Is 64 classes still a good idea?

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In a vain attempt to get this back closer to topic...

In a game with even 64 variations, not even classes, you'd have to have so many different 'technical goals' for any potential characterization, that this would nearly never be your goal even if you were basically pure DPS .

That's also not necessarily how you would use the information. So, 64 classes is specifically a good idea if a designer wants the simplistic use/perspective on Combat Trackers to be a bad idea. 64 classes is a good idea if you want people to just 'not bother with randos claiming stuff about builds because they downloaded a tracker and saw that they had better numbers after hitting a thing for a minute'.

(I want to stick close to your own example but it's the type I tend to pick apart and that's not the purpose of this thread).

A Mage whose role in their party is to be the killshot finisher will increase Magic Attack. A Mage whose role in their party is Mana management is more likely to increase Casting Speed. It is good for us to have different sensible ways to play Mage. Perhaps even by changing Secondary Archetype and building a 'class' that does it that way.

We have not received permission from Depraved to share the quoted post.

Ok but WHY are we discussing that? I didn't see anyone else discussing that, you're the one who brought it to the discussion.

You said something (paraphrasing) about how if you used a tracker (incorrectly) in L2, then you would come to certain (incorrect) conclusions.

But who cares? That has nothing to do with the topic. I know from my research that L2 was not shallow enough for this to be an issue except in its variety in gear. Nearly no game is as gear-shallow as L2/BDO unless it wants to be, and Ashes probably doesn't want to be.

So we expect '64 classes' because the game isn't trying to be some easymode-to-understand cash grab like most of its Korean counterparts. It's never that you can't make them, it's that people get cranky about having to think and rush off to find a guide from someone who did the thinking for them (and hence, the only influence that trackers have on this equation).

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Which reminds me that I had something to say about this, for Intrepid.

I want to feel it., and though I know you can't easily do it by the things mentioned other than the Icon, I want to be able to tell at a glance somehow .

I'm not talking about spec, but rather things like giving players LESS control over the color theme of their abilities so that the rest of us can partially tell what's happening within the huge chaos that is 'PvP group combat'. Nuance is great, even misdirection is fine with me, but if an Acolyte's Arcane Volley is applying 'Death Augment' DoT/debuff to me, I really want to know which one is the Acolyte at least by trying to work out the source direction.

I want those projectiles to be lil' purple skulls or something. Particularly because, even with a Combat Log, the design for abilities so far really makes me feel like that is gonna be scrolling by so fast in PvP that there will not be time to focus on it, as it should be.

But as the person whose job it is to 'extend or meet your intended TTK', that matters a lot, and this isn't Predecessor where I will 'be reading the Combat Log after I die to see the effects from the one who killed me'.

Even with subgroups, 250 v 250, I need to be able to recognize 'The Volley Of Death'.