Making New Professions = Hard

Yes, I realize there have no doubt already been a dozen threads of people suggesting the most hideously broken professions they can think of. I hope not to duplicate them.

I wanted, instead, to observe that the dev team is likely to have a really hard time adding new professions.

That may seem like a strange claim, since most CRPGs you've played probably have a lot more than six professions, but give it some thought.

The current professions are strikingly different from one another and fight in very different ways, despite each one covering a great breadth of skills. Sure, there's some overlap (Smiting Prayers look strangely reminiscent, in general terms, of some Elementalist skills), but if you want someone to do _____, it's generally clear what profession is going to provide it. Melee is the domain of warriors, ranged attacks of rangers, healing of monks, spiking of elementalists.

And it's woth realizing that the basic archetypes are all pretty much covered. Tanking, healing, nuking, minions, crowd control...take any non-"hybrid" class from another game, sum up its function in one word, and there's probably already a GW profession corresponding to it.

But even with only 6 professions, some are difficult to get a handle on. It's difficult to convey to someone in one sentence what a Mesmer can do, for example--they have a sort of guiding vision, but it's a little blurrier than that of, say, a Warrior. Rangers are probably best known for bows and pets, but they also cover traps, spirits, and a few other things. The basic problem is that each *attribute* of each profession could almost be a character type in its own right in another game. There's only 6 professions, but they cover a lot of ground.

Additionally, the professions aren't all viewed as equal. I think the devs have done a pretty good job of spreading out abilities and making everyone useful, yet there's still a big difference (moreso in PvE than in PvP) between designing a group that uses no Mesmers, and designing a group that uses no Monks. Healing is simply vital to more group strategies than what the Mesmer provides, and especially to the simpler ones.

So what are they going to add in chapter 2?

I don't mean to imply that I seriously doubt they can come up with something, but consider the challenges they face. If they make a new profession that does basically the same things as an existing one, they're really adding precious little to the game. If they reach downward to more esoteric and indirect support functions, it'll be very difficult for players to form groups that can really use them effectively, and thus difficult for the game to support very many of them. If they sort of heap together a bunch of random skill ideas without any guiding purpose, then the profession will lack the vital spark that inspires unified strategies.

They could go the "hybrid" route, but honestly, that's just cheating. You can already build your own hybrids. The way you can currently combine skills from two professions, but not three, and only one primary attribute, lends a lot of depth to the game while still giving the devs the control to prevent a lot of abusive combinations. Making "hybrid" professions would, in my opinion, greatly cheapen that mechanic.

I read one suggestion that the game needs more "melee" professions. Now, I have nothing against melee professions, but I think what the game needs not more "melee" professions, but more inspired professions. Sure, you can create a profession called a "ninja" or somesuch; that's easy. The hard part is taking that profession and making it as different from a Warrior as a Mesmer is from an Elementalist, or a Monk. The reason the game (wisely, IMO) has a lot of "casters" and few "melee" professions is that "melee" is a particular way of fighting and "caster" means very little more than "not melee"--it covers a huge breadth of possibilities that are as different from each other as any of them are from melee.



So...that's basically the end of my rant. I propose the following question: what should the new professions do? Not, "what specific skills should they have," or "what should they be called," or "how powerful should they be," but what should their over-arching theme be? What should the new professions do, in the way that a Monk heals and protects, or a Warrior melees?

Note that this must be stated in combat terms. Saying "martial arts" or "shape shifting" is useless unless you can describe how shape shifting becomes a unique and viable fighting style, and can complement allies in a group. How is a profession that "shape shifts between a melee creature and a ranged creature" different from a Warrior/Ranger hybrid?

