1st new class major issue I see.

[frankjacoby]

Here I was just trying to rp my character.

IJS

[Armaddict]

And of course don't forget that 100 hours is actually a fuckton of playtime for any game except armaggeddon. Which is why I brought out the mmo thing.

Every other game also willingly accepts that people who have played longer know more about it and have a generally easier time in certain stages of the game, but Armageddon also is unique in that people like to use that as a need for a handicap or boost to equalize.  In reality, it doesn't make much sense, but we sure like to pile on that people who know things are just using an unfair advantage for...something.  Likewise, Armageddon is also played differently due to essentially infinite playthroughs; it's not a one-shot 'I've experienced the game, move on' type of deal.  It's a game that people try out, and if it tickles their fancy, they spend an 'actual fuckton' of hours playing it.

However, I didn't come in here all guns blazing and fire and brimstone.  I just said that X-D was right; there's a fair amount of NPC's that are meant to be a challenge for those in PvE engagement that can just be bypassed through class selection.  I have my own balance concerns and how they impact the game, including the sudden incentive for non-combat-heavy classes to feel like they have to grind in order to be safe from brand new characters and the design moving more in a 'death is bad, time in game being driven to improve is bad' direction.  That may not be the actual argument used, but in practice, it comes out with that being easily interchangeable with whatever is used.  However, those concerns have yet to have time to actually be seen.

Historically speaking, though, by the time such theories come to light, it's usually in a 'too late, not changing' setting.  I've been...disappointed, with the changes altogether, despite being pretty damn excited at the beginning.  It bleeds over into all the aspects of that change.  Maybe things will be corrected to maintain what worked for a long time, and maybe it won't.

[Tekky]

This discussion boils down to you guys not trusting yourself and other players to actually roleplay out stuff realistically. Perhaps you can cheese every scrab you see. So forth. Maybe you shouldn't, though, for "fun".

[Scrumpkin]

Tekky: Very negative on your part.  I've experience many good rp'rs on Arm, probably the best community I have seen as far as sticking to it and making it cool.

I think it boils down to this:  Since your new character comes out of the box a bit tougher, or more skillful you can spend the time on RP that you would have been on grinding that desired skill to make that ring, or kill that spider.

[MeTekillot]

What's more, our population of, what, 150-200 regular players is a pretty good representation of the handful of people who are ambitious/talented enough to make some waves in the puddle of their influence. Nearly every single commoner and grebber would get summarily munched if a scrab came upon them. But you wouldn't.

[MeTekillot]

Fighters don't get skinning? Lol

[RogueGunslinger]

That makes sense to me.

[MeTekillot]

What am I supposed to do with the dead turaals?

[only_plays_tribals]

Code Select Expand

many corpses of whip-tailed turaal are here, holding spice pipes while appearing to play cards.

[Scrumpkin]

Code Select Expand

The woman in the turaal mask deals a card to a turaal corpse holding a spice pipe.

[MeTekillot]

Also noticed that fighter doesn't get the stun regen that warrior used to have. Don't know if that's deliberate.

[KankWhisperer]

Kind of feel bad for the people who had their old style class for a little bit and are now heavily outclassed. I'm not even a full combat class and I was able to effortlessly curb stomp two critters whereas before each would have killed me with an equivalent class.

Maybe I dunno boost the poor old PCs off/def to equivalent base of a new class.

[Cabooze]

What's more, our population of, what, 150-200 regular players .....

Not sure where you're getting those numbers. 

[Nao]

What's more, our population of, what, 150-200 regular players .....

Not sure where you're getting those numbers. 

What's more, our population of, what, 150-200 regular players .....

Not sure where you're getting those numbers. 

Unique logins (http://www.armageddon.org/updates/)

[Cabooze]

What's more, our population of, what, 150-200 regular players .....

Not sure where you're getting those numbers. 

Unique logins (http://www.armageddon.org/updates/)

Well color me a little impressed. As for the topic at hand, I've been of the strong opinion that we should still be allowed to select the legacy-guilds, even after this full release of the new ones.

[ShaiHulud]

I think the classes are way over powered. Legacy characters cannot compete...not even close. I could see enough boost to take out the first ten days of grind...but these are coming out of the box like 30 day warriors. Jmho

[Sunburned]

I think its a worthwhile tradeoff for lifting the baseline competency of characters right out the gate, given that the player-base is older and has less time for the grind.

And I think saying that they're equivalent to 30 day warriors is overstating the issue. If anything, the new classes mitigate that initial window of vulnerability that used to compel me (n=1) to focus less on getting involved with clans and focus more on building my character's resilience above that of an over-ripe tomato. Stated differently, its easier for me to invest in building a character's identity and interact right out the gate.

[ShaiHulud]

Kind of feel bad for the people who had their old style class for a little bit and are now heavily outclassed. I'm not even a full combat class and I was able to effortlessly curb stomp two critters whereas before each would have killed me with an equivalent class.

Maybe I dunno boost the poor old PCs off/def to equivalent base of a new class.

This

[MeTekillot]

I think the classes are way over powered. Legacy characters cannot compete...not even close. I could see enough boost to take out the first ten days of grind...but these are coming out of the box like 30 day warriors. Jmho

No, they're not. More like 5 days. If that. Stats matter a lot. Maybe you ran into one with really good stats.

