Why Classes Are D&D's Best Idea
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- Опубликовано: 9 окт 2022
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Dungeons and Dragons has been around for years, and in its many years of influence, D&D has inspired a countless number of videogames. Experience points, a bunch of classic monsters, dungeons, and yes, even dragons as videogame staples can ultimately be traced back to the venerable king of roleplaying games - but there's one idea D&D popularized that doesn't get anywhere near enough credit. And that, is classes.
Yep, everything from warlocks to warriors ultimately draw influence from a couple of very clever ideas the creators of D&D had way back in the 1970s - but why are classes so influential? In an attempt to find out why, The Architect has donned a sword, staff, bow and a whole host of other cliche articles of classy clothing in an effort to find out once and for all why both developers and players love classes as a mechanic so damn much.
You Saw:
Baldur's Gate 3 - EARLY ACCESS
Stranger Things - 2016
Wizardry 1 SNES - 1980
XCOM 2 - 2016
Final Fantasy 3 - 1990
Darkest Dungeon - 2016
Overwatch - 2016 (yes I am refusing to note overwatch 2 as a seperate game out of spite thank you for asking)
Among Us - 2018
Paper Mario 2 The Thousand Year Door - 2004
Super Paper Mario - 2007
Moonbreaker - 2022
Warcraft 3 - 2002
World of Warcraft - 2004
Guild Wars 2 - 2012
Lost Ark - 2019
New World - 2021
Final Fantasy 14 - 2010
Runescape - 2001
Perfect Heist 2 - 2021
Final Fantasy 7 Remake - 2020
Xenoblade 3 - 2022
Dark Souls - 2012
Elden Ring - 2022
Skyrim - 2011
Path of Exile - 2013
Fire Emblem: Three Houses - 2019
Dota 2 - 2013
Dome Keeper - 2022
Gears Tactics - 2020
Space Engineers - 2013
Deep Rock Galactic - 2020
Invisible Inc - 2015
Into The Breach - 2018
Foxhole - 2022
Battle Brothers - 2015
Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga - 2022
XCOM: Enemy Unknown - 2012
The Binding of Isaac - 2014
Risk of Rain 2 - 2019
Gunfire Reborn - 2020
Grim Dawn - 2016
Titan Quest - 2006
Dragon Age Origins - 2009
Before Your Eyes - 2021
Fallout New Vegas - 2010
Terraria - 2011
Magic The Gathering Arena - 2018
Sid Meir's Civilization 6 - 2016
Cybperpunk 2077 - 2021
Prodeus - 2022 
Игры
Why am I playing a warlock in the baldur's gate 3 footage? Because much like them, I too am beholden to the fel whims of my patr(e)on: www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames
Demons ain't got nothing on twitter dot com, flee fools before you take psychic damage you can't come back from!: twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot
Audience are GOO, not fey.
Played in a campaign as Dora the Explorer, GOO warlock, who bent to the wills of her master, the audience
Stop playing d&d.
Maggie Mae Fish is so tied to politically infused takes that literally every example you gqve included it. I think thats kind of the lowest form of content creator. Politics isnt intrinsically a bad subject but she is telling you what to believe (leftist of course)
I think one other important aspect of class systems adjacent to tutorialization is that different classes can test different skill sets. I don't have the best mechanics, so being the fastest or most accurate clicker isn't really my thing. But I love tank and support classes because instead of dexterity they test my ability to assess the battlefield and control the flow. I am tested in my understanding of threat assessment, resource management, and target prioritization which are just as rewarding to me
excellent point tbh, i almost always gravitate towards characters/classes with lots of disruption and movement techniques (lucio and ball in overwatch, lee sin and leona in league, etc.) because i'll probably never have the apm of a person with 3000 hours and thirty red bulls in their bloodstream, but i'll always have my mass of game knowledge and little techs that most people will have knowledge of
THIS ^ so much. I also struggle with agility-based characters in real-time games…
Most class systems, as they develop, begin to add many new classes, which leads to an unexpected imbalance. Or all classes are made the same so that each player can feel like a full-fledged participant, and not a substitute for a first aid kit.
@@toastiexists1990 That's why i became a Caitlin main in league. Her attack speed is terrible early game but her range allows her to be an excellent counter puncher. Her kit is made for baiting your enemy into mistakes.
Classes exist in D&D because Gary and Dave were trying to make it feel like you were playing a character in the fantasy novels they read at the time. I think the narrative basis of D&D is an important part of the context for its classes, and provides another perspective to consider when discussing them. Classes interact with the narrative in different ways. Gandalf's a wizard (yes, I know, I'm simplifying), Bilbo's a rogue, the dwarves are comic re--er, fighters, Aragorn's a ranger, Legolas is why old D&D has Elf as a class, and so on. As a *roleplaying* game, if you're Gandalf, you're going to think about problems differently to a hobbit who wants to go home, smoke a pipe, and have some (more) food. These different fantasies (here talking about the characters, not the stories per se) guided the mechanical design of the classes, and impacts creating characters today. Or maybe that's just me, since I prefer tabletop D&D or video games very close to it in lineage (like Wizardry, which you showed in the video, yay!).
I'm pretty sure it also arose as an artifact of war gaming. In war games, different units have different abilities and strengths because not all units can be trained or equipped to do everything. And it's that division of abilities that allow for interesting play experiences, rather than every unit capable of everything, or having to spec every unit individually
@@rickpgriffin There are different jobs and "classes" right away when you step outside of your house... Even inside your house are jobs and classes present, some fit for others more and some don't... I don't think you can say its because of D&D that we have wizards, or swords...
Yeah this is really the key to me, a class is a package of mechanics and flavour intertwined. It's not just a bunch of different rules and numbers arranged together but also a discrete place in the world that you have and no other class does. Adam makes mention of this but doesn't focus too much on it when IMO it's very important to what makes a class system appealing.
@@Jokervision744 Yet D&D was the first to implement the concept, and the first to use "character stats" in general.
Classes interact with the narrative in different ways : Casters get to interact with it, martials don't.
ah yes finally a video on class struggle
*sniffles*
Marxist! Marxist!
I personally prefer the race talk.
@@bazookaman1353 everyone knows humans are the superior race
@@bazookaman1353 Of course you do lmao
Worth noting that for Risk of Rain 2, Rex's healing doesn't restore shields, which is what you need for the Plasma Shrimp to work. But two of his abilities are self-damaging, which does effect shields, actually making Rex among the worst choices for Plasma Shrimp in the game.
Came here to say this. The whole ror2 section didn't make much sense tbh but still glad to see it.
Entirely this. They had Aegis (which allows for overhealing), and the ICBM (increase missile amount) to boot. The entire section was a blatant ignorant lie.
It's interesting to watch a video praising classes when Richard Bartle built the first MUD to remove all references to classes (for wildly different reasons).
And comparing Paper Mario TTYD and Super Paper Mario in the intro when neither game has classes and one isn't even an RPG
@@Twisted_Logic I am sorry but Paper Mario totally have classes as each character have different movesets. As he says at the end "even when there are not classes they are"
Why did he remove them?
@@Loromir17 because Bartle grew up in a highly classist society, coming from lower classes families he and Roy Trubshaw were the first members of their families that were allowed to do higher studies, so they felt that it was better to not have classic classes in their fantasy worlds.
Of note though you do have a form of classes in MUD, but it's really your level's title, meaning that anyone can get to any class without any restriction.
Upsides and downsides. But they're a hugely useful tool a good chunk of the time, even as someone who prefers classless games like CoC and RuneQuest, come on, it's literally the most influential gaming concept of the century.
Of course D&D also introduced us to "character stats" in general.
In a way classes also exist in fighting games as character archetypes, the most familiar of these being grappler, rushdown, and zoner.
And they all have different win conditions despite all of them intending to get the opponent's HP to 0
And the same happens in other cases of gameplay roles, for example, competitive Pokémon battling. Again, all-out attacker works differently than setup sweeper, support, wallbreaker or the wall itself.
These are not classes, but just roles in combat.
I always like flexible classes in games, like how in Xcom you can make the Assault a shotgun flanker dps beast or a rifleman who is hard to hit and can consistently stay the distance. Or in TF2; Spy is always going to be a sneaky sabotage guy who takes enemies by surprise, but you can change him a little to your liking, being patient and illusive, going for chain kills, being independent of healing items or using your gun as an assassination tool instead of a way to make pursuers bugger off.
A possible follow-up video you could do would be on weapon classes, where the movement and health other similar stats stay the same but what changes is the weapon of choice.
How weapons are balanced, how some weapons become more popular to use that others, how some players pick less popular weapons to either challenge themselves or because they enjoy said weapon or because the weapon is the best fit to their chosen play style.
christ I've never seen a comment miss the point of RPGs harder than this
@@mrosskne Are you responding to a deleted comment?
@@AnotherDuck You wrote an entire paragraph about miniscule changes to weapons that don't matter.
@@mrosskne I saw some other comments you wrote. You're just a troll, and you can't read.
