Hot take, this game wasn’t originally designed as a D4/POE/POE2/LE clone. It’s not just about the loot drops which is the primary function of those games because they rapidly become a one click clear screen game where all you do is look for loot.
This game is more about combat mechanics. Call it ‘meaningful combat’ to steal a term from Jonathan at Grinding Gear Games which is funny because POE2 doesn’t have meaningful combat, sadly. This game is trying to blend multiple genres into a new genre. If all you care about is loot, this game probably won’t fulfill your needs. That’s not a negative towards you or this game, it’s just reality.
The purpose of the difficulty wasn’t related to loot drops at all. It was because some players really struggled to get past the first boss. They nerfed him and now he is a shell of himself even at the hardest difficulty. The game was initially made easier without difficulty options. Many of the veteran players wanted that difficulty added back and we partially got it. They plan to have more realm modifiers and I can’t wait.
This is probably my favorite game currently in the fantasy space. I’d hardly call it dogshit game design. And as much as I dislike how some other ARPGs have gone, I’m not going to go on their forums and call it dogshit game design. It may be bad, IMO, but lots of people enjoy brain rot clicking on groups of enemies, doing billions of damage and picking up loot.-I do not. That’s NOT what this game is. So just because it doesn’t fall in your vision of what a ‘good game design’ should be, doesn’t mean it’s dogshit game design. It’s just not your cup of tea.
With all that said, if this game becomes more like POE2/D4 I will move on. I’m not going to call it dogshit game design, even though, IMO it will be massively disappointing.
I’m late to the party, but I feel the need to say that I’m a little concerned about losing the flexibility and freedom we currently have in the build crafting system.
As a lover of Final Fantasy Tactics, I’m hopeful, but I’m not sure I’m optimistic. One of the reasons FFT’s class system worked was because we could bring up to five customized characters into our battles; we didn’t necessarily have to choose between having a Monk or having a Mage, we could bring both Monks and Mages with us into the battlefield.
Meanwhile, I can currently make just about any class I want in NRftW; I can make a plate wearing Mage, or a cloth wearing Monk, or a mesh wearing Brawler; I can mix and match Runes to my heart’s content, I can spread my stat points around however I see fit, hell, I can make a fast dashing Plate user if I want to.
I hope the class system will go live before 1.0, or that more of us will be welcomed into the Beta branch for testing. I’m hopeful, I loved the classes from FFT, but I also love the freedom and flexibility in NRftW; I don’t want to lose the freedom and flexibility we already have.
What works for a tactical RPG might not work as well in a single-character action game, y’know?
I wonder if the devs have a more team multiplayer oriented vision for the game?
In the current state of the game I’d argue that 2 player is the optimal player count, with single player being a very close second. If classes, and other systems in the game, were designed with a vision of teams of four instead of two or single player . . .
I do love the freedom and flexibility. It’s interesting being able to make anything work. I just sort of hope there’s more of a tilt into specialization, and synergy. I want good reasons to be a member of a party. Better reasons than just limiting my flexibility, more like specialized incentives. The elemental synergy system is a good step in that direction.
I’m so sorry if i’m being stupid, but it don’t really get how the Runes about to work in the class System.
I understand it this way:
We’re gonna have 8 Slots. LT +(4buttons) and RT+(4buttons)
Weapons are choosing your class, and if you switch your weapon midfight, you gonna switch classes?
I gotta master a Weapon to extract its runes (extract where to? A Library for runes?)
This is what i NOT understand:
Can i mix and match these runes Inside the Class Weapons of this class OR can is mix and match these runes now in every weapon, even from other classes?
Will there be Runes which are not locked onto weapontypes? Like Class abilites (Rage, Auras, Buffs, Spells etc.)
We’ll actually have 8 utility runes, which will be renamed to Cerim Rune plus 8 runes on two-handed weapons or 4 runes on one-handed weapons and 4 runes on offhands. That will allow us to equip up to 16 runes at once.