EDIT: 5 days of MeTekillot level powergaming, that is. Not quite X-D level powergaming.

[Namino]

Maybe I'm not following the issue here at all.

The stated purpose of the new classes was to provide people with a comparatively accelerated start to the old guilds. Based on the content of this thread, these classes are performing their purpose. I understand that it is disagreeable that the old guilds are lingering as well, but there was no way to roll this out without that happening unless you guys wanted a pbase wipe. Eventually, your legacy class will die and you will get to upgrade to a new class and it won't be an issue anymore. All of these people with access to new classes aren't special -- they just died or stored faster than you did. You too will die. You too will have a buff new class.

The fact that at 1920's formula car can't compete with a modern day F1 car isn't shocking. It's... how it works. The solution isn't to complain that modern F1 cars should be throttled, but simply trade in your old jank car for a new model. How long you can tolerate cruising around in your straight-eight tipo while this McLaren F1 GTR flies past you will vary based on how much you like your current car. But once you crash, you're going to hop into a GTR of your own so either put your car into the wall or do a few more laps. You're driving this thing, broooo.

The *real* issue is that our roads haven't been upgraded for our new cars. What used to be challenging tracks are pleasant drives for our swanky new vehicles. Which is *good*, because the point of these cars was to make those curves (scrab, et al) more manageable. The problem is that there aren't any new, challenging tracks being built that can really test the limits of what these new vehicles can do and give you a chance to open the throttle.

The challenge of scrabs and other things have been dimished but nothing is being moved in to replace them. As power creep continues and people train up their new characters without the sink of early-game scrab death, more and more people are going to fall into the black hole of having powerful characters and nothing to smash them against satsifyingly, save for mobiles with scripts (which is a poor solution but that's for a different thread).

I'm confident staff have thought of this. I'm sure something will happen as our new classes start to get buffer than the world was built for.

[ShaiHulud]

Well said Namino...I see a wall ahead. Enjoyed the time driving this car. Shame to have to change lanes after putting the time in this seat...

[seidhr]

I think the classes are way over powered. Legacy characters cannot compete...not even close. I could see enough boost to take out the first ten days of grind...but these are coming out of the box like 30 day warriors. Jmho

They're not, is the thing.

[KankWhisperer]

*while beating critter to death with bare hands right out of the box*
Totally not OP. Git gud old classes.

[Riev]

I think the classes are way over powered. Legacy characters cannot compete...not even close. I could see enough boost to take out the first ten days of grind...but these are coming out of the box like 30 day warriors. Jmho

They're not, is the thing.

Despite your wonderful, staff-sponsored addition of "but no", I can't help but believe that ShaiHulud was utilizing slight hyperbole in saying "30day warriors".

The issue at hand SEEMS to be that new classes are able to start off in a better position than old classes (which, like Armaddict, I believe didn't fix anything, just a nerf to PvE really). So some people who were 10day warriors are seeing these new classes come out of the gate with different skills, different starts, and significantly different branches and Offense/Defense rates. So as was said, we are in our janky 80year old cars complaining about the new nitrus-boost vehicles kicking our asses.

The actual TOPIC, as discussed in the Original Post, was that the base offense and defense scores are higher. This makes combat skill gain more difficult, and the concern is that if you used to start at 5/100, and now you start at 20, is that still 20/100? Is it now 20/115? And will it make PvE a joke because of better rate gain and higher starting caps?

[Brokkr]

Not really a nice, sugar coated way to say this, but some of you may think you know more than you know.

I think the classes are way over powered. Legacy characters cannot compete...not even close. I could see enough boost to take out the first ten days of grind...but these are coming out of the box like 30 day warriors. Jmho

If we assume:

ranger = raider
assassin = enforcer
warrior = fighter

which seems reasonable, then the largest increase to offense or defense individually is 5.  It does not take 30 days to get 5.  It does not take 10 hours to get 5.  Unless you aren't engaging in combat, but that is a different issue than new class vs old class.  I routinely saw folks getting this much in a couple (2) days of playing or less, with the old classes.

Complimentary skills, like weapon skills, have also been boosted, like weapon skills.  Parry has been given at chargen whereas folks used to have to spend multiple days to branch it for assassins and rangers.  These all create synergy in combat.  Nothing has been boosted up some insane amount by itself though.

Stats matter a lot.

The new classes have different stat bonuses.  Better is a matter of perspective, but I think you will find them "better".  And no, before someone asks, staff already had the discussion months ago on whether to reveal them in the class help files, and the answer is no, we are not going to.

As power creep continues and people train up their new characters without the sink of early-game scrab death, more and more people are going to fall into the black hole of having powerful characters and nothing to smash them against satsifyingly, save for mobiles with scripts (which is a poor solution but that's for a different thread).

Scripts or something else, it all boils down to the same thing.  NPCs need to be different than PCs, and typically gaining power from that difference, in order to be a challenge for PCs in combat at the high end.  And by challenge I mean more than just "wow that was an endless wave of X" and more actual good chance of the PC dying.

The actual TOPIC, as discussed in the Original Post, was that the base offense and defense scores are higher. This makes combat skill gain more difficult, and the concern is that if you used to start at 5/100, and now you start at 20, is that still 20/100? Is it now 20/115? And will it make PvE a joke because of better rate gain and higher starting caps?

If this is still a concern, it is a concern because people were not paying attention.

Max offense / defense hasn't changed