@@mrosskne Aside from being hyper-aggressive, _you_ missed the point. Weapons in some games have drastically different movesets and thus interactions with the game, such as the Soulsbourne games. Choices in weapon define a role and playstyle long-term much more in the manner of a class in those games than the actual classes do.
I really like how the Legend of Heroes: Trails series utilizes 'classes' without actually giving characters a specific class. In those games, aside from using items or a basic attack, all the characters have two actions in combat; Arts and Crafts.
Crafts are combat techniques unique to each character and have an effect based on that character's 'archetype'. The big martial artist can buff his attack and defense and grab the attention of enemies, the small rogue can deal damage to multiple enemies while delaying their turns or teleport in front of an enemy for a %chance to OHKO.
Arts are magic, but the entire system around arts is the most complex partof a build. All the characters have what's called a Battle Orbment, think a pocket watch that lets you use magic spells. In order to use the Battle Orbment the character needs to insert magic stones called Quartz. Each type of stone is associated with an element, wind, water, fire, earth, space, time and mirage, and each unique Quartz also provides a modification to the character's attributes when attached to the Orbment. A basic fire quartz will increase Strength by 3% but also lower Defense by 1% for example.
Further, each Orbment only has a limited number of slots for quartz, which are arranged in a circle around a central slot. The slots are then joined together by a number of lines starting at the central slot. Generally, the fewer lines that a character's Orbment has, the better they are as a spell caster because each spell requires a certain number of quartz from a given element to be part of a single line. However, this also means that if characters with only one line want to use the most powerful spells, they need to specialize in a single element with only a little room for deviation, while characters with multiple lines in their Orbment tend to be better at accruing weaker spells from a number of different elements.
Of course because, like I mentioned, the different quartz all have unique secondary effects the entire mechanic isn't just about what spells you want each character to have, but also what secondary effects you want each character to have specifically. It's all about experimentation.
Not really about classes specifically, but I just really like how these games handle the concept of classes and spices them up a bit.
>you have to find the perfect way to arrange the little gems to get the most utility out of them
>the systems this fuels are called "Arts" & "Crafts"
Seems a little on-the-nose.
Man this is one of those series that I don't doubt is exceptionally good, but it's such an incredible time sink that every time I try I drop it a few hours later
@@LPTheGas arts are the only system orbments and quartz crystals fuels tho
Crafts are different
@@colbyboucher6391 its a little slow
But it's absolutely worth it in the end
This series has the best story, worldbuilding and charecters along with an amazing ost and combat system, which makes it (in my opinion) the best jrpg I ever play
On the other hand, I feel that, especially in action focussed games where one controls only (or primarily) one character, classes can often dull out the gameplay, encouraging you to just use the same powers over and over again, or idly standing by and waiting for other characters to do their job, because you don't have anything useful for the current situation.
Also, class specific dialogue can be a double-edged sword, especially in games where things other than combat take up a large role: some players might want to choose a specific class because they prefer the associated gameplay but could then be forced into making narrative choices they don't like. This issue could be fixed, though, by having players choose two classes, one for combat and one for dialogue skills (perhaps diplomat, preacher, snake oil salesman, or bouncer?).
I feel like too often the 'standard class system' also makes its way into the story, like how a lot of RPGs love making your party grumpy old man, the tank, mysterious bloke, the rogue, and smart guy, the wizard. Even worse, if that also makes its way into the world building and you end up with the race or planet of the punchy people, the back stabbers, and the technology and/or magic people (depending on whether you're doing sci-fi or fantasy).
This problem is not exclusive to games with classes. If you are faced with a situation where you are idling and there is nothing for your character to do, then that is the fault of the game’s design rather than the class system itself. The very same problem can occur even in a class-less game.
For instance, if you spec your character to do fire damage in an RPG but you face enemies immune to fire. A well designed game should still provide means for you to affect and interact with these enemies even with these disadvantages rather than lock you out completely. A well designed class toolkit should never put you in that situation.
RE: dialogue
I’ve never played a game that ever had that problem. Most games provide a suite of default dialogue responses that one can give, which classes providing an additional dialogue option unique to them. You are never forced to make a narrative choice based on your class.
Do you have an example of where this happens?
@@jltheking3 You are right that that problem can also exist in games without classes, but the difference is that without classes, it is generally possible to build a character flexible enough to deal with every situation, whereas class systems tend to actively discourage, if not outright prevent this.
Regarding dialogue, it is indeed rare that different classes get too different dialogue (though it is quite common to have one class that is good at dialogue but bad at everything else). The first example that comes to my mind would be Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, where various classes have a bonus to different speech skills (or might even be locked out of certain speech skills).
@@theprofessionalfence-sitter "without classes, it is generally possible to build a character flexible enough to deal with every situation, whereas class systems tend to actively discourage, if not outright prevent this."
The reason why this is the case is because most class-based systems are cooperative in nature and the design intentionally encourages you to engage in teamwork to cover up for each other's weaknesses. This is a good thing. A game where it is possible to do everything all at once is a game with low replayability and low strategic value. The power fantasy gets dull very quick.
RE: Social-based classes.
For an RPG, you are right in that this is absolutely a problem. I have played games of D&D where whenever there is a social situation, only the class with the highest charisma ends up talking because we want that guy to be the on rolling for ability checks, and this in effect locks out the rest of the social pillar of the game for the rest of the group.
This is just an example of bad game design. In a social game where the primary means of engaging with the game is to talk, talking should not be a statistic in which some only some PCs are allowed to be good at.
I don’t know long it took to photoshop the Guy Fieri version of a DnD box, but it was worth every second.
it's an old meme, and i'm 99% sure adam isn't the guy who made it
I do think Skyrim tries to set up starting classes with its races, but only a select few of those racial bonuses or powers are actually useful for a particular build.
The reason why a stealth archer is so common is because it interacts with the most systems. Melee fighters forgo distance and positioning, and pure mages can't use stealth.
I'm going to disagree here only insofar as Archers are the only early game class which interacts with the most systems. I think though melee suffers at distance no matter what positioning and stealth become viable for both warriors and mages if you level them up enough.
But yeah, in the early game Archers are the only class with the most viability.
As a person who dislikes classes (and most other types of precommitments), I found this video genuinely helpful to understand why classes are so prominent and well-liked by other people. Thank you very much!
Often, the issue of pre-commitments can be mitigated by allowing some form of character respec in the middle of a playthrough.
Alternatively, it is increasingly fashionable nowadays to port the mechanics of class into equipment, and removing player statistics. That way one can change their equipment and thus playstyle in the middle of a playthrough and have all the benefits of classes without commitment.
I think classes are DnDs weakest aspect. Classes completely change the way you have to build your character. In a class based pen and paper you can't build the character you want. Instead, you look at the classes and come up with intersting character concepts that fit the class. Whereas in classles systems you can build any character as closely as possible with the tools that the system offers.
But this video explained really well what people like about them.
@@XMaster340 I think you're thinking about it the wrong way. When I build a D&D character I always start with a character concept first and foremost, then pick character options (including class) that most fit that character concept. I can reflavor any mechanics to fit the vision I have of that character.
This is made even easier in a game like Pathfinder (both 1e and 2e) where there is a bounty of character options (there are over 20 classes in pf2e) available to build exactly the character I want.
Most modern games today also provide a means for you to build your character out of multiple classes. D&D has multiclassing. There may also be feats or items available that let you borrow the features of another class. When a game locks you out of accessing something from another class, it is usually for balance reasons.
@@jltheking3 That might be the case for you if you've never played classless systems. Because then you naturally only come up with character concepts that fit said class system and don't even consider other options.
For example, one of my characters was a wandering monk, who traveled the lands with his carriage and his swarm of bees. He would earn a living by selling medicine and tinctures and by blessing people's homes. He had a short-sword for self defense, but in combat, he was pretty much useless.
Sure, you could shoehorn this character into a cleric, or artificer or bard. But none of those fit the original character concept all too well. You end up with lots of skills and abilities that have nothing to do with your original vision and the core mechanics are only halfway there.
@@jltheking3 Pathfinder's abundance of classes and the poor balancing thereof are a symptom of the issues that class based systems generally have. And Pathfinder is incredibly restrictive in regards to what your character can do outside of combat.
I've not touched 2EPF, but I played 1E for years and still do sometimes.
And honestly, from what I have seen of 2E, while it looks decent enough, it definitely has its own set of problems that won't make it any better than 1E overall.
Nevermind that Paizo has proven in recent years they're not a company worth supporting. Same as Wizards of the Coast.
Admit it. You know that the majority of archetypes in Pathfinder are useless, there is literally no reason to pick Rogue or Ranger over Slayer or Hunter (unless you run Unchained, in which case Rogue has some justification) and the popularity of multiclassing further proves that classes are excessively restrictive to the point it becomes impossible to play certain types of character within the box of a single class.
Let me put it this way. It is much easier to play anything in a classless system than it is in a class based system, but it is also very easy to emulate classes in a classless system if you wish to do so. You literally do not lose anything other than a pre-built box in a classless system - and in a well-built classless system, it should still give you an idea of how you can play your classic classes or something else entirely without much trouble.
