Sects largely came about to avoid the thing where you had half a dozen different players going through the same god shell, playing the same being in different ways, having to try and meet the expectations of the players who followed them. The new person playing Baar still had to act all properly Baar like and was expected to remember things that the last Baar was doing.
I feel like there was a better way to do that though than kill off the concept entirely.
There were definitely flaws in the Order system - I of all people would know about them. However, there was a decade of roleplay and effort put into these organizations. Losing them sapped a lot of the 'life' out of the game and made it very sterile. You might love Conquest and Flame, but they'll never be War or Wrath.
Eh. We had way too many Gods, most of whom would never be active again, and every volunteer who went through the system was basically forced into playing one of a small handful of those roles if they ever wanted to have an Order. The entire God system was flawed from the start and, generally, Sects are better than Orders in basically every way. The only major problem I have with sects is that the sect ritual system can make sect selection a metagame choice, in that I refuse to join any sect that doesn't have Protective because of the combat utility.
The major problem with sects is basically just another facet of the major problem Imperian is facing now: The game has to change if it wants to improve gain players, but all of the established players are entrenched and don't want change.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
What was so special about War or Wrath? I wasn't here for them.
I feel like entities should do cool guest appearance stuff like Urzog did. I don't really want them to be around all the time and get too close to players, but entities have lots of potential to be catalysts for stuff happening.
I just know that Orders tended to be this cool kids club in all of the games. But also, that cool kids club had exclusive access to incredibly powerful mechanics. That was partly necessity for the Order, because every death cost them. So it was a built in justification for being exclusive. But a lot of the justification usually seemed to be RP based, too. (Some) people liked the exclusivity as much as anything else I think, and the main reason that exclusivity actually mattered was that they were gatekeepers to powerful mechanics, and really, an entire conflict system.
It's actually a lot like old Guilds at that point. I HAVE to go along with YOUR RP, in order to get access to stuff I need. Except, it's even stronger than old Guilds, because there's no formal, or even semi-formal assumption that I need to be in an Order, so there's no oversight saying "hey, you can't be totally unreasonable about denying people access to this stuff". And you can make me jump through as many hoops as you want. Because Highfavour. Sanctuary. Shrine powers.
With sects, this hasn't proved true so far. In fact, we all scramble to grab new guy as fast as we can. I think that's great. Because sect mechanics are strong. Most people should have access to them or it becomes a balance issue I think.
To me Gods are yet another one of those "cool concept" things that feels like a really bad idea in practice for the reasons I stated early on in the thread. The God (or super entity) is a player, plucked from the player population, and is then put in this incredibly powerful role, that also has admin aspects to it. And then, they establish close relationships with a small group of players (that they may in fact already have known as a regular player). I think this has incredible potential to be problematic even with a very, very ethically minded player in the God role. And pretty much everyone always believes they're being ethical.
And that's if the God and the other players really click. Conquest, which is by far the biggest, most successful sect in the game, has specifically avoided having an entity. I think because any entity (or God) player IS going to be a player. They might be great. But they might NOT be great. And now, they are just sort of "in charge" indefinitely. You have to deal with them now. If they turn out to be kind of a controlling jerk, now what? Unless they're really, really over the top about it (which would let you get rid of them more quickly), you're probably sort of stuck with them for awhile.
As a sort of aside, I'd like to see some more things that encourage the existence of ~2-3 robust sects per circle, and reward that mechanically. Mainly because I am just really big on people always having at least a couple of options. As things stand now, once one sect has a certain amount of momentum, we literally feel bad trying to get someone to go to another sect. When I was in Storms I would be like "ugh, but Conquest has all of the shrines and you are new. If you really want to join us you should come back later".
As a sort of aside, I'd like to see some more things that encourage the existence of ~2-3 robust sects per circle, and reward that mechanically.
You can have the small game you like, or you can have 2-3 robust orgs per circle. Pick one.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
That's fair. Kind of. Robust for me would be like... one of those sects is still almost certainly the biggest, but I would like to see the sects meaningfully complement each other within a circle, and also not horrifically gimp any non-power player that doesn't join the biggest one.
