If 56 'classes' are just animation skins combined with buffs to the same ol'stuff, it will be tragic

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The part that could matter is simply this.

If Intrepid did change it, and make any Templar, based on nearly any concept of Templar from another game (just for reference) that would fit within Ashes, what would be the meaningful difference, if any, between that and a "Cleric/Fighter build"?

BDO has Ninja and Kunoichi as separate 'classes', and a few points of difference between them, and maybe three differences in abilities.

If they had made just one 'Ninja' class and folded the ability choices into one, and simply not gender locked it (not an option for them, but conceptually), it would be the same.

Archetypes are just that. A big fold-in of nearly everything associated, for you to pick and choose from, that's the entire definition of the word.

All that is happening is that Intrepid is not curating how you build your 'Class'.

We see this in other games such as ESO where people give smaller 'cute nicknames' to different builds of the same class, Defplar and Magplar anyone?

This is only a Marketing problem if you assume that a level 24 Cleric who plans to be a High Priest has a build very similar to a level 24 Cleric who plans to be a Templar. The expectation that 'class' means something that is given to you rather than something you build is fine, but it's not like the word Archetype is incorrect here.

If Ashes said 'right, as soon as you choose to be a Templar you have to give up this subset of your healing abilities and we'll give you some new damage abilities, and that will be your class', would this still be a 'marketing problem'?

What if they released the game with 64 "These are the skills and augments you should take for this class."?

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Thanks, actually, (I feel you and I communicate well, so just go with your instincts on whatever my weirdness evokes) answering the 'rhetorical questions' was the point because I was trying to figure out where you stand on a specific thing.

The core point was, as @Ironhope pointed out, they really were reacting to something beyond just the name thing. Your reduction of the concept would be valid in most cases, but it didn't seem to be for their intent. Basically, their post was 'a reaction to something' not necessarily 'an attempt to get an answer from which they could infer specific other things'.

I think Ashes was trying to get at something deeper, which I can at least 'argue for'.

"After a while, things that are very similar and for which the gameplay is the same or has the potential to be mostly the same, are Archetypes, not classes."

If we assume that they can do the Augment thing at least as well as I expect, then 'Level 24 Cleric' and 'Level 30 Apostle' don't play that different if you chose the abilities for the level 24 Cleric to be 'preparation for the Apostle'. And because that falls under the umbrella of 'things they assigned to the Cleric' in order to give you the options for both that 'Pre-Apostle' build and the 'Pre-High Priest' build, they 'have to call it something'.

One could still call it a class, but it's sufficiently differentiated that 'trying to get people to accept a new term for it' might not be a bad idea. Ashes' design structure creates a scenario unlike most other games of this type that I'm aware of. AFAIK in most better-known games that let you do this 'main and sub' combination, you can apply the sub starting really early and therefore your 'class' and the resultant gameplay are set.

So you never need a 'separate name' for 'what you are up until the point where you can apply the rest of your gameplay'. Your 'build' might be different, but it can usually be so different that 'class' applies only in the sense that overlap is possible.

I was asking if you thought that 'explicitly separating the overlap' would be enough to make it okay to call them 'classes', and the answer I infer is 'no' (if I have to reduce it down). The preferred term would probably be 'build' but this also has some connotations I wouldn't necessarily want to use if I were in their position either (I don't even like using it for my own and it fits better there because Cardinal works like what I mentioned).
Neither would I want to use 'role', nor 'path', nor 'specialization'.

I can see how it would have been really difficult for a design whose exposure to the world normally came from words, and videos, and quotes, to come up with and consistently use a new term across all 'encounters', so I see choosing 'Archetype' as a good self-priming decision. I can see why they wouldn't have wanted to imply that Ashes is 'classless' because that will make people think of Albion.

But I'll 'defend' the concept that 'I have an Apostle sharing only 50% of its chosen skills with a High Priest and furthermore changing the effects of some of the shared ones significantly and this result needs a name other than build'.

