The upcoming Class system is a bad idea

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1

Hello all,

I hate to make the title seem combative, but it was the best way to draw attention to this issue.

For those of you who don’t know, @thomasmahler showcased a proposed class system. Within it, he outlined how using certain weapons would level up a certain class. You could then obtain traits from those classes to use and mix and match on your character. This WOULD NOT REPLACE THE ATTRIBUTE SYSTEM. Attribute would still exist.

I have been playing RPGs for a long time. It’s my favorite genre. I have picked up a few ideas on what works and what doesn’t. With all due respect to the developers, this is an awful idea. It solves no problems that currently exist, and only creates more problems by constraining the player in arbitrary ways.

To give a bit more context to what I mean, there are primarily 3 character systems in RPGs: Attribute, Class, and Mastery.

The Attribute system is what NRFTW currently uses. It is a fairly straightforward system: leveling gives you attribute points, which you can use to level those attributes that do different things. Those attributes also affect different weapons. Simply level the attributes for your style and whatever weapon you want to use. It’s that simple. If you want to make a “mage” character, you just invest your points into the stats that would govern what would make a “mage”, and the freedom of divesting points means you could make YOUR mage unique to YOUR style. It’s a very simple system that offers a lot of freedom. but it can be difficult to balance.

Class systems are a bit more restrictive, but achieves a bit more in terms of class identity. You level up your class, and your class has access to specific skills, and perhaps weapons, that other classes do not. A Rogue-ish class may bring something to the table a Mage cannot.

The Mastery system is similar to the attribute system, but backwards. Instead of leveling up to distribute points, using certain weapons or armor increases your skills to those weapons or armor. The more you use a thing, the better your character gets with those things.

Sometimes games use a combination of the systems. However, it appears the devs for NRFTW want to somehow use all 3.

It will be an attribute system that determines the effectiveness of weapons. You will use those weapons to level classes associated with those weapons (Daggers for Rogue, Wakazashi for Ninja, etc). Leveling those classes then gains you traits you can use for the final build for your character…

So let’s see if I understand this correctly: if you want to play an a Mage character that uses Staves, but you see a trait in the Rogue class that seems useful, you are FORCED to use a weapon you may not like, that does next to no damage because you didn’t level its respective attribute, to level a class you don’t want to play, just to get that one trait that’s useful. As opposed to just leveling your Intelligence and Focus for your Staff and Spells and calling it a day. Moreover, weapons and armors are fixed to certain classes. Rogues are leveled using Dual Daggers, but Assassins are leveled using Single Daggers? Also, Barbarians are associated with Plate armor? Why are you arbitrarily associating certain weapons to certain archetypes? Do assassins not ever use 1-handed swords or dual daggers?

If I am misunderstanding the proposed system, then please correct me. The current system is great. Maybe the attribute requirements for weapons can be toned down a bit or removed, as it can be a bit arbitrary, but it’s otherwise great. I’m having a blast with it. Your team made a gem with this game. So I mean this with the upmost respect when I say this: don’t fix what isn’t broken.

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I don’t think it works like this, From what I understand the damage, health, stamina depend on the character level, the class level is separated and you only need to unlock the Traits. Therefore you will deal the correct damage.

I understand that if you want a specific effect you might be forced to use a weapon you don’t like, but in my opinion it’s much better than a system like the enchantment system which is actually just RNG, you play a bit with the weapon you don’t like and then you have the trait you want forever.

This system is not new, it has already been used in Final Fantasy Tactics, all the people who have played this game seem to be very happy that this system is being implemented, in Final Fantasy Tactics is called the “job system”.

If you want to ask questions you could ask them here: PSA - An overview of the upcoming class system

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Then I guess I’m behind, I read a post where attributes were still planned.

I understand that the proposed system will be similar to Final Fantasy Tactics… But how is that better than what we have now?

The job system is very limiting. One of the biggest gripes with the job system is the lack of build-crafting.

If we wanted to reduce RNG… Just reduce the RNG. How does completely revamping how builds work in this game solve RNG?