The best example I can think of that exists right now is unfortunately tied to the shrine warfare everyone has grown to hate. And that is that Storms and Hunt can really help out with defiling. In that situation, the circle's sects complement one another. In theory, sect rituals have some similarities, but because so many of them are designed to "help our sect or hurt every other sect (including same circle sect)" I don't think it really has worked out well. If it did, I think there's enough wiggle room for pretty much everyone to pick, say, Protective (which does feel so necessary) and have at least one branch that is unique to your sect. Something like that might actually even be best, because at some point, it's not "complementing each other" it's "ridiculous OP".
Sects do not have to be huge. Especially if they are working together a lot. That said, I actually wouldn't like to see there be more than 3 in a circle (especially if there were more complementary mechanics that reward additional sects) , and I think 2 is ideal, for the reason you're getting at (having a reasonable number of members per sect).
I was behind on this thread, so I'm just going to hit on a couple of the main things to update you.
1. I am still not sure how I am going to deal with city size. Clearly we have to reduce the number of them and we're going to. I am just thinking up a good plan, and then I will present it here.
2. We are currently planning on locking 3 classes to each circle and opening up all the rest of them. This means we have to reskin some of the messages and skills, but it is all cosmetic and should be fairly simple as the functionality will not change.
One problem with reducing the number of cities that was mention was the iron grip the city will have on the circle professions. You only have one city you can belong to. If you don't like them or they don't like you, then you're rogue.
My current plan is release the shard update this weekend. Bust out the profession stuff for the middle of next month (depending on how much work it is). One the profession changes settle in for a couple week we will really attack the org size issue.
I saw posts about admin asking for player opinions. I have done this with a few players and some people have emailed me back. If you would like to contribute, please email me. Include problem spots are and what you think would fix them. I may not do your suggestions, but I will know what you consider problem. If you're going to email, be concise. Sometime people send me 10 page, rambling essays.
For the record, all of my rambling essays have been here. So far. But hey, someone else out there writes rambling essays! Hit me up, we can be friends!
2. We are currently planning on locking 3 classes to each circle and opening up all the rest of them. This means we have to reskin some of the messages and skills, but it is all cosmetic and should be fairly simple as the functionality will not change.
Jokes about wanting monks aside, I don't see how this is going to do anything useful. I don't think people are leaving because they can't play Demonic Outriders. I think people are leaving because the game that you've presented to them isn't 'fun'.
The only thing opening up classes is going to do for -me- is make everything even more generically sterile and boring. Skills that would otherwise be okay for one circle to get won't get implemented unless they can pass the balance muster for the entire game. And when I get bored of things and want to circle hop for a change of scenery? Guess what, the other circles are exactly the same as I just left.
Edit: One 'neutral' class per circle is novel and could make things interesting. Turning the entire class availability paradigm on its head and upending balance entirely? I have no idea what you would even hope to gain.
1. It will allow us to more easily combine existing cities, which has to be done. People who want to play a certain profession but hate a certain city will not be screwed over as bad. Unless they are really set on a specific profession.
2. I don't agree that each city will be the same. With three professions that are locked to a circle, all of the circles will not be the same. The 10 other professions will be opened up. For example, AM will probably be the only circle with Templars and Priests.
1. It will allow us to more easily combine existing cities, which has to be done. People who want to play a certain profession but hate a certain city will not be screwed over as bad. Unless they are really set on a specific profession.
This still doesn't solve the problem of gating mechanisms the game has for things like shard skills. The number one complaint about people not being able to go "rogue" is the lack of access to shard skills which are super important. No one cried about not being able to be an anti-magick druid or summoner; the mirrors sort of solved that problem.
Put another way, changing circle access to professions won't solve the problem of "this org that gates a whole lot of shard skittle mechanics I need" won't let me join.
