Classes in Lusternia have to fulfil a number of different roles. Firstly, they have to be "balanced for combat", as arbitrarily as that term is sometimes used, and secondly they have to be in some way interesting to be or play. A lot of skills in each guild do one of these things or the other, and the latter is covered partly by neat "utility" skills - either skills that are useful for the user without being directly combat related, or skills that make them useful to their community way.

Some guilds get more these "utility" skills than others. Compare the Ur'guard and the Nihilists, for example. Both share necromancy, so anything you might call utility in there is obviously identical. Ur'guard, as knights, get the option to take tracking, which has some utility effects and group combat abilities, as well as stuff like barge and block. Nihilists can take either astrology or tarot, both of which are really utility-orientated, and cosmic is full of useful stuff, as well as a couple things in Nihilism. Overall, Nihilists come out ahead.

If you suggest that classes should be imbalanced for combat, you'll probably get shouted down. A lot of people feel that they should be able to take any class and tertiary without crippling themselves. This is not unreasonable. But then, as a class, isn't the one with more utility simply "better" to be? Each class so far has its own unique style (although I'd argue that that of monks and warriors are too similar, but I'll get to that later), so in practice a lot of people would rather be a worse class they enjoy than a better class they don't, but when all is said and done, isn't it better to make each guild as convenient and useful - in its own way - than to have every guild be capable of balanced solo combat, but some simply better in terms of the other stuff? I would say yes, but in practice it's very hard to actually get this kind of stuff adjusted between guilds - some simply lend themselves less well conceptually to this kind of thing, and on top of that it's a bitch to get anything non-combat-related through the envoy process as people like Lendren have noted. There's simply no way to get this kind of thing adjusted, and having lost much of my usefulness and utility going from Moondancers to Shofangi (even if I were balanced for solo combat, which I'm not, but that CAN be addressed through envoys) it feels like a sting. I'm trying to help this get adjusted slightly with a monk tertiary specialisation that's in the works, but we'll see about that later, and it only works for monks, not "in general."

A related issue which I briefly covered earlier is that some guilds' "roles" are less defined than others. Balance issues with music specs and the usefulness of their buffs aside (so Lendren doesn't jump all over me for this post) the role of bards is fairly well-defined. In addition to their solo combat capability, carrying a bard into battle (in theory) provides your team with a host of buffs, and the opponent's team with some degenerate effects like that goddamn emoblood thing that makes me take 2k from comboing dandelion. Druids have an area-defence role where they maintain a demesne that attacks anyone that gets in and screws with group coordination to some extent. Dreamweavers and to some extent ecologists get even more than that, while runists get left out entirely, but that's part of the former issue.

Monks and knights? Not so much. Both roles overlap very closely. For all the differences that exist in solo combat, in groups they turn out pretty similarly, though grapples help to alleviate this somewhat. Magnagoran and Gloom monks look like they'll get out of this, because their secondary is entirely unique, but harmony (the Celestian and Seren monk secondary) is just a collection of random buffs with an interesting restriction on how to use them. It doesn't have any goal or overarching purpose like the Mag/Gloom secondary.

Again, this is impossible for us to alleviate, because as long as they're "balanced" (i.e useful as far as the envoys are concerned, which it could be argued that harmony is) it's not gonna get through there in the face of more "important" issues. Look at healing. It took like 3 years before someone finally completely revamped it and made it more -interesting-. Does everyone with a boring and utility-less class (runes, hexes to some extent though they're good enough at combat) have to wait that long for changes?

Sipelus just made me forget the rest of what I was going to say, so this'll have to do for now. Someone always does this to me when I write monster posts. Anyway, it seems like a problem to me.

While I agree with the vast majority of your post, you underestimate the potential of the envoy process. The reality of it shifts depending on who is there, both in your guild and other guilds, but that's a different story.