Let me give a possible example (obviously, this would require more articulation to turn into an actual profession):

Shielding and Redirecting
A profession that can cast enchantments in advance to absorb damage, rather than spells afterwards to recover it, and use other tricks that will force enemies to switch between different targets to remain effective; e.g. make one party member resistant by weakening another, transfer health/healing from one ally to another, etc. Hopefully a profession that players could consider as a serious alternative to Monks, without duplicating Monks' abilities. (The Protection Prayers that Monks currently have are helpful, but as a supplement to healing, not as a replacement for it.)

Thats why they get paid :/

Edit: Oh ya, i started thinking and didn't say what i wanted to say. I personaly agree that it would be Incredibly hard to add new classes and keep things balanced. Being a game that has a main focus on guilds and pvp, there would be too many "exploitable" skill combo's. That problem was fixed in beta when they would simply make spells "elite".




In a sense, i would want a "stealth" class. Different in a way then most people think of "stealth". A "support melee class", could help in numerous ways.

A Spell type within reason of being able to hide all "proffession and names" within the name bar, make everyone look the same, and be named the same. That to me is how "stealth" could be implimented into the game.

I would think that a "stealth" class could have speed buff's. Perhaps an elite enchantment that increases spell casting time, or attack speed.

I think that the stealth class would have the same armor as a spell caster, and have obvious stances that either increase speeds, produce "invisibility(Ctr button blind, but still able to be targeted)", ect.


Let's see. Another magic class "Supporting nature magic" side. Druid perhaps? While rangers work on the other aspects of nature, these work on the magic side. Perhaps enchantment buffs that raise resistances to elemental damage. Or, spells that can hold an enemy into place while at the same time draining -1 mana from the druids mana pool (Same as an enchantment with an upkeep) (Vine wrap?), hex based. Perhaps, some sort of "bee swarm" damage over time, without using pips (Simply like balths aura, except hex based.) And his ever obvious "shape shifting", or "animal buffs". So to speak, he could change into a wolf, and have a buff that raises damage/attack speed/health of all wolves within range.

Ok, i'm done with my typing, just throwing out some idea's.

I am interested in the support melee class.. It now looks like a mesmer to me. But i think I am wrong with that. Could you please explain it a bit better. I know that is very difficult but just try to explain it in a way that we can 'see' what you mean. But I think that you are on the good way with the 'supporting melee' class

Well said, well written, and I agree totally.

The only class that I can think of, and this is similar to the stealth class (as I see it), is the scout class.

With the ability to get very close to non-scout types without being noticed, and to see much further. This class would be good to have to checkout competators builds, but not be necissary. I also imagine that a scout class would be limited to small damage. I see potential problems with relic runs and flag running with this class, so there would be limits on how scouting would be done. I do not know that this class would be really good for the game, but I have said it and that can be debated seperately.

Yea but I think that the scout class is a class which cant be played very easily. It makes the game fun. But it should do minor damage as you said (weak in that point)
And the problems in flagrunning (strong in that point). So i don't think the 'scout' class is stable enough for GW.. but there are some perspectives in this one too..

The Diablo II expension pack classes were perfect, and both would fit pretty nice in Guild Wars. Something like an Assassin, faster then every other proffesion. And a Druid, transforming into creatures, and controlling several creatures would be nice too.

Wow.. Wait a second, I'm going to play Diablo II again!

Well, just to be difficult:

- assassin? Spikes are developed to the point where you can kill organized-ly in about 1s. Adding anything more than this just destroys monks chances of healing anyone. People are already making comments about how damage oriented teams are overpowered -.- (flareway )

- you dont need scouts. tab over the enemy team and you can narrow down their strat to only a few options. a quick look at what their casting and thats about it. Without a major revamp of the whole hud etc, this would be somewhat unnecessary, and yes, it would be overpowered at flag running

What exactly do you mean by "nature magic?" You can dress just about any skill up in a "nature" metaphor--or not. The Ranger's "nature" pet could just as easily be a summoned elemental or familiar; the Ranger's "nature rituals" could just as easily be death rituals or arcane rituals. None of those changes are consistent with the class's image, but it wouldn't be necessary to change how any of the skills work; "nature" is a story theme, not a battle theme.