He means like, unless I am hellbent on playing Templar, I can try to go to Magick or Demonic cities, and still have access to nearly all classes. It does sort of work, although, I still feel like there are going to be huge internal power struggles between pro-conflict people and less conflict oriented people if there is just one org per circle, and the circles might shake out even more extremely than they have lately once the dust settles. Although it's hard to imagine a situation more extreme than Antioch (which I say with nothing but love, and also, the realization that that kind of extreme PK player clustering in one circle is horrible for the game longterm).
In fact, the situation could easily become that, even if people are willing to take the hit of moving to a new circle in order to make conflict more balanced and interesting, that org may be so stacked against conflict it will just say "no, we don't want your kind here". And, one org will probably end up being the org that treats conflict oriented people better and makes them feel more welcome. So it will be even harder to split a PK powerhouse up than it is now - because people REALLY won't want to leave, and they REALLY might not be welcome if they try to leave despite that.
In my head it seems it would be Magick: Druid, Runeguard, Bard Demonic: Summoner, Diabolist, Deathknight Anti-Magick: Templar, Monk, Priest
This set would keep all the ranged professions, mana kill professions and buffbots faction locked.
That would be 7/9 correct, as per the current plan (which may still change).
Anyway - there are going to be challenges for sure, but that is not a bad thing. As Jeremy mentions, opening up a few professions is a necessary step towards being able to have one city-like org per circle, instead of the existing two.
We'll of course have the "big" classlead round a few weeks after the changes land, where the arising problems can be resolved.
Dissenting opinion: I think that making most of the classes neutral classes will help.
One major problem in this game is that when you get bored with a faction or your city and want to leave it, you're looking at a pretty high price to do so; half a profession is roughly 425 credits and then you have losses on any class specific artifacts associated with your old class and the potential costs on the artifacts associated with your new one. And then once you join the circle you have all these new skills to learn and all this new system stuff to write and maybe you're not that comfortable/good with coding and you depended on a system somebody made you and then you can't use it anymore. There is a huge cost associated with changing circles and lots of people just vanish rather than pay it.
Neutral classes ignore all that, and so they are a HUGE boon to the more casual player who might be a little bored with where their character is but can't afford to do anything about it. That in and of itself is a huge boost to a game that needs to keep the population it already has.
That aside, it also makes game balance much easier, not much harder. This is because, right now, classleads are heavily factionalized. It's hard for AM to get nerfs to demonic/magick abilities right now, because AM is high and demonic is low. When we suggest, say, "Maybe Wytchen shouldn't get to prop a totem for a potential 60% max health damage while maintaining 100% of their offense", it comes off as something more like "Hey these guys we're beating the tar out of are overpowered and you should nerf them". And it also means that our "Templar is really pretty awful and can use buffs" classleads come off like "This class that we are using to pound demonic into the mud? It's sort of weak, please buff it".
Opening up classes to all the circle removes a lot of those problems with balance since everybody will be affected by the changes.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
^^^I agree so much, but I have a feeling it was discussed and the answer was "(enough) people will scream bloody murder and have a tantrum if we don't leave some circle specific classes"
Having Thespia and Rites in the same circle would be a huge mistake so hopefully I am 8/9 correct.
And you can't switch out any of the Demonic professions without screwing with the mana kill, ranged, knight balance so, unless you are making sweeping changes to those professions along with the change I don't see any other set working.
1. It will allow us to more easily combine existing cities, which has to be done. People who want to play a certain profession but hate a certain city will not be screwed over as bad. Unless they are really set on a specific profession.
2. I don't agree that each city will be the same. With three professions that are locked to a circle, all of the circles will not be the same. The 10 other professions will be opened up. For example, AM will probably be the only circle with Templars and Priests.
I understand and appreciate the need to allow options for players struggling under the weight of oppressive and/or bad city leadership. However, this seems like a heavy handed solution to an otherwise correctable problem.
I would add allegiances for cities that give people close to, but generally incomplete, support while playing as a rogue. Like possibly, they could ally themselves as a Justicar to Kinsarmar in exchange for the shard skills minus attunements and no access to the obelisk powers. They could join a sect, but only an AM one. They would have access to the city channel, but wouldn't be able to gain rank.
You would make playing within the lines preferable, but negate the generally understood current scenario where it just isn't possible to do at all.