Of course, certain restrictions are necessary for character building, else you'll end up with something like Skyrim. You still need to be capped in a classless system in one way or another. Everything you gain must come at the opportunity cost of everything you didn't gain. And this is actually much easier to achieve in a classless system.
I'd argue that classes are a reflection of how we categorize people in real life (as far as strengths and weaknesses) and how useful and beneficial it can be to do so. Ofc, this is more in service to achieving goals than it is an excuse to treat people "like damn clerics," lel.
TL;DW: Classes are the limitation that breeds creativity.
As long as they're not too restrictive. You need enough flexibility within the classes.
Classes are a lazy restriction from game developers. In 99% of cases, the mechanics of classes are broken.
@@cpazmatikus3752 In 76.3% of cases, percentages above 95% means the person doesn't know what percentages actually mean and their opinion can safely be discarded as exaggeration because they don't believe in their own argument if stated truthfully..
@@AnotherDuck For example. In DnD, caster classes are much more useful than non-casters. A wizard is more useful in battles than a warrior class.
It ruins the whole point of the video.
@@cpazmatikus3752 So the DM don't allow them to get a proper night's sleep, so they don't get to refresh their spells, and now they're not nearly as powerful as before.
How well do raids in your standard MMORPG work if you only bring a single class? Or a single build in a classless game?
Anyone who has worked creatively likely knows the restrictions breed creativity, rather than suppressing it. They limit the potential space you have to consider and take into account when making decisions, which leaves you free to combine the tools at your disposal in interesting ways that are likely unique to your situation. When the possibility-space for the next word in a poem is the entire English language, it is somewhat paradoxically significantly more difficult to find the right word. But when the possibility-space is limited to "words that rhyme with X" it is far easier to find the word you need.
Oh yes, the paradox of choice
Unfortunately, in practice, systems without classes lead to far more creativity. So your argument, while sounding plausible, is not based on anything substantial.
@@mrosskne Its based on how different people respond to unlimited options some find it freeing but others can find themselves paralyzed by indecision when they are given to many options to choices to choose from. Its why when writing a book most authors will write an outline of what they want the book to be before filling in the details they deliberately limit there choice to help the store they are writing flow how they want it to.
Yes and no. D&D in particular uses some very... specific spells. Mirror Image, for instance, only really does the clones that take hits for you, you can't make a fake chair or have the Mirror Image walk off for you, it copies your movements. Yes, you can take those spells, but then you have to take up your prepared spell list. If D&D's mechanics were more flexible, then you'd probably be more correct.
I am surprised you didnt talk about multiclassing, it is a very useful middle ground between normal classes and modular customization for more experienced players
frankly I find multiclassing a necessity to get even just an approximation to my average character concept. And I am not talking dipping into one other class. Frequently I end up with 3-4 different classes on a single character - which then runs into the problem of the limitation of character development by the strict level and class systems compared to more flexible systems like Shadowrun where all you have are certain roles withing a party, but no strictly defined classes.
@@ranekeisenkralle8265 I think the innovative approach is to remove classes at high difficulty, as their main plus is ease, easy to balance, easy to get into, etc
@@reverie02 Not sure I am following. From what I understand of the D&D mechanics, removing classes would result in a breakdown of the mechanics in D&D as the system originally wasn't designed to work without classes.
@@ranekeisenkralle8265 I know I am ot talking about optimal solutions or solutions for dnd, I am talking about innovative approaches (in general game industry, not only dnd),
+it would if the whole system was designed to able to function both and without classes from the start (though it would probly be pretty hard to do so),
and of in higher difficulties some additional drastic changes should be to make it work usually
@@reverie02 The question of classes or not is such a fundamental part of design for a system that you can't have it be optional. There is no way you could balance that. What you COULD do, however, is forego classes entirely and go with roles instead (like Shadowrun does) and leave it up to the players to determine how (let alone IF) they want to fill a certain role in the party. After all, the DM can always fill missing roles with NPCs if the players have no interest in picking it despite the campaign requiring it for some reason.
I think, hilariously enough, classes work far worse in d&d than they do in most video game examples.
Classes, or class adjacent systems, work well in two situations: either there are thematic reasons to be limited in your options, like if you're playing as an existing character and thus it's important thematically to play into their pre-existing skillset, or you're playing a style of game where you're incentivized to win at all costs, and the classes are needed to prevent everyone from making the same generic "best" build. In a lot of video games, like League of Legends or Overwatch, these two situations both occur.
But in D&D, neither of these things are the case. Very few people are trying to "win" d&d by creating the absolute optimal character, and aside from some exceptions like needing some type of bloodline to become a sorcerer, there aren't really any great lore justifications for barring certain abilities from certain characters. And with d&d being so roleplay focused, classes cause a lot of issues, where a character would naturally want to learn a particular skillset, but because it's just not in their predefined class progression, they just can't do so, with no in universe justification for why this is the case.
Like, imagine a wizard has a bunch of near-death experiences, so they ask the fighter to teach them to wear heavy armor so they're less vulnerable. This seems perfectly plausible, and could be really interesting from a roleplay perspective, but it's simply impossible to do. Or, even more often in my experience, the opposite comes into play. You might want to play a fighter who has spent their whole life studying the blade, to the exclusion of all other weapons, but guess what? If he finds himself in a situation where his enemies are far away from him, rather than this becoming an interesting moment where the character realizes he's made a mistake in over specializing, he can just pick up a bow or crossbow and be almost as good with it as he is with his sword, because that's just how the fighter class works.
The problem with classes, especially as portrayed in games like d&d, is that while they work great mechanically, they simply don't make any sense from a storytelling perspective. This is fine in many video games, where the storytelling is secondary or even completely absent, but in ttrpgs, classes do a lot to hinder the storytelling by forcing character progression to only ever go a specific way, regardless of whether that makes any sense or fits with the narrative being told.
with the wizard example, you could take a feat or talk to the dm about letting you have that proficiency anyway, but yeah i suppose the only way to play an overspecialized fighter is to just decide those proficiencies don't apply to your character and ignore them, which isn't great
I was under the impression that meta-gaming to build the most optimal character is the whole point of D&D.
It's why WoTC is able to sell so many books and supplements.
@@JB-gj8pu It is a major point to a subset of the playerbase. The vast majority of players optimize moderately at most, and a significant amount of the playerbase dislikes or despises the optimization side. Optimizing in D&D is not the appeal for most as much as necessary to be useful at all because suboptimal build choices handicap you at engaging with the game and also imposes that cost onto the play group.
@@JB-gj8puthere's different kinds of optimizing. As a character, you will naturally want to get stronger and focus on things that will do this for you, leading you to optimize. But you can also optimize in ways that make the game boring or ruin the fun for everyone, especially in older versions of a game with supplements that interact unpredictably.
Many 5e supplements have avoided the problem of unbalanced classes by introducing 1 gazillion different types of player races which are superficially different. They partially avoid the problem of bad optimization by making your game World incoherent.
TF2 does this well.
Scout is a single target burst damager who can move really fast and double jump. They can whittle down enemy forces and take the objective with ease, even pushing carts twice as fast as other classes. He is however, described as a stick figure with legs, one good hit from a heavy damage weapon and he’s dead.
Pyros can light enemy spies on fire to make them easier to track, can deal massive burst damage with a DOT afterburn, and their air blast can turn enemy projectiles against the enemy team
Snipers and spies have abilities to instakill enemies by effectively doing more damage than any max overheal, but neither are good at head to head fights. Sniper also has to charge up for the extra damage while spies need to get behind enemy lines undetected to wreak havoc and fool players, one bad mistake with a disguise or bumping into a player while invisible? You’re dead.
Engineers can create teleporters, sentries, and dispensers to move allies quicker, create powerful area denial, and keep the team.
Medics can overheal classes to let them take much more punishment in one burst alongside regular healing, and their Ubercharge creates a powerful buff effect from invincibility, guaranteed crits, etc, but he is utterly useless in a fight
Soldiers and demomen have powerful splash damage attacks, but they can hurt themselves against close up targets. Demoman also tends to not pay attention when setting up stickies, giving spies a good chance for a kill. Pyros can deflect their projectiles to make their attacks hit friends!
Heavies have so much health that they a sniper or spy is needed to deal with one quickly, and good tracking with a mini gun pumps out massive damage! But the scout can easily throw it off and bash their head in with a bat too!
Each class is ridiculously powerful in its own way, but have glaring flaws that others can take advantage of. Everyone is powerful in some way, but some abilities might not be good for the situation, or might make it worse! This is the crux of gameplay. Which class is good for the current situation.
Edited in the rest of the classes
I'm kinda surprised you didn't mention games like Slay the Spire or the more recent Backpack Hero with how they offer a unique play experience based on character choice.
Another note for Aerith, the way that aggro works in that game makes it pretty hard to play as her for any real amount of time. Enemies aggro to the controlled character. I barely ever got to really use Arcane Ward.
11:22 I am so so glad you mentioned Invisible Inc.! I love this game and have been playing it again, but it's so disheartening it got so little fanfare and was dropped like a rock, it really would benefit from changes to the UI and maybe additions to make it almost more Xcom-like in flexibility for replaying it. I wish Klei could return to the game at some point or make an expansive sequel.