Probably
We don’t have an answer to that question because it wasn’t asked yet. Thomas hasn’t talked about changes to extracting runes apart from mastering, so I assume it will stay like how it is now.
While we don’t have info about this either, I think the categories for runes will stay the same. I definitely don’t think that they will be limited to a class, because their goal with the class system is to give us more freedom in trying out builds, but that’s just an assumption.
That’s what the utility runes/Cerim runes are for.
As you can tell there are still lots of open questions about the class system. Feel free to ask about it when Thomas is chatting on Discord or in the next QnA.
Will this be a complete wipe? As in I would lose my characters, house decos, embers, realms etc? Or is the plan to have selective data removed from the player accounts?
If we have that many Runes, isn’t that a bit too much? I thought 4 + 4 was already too much, but 16!
What’s the point of a weapon moveset at that point? Also, Runes are pretty clunky to use, imagine using 16.
What i’m interested in, and it seems like it’s not adressed so far (or maybe i missed it). Since classes are tied to the weapon(type) you equip? Doesn’t mean since we can equip multiple weapons (3 Main x 3 off hand) that we practically already running around with multiple classes?
I didn’t play FFT so i don’t know how it’s done there, but i could imagine it’s close to how Final Fantasy XIV (and to an extend Strangers of paradise) did - where when you shift weapontype you shift the class with you.
So maybe the same goes here as well? Or are we now restricted to equip only multiple same weapontype weapons at once? Or do they scrap the multiple main/offhand?
Also - if perks/thraits (atleast based on the mockup picture) are equipped per class(?), does the same goes for Armor?
I dunno, i kinda love the runes-system because it bridges the Dark-Souls Combat with Diablo-Combat-Elements, and makes it quite fun to play. That’s even more vital for classes which deal with magic so you can fully live out the fantasy, since ‘Magic’ is really hard to translate into Combat itself, to still feel like Magic you ‘cast’.
And i don’t think it will replace the base-move-set since you still need to build up focus to use them, - if you don’t have dedicated focus recovery and such, you will be more focused on the base-combat anyway.
About the Amount, i find esp. for Cerim-runes i can see why they expand to 8, since it also involves quite some utility based stuff, like ‘Teleport to Whisper’ and such. I personally find the current system a little bit to restrictive on that, but it would be slightly differently if it would be purely combat based stuff. About weapons i wouldn’t be bothered to much about sticking to 4 runes, but also here can see why they want to expand on 8 - esp. for two handed weapon without shield.
Classes will have supers, that can be activated once the super bar is filled. At least one (Armageddon), but probably more runes will be converted to these supers.
I mean this would be a definite concern, as in one of the opening statements was “inspired by final fantasy tactics job system”, which in itself is concerning to me because final fantasy tactics job system isn’t a flex, it is hated by just as many people who praise it for the exact reason you mentioned. I am a huge final fantasy fan, and I even completed tactics several times in my years of gaming but I absolutely HATED the job class system. The reason was because I was forced to level up classes and play styles that I couldn’t stand all in an effort to unlock a job class that I did want to play, and then also as you stated NEVER touched those previous classes again. I looked at it as a HUGE waste of game time and effort and forcing me to do things that wasn’t fun in an effort to reach the fun later. It is a terrible game design, it is just another form of grind under the illusion that it is something else.
The class system is probably inspired by some aspects of the job system in final fantasy tactics, not the job system as a whole?
Any game with a deep turn-based combat system is going to take alot of your time whether you like it or not.
NRFTW doesnt play the same way a Turn-based game do, so the time spent is probably going to be more free but still require some effort and time to fully master.
Ah, that I don’t love. I’m tired of every game needing to have an “ult” button. It just leads to balancing that makes it so your character feels bad when you don’t have it (which is most of the time), and then really OP for a brief moment. I’d rather my character feel good most/all of the time instead of just occasionally.
thanks
