The Classless System and Respeccing

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There has been a lot of discussion about respeccing and the classless system so here is my take.

The Crux of the matter.

For years we have been conditioned by ARPGs and CRPGs to know what to expect when investing into stats or a class. We can also visually see what we can expect at later levels, namely, skills and abilities through skill trees.

Wicked does this differently, with their soft class system but there are technically still ‘‘classes’’. Namely:

  1. Pure Strength
  2. Pure Dexterity
  3. Pure Intelligence
  4. Pure Faith
  5. Strength/Dexterity Hybrid
  6. Strength/Intelligence Hybrid
  7. Strength/Faith Hybrid
  8. Dexterity/Intelligence Hybrid
  9. Dexterity/Faith Hybrid
  10. Intelligence/Faith Hybrid

We all have our expectations when investing into a stat and committing to one or two. We would assume that investing into Strength is for fighters or warriors. And investing into Faith for clerics, a hybrid between Faith and Strength would then be a paladin. I think this is a logical assumption and looking at the gear this holds true to an extent.

However, this might not be obvious for everyone. Some people might see a new weapon and invest their Stat points towards the stat requirement of said weapon because it looks cool. Only to later find out they don’t like the weapon or other weapons associated with the invested stats.

Another ‘‘issue’’ could be when you are, for example, a Strength build and find a new 2-Handed Sword; and are excited to use it. Only to find out it uses Intelligence as it’s scaling. Now, a player fully investing into Intelligence will be well surprised about this. And can now live out his: ‘‘and then the wizard pulls out his great sword’’, fantasy.

Or you might find a new cool weapon and want to try it out but can’t due to your stat distribution. Some of us might save it for another character for another run. Whereas as others want to try it out on their current character due to the limited amount of time they have to spend on games.

I think a big part of the issue is that people invest into stats due to a weapon they find and don’t give it any further thought.

Players have so much freedom that it becomes easier to make a ‘‘mistake’’.

Therefore, players should be allowed to experiment in a controlled setting but still have a feeling of commitment to their build and or ‘‘class’’ they imagine they are playing.

Here are three suggestions which I think should help facilitate this.

  1. Training grounds where you can freely test any new weapon you find regardless of stat requirements. In the North-Eastern part of Sacrament there already is an area that looks like a training ground.
  2. Allow for limited respeccing.
  3. A more in-depth tutorial on the classless system that helps people understand how to invest their stat points, pure or hybrid. Maybe with pictures so players can have some inspiration and understand that even with a stat like Intelligence they can still rock a great sword.

Finally

I think we can have full trust in Moon Studios to do what is best for their game and its player base. Especially given their commitment to this project and their interactions with the community so far. Don’t give up on your vision Moon, this game is truly one of its kind!

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

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Most balanced take on the topic across the entire forum :+1:

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I second this, and I would add the following: since the idea here is to be “souls-like”, its fine if a big weapon requires SOME investment in int or faith. We had plenty of those throughout the Souls games. But it was rarely if ever an equal investment. In Souls you might need like 40 str and 15 or 20 of another - not 40 and 40. You’d also have better str scaling than faith or int.

Getting a greatsword or a shield that requires 40 str AND 40 faith/int just seems basically wrong.

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I think this works in other Souls games because different stats do different things. Every stat does something besides adding attribute damage.

Whereas, in Wicked, currently, it is only attribute damage and a main-hand, off-hand requirement.

I also tested some attribute scaling and it seems that spending stats evenly across 2 different stats increases hybrid attribute damage the most.

Below is an example showing damage on two different Str/Dex Hybrid weapons. And how stat allocation affects damage.

Strength Focus:

Str Dex Hybrid Str Bonus
Str Dex Hybrid Str Bonus3440×1440 287 KB

Dexterity Focus:

Str Dex Hybrid Dex Bonus
Str Dex Hybrid Dex Bonus3440×1440 293 KB

Hybrid Focus:

Str Dex Hybrid Hybrid Bonus
Str Dex Hybrid Hybrid Bonus3440×1440 295 KB

Hybrid Investment seems to come out on top in this example. I imagine results would be more skewed if I had less of either Strength or Dexterity and invested in the other.