You either in and out before they know you are there or you start some serious I can't believe that worked max alarm carrying the team into the elevator with zero moves to spare BS. I still have one achievement outstanding (20 day endless dlc) because I burned out from the stress. Getting flashbacks just thinking about it.
@@oohhboy-funhouse I made the Agent Alone challenge, lol. I'm still proud of those runs I completed, even if others have done more challenging things since I'm sure.
One thing that wasn't really covered too much is how people will end up finding their class/gameplay preference over time, and then naturally gravitate towards similar playstyles. Conversely, most people will find certain playstyles so unappealing that they will avoid classes purely based on their name and looks, since they associate those with certain gameplay styles. As an example, I could never force myself to try playing as a bard or equivalent. Likewise I know many mages that have never touched a melee-focused class, and many melee junkies that would never cast a spell that isnt a self-buff or a self-heal.
I like how it works in the Shadowrun Returns games (which from what I've heard isn't too dissimilar from the pen and paper originals). It's not like there are classes you have to choose, but considering how much you need to specialise to be an effective player you're going to end up with something along the lines of one of the archetypes (which is pretty much some kind of fighter, magic user, or tech wiz). This means you can play however you want, but your overall power limits how well you can do each thing, so it's better to specialise and leave other things to other party members.
I just got through Shadowrun Returns actually! I just did a playthrough as an Ork Street Samurai (basically a fighter) who used Assault Rifles and Shotguns and eventually decided to take up a Rigger playstyle (drone controller), and became an army of two, me and my drone getting in a good defendable position and laying down heavy firepower. but I still needed things like a Mage for utility or a Decker for getting in the Matrix or an Adept to get in people's faces when they don't want to advance on me.
@@derrinerrow4369 Rigger with decking skills is probably one of the better solo options, since it allows for some utility, the Matrix, and combat. Still missing out on magic stuff, but magic and tech are not exactly very compatible.
One of my favourite class systems is in Golden Sun. Each character has a *partial* class that defines what equipment they can use and their base element, but as soon as you start setting Djinn you can mix and match elemental combinations to shift the classes pretty drastically, with the biggest payoffs coming from the classes that use a wide variety of Djinn.
What makes this interesting, though, is that once you activate a Djinn in combat you get an immediate powerful effect and the ability to use it later in the fight as a high damage summon attack, but while the Djinn are on standby before a summon or on cooldown after a summon, your characters will have their class dynamically change accordingly. Not only does this mean lower stats until the Djinn is reset, it also means that you might find that their stats and abilities suddenly shift them into a totally different combat role, and this swing is more drastic if you use a wide variety of Djinn types which, as I said before, is what gives you access to some of the most potent classes.
Every moment to moment interaction with the class system is a game of weighing risks against the potential payoff. It's an amazingly deep system
You may enjoy Octopath Traveler, if you haven't already played it. It's much more simple than the Golden Sun system, but it uses its classes beautifully. There's also a sequel that was just announced.
I thought Dnd copied their class system from real world war generals that would split their armies into archers, foot soldiers, chivalry, medics,... and other games got it from the same source instead of dnd
Well, the game D&D copied everything from certainly did!
@@ArchitectofGames I'm sorry but I had a stroke reading this sentence
Dnd is older than I thought if war generals where using it's classes way back when ;)
Computer RPGs began to appear in the 1970s, more or less contemporaneously with the arrival and popularisation of pen-and-paper role-playing games which are themselves the children of historical wargames. Thus, the CRPG has only been around for a few decades, but its history reaches all the way back to the 1800s. Baron von Reisswitz is credited with creating the first true wargame - that is, a game meant to simulate battles with a certain degree of fidelity, and not merely a chess derivative. Created in the early 1810s, this game went by the name Kriegsspiel (meaning “War Game” in German). It featured units actually in use by the military of the day, and was meant to simulate battles. Character creation was a matter of faithfully emulating the real-world characteristics of the units those pieces represented, then using die rolls to simulate unforeseen factors in resolving combat. Von Reisswitz’s son created a revised version of the game in 1824. The revised Kriegsspiel paid such close attention to accuracy that the Chief of Prussian General Staff recommended it as a military exercise; the King of Prussia, in turn, actually ordered that every regiment of the army be supplied with a copy. In 1811, a special table full of drawers was made so that King Wilhelm III could play Kriegsspiel. The table is still around, kept at the Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin.
In 1876, Colonel Julius Adrian Friedrich Wilhelm von Verdy du Vernois produced a third version of Kriegsspiel. Vernois was suspicious of the idea that military outcomes could be predetermined according to fixed rules, and replaced die rolls with the mediation of impartial “umpires” who would determine the outcomes of various engagements based on their knowledge and experience (yes, the first Dungeon Masters were Prussian military men from the 1800s).
The American military began putting out its own wargames around this time, with Jane’s Fighting Ships following suit across the Atlantic in 1898. Like Kriegsspiel, Jane’s Fighting Ships spelled out the characteristics of the game’s numerous units in astonishing detail. (Google Books has a digitised copy of the rulebook online, so you can see for yourself just how intricate this got.)
Even H.G. Wells, the renowned writer, got in on the action, producing Little Wars in 1913. The rules of Little Wars were far simpler than those of other wargames, but it generally followed the practice of simulating large-scale battles, with the characteristics of different unit types decided rigidly according to the type of troops each unit represented. It wasn’t until the early 1970s that wargames started delving into the idea of individual men and women as units. The games that did this eventually became known as “man-to-man wargames” (not to be confused with Steve Jackson’s ruleset of the same name). It may seem obvious to us now, but this focus on individual men and women was such a radical departure from wargaming tradition that it wouldn’t be mentioned in the rules for Gary Gygax’s Chainmail until 1971, three years after Chainmail’s initial publication.
Even then, it seems the man-to-man rules in Chainmail were largely an afterthought, relegated to a mere two pages out of the entire 44-page book. There, too, character creation remained a matter of looking up prefabricated unit values in a table. Things changed dramatically with the publication of Dungeons & Dragons in 1974. It retained many of Chainmail’s rules, centring character creation around selecting from three main classes of characters: Fighting Men, Magic-Users and Clerics. However, before selecting a class, D&D first had players roll three six-sided dice to determine abilities: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity, and Charisma. These would, in turn, impact how well-suited the character was to a given class, imposing bonuses (or penalties!) based on their chosen class’s primary statistic. This wholly upended the method of character creation that had prevailed up until that point. Statistics were no longer determined by class: instead, characters got statistics, and only then chose a class based on which roles the statistics made available to them. This approach would form the basis of numerous classic computer RPGs. RPGs continued to diverge from wargames as the genre developed, and so too did their character creation systems. With increased focus on unique, individual characters came an increased focus on the abilities and limitations of each individual character. At their peak, these considerations would come to supplant the notion of character class entirely.
-excerpt from The CRPG Book: A guide to computer role playing games, by Felipe Pepe.
@@zensoredparagonbytes3985 fascinating! Thank you 😊
16:34 While this point is very true in the latest installment in the Elder Scrolls series (and to a lesser extent in Oblivion as well), it is not so much the case in Morrowind and Daggerfall (as well as Arena I believe, though I haven't played it). In the earlier titles you are given the option of pre-built classes, each with their own major and minor skills which give you a clear idea of what your class excels at. Over time you can change a character into whatever you like (much like your Elden Ring example), but the class system is very much present. Aside from me being nitpicky on this point, I think you did a wonderful job in this video presenting the class system in games.
This video is a mess. I'm convinced he hasn't even played many of the games he talks about including oldschool D&D itself.
You know Adam Millard, I like your videos. Not only do you take a topic, do a grand review on it and then make a video on it. Also yes I agree, classes are a easy way to have many characters, sidequest in the main story, all of them be importent and more. Its a useful concept alright.
I've just discovered your channel a few weeks ago, so this is the first new upload I'm experiencing, and I have to say I am impressed. I love the insightful and creative commentary you provide, and I've also loved going through the back catalog and finding myself looking looking at past games I've played from a completely new perspective. I've already recommended this channel to a lot of friends and I greatly look forward to finding out what awesome overlooked games I missed at the end of the year. Thanks for the content!
Personally I like classes in games that focus on gameplay. This applies mainly to videogames, stuff like XCOM where the tactical/team building is very important to the overall experience.
Outside of videogames I came to heavily dislike them as rigid design constraints. They may be easy to understand, they are without a doubt a good starting point for new players or people new to a system but in the long run I know exactly 4 people that were not bored of DnD classes after half a year of playing. We have around 20 people in our roleplaying circle and everyone else prefers playing "classless" systems.
Most of us do have years of rp experience within these systems - I also started with playing one - so we may be biased. Still the setiment is the same:
Classes are needlessly restrictive for almost no benefit. Well, at least for the way we play.