They could literally just make it so characters LEARN enchants and traits, and then reduce or even completely get rid of level or stat requirements, but keep the scaling.

This feels like a bait and switch.

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We discussed it on the topic I sent you, read it and also read the messages below.

The new system should be easier to balance, and should be more fluid so you can change the traits at any time.

but in fact they didn’t implement it to reduce RNG, if we want to talk about how to reduce RNG I wrote an entire topic that talks about this: The RNG Problem, Enchantment System & Gem System “TOGETHER” (Update)

The new system looks fun, if we have to talk about doing things in a simple and cohesive way then we would just need to remove the Levels completely and abandon the fake progression that is present in all RPGs and leave everything to the builds you can do, with rings, gems and enchantments. (I know that few people like this idea, I’m saying just to say)

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Thanks for the point to the post, I will give it a read.

But I’m not sure what you mean by fake progression? What do you consider real progression in an RPG then? How does this new system solve the issue of fake progression?

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True progression is when the player learns something and applies it, such as learning the timing of an enemy’s attack, solve puzzles, learn to do more precise platforming.

When you come back to face challenges that you have already faced you beat them with ease because you have learned them.

Fake/False progression is when your character becomes stronger or you have better equipment, if you come back to face a low level enemy you beat him with ease now because you kill him with one or two hits and he doesn’t do any damage to you.

Obviously the “Feke/False progression” said like this seems like a bad thing, but it’s always a question of how it is used practically in the game.

For example if your character is stronger from a narrative point of view fake progression is a cool tool to make the player understand that, Dark Souls uses levels in this way, Leveling up in Dark Souls means consuming souls, and souls make the character stronger not only from a gameplay point of view but also from a lore point of view.

Being stronger in Hollow Knight is a direct consequence of your sharper sword, and charms which are “physical” items in the game that actually exist in lore.

Of course in NRFTRW gems and enchantments really exist, and XP is a bit more vague can be interpreted as your character becoming stronger through the physical and metal effort required to defeat enemies.

But I find that Fake progression is very often overused or overturned.

When it’s overturned you get a “power fantasy” Most RPGs fall into this category especially in the final stages of the game including NRFTW. Your character has become so strong that everything becomes easy, and it’s satisfying at first but then it becomes boring.

Is overused when there is no reason for the mechanics to be introduced, for example in Dark Souls you can upgrade weapons and even armor but upgrading armor is not a very satisfying mechanic and then in fact it was removed in the sequel.

I would say the same for NRFTW, the level of the ships causes more disadvantages to the game than advantages.

Fake progression is problematic when the player beats the obstacle, not by learning but because the character is strong, and it’s even worse when the player is fooled into believing he’s getting better when in reality the game is getting easier.

Fake progression can be problematic on a psychological level because the player is conditioned to believe that the time he spends playing the game is rewarded by the fact that the level goes up when obviously you should play the game because the game is fun not because the number goes up, but you also see it in some posts in this forum, which ask that the level cap should be removed, some of These players have been subjugated, so much so that they believe the game isn’t worth playing if they can’t keep leveling up. when obviously if the game is not worth playing without the levels, then the game is not worth playing even if the levels are infinite.

If you level up and the enemies level up with you, nothing changes, it’s just the number that goes up. If you level up endlessly and the enemies don’t, then you’re ruining the game by making it inexorably simpler until you get bored.

And then in a lot fo games I ask myself can we also stop with this farce and start with all the appropriate stats from the beginning leaving only the components of the builds as the only false progression.

if I lv up my strength and my damage goes from 100 to 110 damage but then the enemies I encounter afterwards have 550 health instead of 500, nothing has changed (Obviously this is a simplistic example).

Is it worth making the games more complex for this gimmick?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no, but often developers add similar mechanics because they’re a commonplace, not because they’ve really thought about it thoroughly.

RAIN WORLD one of my favorite games has no Fake progression, and you don’t miss it, and it makes the game much more playable, simple to develop and balance, and makes the world seem much more real.