Bards have been overhauled almost entirely through the envoy process. The special report they got at the end was largely unneeded--the archetype had been pretty much fully tweaked by then and the envoys specialized their specs into what they wanted. (Spiritsingers weren't so sleep-oriented at the beginning, Harbingers not so bleeding-oriented, Cantors didn't have an OP damage boosting effect, INVOKE ORANGE got changed to better accomodate Cacophony, etc.)

Also, utility skills can be sold to the envoys. I'll grant that, with the current set of envoys, that's not as easy as it otherwise could be. The group we have now is rather shy about novel things, and the admin dislike giving identical utility skills to another guild via envoys. That's not to say it hasn't been done, though.

Hmm. Maybe you're right. It doesn't seem like what the envoy process is designed for, so I don't think it's necessarily a fault of theirs that it's difficult to sell them on such things, incidentally.

Interesting views there. So say they removed the guilds and introduce skill concept. You are able to pick 3 specialise skills that are limited to your org only. Let's take Celest for an example, the specialise skill would be knighthood and their specs, aquamancy, celestialism, sacraments, illusions and their specs, psionics and their specs, athletics, acrobatics, tracking, healing, astrology and tarot. You could possibly end up with someone taking skills and making unstoppable combos. If this should occur, I definately would think twice about being an envoy. Balancing it will be more than just a pain in the neck.

One interesting thing I noted that in certain muds, the classes are intentionally unbalanced. Mages are supposed to be more powerful than your average run of the mill soldier you see everywhere and the mud "balances" the classes to reflect that. They also restrict people from just joining the class by placing limitations of some kind. The limitations differ from mud to mud.

Neither of the things you described are what I'm talking about at all. It's more of a comparison between the idea that every class should be viable in solo combat, and the idea every class should have a similar out of combat utility and mechanical purpose.

I think it's definitely doable within our existing skill structure, but for it to work the design philosophy would have to change such that every class and to some extent every optional skill has some measure of utility and some measure of combat value.

If you are saying that every archetype should have the same value, defined as the sum of combat and non-combat effectiveness both individually and to others, then I'd agree.

I'm not sure you can't have more combat-savvy classes with greater versatility in combat but perhaps less versatility in general utility, and vice-versa, although of course there are limits on that.

clise's first paragarph basicly made me say "what??"
then made me think of having somone with the skillsets pureblade wicca and geomancy. that would be crazy

the second paragraph made me say "lame" i've played a game like that called newworlds. druids sucked hard because everyone wanted to play as one or some such.

while rouge monks could walk up death touch and isntantly kill anyone in the game

what any of this has to do with anything i have no idea. just putting it out.

I say that every archetype should have the same value of solo combat ability AND the same value of utility/usefulness to organisation.

This means both, not one higher than average and one lower than average. That just leads to a very stale situation where ceteris paribus, a good member of one guild will always beat a good member of the other. This isn't what IRE combat is about, and for good reason. If that was ever held as a philosophy here, envoys have gradually eroded it because being destined to lose to, say, a warrior of your skill level is lame. Of course, artifacts screw with this somewhat since they're also inequally distributed between archetypes, but the general principle still holds.

Unfortunately, that good philosophy doesn't cross over to utility skills between classes, which is what I see as a problem. I have a suspicion it doesn't get fixed as easily because it's not as apparent to the public eye what other guilds get in terms of utility because it isn't being used -against- them, in addition to the aforementioned thing about the envoy process being adopted as the primary vehicle for skill change.

EDIT: I want to note that it's hilarious that someone commented to me that they thought "ceteris paribus" was a person's name because of the context there.

Aye, that's true. I retract the previous post!

And I'd like to see if its possible to change the envoy process, or at least expand it.

i dont think its really a big deal, utility is just that a little bonus thats nice to have. if you really wanted to get into the druids could stop selling potions and than they would be gods thats real utility, i think. For the most part unless its vital to your combat i dont think any class is entitled to extra utility skills, and its simpily a get what you can grab while you can grab it apporach.

really utility is just that is how i figured not something vital that people should be like omg your sweet more utility then i will ever have. but something to be like nice this will help a bit.

honestly with the mag/glom monk spec i was 100% against it till the end because it did have such a huge "utility" base not saying anything more ever.