When I try to sell them a class based system it often goes like this "The game mechanics, fluff and setting sound nice, I have this cool character concept in mind - how can I do that? Ah I see... I could do it, but I would need to compromise on the most important aspects because the system does not allow it like I have imagined it to be. Well I rather play something else then... Oh this nice idea has the same problems? I'm out then, have fun."
This is less a problem with people new to rp (which is why I very much like to try new systems with new players) but with people that have played a lot of rp already this becomes quite a frequent (and frustrating) experience for me as a GM. Though as a player I often find myself doing exactly that to my GMs. I don't care about one shots so I'm more open to doing stuff like the system wants me to do it, but in longer campaigns I put a lot more work in the character so I'm comfortable with playing it the whole way. And this often leads to "having fun despite the system instead of having fun with the system".
For us a system needs to have enough choices for the players to not have to compromise on core character concepts as long as their character ideas fit the theme and powerlevel of the game as suggested by world/setting and intended playstyle of the campaign.
I think the idea of class exists in real world as well with the economic concept of specialisation, it is more efficient to focus resources into doing one specific thing instead of spreading over trying to do all things at once, and we gamers sure love efficiency. That's why class is such a staple in video game because most of the time it is just the most effective way to play games, in addition to other benefits mentioned in the video.
Especially in multiplayer games, people will strategize their group efforts until they optimised themselves into separate classes.
"Exists in real life" is not a good reason to include something in your game.
@@mrosskne Is that what he claimed? It's not about being realistic but about being efficient and intuitive.
@@ruolbu And classes are neither efficient nor intuitive. Thanks for finally catching up to the rest of us.
@@mrosskne Division of labour and specialisation are common practice in many fields, multiplayer games included. Being able to focus on one task enables higher effiency compared to switching frequently.
Other than that, people have different preferences for tasks, which makes it intuitive to specialise into one direction.
What makes you believe that the opposite is true, please give some example.
A important point you mentionned, but I feel is too often overlooked, is that classes can be present in all but name. It's not because a game doesn't have a system named "classes", that it doesn't have them.
A game that comes to mind on that subject is the original version of The Secret World; this game didn't have classes. Instead, you had to choose two weapons; which each weapons having unique mechanical traits (sword excelled in evasion and self-healing; blood magic specialized in dealing DoT and putting barriers; rifles had long range and provided life-stealing to the team...).
In effect, each weapon was a class, with each player having in effect two classes.
But, interestingly, some people had issues with the game because "it didn't have classes". As a result, when the game was rereleased as "Secret World Legends", players had to select a class when creating a character; the only effect of those new "classes" was to predetermine the starting weapons of the character; and nothing else.
It's interesting to see that some games can have the functionnality of a class, without being perceived as such, and vice-versa.
I just really appreciate your videos and it's delivery. Your insight is something I always welcome
Interesting take! In one of my own TTRPG designs, I took a take on classes and levelling up that gave them an in-world explanation - the characters are training at ELITE SCIENCE-FANTASTY COMBAT SCHOOL, so after each mission go back for a term of training, and get to choose what course module to study each time: weaponry, three different schools of magic, tech/engineering, piloting various kinds of military vehicles, etc... I've written enough "modules" for each "course" that you'd need to have a very long-lived character to get them all, and balanced the increase in power as you go up levels so players in practice tend to specialise in one but pick up a few basic modules in other topics to round their character out a bit.
Anime high school the RPG
Terrible.
Cool to see this really broken down and analyzed. I feel like I knew a lot of this, but it’s stuff I never could’ve really articulated until now. Great as always Adam
Your ability to use so many different games to excellently highlight specific topics or examples is really impressive!
Actually for 5e, ranged fighters significantly out damage melee fighters when optimized
Hell, any mid or high level spellcaster out tanks, damages, supports, and utilities any nonspellcaster.
In my opinion, the best thing about classes is the fact that they are exclusive. Each class has a thing that no other class can do or will ever be able to do. I like that, the ability to have a thing that is clearly laid out and based on a set of tropes that can be followed and subverted in order to create an interesting character. They act as a framework, something to build off of and a baked-in part of a character's identity.
9:38 I appreciate that you omitted the Sorcerer for basically being "Wizard but bad and inbred". (It really should have just been a Wizard sub)
My understanding of sorcerers in d&d is that unlike wizards who learned magic through study sourcers inherited their magic and often have trouble controlling it
It's a really interesting concept but when making characters they don't feel all to different from what I've played, at least in 5th edition they have a very similar spell list and don't feel too different besides sorcery points
Hey, at least it's better than Warlock, which is "I wanted to play a Sorcerer, but with the backstory of an evil cleric."
You overlooked the fact that classes are transferable across games. If I enjoy playing a tank in League of Legends, I might enjoy playing a tank in Guild Wars 2 as well.
Classes also help COMMUNICATE to players what to expect from each other, from NPCs, enemies, etc.
"He's a barbarian" or "She's a sorcerer" gives 80% of the relevant info to understand the strategic impact on a team or in an opponent.
Is he a warrior? We don't take him on a raid. Today is a different meta.
you mentioned classes in elder scrolls, but the series DID have a class system before skyrrim. And the sneak archer prroblem is only really present in skyrim
Indeed, but it was just a convenient abstraction over it's RuneQuest style skill-based system, which was made specifically by dudes frustrated by D&D classes.
TES didn't have a class system, except for the first game. These are just skill presets.
The problem of a stealth archer is no more significant than the problem of the complete superiority of casters over non-casters in DnD.
Hello Mr. Adam. I came here to inform you that you've made a typo in Preist at 0:49 and this mistake will now haunt you until the end of days : )
2:15 - I love how you show Runescape here, a game that doesn't have traditional fixed classes at all instead going to weapon classes.
That is one of the reasons I like RuneScape so much and play it to this day: I want to play as a mage, I can; If i change my mind and want to be a melee, I Just stop at a bank and get my other gear and voilá
Didn't older Elder Scrolls games have classes? I seem to remember them in Morrowind.
A lot of RPGs with classes end up with all classes being mostly the same, because even as a hulking armoured warrior you might need to do a stealth quest, and developers don't want to soft-lock anyone because they chose the wrong class at the start of the game. Quests end up being mostly the same for a similar reason.
What might be interesting is a game that allows you to switch class during the game (with some restrictions). This would mean that you could have a quest where stealth is vital (and you equip the loadout for that situation) and another quest where stealth is irrelevant (where the stealth loadout would be useless). In theory stealth sections could play like Assassins Creed (not Valhalla) and the heavy combat sections could play like God of War.
Morrowind does have classes but there's some counter intuitive aspects to the system. On level up you get to boost stats with a multiplier on each one based on the relevant skills you've learned. But because leveling up is based on learning class skills (which I believe get a boost to learning them.) you can level up before you have enough other skills to get full multipliers. so since class choice doesn't prevent you from doing anything, there can be an incentive to pick class skills that don't align with what you plan to be doing.
It's been a while since I've played and was never too into the mechanics so I may have some details wrong.
@@ericbuchner2982 that's probably the kind of detail I might have forgotten since, like you, I played the game some time ago (and I don't think I went too deep into it)
Then the dichotomy between class and classless systems makes no sense.
"There are no classes in Counter-Strike, but you can buy weapons, so there are classes there" - it sounds strange.
@@cpazmatikus3752 not played CS in a loooong time but that might be you pick your starting gear, but if there's a different weapon on the ground you can grab it, in a way that a mage character in an RPG might not be able to just chuck on some heavy armour
All of the spectacularly hard work put into this video and the comments are all going to be "haha preist"
When it comes to multiplayer games it's interesting how a person's class can change their approach to the game. I personally love the roleplay aspect, getting into the character interactions and worldbuilding are my favorite part of both games and stories. Interestingly, I've noticed that I also tend to favor support classes; buff, debuff, battlefield control, healers, and so on. But I've noticed that people who just want to focus on the combat tend to choose classes with a more straight forwards playstyle, Fighter, barbarian and so on. It's not the rule, there's definitely plenty of people who choose 'hit em good' classes that enjoy the roleplay aspect, but I find it interesting all the same all the same.
Thanks for another great video, and sorry about cluttering up the comments section. Think of it as driving the algorithm, I guess.
You don't need classes to accomplish this.
@@mrosskne Maybe not, but there are specific classes, or class archetypes, which are entirely built around this kind of playstyle. A wizard specializing in illusions, a summoner that fights by buffing allies and calling extra monsters, an alchemist that brews potions and utilizes their effects in battle.
These are all examples of this kind of class, though my comment was more making an observation that, in my experience, people who prefer roleplay trend more towards classes with complex mechanics while people that just want to roll dice and fight stuff trend towards the more physical classes.
I think complex mechanics is a big part of this, and one of the short comings of videogame rpgs. Roleplaying interactions in a videogame are hard coded and prescribed, so if you want to engage with the rp side of the game more, you want to have access to more of those mechanical interactions.
On the other hand if your only tool to interact with the game is damage output then the only rp you can really do is the more esoteric meta RP. The kind where you ignore the script of the game and headcanon your own narratives, conversations and what have you.
@@dragonmaster1500 And again. None of these mechanics or play styles or preferences you've mentioned require classes. Please get your head out of your ass and actually listen instead of just repeating the lines you always use in arguments of this type.