Having Thespia and Rites in the same circle would be a huge mistake so hopefully I am 8/9 correct.
And you can't switch out any of the Demonic professions without screwing with the mana kill, ranged, knight balance so, unless you are making sweeping changes to those professions along with the change I don't see any other set working.
If I had to pick, I'd take mage over bard as the 'static' profession because mage is pretty typecast as magick. Bard has some history of working cross circles.
Neutral classes ignore all that, and so they are a HUGE boon to the more casual player who might be a little bored with where their character is but can't afford to do anything about it. That in and of itself is a huge boost to a game that needs to keep the population it already has.
But neutral classes were never the issue. You could always have a profession but be city/sect/guild-less. You just didn't have access to shard skills.
While I agree that neutral classes might make circle changing easier for the casual player, it still doesn't solve the problem of players controlling orgs that gate access to skills/resources. And reducing to one city (org) per circle (while still having certain classes circle-specific) just exacerbates the problem because now you don't even have the option of switching to the other org in the circle.
That aside, it also makes game balance much easier, not much harder. This is because, right now, classleads are heavily factionalized. It's hard for AM to get nerfs to demonic/magick abilities right now, because AM is high and demonic is low.
At the cost of not allowing things to be interesting!
The game has a history of uniquely 'overpowered' skills that only work in the context of the classes and circles for which they were balanced. Novel combat mechanics like Enlightenment don't work with bards and monks, Outriders cannot possibly co-exist with Druids, Hunters and Malignists are balanced exclusively against the mixed damage type reliances within magick and demonic respectively.
Having to balance every profession against 18 other professions is impossible unless your combat balance equation goes 'does damage, hits with toxins, end of file'.
In my head it seems it would be Magick: Druid, Runeguard, Bard Demonic: Summoner, Diabolist, Deathknight Anti-Magick: Templar, Monk, Priest
This set would keep all the ranged professions, mana kill professions and buffbots faction locked.
That would be 7/9 correct, as per the current plan (which may still change).
One problem I see with this is that if you make all the popular classes non-neutral you're really not fixing the problem at all. I would MUCH rather see Summoner/Druid/Monk all go neutral than all stay aligned. First, they're the most complained about and hardest to balance classes and making them neutral helps that. Secondly, they're some of the most popular classes in their respective circles. They're the classes everybody in the circle is playing and they're the classes that everybody who isn't in the circle wants to play. Making Hunter/Mage/Renegade neutral just means that you'll have people across three circles not playing those professions and it won't change anything.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Ultrix, most players would now have 3 orgs they could try to get into instead of two, basically, with their current prof. I still think it will end badly for the other reasons I said above, though.
And yeah, there a crap ton of profs, all designed to work within circles. Which feels like a gargantuan task to sort into awesome, fun, classes that are balanced within the context of a neutral system. I still think we could afford to cut some (as I detailed on the last page) and not be some crappy, barebones game. And I do think it's so important that they ALL be neutral. I can only guess that admin has reason to believe that enough people will ragequit or something if they do that.
EDIT: I can tell you what's going to happen to the classes that DON'T go neutral. They're going to get nerfed hardest. Down the road, the best classes are going to be the neutral ones. Even if they aren't right now. That actually is a very, very bad thing in the medium term, since as Khizan mentioned, a lot of those classes are extremely popular. Not everyone has multiple profs. Those players will be PISSED. And they truly will be stuck, because class is bound to the circle, with its single org...
There's so many issues with neutral Summoner/Druid/Monk though.. oppression absolves.. blackout lusts.. ranged issues. I'd rather they not be open or the game will only consists of 3 professions that everyone plays and that is a worse situation.
EDIT: I can tell you what's going to happen to the classes that DON'T go neutral. They're going to get nerfed hardest. Down the road, the best classes are going to be the neutral ones. Even if they aren't right now.
I disagree.
I will push as hard as I can to make them the most interesting and dynamic classes in the game, because they're the only ones that matter. The neutral classes will be 'balanced' into oblivion, because you'll have to tune them down against every possibly real and imagined synergy across three circles.
