my case, my main is going to be a paladin, and initially I could probably devote some training towards the fighter role, or maybe the cleric. But I'd rather devote the accrued XP to straight paladin skills, and that would mean either being able to respec when paladin is available or simply play my Destiny's Twin alt and keep my main on ice until the paladin class is available.
Banking XP is an option, approximating a role via bits of other roles is an option, but respecs are not expected to be.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qrfw&page=2?Goblinworks-Blog-Thunderstrike #91http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qs8b?Character-Creation-During-EE#48
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qs8b&page=2?Character-Creation-During-EE#5 3
I would expect that similar classes will have some similar prerequisites, so if for example you need a 14 Strength and the ability to use 4 weapons at some point in the paladin progression, you could get them by training as a fighter. Just because a single role may take 2.5 years to complete, that doesn't necessarily mean a very similar one needs to relearn all the basics again and take just as long.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We got some solid information on Roles/Classes. Sorry Druids, Rangers and Monks; now its official your at the end of the line! :)
well that was to be exected, animal companions/and polymorph for some / martial arts animations for others... the other classes don´t need these.
but still, it sounded to me like the plan was to get them in not too long after OE, if that is right, it is good news in my book :D
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Goblin Squad Member
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Is there going to be some type of "respec"? I can see a lot of players wanting to start playing in EE, but not having their ideal class available until later.
In my case, my main is going to be a paladin, and initially I could probably devote some training towards the fighter role, or maybe the cleric. But I'd rather devote the accrued XP to straight paladin skills, and that would mean either being able to respec when paladin is available or simply play my Destiny's Twin alt and keep my main on ice until the paladin class is available.
Banking XP is an option, approximating a role via bits of other roles is an option, but respecs are not expected to be.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qrfw&page=2?Goblinworks-Blog-Thunderstrike #91
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qs8b?Character-Creation-During-EE#48
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qs8b&page=2?Character-Creation-During-EE#5 3I would expect that similar classes will have some similar prerequisites, so if for example you need a 14 Strength and the ability to use 4 weapons at some point in the paladin progression, you could get them by training as a fighter. Just because a single role may take 2.5 years to complete, that doesn't necessarily mean a very similar one needs to relearn all the basics again and take just as long.
Thanks for the links. Since its my main, looks like I'll be approximating a paladin as best as possible with a fighter and maybe a dash of cleric until the real deal is in. Fortunately it sounds like paladin will be in in a relatively short period of time. I feel for the ranger, druid and monk fans out there.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As a future ranger, I expect to bank exp until ranger is in the game. I would not want warrior:archer skills that I cannot respec when the same skills from ranger also count towards ranger only abilities.
Likewise cleric skills on a future druid.
I think it will matter a great deal, for a short time, right around the 2 year mark. I think that will be a time of sieges, and the loss of many player cities. Top 'tier' formation-combat leaders with max-skill, pure-role forces under their command should be able to cut through even organised foes with lesser skills. I believe that is the logical extension of 'formations beat mobs'.
It's all well and good to catch up to the skill gap in 'only' a month or so, but rebuilding a city will take longer than that.
Looking forward to EE, and beyond :D
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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You mentioned evocation for wizards being first. Has the ordering of the remaining schools been decided? I would imagine that the graphics heavy illusion school is likely last. There have been issues brought up in the past on divination (many spells not translating well into an MMO). Any thoughts on the other 5 schools?
Based on what's in the queue for cantrips and spells, my intuition of the order we'll get each school to "enough cantrips and spells to feel like you can be fully slotted as one school" (which is not necessarily "enough cantrips and spells to have a ton of choice and feel like you can do everything that you can do in tabletop"):
Evocation
Necromancy (starting with the wide range of negative damage attacks)
Conjuration (starting mostly in the form of conjured acid and physical damage)
Transmutation (largely in the form of offensive buffs; actual physical transformation will be a lot later)
Abjuration (largely in the form of defensive buffs and dispels)
Illusion (mostly focused on shadow effects; it'll probably be a long time, if ever, before you have configurable illusions, and we're still hesitant about the game balance for invisibility)
Enchantment (this involves a lot of crowd control effects that are lower on the list for implementation like Charm and Confusion, but the school should pretty much come online in one lump once we get those)
Divination does not appear on the list because there are very few spells in the school that aren't complicated one-off programming tasks (assuming they're even possible), so it may be a long time before we can do it justice.
