Debuffing as primary role

...

Debuffs on a boss means that every actual dps is doing an amount more damage, which scales with how many dps there actually are. If the debuffs are balanced for a small group, they would be absurdly powerful in large groups, while if they're balanced for a large group they would be almost useless in a small group, even moreso when solo. Another problem is that this only takes bosses into account, how would they work against smaller enemies? There are just far to many balance issues to take into account, and most likely they'd end up being either 100% mandatory or completely useless.

Path of exile can pull of a pretty good D2 style necro.

Dragon's Dogma Online has element archer, the hollow shell of what was once magic archer. It was stripped of all of its damage and given the ability to heal, but its primary focus is debuffing, increasing the DPS of the rest of the party through skills like an arrow that explodes when party members hit it, and applying status ailments like freezing bosses when they're vulnerable. The difference between a party with and without an element archer is noticeable, but not so much that you'd go out of your way to specify an EA when searching for a party.

Both of these happened in Phantasy Star Online 2 to the same class. Ranger has a skill called weak bullet that creates a weak point on whatever part of the target it hits. In PSO2, hitting the weak point does anywhere between 2-3x damage. Raid bosses that could be taken out in 2 minutes or less with a ranger would drag on for 8-10 without one. It got to the point where people would abandon parties if there wasn't a ranger. In response, Sega started giving raid bosses massive resistance to weak bullet. It now only boosts damage 20% on bosses implemented in the last year, and since ranger's entire reason to exist is weak bullet, it was obvious to everyone but Sega what would happen with a nerf of that magnitude.

The only way I could see it work would be on a healer type character that debuffs a targets offense as a form of mitigation rather than standard healing. As for offensive debuffs, I could see them being made to work by having them only apply to the next X hits, but if that were the case it would be one of those things that requires absurd coordination from the whole group to properly use. The whole concept is messy and could never work in an mmo type game where most content is designed for group play.

Going to agree with
PoE is basically a complete upgrade to Diablo 2 on the Necromancer front. Debuff your enemies, buff your summons, drown them in waves of zombies and skeletons. Vaal Summon Skeletons in particular is fun as fuck.

It might be better, if we're playing idea goyim here, and just have a few support classes that either buff or debuff others instead of just one exclusively debuffing. Give dps and healers small buffs and debuffs along with it to pretend to be useful. Although sadly, more than likely than not you might just end up with what had happen to with the Ranger. Although maybe not that drastic with a single skill, but that's also implying that games like MMOs would want to have skill be a big factor in deep and complex systems, instead of what we are used to these days

if you have a shit connection don't play spectre summoner

You can get them pretty easily with desecrate in the eternal laboratory, but they are low level. Far from ideal but it's enough to get started.

Pick one.
If it deals average damage on a debuffed enemy, it's just a DPS. If it deals sub-par damage, nobody would play it because nobody wants to slog through the mandatory Modern Theme Park MMO Quest Chain™ to get to end-game content.
The Holy Trinity works at this moment in most shitty modern MMO because
Introducing a fourth option that has neither the damage nor the survivability but some gimmicks that only work in a party setting is a sure-fire way to make a stillborn class. At least in the current MMO environment.

Alright faggots, listen here. Let me share with you my idea for a sort of "balance" in a team-based RPG:

Tank characters have a standard movement speed, the highest hit points, and the highest defenses. Most of their abilities are self-targeted buffs. They can slowly charge up high-powered ultimate attacks effective against bosses but overkill on normal enemies. Pretty much the strongest type but no specific gimmicks.

Scout characters have rapid movement speed, high hit points, and good defenses. Some have specials like animal companions, or trap-setting, or ranged attacks. They can quickly charge up precise ultimate attacks super-effective against normal enemies but not as effective on bosses. Necessary to speed up fights and deal with fast-moving enemies.

Utility characters focus primarily on non-combat skills. They have access to stealth and can perform powerful backstabs, deactivate traps, find secret doors, etc. Can also used poison weapons to deliver DOT and debuffs. Generally the least useful in combat, especially against bosses, but absolutely necessary to progress through most dungeons.