Sorry if I went on too long xD.

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PSA - An overview of the upcoming class system
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So I understand what you mean by fake progression vs true progression, but the words you are describing assign a negative and positive connotation, respectively.

What you are describing sounds character progression vs player progression. But the semantics really don’t matter.

In games like Baldur’s Gate 3 (or any other DnD derivative), character progression (or whatever you want to call it) matters because it’s all about optimizing dice rolls in your favor. You can learn the game in and out all you want, but if your character isn’t strong enough to beat an enemy, you’re going to have a bad time. Player progression is knowing when your character’s odds are optimized in their favor in each situation.

In games like NRFTW, or Elden Ring, you can argue that once the player has progressed to a certain point, they can beat anything regardless of character progression (like using a broken sword at level 1 to solo the final boss in Dark Souls 3). However, the vast majority of players will not achieve this level of skill, so they rely on leveling their character. Using the world to make your character stronger to face stronger foes isn’t inherently harmful to the game, nor is it meaningless. Not only that, but it also allows players to create their own character that fits their own respective fantasy. A Mage is limited to Mage things, and Warriors are limited to Warrior things.

In your example of damage vs health, yeah, 110 damage vs 550 health is the same as 100 damage to 500 health. However, 100 damage vs 500 health is not the same as 100 damage vs 550 health. If that is the tipping point to the player, they’re character needs to get stronger to meet the challenge. Rinse and repeat this as you meet stronger and more interesting enemies, and you have 1000 damage and the big boss has 10000 hp. Good luck doing that when you still have 100 damage. You CAN do it, but good luck. The player’s level vs the enemies level is a mechanic that can be implemented poorly or optimally, and gives the opportunity for the player to go with the flow or be a complete lunatic (in a good way) to show off their skills (like Soloing the Soul of Cinder on NG+9 with no armor and a broken sword at level 1 in Dark Souls 3).

My favorite games are all RPGs. This character progression is what literally defines RPGs. I’ve seen it implemented well, and I’ve seen it implemented poorly.. This game, in my opinion, has implemented it well for the most part. The only problems I have found is that the level requirements are rather high for some reason, some of the enchants are unbalanced as heck, and the crafting is an RNG mess. The STR/DEX/INT/FAI is going in the direction of being arbitrary (although it isn’t there yet) because they are supposed to be limiters in what characters are proficient in so one character can’t just do EVERYTHING at 100%. For example, a Warrior-type cannot not suddenly whip out a Mage’s staff and drop a Blizzard. They have limited tools at their disposal and part of the fun is the player figuring out how to allocate and what they can do with those tools. The reason it’s going to be a problem is because we are seeing some Martial Weapon classes have explicit Caster scaling with no real downsides, which defeats the purpose of having those separate damage stats. You can have martial weapons scale with caster stats, but the devs gotta be careful in in their effectiveness and the purpose they serve. No point in being a class that levels Str/Dex to use Swords just for there to be a pure Faith sword that outclasses them all and has the benefit of casting spells . I don’t think we are there yet, but the devs gotta be careful of it.

The problem I have with the announced system is that it goes in the opposite direction and arbitrarily chooses class identity for the player character. Why is one Dagger associated with Assassin while 2 daggers are associated with Rogue? Both weapon sets are associated with both archetypes, but not strictly so. Heck, an Assassin in some cases are Rogue subtype… It just feels really arbitrary.

Sorry for the wall of text. I like this game a lot and want it to succeed.

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I just wanted to chime in here as well, having played many RPGs over the years.

I read the original post, but I am likewise not sure if I understood it correctly, but I am very fond of the current system. Personally, I love when my builds have a commitment to them because if they don’t I feel like playing Jack of All Trades is the only and best way to play. Think of Skyrim for example (while it may not be applicable to what the devs outlined) - you will always inevitably end up doing everything, the only difference being is how you start.

On the flip side of this, if you can too easily respec then your commitments don’t carry any weight what so ever. But it also sucks when what you committed to is useless and you can’t progress the game anymore. This is a hard balance to strike.