And while that list is my intuition for technical implementation, Art may find animations and particle effects have a different difficulty order, changing the actual rollout.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thank you @lee @stephen.
I embrace you MVPness and continuous improvement process.
Rogue, cleric, fighter and wizard are good starter roles (love that commoner and expert are there for the non-fightey alternative types.) Barbarian, paladin, sorcerer and bard will add some interesting diversity when they come in.
So much tasty information to ponder. More meaningful commentary after breakfast here in NZ.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As a future ranger, I expect to bank exp until ranger is in the game. I would not want warrior:archer skills that I cannot respec when the same skills from ranger also count towards ranger only abilities.
Likewise cleric skills on a future druid.I think it will matter a great deal, for a short time, right around the 2 year mark. I think that will be a time of sieges, and the loss of many player cities. Top 'tier' formation-combat leaders with max-skill, pure-role forces under their command should be able to cut through even organised foes with lesser skills. I believe that is the logical extension of 'formations beat mobs'.
It's all well and good to catch up to the skill gap in 'only' a month or so, but rebuilding a city will take longer than that.
Looking forward to EE, and beyond :D
I think you may have a misunderstanding here. We do not know that Fighter:Archer skills will be different from Ranger:Archer skills. In fact, I think the safer assumption is that they will not be. Rather there will be Archer skills that are applicable to roles X,Y, and Z. Under the archery subsection, there may be specialty skills, but you should be able to pick up general Archery skills and have them applicable to either Ranger or Fighter. Looking at it from a technical complexity aspect, you want to make as many shared features, such as weapon skill/proficiency as broadly generic as possible and then add your edge cases (Weapon Specialization) around the edges to hone in the flavor. For a ranger, I'd invest in some weapon skills, perception, a touch of stealth, and some non-heavy armor defensive skills. When you run out of ranger-y skills to take, you start banking until they add the role.
Your ideal strategies are going to be looking for those multi-role or otherwise general abilities. Druids and Monks may have the roughest road ahead, but it probably would not hurt for them to pick up some skills that increased Wisdom to make meeting their role-specific pre-requisites easier in the future.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Got me to rememberin, this blog did.
What do you have to ensure this game doesn't go from an XP grind to an "Acheivement" grind where if you want to get that next tier fighter you have to go slay thirty gobbos and get the slayer V achievement?
It's all good to say "Exp over time gets rid of grinding for xp" but then accidentally include an equally monotonous system.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Good post, Lifedragn. I hope the devs will be disclosing some more about which attributes and skills will be common ground for certain roles so that people can plan accordingly. Maybe some kind of template at some point during EE.
With a disclaimer off course, since people will most likely tend to treat such a template as the Holy Grail of how to prepare your EE character for future roles.....
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CEO, Goblinworks
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We are actively discouraging players from trying to anticipate how future roles will be implemented. There is a virtual certainty that whatever plans we have now will change, and thus whatever speculation people make about those plans based on the info we can give you now about the first roles will likely be rapidly obsolete.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ack, no prepping of my Druid then. :(
I understand that anticipating on specifics of roles will be dangerous, but something as straightforward as creating a Cleric and increasing Wis in preparation for a Druid would also be discouraged? Or rather the speculation of the skills that a future role might have?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I believe it was said before that increasing attributes makes training skills related to that attribute quicker/easier. Now, based on the text portion of this blog post, it seems attributes will function primarily as prerequisites for skills, and not affect the speed of training. Was this what you meant from the beginning, or was there a shift in the way things are being done?
The only reference I can find to it is a reaaally old blog post, though I might have missed another reference to it in there somewhere (so much harder to search the entirety of the blog now T_T):
Attributes: These correspond to the classic six abilities of the tabletop game (although we may rename one or two just for the sake of clarity given the way they'll work in the online game). In Pathfinder Online, these attributes have two aspects: The first is that they determine how long it takes to train a skill that uses that attribute as a base. The higher the attribute score, the faster your character can train those kinds of skills. The second is that they determine how effective the character is at resisting certain types of effects. Instead of the tabletop game's three saving throws, in Pathfinder Online there's a resistance bonus or penalty associated with each of the six attributes.