Control characters focus on dealing with large groups of weaker enemies, administering debuffs, and dispelling the buffs of enemies. Can also counter the spells of spell-casting enemies or otherwise act as an anti-caster. Absolutely necessary against magic-using bosses, or bosses with magical support; also necessary to quickly clear large hordes of adds or minion-creatures. Instead of having ultimate abilities, may charge-up other abilities to be more powerful through longer casting times.

Support characters have access to healing and protective abilities. Needed to keep party members alive for as long as possible. Also tend towards specific counters, such as anti-undead effects, or anti-demon, or anti-mage, etc; essentially the crutch for the party, covering up for deficiencies and keeping the others alive, though otherwise lacking in damage dealing. Employ incredibly powerful but single-use ultimate abilities that can be used as a last-ditch save, generally of a supportive nature.

Five roles. Someone's going to play the Thief.

No I'm stating things. If you got some evidence that less or more than 99% of games feature you as the hero I daresay it comes down to semantics. Fact of the matter is that there's such a miniscule amount of games where you are the bad guy that they almost do not exist. And as a result of that, since you are not the bad guy, you do not play as necromancers.

I know how you feel dude. I think the game itself would need some mechanics outside of that role which it could play around with to make it interesting though. Stuff like durability and hunger/thirst so that you could be a dick and wreck people's equipment mid-battle or starve/dehydrate them.

It's a difficult role to make decent without turning it into some OP bullshit or have it become completely useless on its own. I think making it largely single target would be best.
Do you give the role a melee weapon like a dagger? A 'debuffer' wouldn't be particularly tanky, so perhaps keeping it ranged would be better. But then do you give it anything more offensive attacks beyond the debuffs and DoTs? "Nukes" are a bad idea, so giving it a single thematic Magic Missle would be a better choice that would really shine when the target has a certain (amount) of debuffs.
I think having a limit on the amount of debuffs you can apply per target would be an easy way to prevent immediate OP bullshitery and would force the player to use different debuffs for different characters instead of just splurging them all out every time.

I'll stop my ideafag rambling now, but in the end it's just easier to throw in the holy trinity and be done with it. Especially with the MMO market being what it is nowadays, I wouldn't hold my breath for anything cool like what you want, OP.
Gooks hate fun.

It sounds pretty cool but its never going to work in a game unless you somehow manage to tailor a game entirely around a new gameplay loop that doesn't even resemble something like World of Warcraft. And even in your wildest fantasies the gameplay loop has to be more similar to World of Warcraft since you are clearly outlining this as an MMO.

I was thinking more Guild Wars myself. Something that more heavily emphasizes party tactics from the very get-go.

Did you not read my post?

necromancers are the hero no one deserves want proof? here

Dark Age of Camelot had many classes that fit similar roles. It even had a debuff class. Was fun to play until they nerfed it.

gaia online zomg, i just noticed that it is back on the site. its pretty good about debuff specialization

Just make them not stack?

That sounds like the Mesmer class from Guild Wars 1. GW1 is still alive so give it a try. I think you should buy the Trilogy edition (not the Platinum edition) to unlock the most content (including classes).

It seems like this build is what you're after: wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Hexway

Basically have your character take the Mesmer and Necromancer professions and you will have debuffs galore.

Warframe has a number of frames that focus on debuffing enemies, but the game is shit.

It's not an MMO, but I just want to mention hexers from the Etrian Odyssey series for being great debuffers. You can shut bosses down with them. That you're missing an extra damage dealer doesn't matter when the boss can't even act during half its turns.

Guild Wars 1. (The good one, not the shitty one with the "2" at the end)

Silkroad Online had the Warlock.
Drain HP, Curse, Bleed, Slow, Weak, Stun, Time Bomb, Burn and Poison.

Mesmer is fun times. You can make the AI or sufficiently stupid players kill themselves very quickly with domination hexes.

Warlocks in WoW

since we're talking about shit that will never get to be in an MMO but really should be, why isn't potion-making/alchemy more of a thing? Why can't I just spend my time adventuring to dungeons to get rare ingredients and make a game life of mixing the most potent poisons off in some swamp? What about merchant classes? I want to be a roaming shopkeeper and not just idle in the marketplace.