With the current system, I am looking forward to possibly playing another NRTW character with a different stat spread and ideas, if I end up doing everything on one character, what even is the replayability then?

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I’m happy with the trade off, being able to change builds at will and being a Jack of All Trades is something I really like, I think this drastically improves the experience during the story and also in the post game, I am ok if the trade off is that you make fewer new characters.

But I don’t think this will actually be the consequence, The devs have currently made a nice post-game system to provide a lot of replayability, but it has some flaws: the purple fog becomes annoying and repetitive, and the loot isn’t satisfying, in my opinion This is a problem mainly caused by the enchantment system and from the reckless use of RNG everywhere (if you’re interested in the discussion on the enchantment system, see here: The RNG Problem, Enchantment System & Gem System “TOGETHER” (Update)), so in the end, it’s more fun to create a character from scratch and redo the story.

The new system ensures that the post-game will have nicer objectives than “farming for embers”, but I think creating a new character will always be fun; playing the story with a different build always has a different charm than playing the post-game and unlocking all the traits.

To unlock the new traits you have to use a new weapon, it’s not something out of your control if you want to focus on one class or two to roleplay you are free to do so.

And will have more traits on that class than a Jack of All Trades, so it has its benefits even if you play only one class.

I recommend you join this conversation too: PSA - An overview of the upcoming class system

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Edit: @Lombix_4 intended to reply you

I agree with you on the replayability part. It would make sense to force us to replay the game as different classes if it allowed for different choices during the story and even roleplay with systems of reputation, karma or something like that. I pay attention to every npc in the Sacrament, I read every dialogue. What is the value of replaying and rereading it when I’ll play a different character (and realm, because of how scaling and all of that works right now). It would also be fine to replay the game if its main focus was on combat, exploration and character building with little to no story. Just like in Terraria. But the story for this game is very important and it’s good, because the story is good. Even if it’s linear.

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it’s not a term I invented, but I can’t find the source, If I search for it in English I don’t find anything but in Italian they talk about exactly what I told you.

The term was coined during a criticism of progression systems in video games, so it has a negative tone.

But as I already said the problem is when the in-game progression is done badly or made to deceive the player not in the tool itself (even if it is overused).

It’s true that progression can also be used to adjust the difficulty, but only a veteran player can recognize when they’re leveling up too much.

If I want to explore the entire area before a boss, I’m much stronger than if I don’t. But I explore because I enjoy it, not because I want to reduce the difficulty of the boss, so in the end, I don’t use level points to balance things out for my skill level. But this is something I realize because I’m an experienced player.

Other players, even if they want a difficult experience, might find themselves becoming too strong by mistake (it happened to my brother).

So if we have to use the system as an internal difficulty adjustment system it should be something more intentional, like how you use buffs and consumables, you shouldn’t become stronger than necessary by accident.

Yes but you always have to consider what I did to get the result of having more damage.

If I simply played the game and upgraded the weapon to the right level, I didn’t make any real decision, but if, like in Hollow Knight, I have to do something specific to get the power, it already has more interesting implications that justify the existence of this type of progression.

If I am satisfied with the damage I inflict and decide to level up my health, I arrive in a new area and inflict little damage, then at the next level I put more damage points, vice versa if I am satisfied with my health and decide to increase the damage I arrive in a new area and I need more health at the next level I increase the health.

This dynamic works but is not that interesting.

Let’s say the character is level 30 from the start of the game and you still decide the distribution of points. As you play the game you realize your preferences and decide to sacrifice some damage to get more health.

This would then remain true for all areas and therefore your character will always have the distribution you desire, and you as a player make a choice with clearer consequences.

I understand, but in my opinion it’s not a direct consequence of progression. There are other ways to introduce auto-nerfing into the game for this type of challenge. like the Calamity Ring.

Agree.

It’s like this in Elden ring too and i didn’t find any problems.

The current system is also very arbitrary, the player who has just started playing does not know what will scale the weapons he likes.

Same.