But neutral classes were never the issue. You could always have a profession but be city/sect/guild-less. You just didn't have access to shard skills.
No, the issue I mean is "I am bored in Antioch and I want to go to Demonic, but I only have, say, tri-trans and Survival/Antidotes/Evasion. Going demonic would mean dropping ~400 credits to finish out a new profession or dealing with just having half a profession".
Faced with that choice, lots of people just quit. Neutral professions let people in those professions just switch faction without facing the massive profession switching penalties, so there's a good chance those people will faction swap instead of just quitting.
That's why it is important to include some popular highly-played classes on the neutral list. If all I can take with me are the classes that nobody wants to play, those changes aren't going to help me at all.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
EDIT: I can tell you what's going to happen to the classes that DON'T go neutral. They're going to get nerfed hardest. Down the road, the best classes are going to be the neutral ones. Even if they aren't right now.
I disagree.
I will push as hard as I can to make them the most interesting and dynamic classes in the game, because they're the only ones that matter. The neutral classes will be 'balanced' into oblivion, because you'll have to tune them down against every possibly real and imagined synergy across three circles.
Sure. And you will have most of the game united against you. Check out what the alpha profs are in Achaea. Most of them seem to be neutral. Sylvan seems to be an exception, at least at the moment. But over the course of years now, Serpent, Runeguard, Jester all seem to be incredibly popular, and are very popular with everyone from plebe to professional raider. They certainly do seem to get nerfs. And they also seem to get buffs. And I bet it is because a huge chunk of the game has a vested interest in them being great, playable classes. But everyone also feels the heat if they're way out of line.
EDIT: and eventually, I'd hope that would get corrected, at least to a point, but I think in the medium term (like I said) it could be kind of painful. Those classes would always sort of have targets painted on them though.
EDIT: I can tell you what's going to happen to the classes that DON'T go neutral. They're going to get nerfed hardest. Down the road, the best classes are going to be the neutral ones. Even if they aren't right now. That actually is a very, very bad thing in the medium term, since as Khizan mentioned, a lot of those classes are extremely popular. Not everyone has multiple profs. Those players will be PISSED. And they truly will be stuck, because class is bound to the circle, with its single org...
The only way to make Druid/Summoner/Monk open would be to nerf all of them or the game will only consist of those three professions and those unlucky people who can't afford to pick them up and have chosen the wrong profession. These professions must remain faction locked or the balance of the game and the distribution of the professions will be severely affected negatively.
Of course people single faction minded classlead warriors will continue to try to nerf those professions if they stay locked, but that's the situation we are all accustomed to and ready to handle.
Just off the top of my head, here is a list of things we can avoid dealing with if we kept those three professions locked (which makes sense anyways because it preserves the ranged balance we have).
-Oppression + Mana instakills -Druid Choke/Ashcloud Slow Smoke Stacks -Telepathy Disrupt/Blackout/Radiance + Lust + Choke holding -Multiple ranged strips (even with ICD strips could be coordinated so if one condition fails another can be applied immediately (i.e. kill doppleganger, root strips immediately and vice versa) -Ridiculous Damage Meta with enfeeble/blp instantly giving Druids overwhelm. Monks, Druids and Summoners are all damage powerhouses. -Ridiculous CC and escape. Do you want banish, danaeus, submerge, kai cripple, deliverance, universe, implosion and earthburst all on the same team?
I mean, the whole reason we're talking about wanting to have neutral profs is because people seem to be recognizing that we've repeatedly shown that we are NOT ready to handle "I have OP skill that you don't, and you have OP skill that I don't", or even the flip side of that, which is that things get to a point where buffs actually ARE needed. Sometimes we get where we need to? But it seems like it is WAY harder and slower than it has to be. There are lots of other benefits, like faction mobility, but that was the impetus.
I am sure that is why it was specifically brought up that they shouldn't be part of the initial go, but if they were, they should at least go together. Over the long term though? Yeah, those too please.
The only way to make Druid/Summoner/Monk open would be to nerf all of them or the game will only consist of those three professions and those unlucky people who can't afford to pick them up and have chosen the wrong profession.