WoW is completely worthless these days and even in the old days they mostly had DoTs, not debuffs. They have a solid variety of debuffs through curses but they can only apply one curse at a time and many of the debuffs were trash. Outside of that 1 curse, they basically had no debuffs. Only a CC and a silence effect from their pet.

Don't remind me. Though I do like the new warlock so I guess that's okay.

Well shit, user. That ship has sailed. I had just the thing written up but there's almost no chance

t. collegefag that was going to go into game programming w/ game design until I found out how shit it is from an employment perspective.

I probably have the document around somewhere if you wanted to give it a read.
The basic gist was having a massive class and hierarchy tree like fire emblem, a materials, crafting, and trading based economy (with minigames for making things like maps, swords, etc.), and an Angels/demons magic system where not everyone can be magic. Yes, it included merchant classes AND alchemy classes.

You would choose up to 4/5 active abilities from all the ones you selected from leveling up through your different class trees in the hierarchy, for MANY combos. Passives would always be active.

Essentially, you could give up your soul to forfeit respawning in the overworld to gain a lot of power and demon magic.. You give up your soul, you give up respawns. blah blah that's why this is spoilered. If I remember correctly, dying meant that you went to hell and your character was deleted, but it gave you a new one based on some of your actions, as a hellspawn. Something about being able to be summoned as a zombie by other players. I do not have the document in front of me.

Light magic would have a seat system so any character could basically go to the church and reset or respec their character to be Holy magic if you got the, by mechanics, lottery for it. Basically finite number of seats, potential randomly assigned and reassigned every x time period if you don't respec during your window. All unknown to the players.

Oh boy don't even get me started on how I wanted the casting system to work or how massive the magic class tree was in the original draft before I thematically cut it to angels/demons. The casting system, the best way to give an example would be pic related. The entire elemental tree was water and affects, like heat, electricity, and kinetic force. Electric steam cloud, anyone?

PvP was going to work in a way where you could either be thrown into a literal jail for your crimes, like robbery, or be excommunicated and hanged for murder for being a bandit. You want the reward of robbery, go ahead, but you take the risk. There would of course be npc or even player created bandit camps somewhere for safety.

I imagined having a melee combat system more similar to For Honor or Dark Souls but with less or no rolling. Maybe like Tera but not really. Honestly if I ever got to the point of getting to develop such a massive and unrealistic goal, I would come up with something interesting.

All in all an impossible dream.

P.S. Oh shit, I did find a couple documents where I vomited out ideas, again if any user wanted a read.

FFXI had debuff and buff focused characters like Red Mages, Geomancers, white mages to an extent, and so on.

Yes the debuffs and buffs meant every dps was doing more damage. The way it worked out there is the buffs stayed within your party that was limited to six people and larger events would use three parties joined together.

It's still pretty cool trying to work out what sort of buffs or debuffs could be best in various situations since there often isn't exactly a right answer.

SE which managed the game made statements regarding their balancing of the game which ended up being a little out there to some people. They basically said they didn't care about making every class balanced to every other class as they all had their individual roles and benefits.

This worked because FFXI only functioned if you're in a party and you will get fucked if you're not in one unless you're a masochist or a solo specialized job like beastmasters. Most of the MMOs out there is mostly single player but with MMOish gameplay.

GW1's Mesmer, depending how you build your character. Of course there aren't that many people left playing it….

City of Heroes/Villains
UNTIL THEY KILLED IT

How about DoT effects damage % of target's health + small boost based on your stats - amount based on target's stats?

Because most people in charge of making games are not creative and lazy. Classes like bard, alchemist, smith, engineer, merchant, smuggler, cartographer, or scribe could be made in a manner that allows them to focus on extra activities, but still be helpful in combat.
For example, smith could be taken along to dungeon to help with repairs. Outside of that, he would still be able to fight, possibly using abilities that weaken enemy armor and weapons. Merchant could pay off enemies, or distract them by throwing coins on the ground. Alchemist could in addition to making and selling potions, also share illegal substances with the party or drink class specific potions that temporary mutate the alchemist into a monster or make golems and homunculi.
But why do that, when making a generic game revolving around trinity is easier.

Sounds interesting. I'd read docs if you would dump them.

