The WAR fansite community is abuzz today over Mark Jacob's earlier announcements. You can find those in an MMORPG.com interview here. I'm sure you've already seen it. I'm sure you have an opinion about it, and I'm sure it's not super-duper positive (if it is, you may need a reality check).
I'm going to skip the crap, and get to the part I'm upset over: the cutting of classes.
I have to admit I had to read the passage three or four times to make sure I'd gotten it right. I'm not going to lie, it seems like publicity suicide. I'm pissed and I really didn't have any intention of playing those classes. If they'd cut Swordmaster, I would probably have thrown a hissy fit right there at my computer, logged into my Amazon account, and canceled my pre-order on the spot, and I'm not usually prone to rash decision making, or lording my "customer rights" over the developer.
My group got lucky, we had one guy who was thinking he might go Hammerer, but that's it. I can only imagine the people who had their heart set on one of the cut classes, or guilds who had several people affected by the cuts.
I have to assume that Mythic had an excellent reason for cutting these classes, they said the classes cut were not distinctive or strong enough. This tells me there was a problem with the classes' mechanics. Does this bode ill for the Ironbreaker, who shares a mechanic with the recently cut Blackguard, or the Chosen who shares a mechanic with KotBS?
What exactly wasn't working with the melee DPS (hammerer, choppa)? Were they having problems getting kited, or was it too difficult to balance their survivability (medium armor) with their damage? Why were the stealth (Witch Elves and Hunters) and pet classes (White Lion) not having similar problems? What about the Marauder?
Were the hammerer and choppa's mechanics giving them class specific problems? Did their momentum mechanic make them early and frequent targets for focus fire? Did they not have adequate mitigation or escape mechanisms?
Is it possible that the melee dps were so fragile they couldn't make it to their targets without stealth or a built in tank (aka pet)? Or that they had to resort to running in well after the fight had already commenced to avoid focus fire?
Of course, we do have to salute Mythic for doing what they think is best. Cutting classes must have been very difficult for them to do, and I'm sure they knew the response would be widely negative. Mythic's commitment to excellence is admirable, let's hope it doesn't bite them in the ass.
Look for more on this later,
Stormcrow
Hello world!
2 years ago
5 comments:
Some great analysis on the dropped classes. Let's hope we get some answers from MJ.
I don't think any amount of rationalizing or apologizing is going to make up for the fact that they aren't delivering on some key promises. It would be interesting to know what is printed on the CE pre-order.
"Siege up to six unique cities!"
"Choose from 24 unique classes!"
If so, they may want to work on some repackaging.
I don't think it was an issue of balancing the classes -- Mythic said that they were not "great".
Which probably means that there were issues of the classes not being fun to play.
@Boat - It may not have been a balance issue before, but I think they just created one by removing them.
EvC = 3E vs. 4C classes
HEvDE = 4HE vs. 3DE classes
GvD = 3G vs. 3D classes
Depending on how these pairings work, balance is potentially shot in 2 out of 3 pairings.
I think balance is on everyone's minds and what they'll do when they do introduce the classes (or their replacements) later on. That's what has really got under my skin today.
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