So, people choose specific classes that perfectly fit their playstyle, except when they don't? Is that what you're saying? Because that's exactly how horoscopes (don't) work.
The Overwatch salt fills the ocean! Though, I do agree. Role queue was supposed to solve the party composition problem, but really just created new problems, and eliminated an entire class of hero. And then they cut a team member from OW2 in order to fix the queueing issue with the lack of tanks.
I have no other reason to comment except to spite the bugger who wants to say "first".
yanno this is just an elaborate way of saying first
@@jackiecozzie4803 true lol
first
Still a "first" calling, but one of the best I've seen. 😂
I think one of the most important parts of games which don't feature classes or make them fairly flexible is making distinctive and interesting advantages and opportunity costs to specializing or branching out, on top of making abilities feel interesting alone and in combination. One of my favorite examples is how action ratings work in Blades in the Dark. Because of the roll system which makes rolling with bad dice pools dangerous and unproductive, there's a strong pull towards maxing out a few action ratings and never sticking your head outside that comfort zone. However, your first dot in each new action rating grants you a better dice pool to resist consequences, so there's a baked-in advantage to branching out as well. And the thing is, both can be fun to play in their own ways. Specializing can make your character feel like a brittle perfectionist and gives you chances to feel incredibly powerful, but when consequences come you'll have to either accept them or risk more stress than an all-rounder, and when something outside your toolkit comes up you'll have to get creative to remain relevant. By contrast, an all-rounder can handle setbacks and out of context problems much more gracefully, and if they incur consequences they can resist much more freely, but they'll have to spend stress pushing for dice to be as sure of success on high-stakes rolls
Who the hell thought of the name 'Fighting man' back then?
LMAO!
One thing about games with "classless" design where you can generally mix and match anything like Skyrim, is that it's very important that the games actually give you a good reason to specialize and start providing downsides to not specializing early on. The problem with Skyrim is that it's pretty trivial to just try out everything and there's many things that you can just do if you know what you're doing even if you never put points into it. For example you can literally pick every lock in the game without ever investing in lockpicking it just makes the minigame harder. So if you get good at the minigame then you never need to invest points in that skill. And I think the lack of reason to specialize is what results in the game feeling so generic with everyone eventually doing similar strategies because it's the most effective. Almost everyone ends up joining all of the "class" guilds with the warrior guild, thieves guild, assassins guild, and mages guild, because it's so trivial to meet the minimum requirements of completing those questlines. Like I think with the Mages guild you can literally complete by casting only 2 or 3 low level spells.
Meanwhile to use a hyperspecific example, in the Tabletop RPG Wrath and Glory, they don't really have classes outside of roleplay reasons, since everyone can learn to do about anything. However as you get higher up in tiers, it gets more and more expensive to invest into better stats and skills and talents for your specialty. And the system is extremely lethal, so if you don't invest in your core attribute enough, you'll fall behind the curve fairly quickly. So you're heavily encouraged to pick only a handful of things to be good at and specialize in them, even if you can still be kinda decent at more things on the side. But even then, every point you invest in rounding out your character is a point not going towards making you better at your main thing. Though it also helps that Tabletop RPGs are team games so your specializing in one thing makes room for someone else to specialize in another to complement each other.
Another good example of how classless design works well is Divinity Original Sin 2. Again there's lots of things to invest in and technically anyone can learn anything. However they limit your options by your stats. If you invest a ton into Intelligence, then you're going to get a lot more out of learning to cast spells than you will if you try to invest in Melee combat. And similarly if you try to invest in a ton of different spell schools, you have the benefit of increased diversity of abilities, but the higher tier spells require more investment in that school regardless of your stats, so you're still encouraged to pick a school to specialize in.
The Skyrim example has another nuance to it, because enemies scale to you (not to your combat power, just your overall progression) anything that doesn't give you combat power is making the game harder on yourself. That might have been thought of by the devs as a way to encourage specialization, but in practice it doesn't work out that way, it just makes investing in any of the crafts a net global difficulty increase. Kudos on the lockpicking design failure by the way, that has stuck out to me for years as a total flub. Because in combination with the whole 'all advancement makes enemies stats higher in combat' it highly encourages NOT putting points into anything you can get away with neglecting, and Lockpicking is a perfect example of 'never invest in this' design space.
I just wanted to say the "You Saw" section of your description earned you a sub! I love it because I find myself wondering what cool game was playing in the background of so many videos just to be left with a crazy search history and no results!
Pick out of X is surprising powerful psychological hook, that's why many games from mobile trash to AAA put it on first (or nearly first) screen potential players see. Horde or Alliance? Zerg, Protoss, Humans? It's easy and quick to make that initial choice, but it immediately gets you a little bit invested. If you play for a while and get to understand that faction/class you are even more invested partially in us-vs-them way where "fighting men are best, puny magical users are only alive because we carry them".
You'll be far more invested in a character you build yourself.
If you put in the effort. Picking out of 5 is almost zero effort but quite big investment. I don't remember the scientific term but this is known psychological effects.
"Constraints breed creativity"
Great video! One other aspect to consider is classes as a mechanism of character expression. The video touches a lot on how the class system acts on players experiences, but players can also use the class system as a tool to express themselves in the game. Once a player becomes familiar with the mechanics and game feel of different classes, they can deliberately choose to opt into certain playstyles which allow them to achieve a particular fantasy.
e.g. in the MTG segment you mention that red-blue ends up making you feel like a mad scientist, which is the "passive exploration" stage of the experience (player figuring out how things work together). The step beyond this is for experience players to say "I want to have a deck behaves like a particular kind of mad scientist!" and build a deck around that.
A class can only ever reduce your ability to express yourself.
Maybe- in the sense that if you can "do anything" you can "say/express anything". But I do think that limitations can amplify the impact the decisions you have.
This isn't an exact comparison, but let's compare to art media. Instead of classes, maybe we have the choice of pencil, watercolor, or pastels. We *could* say "actually you can do whatever combination of these tools you want". But I'd argue that there is some power/impact in forcing people to pick only one of them, and then give them the freedom to explore within that choice of medium. There's still room to express oneself in that medium, and the fact that you chose one is in itself a form of expression.
Obviously, if classes are overly restrictive and don't allow for any deviation from some sort of set path, then of course it's not really going to allow for expression.
@@TheTwigMaster Your analogy doesn't carry over to games. I can create any dnd class in Prowlers and Paragons, along with any other character you care to imagine, and nothing is lost in the process - just the opposite. The recreated characters will not only be more true to how you imagine them, they will be more effective in their roles, and more capable of contributing to the narrative.
Great video. Love this subject matter and feel that it was covered perfectly in this video.
Tfw you notice Adam misspelled Priest in the WoW card rundown, lol.
Classes are a part of real life fighting too. Stephen Wonderboy Thompson is a pure Long Range Striker class. Which means he has an advantage over the pressure boxer class, as they need to close distance that he excels at controlling, but wonderboy’s class is at a disadvantage against the grappler class.
Great video, I absolutely agree on the benefits of classes. I also think they are very helpful from a narrative perspective. In TTRPGs with classes I really like to just pick a class and play to its narrative archetype in a way the other players can easily understand, and then let the specifics that mark out that unique character emerge naturally through roleplaying and interaction with the other people at the table. The more popular approach seems to be to come up with a unique character concept first and then pick a class (or multiclass combo) to try to embody that concept, and I always find this falls flat.
On games with only one class, I do think there’s a type of game where it’s not exactly like having no classes. In the TTRPG Maze Rats it appears that you don’t have classes, but I think in reality because the game is so focused (on dungeon crawling in this case) everyone plays the same class, Maze Rat, and you can specialise in combat, magic or other dungeony skills. To my mind this is different from something like GURPS or in the video game world Skyrim, because those games are all about offering freedom and choice, so they let you specialise in alchemy or basket weaving or whatever. Having a single class, instead of either a list of classes or a truly classless system, can be a really powerful way to communicate what the game is all about.
Its funny how a little bit of identidy flavor, can bring the best of us humans.
What I find funny is how Vampire has clans, which encourage certain character builds, but:
A) allows for relative versatility
B) uses the narrative to softly enforce the class system
While Vampire is often played in groups, it has a stronger free-for-all structure than d&d, with each player having plans running that don't intersect or even compete with each other.
Mechanically, while clans give affinity for certain powers (in the former of lower xp cost to level them), a player can theoratically cultivate any power and learn any skill.
Because of this, players DO run the risk of having to interact with all the game has to offer, but they can be built in a way that supports it.
Ultimately, this creates more of an immersive sim situation, where you will face the challenges alone, but your build will determine your MO.
The sociable Ventrue (natural leaders) might cultivate status and wealth to move their plans, while the skulking Nosferatu (hideously deformed masters of stealth and animal control) will likely peddle secrets and blackmail people to further their agenda, and more esoteric clans like the Tremere (blood mages) and the Hecata (necromancers) have whole new avenues of play open to them with blood sorcery and necromancy respectively, and might do mercenary work, exchanging their coveted services for favours.