EverQuest 2 actually has a few focused around that if I'm not mistaken. There's even a pet class that "hypnotizes" monsters and shit to be your companion. It did a lot to avoid the explicit holy trinity thing.

ufile.io/9cc86 (Desktop ones)
ufile.io/528ba (Laptop ones)

Holla Forums wouldn't let me directly upload .zips
If it doesn't work let me know.
Expires in 30 days apparently, but the thread will be gone by then.

Alright, Here you go user. Found more on my other computer. They include chatlogs where I was bouncing ideas back and forth with another guy. There's about 13 documents. 8 of them were on my desktop, which I THINK are chronologically older. The other 5 were on this computer.
I hadn't managed to come up with a name I liked so I went with NAGO (New Adventure Game Online) as a temporary solution. It's also about playing and more about difficulty of content rather than grinding. I don't like MMO's because many are explicitly about grinding instead of having a character and (not necessarily RPing, but) living out how you want to in the game.
The basic story is basically that your theocratic country is settling this forgotten land because they do that. At the start of the game launch players would have to beat zone bosses which any and all players can fight at one time to open up the map. After a while towns would actually get formed/placed in updates in the open zones etc.
Something else I wanted to mention

Another thing I had forgotten was how zones were set up. Open overworld, (Hell too, is open), and dungeons are instances that you or your party can join.

Also armor, which no game does right. Armor has to be sundered before slashing weapons work WELL. (% chance to hit an unarmored part. Greater for piercing.) Or have to use a hammer.

Definitely open to constructive criticism on all the material, because I might refine it all into a single doc for fun. I'd even bring back the old magic system if it made sense. With the angels/demons setting there were going to be some evil but not killed yet classes that had druid shit and witchcraft. (I planned on making character gender matter for base statline and gain, as well as a few classes exclusive to one gender, like witch, or Bishop or some shit.)
INCLUDING A PROPER AND DECENT (Necromancer → Lich) class hierarchy. If you are that damn successful at being alive AND evil then fine you get respawns back. As long as someone doesn't smash your phylactery heh.

Giant mess of text, here, and in the files? Yes, but it is a massive concept.

I spent quite a bit of free time with this as a muse.

Enjoy!

P.S. If you like this, I have MOAR on other game concepts I've written, but I wouldn't post them here to avoid it becoming shitposting.

Temple map, user. T9 ain't a bad place to start.

Why this? Why design your shit like this?

Debuffing/Utility was actually done reasonably well with Dragon Age: Origins. Bosses would be resistant to debuffs and it was hard to snare them, but you could still him them pretty hard; Misdirection Hit (enemy hits become misses and crits become normal hit) and Death Hit (every hit on enemy becomes critical hit) stand out on that account.

Hell, in general, DA:O had a lot of cool things for mages. You could just go straight damage nuker, or you could take niftier spells (like Mana Clash - only useful against mages, but able to pretty much one-shot them, making the toughest fights in the game trivial). Of course, while Mage gets nifty stuff, it also becomes outright broken, while the other classes get shafted. Which is bad in other ways.

That was the Defender class from City of Heroes. Their primary role was buff/debuff and their heals were secondary. That game was amazing and dropping a defender into any of the current mmos would wreck those games. They were the definition of force multipliers and could only be approached by Controllers, Masterminds and Corrupters. Controllers had a primary focus on mezes or cc as it is currently most known as. Corrupters were dps focused, but had the strongest buffs/debuffs on the villain side. Masterminds(MM) were pet focused with buffs/debuffs as a secondary. MMs had the weakest buffs/debuffs in the game, but they were wrecking machines thanks to Bodyguard and their pets.

WOW, and Everquest before it, ruined mmos by catering to utter retards. I've heard that some people want to resurrect the ip, but it's just going to end up pozzed imo. The only way the City of games could every properly be brought back is in a decade or so once the sjws fuck off.

Because it's really fucking hard to balance without becoming grind2win.

Diablo II

I'll throw out a bump.

I agree with OP that most game dev's today are quite lazy and stick with a strict formula. I tried Tera, and instantly gave up on it's magic system (I didn't even finish the tutorial, it was so awful). It revolves around spamming the same combo of 4 spells over and over again and doing nothing different. Progression is a singular line, where you're supposed to add a part to your combo, or your NEW MAGICAL ADDITION IN SO MANY LEVELS is just a damage upgrade to one of your existing spells. Awful.
The berserker pissed me off because I was able to bind attack and block (Which is an animation cancel) to a macro key and get infinite attack speed at level 1 on the press of a button.