This is pretty much how the game goes as it is. AM is monks and outriders, Demonic is summoners and deathknights, and Magick is Druids and Runeguards.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Comments
There were definitely flaws in the Order system - I of all people would know about them. However, there was a decade of roleplay and effort put into these organizations. Losing them sapped a lot of the 'life' out of the game and made it very sterile. You might love Conquest and Flame, but they'll never be War or Wrath.
The major problem with sects is basically just another facet of the major problem Imperian is facing now: The game has to change if it wants to improve gain players, but all of the established players are entrenched and don't want change.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
I feel like entities should do cool guest appearance stuff like Urzog did. I don't really want them to be around all the time and get too close to players, but entities have lots of potential to be catalysts for stuff happening.
I just know that Orders tended to be this cool kids club in all of the games. But also, that cool kids club had exclusive access to incredibly powerful mechanics. That was partly necessity for the Order, because every death cost them. So it was a built in justification for being exclusive. But a lot of the justification usually seemed to be RP based, too. (Some) people liked the exclusivity as much as anything else I think, and the main reason that exclusivity actually mattered was that they were gatekeepers to powerful mechanics, and really, an entire conflict system.
It's actually a lot like old Guilds at that point. I HAVE to go along with YOUR RP, in order to get access to stuff I need. Except, it's even stronger than old Guilds, because there's no formal, or even semi-formal assumption that I need to be in an Order, so there's no oversight saying "hey, you can't be totally unreasonable about denying people access to this stuff". And you can make me jump through as many hoops as you want. Because Highfavour. Sanctuary. Shrine powers.
With sects, this hasn't proved true so far. In fact, we all scramble to grab new guy as fast as we can. I think that's great. Because sect mechanics are strong. Most people should have access to them or it becomes a balance issue I think.
To me Gods are yet another one of those "cool concept" things that feels like a really bad idea in practice for the reasons I stated early on in the thread. The God (or super entity) is a player, plucked from the player population, and is then put in this incredibly powerful role, that also has admin aspects to it. And then, they establish close relationships with a small group of players (that they may in fact already have known as a regular player). I think this has incredible potential to be problematic even with a very, very ethically minded player in the God role. And pretty much everyone always believes they're being ethical.
And that's if the God and the other players really click. Conquest, which is by far the biggest, most successful sect in the game, has specifically avoided having an entity. I think because any entity (or God) player IS going to be a player. They might be great. But they might NOT be great. And now, they are just sort of "in charge" indefinitely. You have to deal with them now. If they turn out to be kind of a controlling jerk, now what? Unless they're really, really over the top about it (which would let you get rid of them more quickly), you're probably sort of stuck with them for awhile.
As a sort of aside, I'd like to see some more things that encourage the existence of ~2-3 robust sects per circle, and reward that mechanically. Mainly because I am just really big on people always having at least a couple of options. As things stand now, once one sect has a certain amount of momentum, we literally feel bad trying to get someone to go to another sect. When I was in Storms I would be like "ugh, but Conquest has all of the shrines and you are new. If you really want to join us you should come back later".
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
The best example I can think of that exists right now is unfortunately tied to the shrine warfare everyone has grown to hate. And that is that Storms and Hunt can really help out with defiling. In that situation, the circle's sects complement one another. In theory, sect rituals have some similarities, but because so many of them are designed to "help our sect or hurt every other sect (including same circle sect)" I don't think it really has worked out well. If it did, I think there's enough wiggle room for pretty much everyone to pick, say, Protective (which does feel so necessary) and have at least one branch that is unique to your sect. Something like that might actually even be best, because at some point, it's not "complementing each other" it's "ridiculous OP".
Sects do not have to be huge. Especially if they are working together a lot. That said, I actually wouldn't like to see there be more than 3 in a circle (especially if there were more complementary mechanics that reward additional sects) , and I think 2 is ideal, for the reason you're getting at (having a reasonable number of members per sect).
I was behind on this thread, so I'm just going to hit on a couple of the main things to update you.