BAH!

I knew I should have taken latin.

What is the unique thing that a monk contributes to a small group, by the way? Druids/Mages contribute area support, Guardians/Wiccans afflictions, Bards short-range area buffs and debuffs, and Warriors accumulating damage and in some cases tanking. What is the monk factor?

I'm thinking grapples and damage (currently only with a warrior, but that's schedule to change so we'll say on our own too.)

I heard grapples were just a form of entanglement, which all classes have, and damage is again something all classes can excel in. Or is that incorrect?

That's correct, but I was talking mostly about our role, which at the moment happens to be just that.

You are correct in general, but how would you compare utility skills' value, I wonder.

It's tricky, I agree. But more effort and attention than is currently being given would be handy.

I agree that this is the role bards ought to have, but I do not think this is the role bards do have, or ever will have. So far, whenever this has been argued, it's been me, maybe Elryn, and HELP BARDS on this side, and everyone else who has spoken up on the other side. The admins won't make a clear statement either way, but the way Glamours works and the absolute resistance to changing deafness or CaptiveAudience suggests that they, too, fall on the side that says there's no room for a "support class", and anyway, if there is, we're not going to be it.

So when you look at what bards actually are and actually will ever be, bards have essentially precisely the same combat role as wiccans or guardians. (In fact, wiccans can make the best "support class" if they take Healing and loan out their fae.) I'd say the overlap between bards and wiccans/guardians is very comparable to the overlap between monks and warriors, in fact. That's precisely why I have argued that we should be what HELP BARDS says we are: something that doesn't already exist in the game. I never felt like we had that debate very well: the best we got is "there's no room for a support class because we don't have one" (i.e., circular argument) plus "this isn't WoW" (categorically irrelevant). Nevertheless, without really getting to have the debate, my side lost it, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

I thought I had already posted this, but I guess not.

My understanding of the original idea for bards was that they would be a strong support class, but be a bit weaker on their own to make up for it. A huge number of people complained, though, saying that bards should be a strong support class and be strong on their own. The divine changes made it so they are an acceptable support class, and strong on their own. The real problem is that there doesn't seem to be a unifying concept anymore of what bards should be.

I don't really agree, though, that bards and wiccans/guardians serve the same role in group combat. Wiccans and guardians are usually responsible for (in the case of guardians) bringing the target to you, and (for both of them) holding the target in place while they die, using waning/web/vines/hexes/hangedman/any number of other hindering abilities they have. Wiccan healers can provide some support, but in most cases outside of choke I would rather have a bard with me than healing auras. Bard songs could be buffed a little to make them better as a support class, but only if glamours was nerfed quite a bit to make up for it.

As for monks, I think we could have more versatility than we usually use. A few of us have tried using some of our skills for enemy crowd control - slow down certain enemies by grappling a couple at once, throwing them out of the room, psychicpush, etc.. We could in theory be the killing factor in a well-organized group of bards/telepaths. The vast majority of the time, though, monks are most effectively used in a very similar goal to warriors. We tank some damage (due to nice defenses), and deal out damage. Even in this role, though, we're slightly different in that while we might be the ones who finish the kill, we are not much good for softening the target up. Send in the warriors to soften them up, and the monk to quickly finish them off.

While I see some slight distinctions between the role of a warrior and the role of a monk in group fights, I have to agree with Nejii that they are still very similar. Still, I'm not sure how this could be changed without altering the nature of monks in general. Other games have tried to make use of the "telepathic" and "karmic" (i.e. kai) aspect of monks, but that can be massively OP (see other IRE games) if it's not handled extremely carefully.

i'd like to say that bard affliction output rate currently beats wiccan/guardian affliction output rate in my opinion.