Alas, I digress. Many games these days are absolutely pitiful when it comes to extra roles or anything worth paying a subscription fee, which might be why so many games go f2p-hats because they know they have nothing to offer.

Trinity roles are awful.

Also will somebody finally release one of these games with interesting armor mechanics other than REDUCES DAMAGE. Gee, real creative. A++ 10/10 would waste my money again.

pic not related, but for entertainment.

Back then, an MMO named SMT Imagine had an expertise and a chain expertise dedicated to landing debuff spells and really nasty ailment attacks. With the skill points, you could have a debuffer main with a side class of enhancement or any attack class because of the expertise system.

Mesmer from Guild Wars 1 and 2

They deal in illusions, spell/action denial, and debuffs. Fucking most fun archetype of any RPG/MMORPG

I just want to run a semi-afk teleportation service again, or cast Spirit of Wolf on niggas, or march them around with Selos in my downtime and be thanked profusely for doing so. Hell, I miss the days when I was a completely useless piece of shit outside of a full-party but still vitally necessary, like all debuffer classes.

Something, anything, that is useful and necessary to the world at large while I'm not just running raid xyz for the 99999999999th time. I want MMO's to have community again.

Well then read and tell me what you think user. It's a clustertruck of files but it's there.

FFXI Red mages were a debuff job.

well actually they were a support role, the problem is that all the buffs and debuffs in RDM were single target. they don't have a single AoE spell for one, Diaga, which was total shit, an AoE version of Dia, the weakest spell in the game.

what are these files supposed to be?

MMO concept? a finished game?

MMO/adventure concept I had a shortish while back. Some write stories, I tend to write video game concepts as a muse. Posted it because requested the dump.
There's 2-3 main versions sort of. One had a more strict class system (Original) with weapons/armor usage restrictions. Another is classless (Newer idea), where players find tutors to teach them "skills" which are skill trees containing active abilities and passives so players can create their own class. No limit on the number of skills, but anything above 4? and your maximum level in all the other trees became increasingly more capped.
The third concept (Latest) would be a mix of the two, featuring 1 skill tree per class you spec into and 1 free skill tree to flavor the playerbase a bit.

Notable to this post is the idea of the adventure and the journey, not the grind. Fast travel and recall being a rare privilege, requiring a particular player or an item created by that player.

I originally posted the idea itself
after reading realizing that Holla Forums might enjoy it.

I have other docs for other game concepts I've written, some more formally/cleanly presented and some less.

sounds nice, but we're all idea guys

Guild Wars 1, Curses necro was by far the most powerful class with spells like AoE debuffing wells and the GOAT Spiteful Spirit.

Precisely my point in regards to
Have fun getting a job in that field and if you do have fun getting anywhere close to reasonable hours ever.
An addendum to your point is that we're all idea guys, so everyone thinks their ideas are so good even if they're not. That's not to say my ideas are good, from an objective perspective.

I mean hell, just go to the steam store on a weekend where they sale price 200+ games, and look at all the piles and piles of garbage 99c-$5 games.

"We're all idea guys" was also the reason I had previously been following programming w/ game design, hoping to transition once I got settled in the industry.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

LOTRO has a pet class that focuses on debuffs. Path of Exile also has curse-based builds.

If you don't mind me saying, I haven't started reading your files since Im phone posting, but if you wanted to bring back your old magic tree, just do what D&D/WoW/most other systems and make it so that there are different schools of magic. Elementalist magic can either be a form of nature worship, pacts with elementals, or Captain Planet villain tier exploitation, depending on the group and how they use it. Following this, have Holy and Unholy perhaps based on two particular pantheons that don't particularly care what you do as long as you spread their word in some way. Sure perhaps the good aligned pantheon might not look too kindly on bandits using their God-given magic, but they also just converted 4 people on sheer intimidation and "mercy for not harming them" alone, so it's okay. Or if you want to give penalties for that sort of thing, that's fine too. Maybe a loss of higher level evil powers for not kicking enough puppies, if we're going in that direction. With that in mind you could make it so that Elementalist have to do certain things as well, perhaps specializations of specific elements for benefits. Water and earth might get abilities that heavily screw with terrain, and specializing in both might Net you larger bonuses for crowd controlling players.