1. I am still not sure how I am going to deal with city size. Clearly we have to reduce the number of them and we're going to. I am just thinking up a good plan, and then I will present it here.
2. We are currently planning on locking 3 classes to each circle and opening up all the rest of them. This means we have to reskin some of the messages and skills, but it is all cosmetic and should be fairly simple as the functionality will not change.
One problem with reducing the number of cities that was mention was the iron grip the city will have on the circle professions. You only have one city you can belong to. If you don't like them or they don't like you, then you're rogue.
My current plan is release the shard update this weekend. Bust out the profession stuff for the middle of next month (depending on how much work it is). One the profession changes settle in for a couple week we will really attack the org size issue.
I saw posts about admin asking for player opinions. I have done this with a few players and some people have emailed me back. If you would like to contribute, please email me. Include problem spots are and what you think would fix them. I may not do your suggestions, but I will know what you consider problem. If you're going to email, be concise. Sometime people send me 10 page, rambling essays.
The only thing opening up classes is going to do for -me- is make everything even more generically sterile and boring. Skills that would otherwise be okay for one circle to get won't get implemented unless they can pass the balance muster for the entire game. And when I get bored of things and want to circle hop for a change of scenery? Guess what, the other circles are exactly the same as I just left.
Edit: One 'neutral' class per circle is novel and could make things interesting. Turning the entire class availability paradigm on its head and upending balance entirely? I have no idea what you would even hope to gain.
1. It will allow us to more easily combine existing cities, which has to be done. People who want to play a certain profession but hate a certain city will not be screwed over as bad. Unless they are really set on a specific profession.
2. I don't agree that each city will be the same. With three professions that are locked to a circle, all of the circles will not be the same. The 10 other professions will be opened up. For example, AM will probably be the only circle with Templars and Priests.
In my head it seems it would be
Magick:
Druid, Runeguard, Bard
Demonic:
Summoner, Diabolist, Deathknight
Anti-Magick:
Templar, Monk, Priest
This set would keep all the ranged professions, mana kill professions and buffbots faction locked.
Put another way, changing circle access to professions won't solve the problem of "this org that gates a whole lot of shard skittle mechanics I need" won't let me join.
In fact, the situation could easily become that, even if people are willing to take the hit of moving to a new circle in order to make conflict more balanced and interesting, that org may be so stacked against conflict it will just say "no, we don't want your kind here". And, one org will probably end up being the org that treats conflict oriented people better and makes them feel more welcome. So it will be even harder to split a PK powerhouse up than it is now - because people REALLY won't want to leave, and they REALLY might not be welcome if they try to leave despite that.
Anyway - there are going to be challenges for sure, but that is not a bad thing. As Jeremy mentions, opening up a few professions is a necessary step towards being able to have one city-like org per circle, instead of the existing two.
We'll of course have the "big" classlead round a few weeks after the changes land, where the arising problems can be resolved.
One major problem in this game is that when you get bored with a faction or your city and want to leave it, you're looking at a pretty high price to do so; half a profession is roughly 425 credits and then you have losses on any class specific artifacts associated with your old class and the potential costs on the artifacts associated with your new one. And then once you join the circle you have all these new skills to learn and all this new system stuff to write and maybe you're not that comfortable/good with coding and you depended on a system somebody made you and then you can't use it anymore. There is a huge cost associated with changing circles and lots of people just vanish rather than pay it.
Neutral classes ignore all that, and so they are a HUGE boon to the more casual player who might be a little bored with where their character is but can't afford to do anything about it. That in and of itself is a huge boost to a game that needs to keep the population it already has.
That aside, it also makes game balance much easier, not much harder. This is because, right now, classleads are heavily factionalized. It's hard for AM to get nerfs to demonic/magick abilities right now, because AM is high and demonic is low. When we suggest, say, "Maybe Wytchen shouldn't get to prop a totem for a potential 60% max health damage while maintaining 100% of their offense", it comes off as something more like "Hey these guys we're beating the tar out of are overpowered and you should nerf them". And it also means that our "Templar is really pretty awful and can use buffs" classleads come off like "This class that we are using to pound demonic into the mud? It's sort of weak, please buff it".