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@Persimmon the first time I read your post I liked it but the more I reread it the less I understand what you mean could you explain again?

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Not sure if it’s just my English or I have the same issue in my native tongue. Basically, I wanted to weigh in on your side in this discussion. That’s probably also why you liked it.

[quote=“saleiv, post:8, topic:23997”]

you will always inevitably end up doing everything, the only difference being is how you start.

[/quote]

Edit: why doesn’t it allow me to quote? :sob:

I like when a game allows me to play it like that. Although even in Terraria if I wanna replay as a certain class I will restart with a new world and character most of the time. All the other cases are when I’m not fully decided on the build (which doesn’t happen that much anymore because the game is old and I played it for a few hundred hours already). But right now I’m only playing NRFTW and I’m in the end game. The only thing that’s left for me now is polishing my current build and farming equipment for theorycrafting other builds. I don’t wanna respec my character because I may wanna play it too. I don’t wanna replay all the quests in a new realm because I don’t wanna rewatch all the cinematics and reread all the dialogues. I also don’t wanna skip them, it makes me feel bad. I’ll probably end up using all the available buffs for experience and ask my friend to help me level in his realm. Which is still awkward. Maybe if the game had more story in it and/or the storyline was more flexible I’d want to replay it. Or maybe I just need to play some other game before replaying NRFTW on a new realm and with a new character. Untill I’m ready to rewatch and reread all of it or until a new update comes.

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Welcome to the worst part of the game XD.

I understand, if you want you could take a character and manually insert it into the game files, even if this choice is a bit strange too…

If you want to level the new character yourself you could enter the current realm, make a armor set full of experience gems, drink the experience potion create a second realm, make as much XP as possible as fast as possible and when you get to lv 20 you can go back to your first realm.

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Guy has a aggressive title
Starts with “I have been playing RPGs for a long time”
Trust me bro type of situation
Tells the dev to not even try the new system

Bro like, do you know who has a great experience playing RPGs? Hmm IDK maybe the Devs itself?

Like let them try, if it sux they can revert IF THEY want it.

Save your feedback to when you actually see the big picture.

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I think the opposite. With the current system, you get bored pretty quickly after trying several builds. It’s even quite repetitive when you use the same damage enchantments very often.

Classes would help structure things a bit and add more depth to the game.

They never said they would remove the attribute system. Just that there would be a class level to gain based on the equipment used.

Moon Studios aims to draw inspiration from the FFT class system, which is the best class system in my opinion.

If each class provides a specific ability without destroying the attribute system, it’s a win-win situation.

Because, let’s face it, the current build system is a mess with all the possible builds lacking structure. We quickly become overwhelmed by all the enchantments and runes, and we all end up making the same overpowered builds—which, at best, represent only 20% of the possible builds.

I think we’ll still be free to make whatever builds we want, as in the current state of the game, but the classes will simply structure everything and give meaning to a larger majority of enchantments and runes.

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They have. Instead you have base health, stamina, and focus that scales with character level. Classes come with additional bonuses to these stats as well as traits that’ll allow you to change equip load as well.

I think It’ll be a huge improvement since current builds are just runes and enchantments. Attributes matter very little and don’t actually contribute anything of value.

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That is a big problem for an action game like NRFTW imo. The leveling or classes both cheapen the experience of just playing the game. Same with dark souls, you can see how leveling breaks the game in elden ring for instance.

If a progression system is required, just limit it to health and damage like sekiro. Make every weapon available, and their stamina consumption would match their moveset and damage. This will make balancing easier too.

I just don’t see with the combat system that NRFTW has, why does it need rpg systems.

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I think people get overwhelmed, because there are too many systems working at the same time with many of them completely RNG. Adding class system would remove levels and replace it with a more complicated more grindy system.

And I’m assuming the traits work the same way as runes now, where they unlock special attacks and aren’t just passive buffs…

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So I watched thst video of lead designer talking about class system. While I still think it would be best with neither attributes or classes, removing stat requirements for weapons is very good, so it’s a huge step up.

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