As others have said, Mesmer from Guild Wars 1. Mesmer/Necromancers were such a fucking pain holy shit.

Why did they have to ruin everything with Guild Wars 2? ;_;

Dia was actually pretty significant for decreasing defense. It wasn't as noticeable when people initially played FFXI because they targeted high level mobs rather than those a couple levels above them.

yes, dia II and III were useful, but just Dia did basically nothing, and since its a low level spell, the effects were entirely irrelevant, by the time 5% defense mattered you had better versions of Dia, or even Bio to lower attack. having an AoE of that spell and only that spell as your only AoE spell was kind of shit.

I can see your point there. I did want to present a strong view of the church where it's a known fact they're right about they're deity being the real deity. I'd accept the elemental being a manipulation of creation that is, or being shunted into demon magic. That is, of course, if I moulded it into the angels/demons setting. If I brought back the far original concept, magic would simply be another type of energy in the world, like electricity (with it's own scientific laws and such), albeit much more manipulatable, like magic. heh heh bad jokes

If you're still phone posting, magic had several trees:

Elemental: Water, with modifications to it from three aspects: shock, heat (or lack thereof), and kinetic force (to move it around). All mages start out with basic kinetics. they then choose one of the three, then either a second element or a mastery of their chosen aspect.

Druid magic, which is about trees and animals and such. Disables with plants and summons with animals.

Dark Magic. Based purely on knowledge, with a complete lack of intuition or "feel". Extremely rare. On a server of 1000 players where 300 of them are allowed (by rotating lottery window) to become mages, 30 (maximum) of those mages might be Dark Mages. They had class specializations involving Golems (powerful summons limited in number) and necromancy which includes lichdom and summoning npcs and dead players provided certain mechanics exist into various bodies, Nullification magic (Cancel out other magic), Spatial spells (Teleports, telekinesis, etc.), and pure damage (gif related is a good example of their spell aesthetic). For example a master level damage spell I imagined was Yygdrasil, which was an eckbawkshueg ash grey tree with liquid shadow dripping off of it that continuously saps life from enemies and delivers it to your allies. I said powerful, I meant powerful. Not to mention account selling results in immediate account termination to ALL related parties. Remove Chinese account farmers. C:)

Then, there was light magic, which, other than alchemist type classes, is the only other healer in the game. throwing the trinity right under the bus The great thing about Light Mages over alchemists is that they can from a distance, single target heals, AOE heal allies without healing enemies, and have other options. They have specializations for MOAR healslutting, Shielding (EHP, but with different rules.) plus some buffs, and Damage (Fantastic damage source against unnatural type enemies. AKA not regular animals and such, or undeads, etc.)

I had wanted some kind other tree to help flavor the amount of mage players. I had messed around with the idea of time mages but that would be incredibly difficult to balance if they were common.
I suppose I would instead have a general "wizard" tree, where instead of a specific focus, players learn a large amount of various lower tier spells. They would get all kinds of weird buffs, debuffs, utility spells, a fireball here and there, etc.

Supposed Rarity: (Most common to least)
1) Wizard
2) Elemental
3) Light
4) Druid
5) Dark

On a server of 1000 players, where 300 magic seats would be available,
150 wizard/Elemental (mixed bag)
75 light
50 Druid
25 Dark

This kind of system makes magic special, instead of just another component. That being said, casting spells takes a long time (due to the way casting works, which is different for different schools.)
They are squishy, and not too fast. In PvP they would have to be actively protected from faster or stealthier enemy classes.

Of course, I would feel the need to rewrite the entire plot device for why any players are on this continent, and change the respawn excuse (where in the A&D setting it's a supernatural being granting this ability), or add mechanical requirements to it…. and redact hell as a thing.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Potential Idea for respawning would be some kind of huge randomly changing maze where everyone goes when they die. Killing a player in the maze give you a decent hint towards the exit, and an npc a small hint. Dying in the maze starts you off in another spot.