Even considering that there is a spectrum of skill choices between the 'usual Apostle' and the 'usual High Priest' that creates a gradient, that gradient could be meaningfully 'removed' by Augments. Ironhope has given us their precise perspective actually:

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I feel that Intrepid is justified in giving a specific separate identifier name to a 'Mage/Summoner'.
I feel it's okay to use a name that fits what prior MMOs would have called a character that plays like a 'standard' Mage/Summoner.
I feel that since that name would have been called 'class' in prior MMOs, players, particularly casual players, are going to call it that anyway, and Intrepid explicitly avoiding doing so is bad.
I don't feel like we can assume that anyone's expectations are being deceived yet. So, one final short analogy.

"If someone tells you that they intend to open a restaurant, and gives you a menu consisting of a lot of common variations of pasta, but warns you that 'we're not actually pasta chefs so we are probably just going to combine whatever base pasta and sauce you tell us but we're still going to advertise arrabiata', I don't think you should call this deceptive until you know that their arrabiata sucks, because it's so relatively hard to do it wrong, and arrabiata is just a term to describe a combination of some things."

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Oof, this, so much.

I like to think, in all arrogance, that I know what they mean by 'balance', but I don't like the use of the term, it feels like their use of the term 'class'. But when you're going into little-charted territory, you still need terms for stuff, unfortunately, and you need terms that laypeople understand (which often end up being misleading to anyone in the intermediate-jungle).

From everything I read, their idea of 'balance' is actually 'you can always find a place for your build where it will be one of the most effective options' and I can see how that would be achievable. It's good enough, since the sort of person that wants to be 'meta' will change, and the person who wants 'personal identity' will 'search for their spot', but I do not envy the Community team's task when MetaBuild A dominates the first real taste of 'Endgame Content' that unlocks.

That's gonna be a rough week. Knowing Ashes, a rough month. If MetaBuild A is also somehow good in Node Siege defense? Rough quarter.

That's what I always find so hard to understand about Ashes, it has two strongly opposed 'marketing goals'. On the one hand it says 'there is no endgame, choice will matter' and on the other 'you can play how you want and it will be fun'. To me this just implies the game will have an extremely fractured community with tiny amounts of mingling that people will then prop up as shining examples of how 'everyone can enjoy the game together if they just let go of their preconceptions and play with friends'.

On the other hand, having 250v250 siege battles means that, at least at some point in the game, there's a chance that Suboptimal-For-Siege characters will actually get to experience it. I wouldn't expect that at 100v100.

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Yes, I think so. You can clarify if I have. See below.

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It seems that if a given person were really upset that they used the word 'classes', that you would be sympathetic and possibly even go so far as to 'side with' such a person if someone provided the counter-argument in question: 'What if they just separated them all out?'

I feel like there are definitely people out there that would view it as a good thing if Templar and Priest were separate Archetypes, and Templar got "Judgement", "Castigation", "Divine Censure" and maybe just one Heal, with Priest getting "Hallowed Ground", "Devotion", "Radiant Burst" and ZERO DPS abilities. I have data on such people.

Mostly in my discussion with Ironhope, I was trying to figure out whether or not they were in that dataset. "Those people that would want 22 classes, but would achieve this number by slicing up the Archetypes into things they considered more focused."

So in your case I was checking if you 'considered this approach to be a more valid path to justifiably using the word 'classes' or if you would require an additional aspect or intention on their part'. And the reason for my inference of 'no' is that your concern seems to be more with 'potential for confusion, and design issues', than with 'at what point of distinction does something become a class?'.

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As has been said to you many times so far...

That's a very interesting opinion you have.

Of course, in this case, it doesn't stand up to anything. You're making an assumption somewhere.

I know this because whenever someone asks you 'what about those people who choose things that aren't optimal' (e.g. Rogues who focus entirely on stealth and not damage) you respond 'why would someone do that?'.

I don't think you understand it, but for your clarity, people like you are the problem . Meta-build makers often don't want to force others to use meta-builds. Some of us want our own meta builds nerfed because crushing people who want something else is unpleasant for everyone.

But along comes someone like you and without realizing it, goes 'Why would you play something other than what makes sense to me/the content?' and enforce the meta. If that 'someone' is in support of something other than the actual meta, they get salty about the current meta. If they are in support of the current meta, they just play it off as 'well that's obviously how it is meant to be'...

And crush people who just want some tweaks to make their weird little niche build viable.

Don't be that person, Dygz. Don't create the meta.