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I like the idea of respecing, it should be only accessable only after level 20 and you need plague ichor to do it from the watcher. So it could be 1st respec is free, then each respec cost 1 plague ichor each time.

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Here’s the problem: Wicked isn’t really classless.

Skills are normally bound to classes in others games. In Wicked, they are bound to weapons. That would be a fine, workable system if you could use whatever weapon you wanted. But weapons in Wicked have minimum stat requirements for use.

So to use certain weapons (and gain access to their “class” abilities), you need to spend your experience points a certain way. That forces you to allocate your points in the same min-maxing fashion as other games’ class systems.

And in reality, Wicked’s system is even worse than that. Because there’s no “archetype” that the weapon types follow. For instance, some swords scale with Strength. But others scale with Intelligence? Or Faith? Why do I need to meet a minimum Faith requirement to swing a piece of metal?

At least in other games, I know what weapons I will have access to when I choose a particular class. In Wicked, you don’t know what will be required of you until you pick it up. And by then, your points have already been spent, and you’ve already started down a path. If you want to experiment with a new weapon, you either have to grind levels and meet the stat requirement for the new weapon, or start afresh with a new character.

Skyrim handled the classless system perfectly. No minimum requirements to use any equipment. Pick it up, use it, and level up by using it, just like in real life.

If Wicked’s developers really want to implement a classless-style system, they need to remove (or at least drastically lower) the minimum stat requirements for using certain weapons.

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I agree with this. Due to stat requirements for weapons and attribute scaling you basically have 10 archetypes. However, there are two important things to take note off.

  1. Even though there are these archetypes you still have a lot of possibilities with your build. Let’s say you want to play as a swashbuckler and due to us being conditioned by ARPs and CRPGs we invest into Dexterity to create this. Now from what I have seen most rapiers and curved swords scale with Dexterity and some require a second stat. This means that investing into Dexterity was the correct idea. Furthermore, it also opens you up to using different weapon types due to not being locked in a class but rather by stats. You can now also use a 2-Handed curved sword or be a dual dagger wielding swashbuckler at the same time.

  2. The other point is that, as you, @EscapedApe , mentioned. Some swords scale with Intelligence or Faith. In essence this takes something away from the Strength builds. But, it instead gives something to another ‘‘archetype’’, giving them more variety in their equipment. Suddenly a Faith build can now use a sword or a 2-Handed axe. I don’t think this is worse, but it is something that we have not seen before. And I quite like it, but, I think a lot of players need to get used to this.

I agree with this. Most of the time when playing a ARPG or CRPG you want to plan your build ahead of time. Some sort of encyclopedia for weapons and their scaling would be nice. But I usually use a specific website for that, but, said website hasn’t been updating their wiki…

I also think respeccing will solve a lot of issues and I think @Alphastrike 's idea that respecs cost 1 plague ichor is fantastic.

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The traditional class system in RPGs solves the problem of player expectations. Players know what gameplay style and strategies to use when they choose a particular class. Everything is clear upfront. That’s why it has always worked.

The problems with Moon Studios’ approach to “classless” character building is that:

  1. Everything is actually less clear, because weapon access is walled behind arbitrary stat requirements, and you don’t know from the outset what stats will be required for particular weapon types (and a guide is not a solution here; the answer needs to be clear from within the game itself).
  2. They are in effect creating a class system by binding skills to weapons, which are in turn bound to stats.

I believe Moon can solve this problem in two ways:

  1. Remove the stat requirements from weapons so that any character can use any weapon. Their proficiency with a weapon can increase with improvement in certain stats, but they should never be barred from using it.
  2. Bind skills to characters, not to weapons.

This second one could be problematic.

I am a software engineer, and I can see from the surface how their system works. Give the way the interface is built, the game would likely need significant redesign to bind skills to characters.

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True. However, you are limited by the boundaries set by the class. Sometimes this can be fixed with Feats, a Subclass or an unique item even. But, you have something to hold onto right. I think in traditional RPGs it is easier to shape the vision of your character but with greater limitations, whereas in Wicked it will depend on your gear, the runes you slot on your gear and your weapons, which in turn depend on your stats.

