PSA - An overview of the upcoming class system

[sBAM]

An overview of the upcoming class system

As the class update is still in development, all info is subject to change. Please keep that in mind. The links I added are the sources for the previous paragraph.

How will the class system work?

Each weapon archetype will be assigned to a class. They plan to have 10-16 weapons per archetype. By using a weapon, which will be substantially easier because we won’t have attributes and their requirements anymore, you gain
points, that you can use to unlock traits with.

Up to 6 of those can be freely mixed and matched.

These traits will be designed to more substantially change how you play the game, then just stat up or down. Additionally, you need to master a weapon to extract it’s runes.
Multiple images of a mockup of the classes screen, where we’ll unlock and equip the traits, also got shared:

source1 source2 source3 source4

How many classes will be implemented?

We don’t have a concrete number, but 2 lists were shared on Discord. This one includes some classes that are confirmed not to be in the game at 1.0, although we don’t know which:

The classes in this list seem to be planned for 1.0:

1. Marauder - Don’t worry about getting hit, you gain bonuses for that. Just smash.
2. Assassin - Get out of Combat / Deal Sneak Attacks
3. Pyromancer - Deal lots of burn or burn buildup, then combust or rely on Damage over Time. The more enemies you burn, the better
4. Frost Mage - Try to slow down and freeze enemies with your runes, then shatter them with physical hits or runes
5. Brute - Try to interrupt / stagger enemies as much as possible while dodging their attacks
6. Berserker - Try to perform fatalities cause you gain bonuses from those
7. Barbarian - Build up Fury through killing / staggering, then unleash a charge / rune attack to deal up to 100% more damage
8. Fencer - Parry Class. Deal more Damage after Parry, deal more damage after perfect dodge. Marker appears on enemies during windups: Hit enemies while marker appears and they take more damage. Light Shields increase Parry Window.
9. Rogue: Death by a thousand cuts. The higher your combo meter, the more effective you are.
10. Monk: Stamina-based Class. Remove downtime after last hit with a trait, keep hitting enemies with stamina gains without getting hit yourself
11. Knight: The lower your health, the less damage you take. The more damage you take, the higher your own damage.
12. Paladin: Charged Attack Class. Smite. Retribution. Auras.
13. Guardian: Should be simple Allrounder class. Blocking an attack increases damage of next attack, basic stat increases, each consecutive combo deals more damage, light shield increases parry window.
14. Plaguebearer: Affliction Class. Inflict yourself with poison (plague), infect other enemies passively while you’re near them, then take enemies down by dealing more damage to them once they’re plagued. Moment to Moment: Use Plague Buildup Runes to get enemies to plagued status, then use payback runes to deal massive damage to plagued enemies.
15. Cleric: Focus Class: Hitting enemies drops focus orbs that any player can collect. Runes are all support: Heal Auras, Cleanse, Res, etc.
16. Stormbringer: Crit Class: Build your entire class around critical damage, Crits deal even more damage, enemies that hit you get shocked / shock buildup. Line up enemies to thunderbolt through all of them. Other runes ricochet.
17. Archer: Bow and Arrow Class: Dodge enemy attacks, retaliate with arrows.
18. Crusader: Anti-Paladin: Super heavy, slow hits, themed around plagued. Gain high focus in order to perform plague supers.
19. Dragoon: Long-Distance Melee Class: Damage goes up the farther away you’re from an enemy - Hit enemies, get away to build up damage buff, rush back in to deal massive damage.

source5 source6

One of the classes confirmed not to be coming with 1.0 is the necromancer. Thomas, the lead dev, still shared an early concept video:

As I can’t post the video, here’s the link to it: source7

Thomas also seems interested in making the Necro being able to possess enemies, so that you’ll be able to play as them. We’ll just have to wait and see how it will turn out like.

source8

When will this class system be released?

The class system will be implemented with 1.0, but tested beforehand in a PTR/beta. Many underlying changes are also coming with it, for example balancing, new weapon archetypes and more, which will lead to a save wipe. New classes might also get implemented after 1.0.

source9 source10

Speculations and expectations

This soft class system, which is inspired by Final Fantasy Tactics’ job system, seems very promising in my opinion. I think it will be a hard task to get it right, but if they do, then it surely will be a massive success. Thomas also shared some loose info on stuff that will tie together with the class system, but isn’t enough to be mentioned in one of the previous paragraphs. One of the things he mentioned are factions. We sadly don’t really know anything about them, apart from the fact that they will be a thing. Then there also are the parry changes, which freed up a button. The reason for that might be class abilities, but that’s just speculation on my part.