Opening up classes to all the circle removes a lot of those problems with balance since everybody will be affected by the changes.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
And you can't switch out any of the Demonic professions without screwing with the mana kill, ranged, knight balance so, unless you are making sweeping changes to those professions along with the change I don't see any other set working.
I would add allegiances for cities that give people close to, but generally incomplete, support while playing as a rogue. Like possibly, they could ally themselves as a Justicar to Kinsarmar in exchange for the shard skills minus attunements and no access to the obelisk powers. They could join a sect, but only an AM one. They would have access to the city channel, but wouldn't be able to gain rank.
You would make playing within the lines preferable, but negate the generally understood current scenario where it just isn't possible to do at all.
While I agree that neutral classes might make circle changing easier for the casual player, it still doesn't solve the problem of players controlling orgs that gate access to skills/resources. And reducing to one city (org) per circle (while still having certain classes circle-specific) just exacerbates the problem because now you don't even have the option of switching to the other org in the circle.
The game has a history of uniquely 'overpowered' skills that only work in the context of the classes and circles for which they were balanced. Novel combat mechanics like Enlightenment don't work with bards and monks, Outriders cannot possibly co-exist with Druids, Hunters and Malignists are balanced exclusively against the mixed damage type reliances within magick and demonic respectively.
Having to balance every profession against 18 other professions is impossible unless your combat balance equation goes 'does damage, hits with toxins, end of file'.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
And yeah, there a crap ton of profs, all designed to work within circles. Which feels like a gargantuan task to sort into awesome, fun, classes that are balanced within the context of a neutral system. I still think we could afford to cut some (as I detailed on the last page) and not be some crappy, barebones game. And I do think it's so important that they ALL be neutral. I can only guess that admin has reason to believe that enough people will ragequit or something if they do that.
EDIT: I can tell you what's going to happen to the classes that DON'T go neutral. They're going to get nerfed hardest. Down the road, the best classes are going to be the neutral ones. Even if they aren't right now. That actually is a very, very bad thing in the medium term, since as Khizan mentioned, a lot of those classes are extremely popular. Not everyone has multiple profs. Those players will be PISSED. And they truly will be stuck, because class is bound to the circle, with its single org...
I will push as hard as I can to make them the most interesting and dynamic classes in the game, because they're the only ones that matter. The neutral classes will be 'balanced' into oblivion, because you'll have to tune them down against every possibly real and imagined synergy across three circles.
Faced with that choice, lots of people just quit. Neutral professions let people in those professions just switch faction without facing the massive profession switching penalties, so there's a good chance those people will faction swap instead of just quitting.
That's why it is important to include some popular highly-played classes on the neutral list. If all I can take with me are the classes that nobody wants to play, those changes aren't going to help me at all.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
EDIT: and eventually, I'd hope that would get corrected, at least to a point, but I think in the medium term (like I said) it could be kind of painful. Those classes would always sort of have targets painted on them though.
Of course people single faction minded classlead warriors will continue to try to nerf those professions if they stay locked, but that's the situation we are all accustomed to and ready to handle.
Just off the top of my head, here is a list of things we can avoid dealing with if we kept those three professions locked (which makes sense anyways because it preserves the ranged balance we have).
-Oppression + Mana instakills
-Druid Choke/Ashcloud Slow Smoke Stacks
-Telepathy Disrupt/Blackout/Radiance + Lust + Choke holding
-Multiple ranged strips (even with ICD strips could be coordinated so if one condition fails another can be applied immediately (i.e. kill doppleganger, root strips immediately and vice versa)
-Ridiculous Damage Meta with enfeeble/blp instantly giving Druids overwhelm. Monks, Druids and Summoners are all damage powerhouses.
-Ridiculous CC and escape. Do you want banish, danaeus, submerge, kai cripple, deliverance, universe, implosion and earthburst all on the same team?
I am sure that is why it was specifically brought up that they shouldn't be part of the initial go, but if they were, they should at least go together. Over the long term though? Yeah, those too please.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."