I think it is important that there is a match between a players roleplay fantasy and their stat investment.

I’ll use an example of what I am currently doing in game. I love paladins, crusaders and knights. So, I want to play as one. I think that to achieve this I need to invest in both Faith and Strength. I think this is a logical assumption. Now, here is the most important part. The gear that drops that scales with Faith and Strength needs to reinforce my idea of Paladin roleplay. I think if Moon achieves that, they are golden. Their CEO stated that there will be over 225 weapons. So I think they will be able to achieve this. Maybe even add Flails as a weapon type :pray:

I would add a third option, limited respeccing. It would interrupt the feeling of an archetype to an extent. But when you see a character you see their equipment not their stats. One example is the rapier that scale with Faith and Intelligence. No clue why it scales with those stats. But when I look at my character I see female Jack (Jacqueline) Sparrow holding a rapier. No one knows I have Intelligence and Faith as my main stats. And they Don’t do anything besides weapon requirements and attribute damage. Therefore, I do think respeccing becomes important to match your roleplay fantasy.

I think this is gonna depend on how well a players interpretation of a class matches with their gear and stats. And if limited respeccing is an option it shouldn’t be an issue.

In my OP I mentioned a training ground where you can freely test any weapon and then respec accordingly. I think that would be a good solution.

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+1
I wanted to go for ranger build, so mostly speccing into dexterity, but been putting some points into other stats to be able to use certain weapons.

Got my first bow drop today (33 hours in) (had to craft first one) and its 26 dex and 26 intelligence, im noooooooo where close 26 INT as I havent put any points towards a “mage” class.

I think they need to change this somehow, i get its rare to find your perfect combo maybe, but it sucks to not be able to use my first bow drop. Especially when I put all my points mostly into dex where its natural a bow would fall into.

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I completely agree. As for respec, how about using ichor to do that? That would make more sense to me than increasing carrying capacity. But given the ichor may be harder to come by having it as an ichor option and brewing a potion to do it ?

Just not sure respec should be free if we can try out weapons at will in a training area.

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Does anyone know if like the runes skills are based on the stats. Like for example if I use an intelligent sword can I shoot fire ball skill with it? Or are the skills based on the weapon type?

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And my suggestion for this was and I started a thread about this yesterday would be a potion you can craft and find with a rare chance. Where you can refund 1 point and another one where you can refund 5 points to help tune your build and try variations without completely being able to quickly change you “class”

What do you think about this option?

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Not all Runes can be bound to all weapon types.

A Fireball spell can be bound to a staff, but not a sword.

This is another limitation that needs to be fixed.

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On top of pointing out that our “class skills” are more tied to weapons, I feel another solution would be to remove the feature that destroys weapons when removing runes. I can understand the reasoning of wanting to make players put more thought into their choices, but this one just feels like a huge nerf, especially when removing any 1 out of 4 runes will destroy the weapon entirely.

As of now, this can be remedied by just having “burner copies” of weapons to gain their runes, but then we’re left relying on randomized drop rates.

I want to be able to throw my spear, but i already have my max of two runes in it. So in order to do so, i need to find another spear i like enough, and another weapon with the Throw skill that i can just burn away. Then i need to go to my spear i’m replacing and decide which of its skills i value the most (my scenario is two, but with a max of 4) and then take it while destroying the weapon.

If that wasn’t enough of a chore, i also have to decide if I want a new spear, or the same spear i currently have, which may require farming if i decide the latter. If i choose the former, i now have to take into account that i need to make sure whatever spear i switch to is compatible with my stats.

If i could just swap out runes at will without fear of losing everything, a significant amount of tediousness is removed.

I’m all for risk/reward systems, but when the balance is so heavily skewed towards high risk/no reward for such a trivial thing, it can really hurt the player experience.

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I think the issue is that weapon requirements seem to be based on the skill(s), the weapon has, not what kind of weapon it is. That’s why you have stuff like two-handed hammers that require a bunch of intelligence because it has some kind of elemental attack. But then you can just extract that rune attack and put it in a different weapon and you can use it no problem. The whole system is just so weird.