What do you think? How will traits influence gameplay? Will there be class abilities? Please share your thoughts.

[Lombix_4]

@sBAM

attributes and their requirements will be removed,

All of them? So Focus, Stamina, Health, and Equip load also depend on class?

I can see this working very well, especially for stamina since now it’s never clear what the intended experience is for managing stamina, but at the same time I’m afraid that the Devs make a decision without the necessary care and then a particular weapon ends up in a class that doesn’t allow you to use it as you want.

What happens if I like the moveset of a weapon but not the class?

@sBAM

you will also need to master a weapon to extract it’s runes.

Why? Why limit the personalization in this way? If I like a weapon but i do not like its rune I still have to rely on that rune for a while until I can change the runes, and it seems like it’s a long time period since you have to “master” it.

@sBAM

The class system will be implemented with 1.0, but tested beforehand in a PTR/beta.

Are we stuck with: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Faith, until 1.0?

I think it would be a good idea to replace them only with “Damage” until 1.0.

[sBAM]

@Lombix_4

All of them? So Focus, Stamina, Health, and Equip load also depend on class?

Judging by this message, it seems like it.

@Lombix_4

Why? Why limit the personalization in this way? If I like a weapon but i do not like its rune I still have to rely on that rune for a while until I can change the runes, and it seems like it’s a long time period since you have to “master” it.

What happens if I like the moveset of a weapon but not the class?

I’m with you on this one.

@Lombix_4

Are we stuck with: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Faith, until 1.0?

Probably yes. It’s just a waste of dev time, so it doesn’t make sense imo.

[Lombix_4]

@sBAM

Probably yes. It’s just a waste of dev time, so it doesn’t make sense imo.

I understand that, but it would still be very simple and quick to implement, and it would improve the experience for players for the duration of the early access.

[Mandalarine]

im sorry if ive asked this before, but will all weapontypes be ONE class only? or will there be possible variety in weapon choice per class?/ class choice per weapon type?

maybe there’ll be a fluent switch via weapon slots? or will there be Set slots we can fast switch?

i’m thinking; even if ALL active abilities stay on the weapons, i get the customization possibilities there, but thats also quite limiting the personalization in a way. you dont build a character, you get a predetermined class with hard borders, except for minor traits. but the weapon movesets will be locked into a class.

but IF a class gets active abilities, but can only equip one handed wands or staffs, but no one- or two handed melee, that’ll limit the playstyle personalization immensely, no? also i worry that the roleplay aspect gets more unpersonal and fixed aswell.

if any of this seems unreasonable let me know

[balrogslayer]

Amazing write up.

What I am missing from this list is a zookeeper, a pet summon build. I’d feel quite gutted if we can’t play a summon Druid at some point

[laki]

Mix and match of traits sounds great. And I don’t mind needing to level different classes to get access to them. As long as I can combine stuff to build my own combination eventually.

[Olivier_Guerin]

It looks very good.

So I understand that a player can choose 6 traits to « build » his own hybrid archetype chosen from all the archetypes traits he/she has unlocked. Given the amount of archetypes and traits it looks very interesting and potentially very open in terms of build variety.

But it will definitely needs a lot of testing to bring each archetypes, traits and custom archetypes to the right spot. I’m a bit afraid by the PTR being the only testing before 1.0. While NRFTW doesn’t have to be as balanced as a game like POE2, players will still expect some balance and useless or broken traits could lead to bad reviews if there are too many of them.

Why not release archetypes and traits progressively during the early access? Yes it would compete with the current stats system. But since the current stats system is just a « gate », why not removing it and scale weapon damage with character levels temporarily? It’s probably more complex than that, but anyway, I would try to test this new class system « at all cost » given its impact on 1.0 initial player feedback.

[BryanFury]

Wait, we are not going to get these classes on the update that will comes on 22th?

We should get them, at least the classes that are ready with their perks. It is a good way to test out on the long run how the class system does plays, instead of wasting time by having people play with the older system and then wipe up everything and restart with a new one to re-learn from scratch…

With them in the game coming on the 22th, having more classes added wont be an hassle for the whole community as we all will need just to master up more weapons and the system is already there..

[Ortu]

Elden Ring made the attribute system work and you have a lot of build variety without a class system, so I don’t really see what is the problem in NRFTW.

The class system is a lot of work to get it right, to allow personalization and build variety. But from the proposed system it feels at a first glance more limited than what is currently implemented.