I haven't gotten to watch the video portion yet; still gotta wait another 5 hours for that >_<.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I feel for the ranger, druid and monk fans out there.
Ranger and Druid are probably two of my favourites but I don't mind waiting if they require/will have extra efforts to make them interesting. In some ways yes but in some ways at least I will experiment a bit with spells and so on and there's always archery too. Overall as we get EE a year early I feel that is a big boon already! :)
We do not know that Fighter:Archer skills will be different from Ranger:Archer skills. In fact, I think the safer assumption is that they will not be. Rather there will be Archer skills that are applicable to roles X,Y, and Z. Under the archery subsection, there may be specialty skills, but you should be able to pick up general Archery skills and have them applicable to either Ranger or Fighter. Looking at it from a technical complexity aspect, you want to make as many shared features, such as weapon skill/proficiency as broadly generic as possible and then add your edge cases (Weapon Specialization) around the edges to hone in the flavor. For a ranger, I'd invest in some weapon skills, perception, a touch of stealth, and some non-heavy armor defensive skills. When you run out of ranger-y skills to take, you start banking until they add the role.
Your ideal strategies are going to be looking for those multi-role or otherwise general abilities. Druids and Monks may have the roughest road ahead, but it probably would not hurt for them to pick up some skills that increased Wisdom to make meeting their role-specific pre-requisites easier in the future.
I think this is the sort of "guide-lines" that are very helpful to angle towards eg Ranger or Druid: Gives some thing to work with as well as just go gung-ho! experimenting or saving up xp. Thanks.
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I think this is the sort of "guide-lines" that are very helpful to angle towards eg Ranger or Druid: Gives some thing to work with as well as just go gung-ho! experimenting or saving up xp. Thanks.
At the very least, it allows you to play a character that "feels" right and is capable of participating even if not everything perfectly matches a role specialization. If you are really concerned about the role being very different, as per Ryan's warning, then a strategy of spending some and banking some would be wise. I'd imagine if you hold on to something like 25% of your XP across your entire playtime, you'll have a good jump on your role when it is actually introduced.
The thing I would be concerned about seeing is holding onto all of your EXP because you can't get your perfect build or be a purist right from the get-go and find yourself quitting the game because you can't participate meaningfully without some form of skills.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I saw that it mentioned that clerics will be very heal oriented. thats fine but have it so that a cleric can kill things and pvp on his own.
Also I cant wait until the Paladin, bard, and ranger come out as they are the classes im most interested in.
They talked a lot about clerics in the previous video blog; the short of it is, clerics will not be only about healing, and healing is likely to be more difficult/more involved than in other games.
Interestingly, in Pathfinder TT healing mid-fight is usually not done (by people who are playing tactically), as it's better to stop the damage incoming by defeating your enemies and then heal after the fight. Not saying this will necessarily be the same, but it makes an interesting precedent.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Shane
what games do you play o.O whenever I play my friend who DMs ALWAYS makes sure we need to heal at least twice per fight...
I'm talking about the "optimal" way to conduct combats in PF TT, not necessarily what happens. The general consensus (as far as I've seen on the Paizo boards) is that disabling and/or killing enemies should always take precedence over healing, unless someone's about to drop/dropped. Even then many times it's better to take out the enemy and heal the fallen comrade later, rather than getting your friend back up with a little HP.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Shane
what games do you play o.O whenever I play my friend who DMs ALWAYS makes sure we need to heal at least twice per fight...
Ally gets hit for 30 something damage, and is at -4. You heal him for 15. The enemy hits him again for 30. Now he's at -19 and likely dead, rather than unconscious.
At low levels, its just as bad. Awake at 2 hp, when the enemy can hit for a lot more, well, it leads to a lot of deaths. Its where I see a good third of the deaths at my PFS tables.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Actually, most scenarios are very dependent on the specifics of the encounter. If the guy who is down can dish out 3x or 4x more damage than you per round, usually a good fellow to pick up.