So unless you already have a bunch of weapons and know the requirements, you’re discouraged from trying new weapons unless they happen to require the same stats as the weapon you’ve already built for. This sucks, because weapons are all so different and you can’t even try them out to see if you’d like them.

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100% agree, I’ve been posting a lot on this subject. Going a step further, I’m not sure why certain weapons have such insanely high state requirements. This makes sense for legendries, and if Moon wants players to build for a legendary weapon I think that’s all fine and cool. BUT , when any weapon can be upgraded to the highest level and gem’d and enchanted and have specific runes applied, what makes the 26/26 greatsword for your hybrid build WORSE than the 84/84 greatsword that drops a few tiers up?

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No, and honestly limited runes into categories would be an interesting and good fix. The Int/Str hybrid weapons now can be rune’d with things mainly reserved ONLY for greatswords and staves; whereas a STR/DEX greatsword might now get access to dagger only runes for increased mobility or something.

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This is the exact reason we need a limited respec option. You got the gear you wanted but don’t have the stats to use it.

Exactly, it is almost as if it is incentivized to hold off on spending Stat points besides for spending a limited amount like 16 in one stat. And hoarding the rest for a weapon you find and like so you can then use it.

  1. 100% agree about the ichor for respecs, it makes respecs limited and you have to make an informed decision since ichor is a limited resource. It also makes it make more sense lore wise. The ichor is made out to enhance the Cerim so it being able to change your stats feels lore accurate.

  2. If ichors are limited and have another purpose a potion could be a good idea as alternative; it should consist of rare ingredients though.

For melee weapons it seems like they are separated into One-Handed and Two-Handed and then further separated by Piercing, Slashing and Crushing Damage.

I think this is too slow. I agree with where the idea is coming from though. You shouldn’t be able to freely or to easily respec. It should be an informed decision. The main idea is that lets say you spend most of your points into Dexterity like @Zalplays but then find a new bow which is a Dexterity/Intelligence Hybrid. I think you should be able to respec in one go to be able to use the weapon.

Agreed. If you find a weapon that suits your needs but you don’t like the rune you are already at a -1 runes for that weapon. I want to mix and match my weapon with my favorite runes to fully customize my experience as a player.

This is even worse if you find a legendary and you get that dopamine from finding one. And then realize you love the weapon but dislike 1 or 2 runes. We should have some more agency in that regard.

Maybe destroy runes on weapons, and add rune crafting so you can make runes you have extracted. I’ll see if there is a topic about this if not I’ll make one.

Exactly, having a training ground would resolve this easily.

From what I have noticed it seems that the stats depend on the tier of the weapon? Correct me if I’m wrong. They do have logic to them. Most T3 weapons require 32 points to be used. Single stat items require 42 points whereas hybrids require 26/26. Now we account for the base 10 stats and we come to 32.

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A quick summary so far of what seems to happen to players.

  1. We have an idea for a class and want to play as that class in game.
  2. We look at the stats and invest into the stat we think is most appropriate for realizing this idea.
  3. We find a new weapon and want to try it out. It requires a few points in a stat we haven’t spend points in.
  4. We spend the points and don’t like the weapon, and or the rune special.
  5. We find a new weapon that matches our class idea. But it requires investment into a stat we don’t have. Only way to achieve this is by leveling. Then even if we level up it’s the question of whether we like the weapon/runes or not.

The issue boils down to a lack of information to make informed decisions, and the ability to use gear that matches our class ideals.

Problem: We don’t know if we like a weapon unless we try it. But, we can’t since we don’t have the required stats.

Solution 1: Training grounds where we can freely test weapons. This way we can make an informed decision on whether or not we want to respec.

Solution 2: Add limited respeccing bound to plague ichor.

Solution 3: More freedom with runes to mix and match with our favorite weapons.

Solution 4: Ensure that gear matches a players expectations with regards to stat requirements in most cases. Overall, I think the game already does this by adhering to 1 Stat and then sometimes a second Stat.