hello, so I’ve been developing an MMORPG and I have almost all the basic mechanics/story finished, but I have been a bit stuck on what kind of class system to implement:
1. Choose 1 of 3 classes at the beginning which branches off into subclasses later on. (Like World Zero)
2. You have 5 ability slots allowing you to equip any ability you learn within these 5 slots to create unique ability combinations. (Similar to Dungeon Quest, except you have 5 abilities instead of 2.)
Choosing between these 2 options has been a problem, because knowing that the platform will be the majority of children under the ages of 13, it then really complicates the choices for me. The first option will be incredibly easy to understand and easy to pick up, while the second one is harder to grasp and may leave certain kids confused. But on the other hand, the second option is more unique (in my opinion) and will be able to compete with other popular MMOS such as World Zero or Dungeon Quest.
I am kind of stumped here, so what do you guys think would be a better choice for the game in your opinion?
I personally prefer a system where you spec into multiple different trees without having that initial choice. It allows for a lot of customization. Kind of like the PoE skill tree mechanic, so the second option in your case.
Why not implement a hybrid of the two? Let me use an example.
While not an MMORPG, Valorant has both classes while retaining some sort of flexibility that all players have. How?
Every character has their own unique powerups that only that character has, but they also get to choose their gun! All players universally came choose the same guns.
You have both presets and options simultaneously. How cool is that?
The bottom row are power-ups unique to this class. No other class has access to them. However, the guns above are accessible by all players regardless of class, and that allows for customization.
Now just replace guns with abilities and viola! You can have the best of both worlds. Both classes and the ability to create unique combinations.
tl;dr: The world is not black and white! Enter the grey area and see how it goes for you.
I personally fancy the system Vesteria implemented - that being, there are [x] base classes, each class has a set of [y] abilities that can be interchanged into the ability slots, and the player’s stat build has an impact on how the ability behaves.
That’s true, I could look to implement both of them! You are right I should start looking at the grey area when I start developing these classes moving forward.