[Gweddeoran]

The problem is that there is an obsession with reinventing everything and mixing and matching non-cohesive elements of multiple different genres that results in a mess that appeals to no one.

Worse is, that the Discord seems to be the main source of feedback and is an echo chamber that refuses to have any constructive discussion and actively denies the experiences of players except a select few who have hijacked all discussions there.

[Lombix_4]

@Ortu

Elden Ring made the attribute system work and you have a lot of build variety without a class system, so I don’t really see what is the problem in NRFTW.

The Implementation that the DEVs have chosen for the attribute system

This is the first problem and the simplest one, They’ve explicitly said that they don’t like the fact that putting points into stats doesn’t immediately create a noticeable difference for the player.

They’ve tried to address this by making you level less often but giving you 3 points, and by making the Stat differences more noticeable, compared to From’s games.

But this creates serious balancing problems, especially in combination with the percentage buffs provided by the rings and enchantments.

And it increases the difference between a well-made build and an ok one, to make the game work for everyone in these conditions is very difficult, so what happens is that the well-made build is OP because the ok build must be playable.

But the attribute system has problems in general it’s not just the fault of the hard to balance interpretation of NRFTW.

The Attribute System doesn’t offer much

It’s easy to imagine a Souls game without the attribute system that works almost exactly the same way it does now, the biggest difference is that you are free to use all the weapons you want, then the second difference is that you always have the amount of life and damage and stamina expected by the developers, like in Sekiro for example, and this leads to a more precise and thoughtful difficulty.

Sidenote: I personally don’t really like the “false progression” component of leveling systems in general, sometimes it makes sense sometimes from a narrative point of view. But not always from a gameplay point of view.

The attribute system seems like a nice way to customize your character, but if you think about it, even for that purpose it’s a bit of a strange middle ground, If we really care about penalization a System where you can freely move your attributes and where the damage only scales with the damage stat instead of having 4 stats that do the same thing but for different weapons would be better to have compared to one where you level them up.

In Elden Ring there are systems that are essentially made to account for the problems of the attribute system and to fix them. The fact that you can change the scaling of weapons so freely via AoW is one of these mitigations, which makes Elder Ring much more enjoyable than Dark Souls from a customization point of view.

The new class system proposed by the devs isn’t bad, at least it lets you change weapons freely and makes the game easier to balance, but it seems like a rigid system and so if they make mistakes the players could suffer the consequences without being able to do anything, obviously we can only wait and see in practice if these errors exist and if they are many or few and if they are more or less problematic.

And as I said before, they have already made one of these mistakes: that is, not letting us change the runes freely, to make us grind more.

[Gweddeoran]

I agree with your thought process, but the game seems to be doing two things at once.

Trying to be more skill based and having customization with the class/trait system.

Actively denying customization with excessive RNG (rerolling multiple aspects of a weapon) and grind (rune removal, gem removal etc.).

The game needs to have a direction, and I would like it to be skill based, but there is no room for RNG grind and gacha mechanics in a skill-based game.

[Ortu]

Why is there a feedback forum if discord is the primary way of receiving feedback? The forum feels like a more official way of providing feedback in my opinion…

As for the class system, we shall see, but I am very skeptical.

[Zenith]

I imagine Discord is preferred by Thomas as a way of checking pulse, as long as he understands Discord is not representative of the playerbase. Forums are slow communication, so if he wants quick feedback, Discord is more immediate and numerous (look at these forums, you’ll be lucky if most threads can get 20 responses, but that’s also because of how poorly integrated they are to the game’s feedback system; the game should directly link to and open forums).

The main problem with discord is that the signal to noise ratio is awful. Any meaningful conversation immediately gets buried by memes and clique-ish inside jokes and low effort posting.

Ultimately, I think the best feedback collection will come from the google sheet forms they e-mail after every testing phase, and building in a proper in-game feedback and report menu selection that can take a screenshot or video capture and directly send the report to moon without all the extra steps of having to record a video, upload it to drive, open up a forum, and link it there.

[Olivier_Guerin]

I definitely prefer to be able to choose even a simple trait like « max health is 150% » compared to having to put X points in health. At least it’s only a single trait and there are 5 remaining to use which can be either totally different, or going in the same direction. Plus it can be more subtle like « + 50% health as temporary point only at the start of the fight ». A trait can be both more meaningful for the player, more impactful on gameplay and still under control for Moon Studio. They can adjust it without altering the other traits.