These clans can very much inform how you play, but it doesn't force you to. You can base yourself on these disciplines and min/max your PC, but you can just as easily base yourself around skills like Technology making a hacker (which opens up a whole new way you can go about your plans). It's even perfectly viable, because the mundane skills won't blow your mortal cover and don't require you to invest blood points, reducing the need to drink blood.
All in all I think a loose character system is the best of both worlds. Games like Dark Souls and Divinity: Original Sin II use them, and it only determines your starting gear and skills, giving newbies an idea how they should build their characters while allowing veterans to customize their characters much more easily.
As much as I understand the utility and effective application of class systems in games the ones that fit me and my life approach best is rarely included, which would best be summarized as the FF Red Mage. I discovered it in Baldur's Gate as the Fighter/Theif/Mage multi-class.
I'm a perfect player for a utility class that can do many things well, but excels in nothing beyond situational flexibility. Having hybrid classes in a game doesn't make the character less of a team player, if normally means having to carry more of the load as you divide your focus between support and combat . It'll play any game on hard-mode, but I enjoy it the most.
I find your point at the end there kinda funny about how classes where investable. In that alot of early table top games started as war game simulations of current war (napoleonionic war). And in those days you had cannons, infantry and cavalry. And each one of those units where specialized to a specific job.
Had friends make me get Rimworld to play Multiplayer with them and choosing a few tasks to dedicate myself on focusing on makes it easier to take bite-sized chunks of the game to learn.
Also make me feel useful when I accomplish said tasks.
While classes can be a very useful mechanic when used correctly, I think they work far better in instances where synergy between team members (be they all controlled by a single player, or each controlled by an individual player) is valuable in play - from turn based tactics games like XCOM to isometric party based RPGs like Dragon Age Origins. They become less interesting in single player experiences where the player controls only one character and a single play through takes dozens of hours (such as Fallout New Vegas). The Elder Scrolls games are an interesting middle ground, because prior to Skyrim, the series had classes which defined which skills contributed to gaining levels, and thus started higher, and which didn't, and thus started lower, but you could still gain any skill to any proficiency level. In addition, players could create their own class. I honestly don't see myself enjoying a game like Skyrim as much if choosing to be able to wear heavy armour locked me out of being good at sneaking or using magic. If each class had mutually exclusive mechanics in such a game, it would have to be short enough that I could reasonably play multiple times to see how each class changes the game.
Speaking about TTRPGs, not videogames.
Classes are, IMO, both a big source of strength and the greatest weakness of D&D as far as gamedesign is concerned.
Classes essentially allow to simplify the process that many players would do anyway if you had to build your character from 0, akin to what you see in systems like The Dark Eye and Shadowrun.
If you want to be a Figther, you are gonna high HP, weapons and armors and as many attacks as you can. It makes sense.
If you are gonna be a wizard, you will min-max your distribution of "skill points" into having as much magic as possible.
This is a simple, human, pattern. It's the reason why in 3/3.5e you would see "gish" builds designed specifically to get all four possible attacks and still reach at lest 8th level spells. That's just how most people play games.
Yet, classes are also highly limiting, forcing even more a logic of optimization and essentially forcing penalties on versatility.
Are you really going to spend one of your precious feats to be able to use swords decently as a wizard for flavour and maybe because you want to try out some of those short range spells? Or are you gonna spend it on optimizing your magic as usual while trying some build trick to still get a proficiency bonus?
The logic of Classes work well enough when considering TTRPGs as a team-based experience/problem solving exercise. It's not wonder that they have their origin in D&D, which was a dungeon-delving derivative of a war game. When your end objective is clearing the dungeon, the Figther-MU-Cleric-Rogue team is a logical conclusion after all.
Yet, it carries a lot of negative flaws when it comes to many other things.
My biggest issue, in particular in the context of fantasy, is how it reduces the magic and wonder and mistery that you are supposed to weave into a world by simplifying everything to its simplest elements.
Characters end up as limited mechanical machines that can barely do anything they weren't designed to do, and going against this logic puts them at a relevant disadvantage as they are sacrificing their main job.
It's not a surprise that the more narrative focused parts of the OSR scene tend to reduce classes to simple basics and put less emphasis on them.
A character in Worlds WIthout Numbers, one of the best designed OSR games that merges older style and modern sensibilities, has a class, but this only influences their HP, their attack bonus (which is also influenced by their personal skills anyway) and exactly 2 class features each.
Essentially, a character is an equivalent mix of its own personal background and class features, there is nothing stopping your warrior to be a smart guy fresh out of school, your rogue from having a military background or mage from being particularly good in a brawl.
1) A large sprawling skill tree is not hard to balance. It is only a matter of designing the OP build themselves and hiding it by "organizing". If done well enough players will never even find it. The developers must develop this way so they themselves know what can possibly be OP and create the game accordingly.
2) Monster centric game design is an interesting concept. If you create complex enemies with different weaknesses and condition resistances and split the required abilities to player classes, they will always need variations of class in the party. Complex enemies against plain players always tend to be more intersting than the opposite.
3) Same with what was said earlier, OP party combos must already be designed by the developer. They must be always envisioning the end rather than creating as they go.
my favorite implementation of Classes in a narrative and gameplay loop would have to be Fantasy Life for the 3DS. Where each Combat, Gathering, and Crafting class are quite literally called "Lifes" (or Jobs) and are all represented pretty equally all around the game world and in gameplay.
for example, Paladins are not more important than Cooks, and no one job gets more representation than the other. in fact, with the two classes I mentioned go hand in hand for stat boosting, and restorative meals for combat, leading to easier resource gathering, which then feeds into higher quality meals for Cooking.
It's a very relaxing and satisfying system, that seems pretty simple but is very pleasant to actually achieve and carry out when you're in the rhythm.
I was literally like "bruh if he doesn't bring up drg" right when you started talking about classes that naturally promote teamwork through good synergy, guess you held up to my expectations.
You don't need classes to promote teamwork, nor to have synergy.
@@mrosskne no, but Drg is an excellent example of classes as synergy in a cooperative setting.
The accessibility argument can be really shown when comparing CSGO to valorant. In CSGO there are no classes while valorant divides its agents in 4 classes that need to cooperate together to reach the objective, not to say CSGO doesn't require said roles, as the roles of an entry, trader, support and lurker are not only in the game, but fundamental to secure wins on high elos, valorant only has rebranded said terms. This in turn makes valorants barrier of entry much thinner than CSGO, which to many people can seem rather scary, while valorant is much easier to grasp, not only that, but this division of classes makes the overall game also much more tactical. This is clear when comparing a silver CSGO match to a bronze valorant match, in CSGO it's essentially just 10 people gunning each other down while even low rank players in valorant still have some idea of what they are supposed to be doing on their respective agent, even if poorly executed.
Itss not to say one game is better than the other, I like both almost equally(if CSGO matchmaking and anti cheat was any decent it would probably be no different to me), but its interesting to see how two games with essentially the same gameplay make up for such different experiences to new players due to the addition of a single mechanic.
Would you say that CSGO behaves like skyrim, allowing its players freedom of choice on how to handle enemy encounters, but without anything directing them - like a fighter class in skyrim or competitive clan members in CSGO - players of both games default to what's easy and effective enough? (obviously both games have very different default play styles)
I have never played DnD but heard about them for a hundredth time already.
I feel like what a classes does is by limiting what you can do within a world, you can use your creativity what you can do within your abilities therefore creating a sense of belonging to the world.
In a multicharacter singleplayer game it is very easy to learn the mechanic of a different classes and grasp the core gameplan of it.
In a truly multiplayer game it is important for player to cooperate with other players to maximize effectiveness of one another. (And not just more player =more dps)
Overall it's a tool to design a world, I think balancing the amount of class to be correspond to the amount player(s) current access to them is a key to successful game design.
It's interesting how people can arrange themselves into archetypes or 'classes' even in games that specifically don't have them. Minecraft for example, has no class system, but people arrange themselves into catagories based on their general playstyle. Miners are people who just like gathering resources, Redstoners are people who love to mess around with the technical side side of the game and build crazy contraptions, Builders spend their time putting together building projects big and small, Fighters are the people who just like PVP or PVE combat.
Minecraft doesn't restrict players from doing any of these things, there's nothing to stop a miner from building redstone contraptions, or a redstoner from building an awesome project, but these are still categorizations that we fall back into.
I find that's more about just doing what you like in a game that allows for a variety of different tasks.
To just comment real quick on TES, since it's one of the few games here I have a lot of experience with, the games do push you in a direction with the Racial abilities and stats. As well as descriptions. It's not as big of a push as a Class (Though before Skyrim Classes did, in fact, exist in TES they just weren't limiting since they were your level up vector) but when you pick your Race it'll tell you what they do well in Oblivion and Skyrim.
Otherwise great vid, just wanted to add some clarity since for once I have some input here. I personally like how TES4 did Classes since it made it feel like you could choose the general idea of your character, but it was freeform enough that you could still get utility from Spells, Shields, or anything else that isn't in your class.