Ultimately, PF TT is a human driven game with so many variables surrounding party and individual abilities as well as the challenges various DMs will throw at you. There is no "optimal" play style for PF TT. That is because "optimal" changes from situation to situation. A good DM will also make it so that "optimal" is hard to nail down even within the same group of players.
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(Just thinking out loud based on what I see in the video)
Looking at the brief clip of the two fighters going at it we see 5 hits: 11, 11, 5, 25, and 11. It's pretty unlikely that those 11's are all partial hits. You tend to get the same number showing up a lot when it's a full hit.
But 11 being a full hit means the same attack can't be doing 25 damage (against that opponent), so I'm inclined to think it was a different attack. The 25 has to be a full hit as it was a crit. Penetrating alone couldn't make up the gap (~5-6 increase in final damage), it's obviously not a bleed, and any debuffs that affect reflex wouldn't change what a full hit is. Neither of them is moving so it's not opportunity either.
The full hits differ by 14 (25-11=14), which happens to be 1.4*10 (1.4 is the damage factor we were quoted for longswords and 10 is the increase in base damage due to 2 minor keywords). So I'm inclined to think that the attacks doing 11 damage were ones where the fighter was using attacks which didn't use all the keywords on the sword whereas the 25 damage attack did. Why use the attack with fewer keywords? Tsk tsk ;)
Assuming that the above is correct, then I'm also inclined to think that Stephen has already done some armor value tweaking that he mentioned previously. 1.4*(55-37)=25.2 (rounds down to 25), 1.4*(45-37)=11.2 (rounds down to 11). 45 and 55 come from 1/3 keywords, but it was 36 resistance which was 3 keywords previously for heavy armor. So maybe shields add resistance now or armor values have been tweaked.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I've got to hope that clerics at least come with Negative energy spells immediately or very early on. Not only are they technically very easy, straight damage, but I hate any class being forced into the healer role. Also I generally think that combat healers shouldn't be a thing in any game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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But TT clerics ARE combat healers. They wear the armor because of the touch range of 90% of their heal spells. Granted they don't generally have the HP to take hits, but that is what the fighter is for. They do damage, wade into the front, or near front, lines to fight with and heal beside the melee types. They are the definition of "Combat healer" IMHO.
@Hark May I ask why you generally think they shouldn't be in any game? Though I do agree with the "forced into the healer role" but then again, being a sandbox MMO AND also that it is just for early EE, keep in mind you could just splash into cleric for heals, but then do fighter or rogue for damage. that way your not forced to be only a healer. granted you lose the dedication bonus, but that should be expected, you heal AND fight.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I really do wish that anyone in Early Enrollment would get at least one respec opportunity, post-open-enrollment.
We'll be building characters during what is in many ways a beta. 8 feel like smart character development choices during the first 3 months of EE will be vastly different from the same sort of choices during the first 3 months of OE. Let alone a year in, after new classes are intoduced.
Or perhaps a sort of "half respec" would be appropriate, I'd think.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I really do wish that anyone in Early Enrollment would get at least one respec opportunity, post-open-enrollment.
We'll be building characters during what is in many ways a beta. 8 feel like smart character development choices during the first 3 months of EE will be vastly different from the same sort of choices during the first 3 months of OE. Let alone a year in, after new classes are intoduced.
Or perhaps a sort of "half respec" would be appropriate, I'd think.
I would not mind it either. I do understand what a labor intensive chore it would be for GW though. Many 1000s of people would want to do it.
Edit: And assume that they did not hand customize each character's skills to the new options. You would have to earn all of the new "merit badges" then anyway. You are still putting in the same work (pretty much) as if you had started from scratch.
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While not a huge role-player by any stretch, I actually figure I'll play my character through EE mostly as one role (fighter or rogue) and eventually shift to a second role (ranger or monk) as the game progresses, with some story about growth and change, etc. My character's back-story can mostly begin in EE; I'm not wedded to his history before he ended up in the River Kingdoms. Everyone's mileage will differ, I guess. Skills that are less useful at some point? Bad decisions in the character's life - he might have regrets, or not.