Could also include conditions for various factions or classes like Light mages and those that pledge themselves to the church getting easy respawns at a church, Druids getting to plant a tree to respawn at that tree but get screwed over if it's chopped down. Dark Mages having to solve puzzles or shenanigans.. etc.

Honestly I could still have hell in this scenario and just have different areas of hell have different environments and make up the maze. Meaning that without a special gimmick you go to hell when you die. Yes, I like this.

Another vomit of stuff into a post, but if it entertains, it has achieved a purpose.

Red Mage in FFXI could focus on debuffing while throwing out a MP refresh spell, with occasional cures. Not really that great as a main healer. That game was incredily far from the trinity. Lot of flaws with class balance but most were useful and had a niche.

and there are worse things but i dont have all day to name everything

XI got murdered in a horrible, slow, and painful way. and it all began with WotG leading to the final stroke that was abyssea. RIP in peperoni.

I want to have this lottery explained in more detail. I started reading some of the chat logs and got a look at the two trees you had. It was pretty fucking crazy, but I liked it. So how was all the class choosing done with.

First off, dubs checked.

Second, MMOposter here. My thread ID keeps changing because I switch computers and locations occasionally.

I'm coming up with a new system that involves items required to class up, but the lottery system goes like this:

You go to the church and request a test of faith, so the game checks to see if you have a lottery ticket. If it does, you can become a priest, if not, no.

Lottery tickets are initially assigned to players on a server randomly. At the start of each day or couple days or so, every player that has not "used" their ticket to become a priest (Assuming the don't want to) has their ticket taken away and another person is invisibly given this ticket. This repeats until all tickets are used. If a player deletes their priests character or abandons the profession, a new ticket is created and handed out. This ensures that the RNG is not tied to character creation and allows the maximum density of players who wish to play priest to play priest, while restricting entry. If it became a problem, it would be a simple fix to add some kind of auditory or visual cue that they should go to the church.

The class system is a hierarchy.

For example, the wanderer is tier 0. Eventually at max level of wanderer you can "class up" to level 1 of the next tier, tier 1.
Wanderer -> Footman (melee)
Wanderer -> Archer (ranged)
Wanderer -> Adventurer (Utility)
Wanderer -> Mage (Magic)
Meaning if the level cap per class is 20, you would be level 21 essentially. You get all the abilities from past classes, but no longer invest points into prior abilities. (Unless you respec, a rare opportunity.)

Lot of data, yeah, but it is an MMO.

That seems pretty interesting. When you say items required, I'm assuming it's particular things associated with that class, along with maybe a sort of requirement using that item (Beastmasters might get a rope to try and capture a wild animal for combat, necromancers might get some unholy tomb and raise their first zombie) instead of, "Oh look, click this book, now you're a master necrophiliac!" sort of idea.

The lottery sounds pretty interesting, if a little against how one would expect to become a priest. Not a bad thing, mind you, but just something to keep in mind. Do other classes get that sort of restriction or is it particularly obscure/unique paths that would get those kinds of limits?

Looks to me like it's classes that use magic that get lottery'd.

Yeah, like if you're an adventurer looking to go down the path of an assassin, you would need to acquire a special promotion item like Fel Contract, or some such. If you want to become a necromancer, you have to find a Death Book, Volume One, to get you started. These items are consumed upon used.
The idea is inspired by the Fire Emblem GBA games, which I was a fan of; particularly Sacred Stones.

Yes, I don't want magic users to be everywhere. They are special in that regard. Of course, with that lottery system means the administrators would make sure certain factions cannot "control the market" by deleting hoards of number restricted promotion items and replacing it with a paltry sum of gold and a zombie in the closet.

With enough effort, players should be able to play magic if they want to, but there is to be a maximum number of magic users at one time.

Sort of an addition for this post, if a paying account has a magic character that hasn't been logged onto in say, a year or a half of a year, that character would be forcefully respec'd (not erased) to allow someone else to play.
If an account closes (Payment ceases, or user deletes account) all characters are deleted, and their items sent to NPCs for sale across the world in that server. That being said, deleting your account is not a simple process, to prevent easy exploitation by hackers.