"Overwatch - 2016 (yes I am refusing to note overwatch 2 as a seperate game out of spite thank you for asking)" in the description caught me off guard. I also have to remind myself that OW2 isn't just a rebranded OW. I mean, it has.... erm....
I have a few gripes here:
I feel the mtg example, for example, is particularly reductive. 1) the color pie has been significantly degraded over time and there's not much left of it these days besides flavor. Izzet being a spam-happy color combo *can* be the case, but isn't at all required, and e.g. if you're playing something like commander, your "class" is basically your commander choice: my commander izzet deck is themed around casting the biggest spells possible and doesn't really have any spammy spells.
I also don't like the constant harping on against how classless games alienate new players and are therefore bad? That's just an argument for marketability. Classes are great for putting yourself into a box, if that's what you're into, but plenty of folks like freeform development; not everyone in elder scrolls plays stealth melee archers. For the argument of nuance, I'd say that the fewer classes are, the worse a class-based system is (which seems to be in direct opposition to your position). Like, in XCOM-style games, I always feel extremely restricted with the creative expression allowed and I find the Holy Trinity to be a turn off, personally. I would much rather prefer a more flexible system with multi-classing, modular character design, or some other form of branching character design. In something like LoL you can find the holy trinity, but you could say it's been expanded. Support encompasses healers, but it also has proactive protectors, engagers, disengagers, and has significant overlap with the tank class, which is featured elsewhere and overlaps with damage, which likewise overlaps with the debuffing style supports. Classes in LoL are broader and also differentiated by the means available of the game itself in the form of lanes and the jungle where 5 players have to split the resources available. There are also plenty of "cheese comps" that are entirely viable outside of the top tiers (which I would imagine would appeal to you since your focus is on new players rather than elites) and those comps can entirely focus on one part of the trinity or ignore one or whatever. A team of assassins is totally playable even in ranked for at least the bottom half of all players but would never fly in a structured mmo that demands someone act as health sponge/aggro bot, another be the healing bish, and then the majority of the player base funnels into the nebulous DPS category and the queue times reflect that -- even in LoL the support position is supported broadly to ensure it's more fun than just yelling at people who take too much aggro.
I love classes, don't get me wrong. But I think you're pushing too hard for a reductionist design philosophy that takes too much expression out of many genres. I love me a barb or necro in diablo, but only if I can build them the way I like. The aesthetics provided by those classes scratch particular roleplay itches, but if I log into an MMO and want to tank as some sort of beefy two-handed bruiser/dps and people yell at me to get my shield out instead, that's a major turn off. I'd rather have an MMO built around parties finding different and creative ways of meeting a challenge rather than demanding that a healer spam for the next hour because even regular enemies do too much damage for the party to survive a fight otherwise. Let the tanks have healing abilities, let the dps "tank" for themselves with active defenses/reflexes/etc., let the supports choose styles of doing so e.g. debuffing, shielding, buffing, and yes, healing. If players want to box themselves in for the sake of ease, let them, but don't box everyone in on the presumption that everyone wants a linear experience.
Thanks Adam, just wanted to express some healthy disagreement, keep up the good work! 😊
It is also directly at-odds with roleplaying games. It works well enough if you want to play the _class_ or if your fantasy happens to align up extremely well with the class. If you want to play a less aligned fantasy or a _character,_ that particular restriction often runs directly counter to the primary appeal of the game for that player (eg your greatswords example).
nobody reading all that
Very interesting! Though I agree with the video overall, you bring up some good points. Would you say the "Dark Souls" method provides a good in-between? Have starting classes, but also offer the option to go without?
I think you might have enjoyed Wildstar (rip), it still had a class system, but gave you two skill trees to switch between at any time, making the self-healing tank or the support-dd-mix possible. Best fun I'd ever had in an MMO, and you really only needed the classes for vague matchmaking.
I think you also might enjoy dnd, as you can combine classes to create some studied combose that wasn't planned, but it is not perfect
My perspective as a game creator is that classes are good for tutorialization and easier to balance from a pure game design perspective, which you have noted in this video. As a developer, they are prohibitive to use because they are much more expensive, requiring you to give each and every one of them a very large toolset (plus aesthetic assets) so they don't get boring quickly, don't become unplayable the moment your teammates don't do what you ask of them (in team-based games) or that players can make progress on their own (in single player games).
Basically they have scalability, repetitiveness and progression issues, which is why I don't like them that much. The upside of having a lot more personality baked into them is undeniable though, and is probably the main reason I'd still opt for them in the right circumstances.
Literally the smoothest ad transition I've ever seen.
"Elder Scrolls games don't have class systems"
Only Skyrim doesnt have a class system
A concept i´ve never seen talked about is that in OOP ( objecto oriented porgraming), that is a paradigm ( really commonly used in videogames) we have thigs called CLASSES that are like blueprints of a piece of code that have properties(hp, mana, hp regen, dmg etc) and methods ( hit, walk, heal etc). Classes are used to reuse code by inheritance ( think like your eyes color are "properties" of your parents they inherit that to you) so if i want to create a "fighter class" i´ll want to get things like "attacking" "hp" "walk" etc from a "character class" so i can reuse it to make a mage (that has also the method "attack" or the properties "hp" ) so i create a "character class" and as childs i can have a Fighter, Mage, Cleric etc. Subclasses are classes that inherits from Fighter that inherit from character. Also OOP is older that dnd so i think the inspiration is clear.
There is a very big counterpoint to TOO MUCH class dependency though, especially in multiplayer games. Instead of having overpowered singular classes, certain sets of classes are bunched up into 'meta comps', which ironically makes the gameplay even more restrictive for the individual (Overwatch comes to mind). Also, multiplayer games have to ensure that you have enough agency so that you can consistently affect the outcome of the game, otherwise, you would have the sinking feeling that no matter how good you are, you can't win the game on your own. Although as a developer you might want this, as a player this creates a toxic game environment (every multiplayer game comes to mind lol). Basically, the class system really needs more work when it comes to team vs team games, where class systems affect more than just your own gameplay.
Hey I appreciate the ending with sponsoring 😊
I've also gotten really into Maggie Mae Fish lately
I agree. That being said, I prefer systems where you can mix and match and not being a strict path.
In an ARPG, I prefer the Souls Games’ system, especially since one of the classes is a blank slate.
I also much prefer classless systems. A good classless system has the clear advantage that it doesn't force it's players into any specific role. Instead, the players create their own role in the party. And in a good classless system, these roles still have distinct strengths and weaknesses.
i hate to ask anyone to spend any time on league of legends, but this conversation reminded me of how much the communities "meta" in the early days of lol laid out the foundations of the classes that are now solidified in the game. I remember early league of legends having so many interesting conversations about having a specified person using the jungle camps and the vast amount of strategies that arose in the free space of undefined classes/roles.
Also, creativity shines in restrictions or limitations. And having fewer options available makes any choice you make more meaningful.
I don't want to make a meaningful choice at the beginning of a game that I don't know anything about.
Classes can be good for many types of games, but I believe that more free approaches can result in the same positive points.
The biggest points in favor of classes according to the video are the ease of new players, but I believe that well done tutorials can explain what should be done, because, in the end, classes serve to play roles, but in a more free, the same can be hit. Second point is that players would go down a more advantageous path given the opportunity, which I agree with, but the same goes for classes, players pick the best classes. In addition to the fact that the main reason for few viable builds is the lack of balance, with frequent and rotating balancing, it is possible to achieve different playstyles.
I literally just started running 3 games at once. This video is perfect.
That ending was golden 🤣👍🏼
this feels like one of those videos where mentioning Etrian Odyssey would've been perfect. I'm not surprised you didn't, given how it's kinda niche, but it would've been a welcome surprise
I always enjoy your videos
Absolutely love this channel ❤️ 💪🔥
One of the best of your many good videos. Keep up the great work!
10:31 dude that is insane I’ve only started playing deep rock a few weeks ago, but while you were talking I was like hmm deep rock has really dope classes… then here it is lol
How’s progress on the project been? I stumbled across your video after hearing about Lantern EQ, and it’s got me excited for the idea of a remastered EQ!
As someone who rarely finished many games the first time around, let alone replays them, I just don't get on with classes much at all. Especially in big games with lots of systems, I don't want to be limited to playing a character that only uses a couple of those systems, or compromises to use a few more but never as well. If a game has melee combat, ranged combat, stealth, magic, tech, and other means of interaction, I want to be able to experience them all, without the expectation being that I need to complete the game multiple times, especially if it's a sprawling 50hr+ RPG experience. The absolute worst is when a game forces you to pick a specialisation right at the beginning, with no ability to try stuff out. Maybe I like the idea of being a sneaky hacker, but then it turns out the hacking gameplay is just a bit shit. Now I'm stuck with that or I have to start again.
Lol that took a turn at the end.
4:30 If I might counter this idea; this is only one of two philosophies many gamers use:
1. (your example) use items to make a character's strong attributes even stronger
2. use items to cover a character's weaknesses
This was great man, thanks for sharing with us! I’m always impressed with the amount of detail and solid examples you provide to back up your ideas. God bless :)