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yeah you RP fascists D:<
on a serious note, if you don't want to spend your experience on a class until the one you want is implemented, just choose a completely unrelated class you'd never touch otherwise and see how it works out. Or save up and run around like a newb for a while :D
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Goblin Squad Member
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As we progress through development and crowdforging towards MVP, the depth and breadth of effort versus the difficulty in implementation is becoming more apparent. I am not sure how to best contribute given the many unknowns, but I (and many others who are more active than I) are happy to provide considered constructively critical commentary on the complex and tough bits.
I do think that creating and living in the "now" of what we know and what is likely represents a clear challenge to those who are in alpha, EE and further into OE. The lean|agile development style of this sandbox will be challenging but as with most innovations, there needs to be an awareness that some things will be different and the initial expectations need to be tempered with a degree of adaptability.
@alexander - "Commoner" is perfect as it encapsulates the monotony of harvesting and gathering ;-) It isn't sexy though, but a very apt interpretation of a role that has roots in Pathfinder literature (or seems to as I do not play PF TT but there are many references to the commoner class for NPCs.)
As a commoner, I will also be taking "hide from bandits", "run really fast" and "bribe" as well as carrying a big nasty looking weapon of mass destruction to sow doubt in the minds of the lawless ;-)
The wait is... painful though. Bring on EE!
I still think a flexible-draft-tentative roadmap or timeline of what and when would be a good thing to inspire and focus thoughts on how to provide thoughtful suggestions and crowdforginess ;-)
#we-wont-hold-you-to-it #draft-roadmap-of-known-features #crowdforging-with-purpose
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Goblin Squad Member
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You might want to consider another name for the Commoner role/class. Expert and Aristocrat are fairly "cool" titles, but "commoner" is just bland and unexciting. Think of alternate names for what they're doing, such as "Magnate" or some such.
I agree a more appropriate label for 'what you do' may be Foreman, Overseer, Operations Manager etc. However, in PFO this is not a label for 'what you do', as you wont have 'class and level' floating above your head.
Commoner is rather a label for the skill type: farming, logging and mining are commoner skills, weapon and armor specialization are fighter skills, etc. You could potentially rename as 'labourer skills', but that doesn't make it more glorious. Commoner skills are not supposed to be glorious - just very useful for a settlement. If you want the exciting life, become an adventurer!From a more medieval/feudal mindset, it also makes sense. Aristocrats are nobility, Experts are burghers and everyone else is a Commoner.
'Magnate' would more likely be the Aristocrat managing a harvesting/crafting organization, or an in-game earned title.
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I will probably go rogue and a little bit of wizard in anticipation for arcane trickster or anything like that, though prestige classes were sadly not mentioned in this blog. Nonetheless, I approve of the direction of adding classes slowly to make sure that they are done properly and have their own feel, I don't mind waiting and I am sure that I will have fun sneaking about!
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Heh... Skill Untraining is something I could tolerate being in a cash shop. A real-money purchaseable item that allows you to untrain a skill and refund your XP spent on it. You would only be able to untrain skills that are not prerequisites to other trained skills. Being able to undo a training choice seems less Pay-To-Win than the idea of putting consumables or cosmetics on the storefront.
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Goblin Squad Member
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But having the xp refunded would not really get you something back. They would never allow you to spend that XP in one go on another skill, this would completely fly against how XP and skilling up works. They would have to revise the entire system of XP being gained per hour, and then you buying skills when you have gathered enough XP *and* met other requisites (achievements, ability-scores).
So better leave that spent XP as it is and just go down another path with your character.
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Doesn't the desire to 'untrain' a skill mimic the regret we feel in life for unfortunate choices we have made? That regret doesn't permit us to 'unchoose'. It is called 'learning'. It is thought to yield wisdom.
Possibly there might be an attribute (like, oh say Wisdom) that might accrue from such 'untraining'.
Yet not all skills would necessarily be related directly to a single attribute. Perhaps some might relate more to strength or stamina.
Which leads me to extend my original idea. If I min-maxed to increase my intelligence disproportionately, that min-maxing could be thought imbalanced, even unwise. This kind of imbalancing could find expression by reducing my coordination. A nerd. Similarly becoming overly strong might reduce my coordination as well.
I think it is at least an interesting system to think about, anyway.