The value of 64 classes

I still personally have the utmost faith in their ability to do this and make at LEAST 40 of them seem distinct, until I see some serious cracks.

And you don't want every single one to feel completely distinct either.

Maybe I'm deluded about my own experiences/skill at design, but I have not generally understood why people think 64 classes is difficult. With the approach Intrepid seems to be taking, I definitely don't expect it to be difficult. And yes, I still expect them to be both 'distinct' and 'useful'. My last attempt at simulating/calculating this based on just names only gave me 12 'potential duds'.

There will definitely be builds and definitely 'common ones', but 'avoiding incompatible aspects of mechanics' is not the same as 'this class combination is worthless'.

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True but even so, some of the core concepts of the Archetype are supposed to come through as the Secondary, and quite often, that will outright add some options to the Primary that it doesn't have, which I consider to be a big deal.

Adding Detargets or Stealth to a Cleric is my intention. I expect this to be very meaningful based on multiple other games where I have these experiences. A fast moving evasive or stealth-capable healer plays completely differently to a 'maxed out effectiveness' Healer or a 'Sometimes Smites The Enemy' Healer.

It may not be worth calling it 'a different class' to some people, but the option to change your kit quite heavily can definitely make it feel like more than just 8.

L2 had 33 (+2 crafter and gatherer) classes. All were really unique (with maybe 3 elemental mages being the closest ones to the "same class" functionality). A few were on the less used side, but still had their benefits in some cases. And imo they were as well-balanced as an mmo can expect to be (outside of a few updates where some were OP ).

Intrepid is trying to balance their design around each archetype being in the party. If they succeed at that, the game will already be way more balanced towards the general class trends in games (that being "more people pick dps than supports"). 4 archs being dps with another one as a potential dps too and 3 supports seems like a good distribution of archetypes to me.

And then you add the augments that could help players lean to the other side of the spectrum and you could potentially support parties that have doubles or even triples of the same archetype, but with some of those players playing an off-archetype role. This would promote party play even more.

And if the majority of people are playing in parties, to me, that seems like all classes being valuable (cause people will still have preferences for classes, so each party setup will differ amongst themselves). Obviously we'll have less popular classes, but at that point it'll be on Intrepid do design pve (and potentially pvp too) in such a way that those classes have more uses in the game. And with classes being switchable, all the minmaxers will be able to adjust however they want.

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Yes, they were all absolutely the same. Like, literally did the same thing, so you would've hated it which is why I'm glad you never touched it.

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Right, but at what point do 'different build options' become a different class in a Fantasy MMO?

I don't consider it more useful to make three different but rigidly defined healers who all 'heal, but slightly differently'. It's definitely not bad, but what's the point of it?

There's only so many things to do in an MMO's mechanics, to me, everything's just shuffling those mechanics around. I think I'm usually more annoyed the other way.

@Depraved @Taleof2Cities

I'm moreso saying that most MMOs I played that have 'more classes than this' don't really have more 'Classes' they have 'rigid builds of concepts that they call different classes' or 'some rigid and some hybrids to pad that out'.

The ones you are referring to are more like what I expect, yes. I understand the Class Fantasy, but a lot of that is bundled into skill trees in Ashes anyway.

"Here is my Armored Tank character, they block with their shield and push back and bash the enemy."
"Here is my Armored Myrmidon, they block with their Greatsword and Shoulder Charge the enemy."

I feel like based on my Alpha-1 experience, Ashes would have both of those be Tank, they could even be Tank/Tank. OTHER games sometimes make this stuff and go 'New Class Release!' mainly for the hype.

Maybe it's all semantics in the end anyway, as long as people are happy, my problem is that I don't ever understand why anyone isn't happy with what we are supposedly getting. I didn't take every Cleric skill in A1 and we've been told that a player basically CAN'T, so you might as well go hard on your own concept.

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Bard/Summoner so you can summon copies of yourself and have a whole marching band.