Stats are more systemic: each of them could have an impact on many things (e.g strength increase damage, carry capacity, jump distance, parry amount etc…). On the paper it might looks more flexible. But in practice it’s most of the time quite limited (e.g damage soft cap because of disminishing returns, useless carry capacity over a certain amount, capped jump distance for realism, minimum amount of strength necessary to parry even basic attacks, etc). As a result, stats framework tend to lead to a meta game, which is known by a limited amount of players - with in fact a limited amount of build variety - making the game less accessible for the others.

Also, contrary to a stat, a trait can also be a unique capability (e.g « fire two arrows instead of one when X ») or even almost a skill (e.g « summon minion on fatality »). This is much more open ended. Combining traits will grant immediate results, encouraging players to experiment. Additionally traits can take many shapes when the game extend, for example with new thematic categories.

And finally, traits are much more easier to implement and maintain in the long run compared to an increasingly fragile and convoluted stat system which has grown over the years.

TL;DR: traits are a great move. They are both more powerful, more flexible, easier to implement, control and maintain, and easier to understand and play with for all players.

[Lombix_4]

@Olivier_Guerin

A trait can be both more meaningful for the player, more impactful on gameplay and still under control for Moon Studio. They can adjust it without altering the other traits.

I agree with you, but but the potentially problematic part of the system are situations like these:

@sBAM

Rogue: Death by a thousand cuts. The higher your combo meter, the more effective you are.

You like that rogue Class and you find a weapon that you like and would fit perfect with its traits, but that weapon is a different class, and you don’t like the traits of that class.

We also know (if I’ve misunderstood, correct me) that each category of weapons is directly linked to a class, so continuing with the example of the Rogue class, obviously it is linked to fast weapons like double daggers or knives, but if for example I want to use its traits with claws or a fast curved sword, I can’t do it even if it would make sense and could be my new favorite way to play the game.

Obviously, this system makes the game easier to balance, whereas if all traits were freely usable with all weapons and with all the other traits of other classes, it could be very difficult to manage.

But it’s a very limiting system if each weapon corresponds only to one class.

Even if there are multiple classes that would host a weapon well, players won’t feel satisfied using that weapon only with the class to which it belongs, so even if they like the weapon, they end up not using it only because of the class.

If every weapon had the ability to be moved to other classes, in a similar way as in Elden Ring with scalings, the system would be much more satisfying.

Obviously the fact that you can move a weapon to a different class does not mean that you can move it to all classes…

@sBAM

Paladin: Charged Attack Class. Smite. Retribution. Auras.

…There is no point in moving a weapon without charged attacks into the “Paladin” class.

@sBAM

you need to master a weapon to extract it’s runes.

Also this thing about mastering a Weapon to Extract runes is clearly problematic, but if they really want to have this mechanic of mastering a Weapon it would work fine if mastering is what allows you to change the class of the weapon.

[Ortu]

First Preview of our Class System

I don’t know where this idea is coming from. Folks, if anything, the CURRENT ATTRIBUTE SYSTEMS lock you way more into one class. The new system we’re cooking up will not do that and you’ll be able to complement this one class with abilities from the other, etc. On top of that, we can allow players to mix and match skills way more easily this way. The intention isn’t to lock players into a class and then they can’t try new stuff, the exact opposite is the case. Let’s look at a practical exampl…

Thomas said this a year ago, so better let them cook.

I saw countless other responses from his side in that thread, trying to explain, I don’t even understand how he got the patience to do that..

He also said that the changes will be introduced in 1.0 and they will have a PTR before that.

[Lombix_4]

@First Preview of our Class System

you’ll be able to complement this one class with abilities from the other, etc.

So everything’s fine! Thank goodness.

@sBAM could be a good idea to Add this crucial information to the main topic.

I’m still bothered by the fact that I can’t move the runes freely though…

[Ortu]

But I would like to say one more thing, the current system does lock you into a single “class” until late in the game, and it was the same with Elden Ring (cause of limited respec possibilities and the first respec was naturally somewhere mid game if I remember correctly), so in Elden Ring for example there was build variety but you had to plan ahead, or respec later. Other soulslikes are even worse.

The easiest solution (not necessarily better) in NRFTW would’ve been to allow respec-ing sooner in the game and at a lower cost. But they want to do more, I don’t understand why given that they already had a system in place but I respect the decision.

Personally I would prefer for them to release the full 1.0 story first to provide feedback on it and then to work on progression systems. Maybe that is what they are actually doing.