As for the Druid in Diablo II, he is basically a hybrid. He has one skill tab for melee combat ("shape shifting," fighting like a barbarian), one for elemental nukes (fighting like a sorceress) and one for summoning (fighting like a necro). I hear the Druid in WoW is patterned as a hybrid as well. The Assassin never really inspired my interest, so I won't comment on her.

"Support melee" sounds like a reasonable starting point for a profession concept, but I'm not sure where you'd go with it. The "stealth" ability you described sounds like a single skill, maybe two; not a whole profession or battle strategy. Inflicting blindness is appropriate, but nothing new. Increasing casting speed doesn't sound at all like "support melee" to me; you could maybe have a profession (or attribute) patterned around manipulating time and fit it in there.

I could see a "support melee" character that's designed to weaken enemies against melee, by somehow reducing their armor vs. slashing/blunt, holding them in one place (but Warriors already have skills for that), gaining bonuses for "strafing" enemies (but that doesn't seem to fit in well with existing mechanics), but I'm not sure how far you could take that. You could start adding in things like interruption, healing prevention, etc. but that seems to be intruding on current professions' ground.


I like the idea of maintained hexes to mirror Monks' maintained enchantments, and that might be nice contribution to a profession, but I don't think it's substantial enough to be a profession concept unto itself. Monks are the only profession currently in the game that maintains enchantments, but that's not really what sets them apart.


I reiterate: making new professions = hard.

A relatively unexplored area of gaming is terrain modification of any sort. The ability to put up + knock down 'walls' could be fun, or to freeze over bodies of water, build bridges, etc. In fact, that's one of the things that they didn't expect from the spirit spammers.

Well there are only 4 things all classes do - make health go up/down, make energy go up/down. Very simple, but that's the bottom line. It's balanced up by your characters in/ability to absorb damage.

New professions will be the same, they just have creative ways of repackaging those simple principles into themed skills. Underneath the fancy names of skills like Dragon Breath of Fire Absorption...it all just boils down to stats for health/energy bars going up and down over time.

New professions won't be new, just a collection of rehashed, renamed stat buttons

That statement is, at best, misleading. Take a spell like Guardian (20..50% chance to block attacks for 5 seconds). Cast by itself, it does absolutely nothing to the target's health or energy (it does make the caster's energy go down, but that's clearly not the point). You can say that it ends up making the target's health go "up" (or "fail to go down") based on various circumstantial factors, if you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the spell has completely different tactical use from a healing spell.

So, when you say

If you mean that new professions can only differ from the old ones to approximately the degree that Guardian differs from Orrison of Healing, or that Empathy differs from Lightning Orb, then I think you're approximately the only player in the world who would call that "rehashed, renamed stat buttons."

You can argue that there is ultimately only one thing (not four) you care about in a battle--who dies. But that doesn't mean that the game can't provide skills that do something other than cause instant death.

I know it is hard for the devs to put new professions but it is their job to keep their players happy. If we are happy then they are happy. the hardest part was already in the past. that was when they started making the game. New profs. are just additions Maybe new professions will even encourage some old players who left the game to come back.

well if you say "stealth", I understand something other.
As I posted alreddy somewhere, there could be something like a Spiritualist.

He has a new way of spells called "Spiritual Boosts". They can only be removed by the caster or the enchanted person. Some of them last forever and can only be casted once, but dont take any energy deregeneration in follow. So you would have a new way of thinking: Unremovable, noncosting over time enchants.

By the way there would be a diabolist or something, who has anti-spiritualist spells or what ever.

So...you get to trade a skill slot for a permanent, effectively passive boost to yourself or another player.

Because we really need to entice players to come up with incredibly simple, uninteresting builds that only rely on 2 skills by also making them stronger than everyone else. Because the people who are clever and agile enough to make good use of a full 8 different skills deserve to be penalized, not rewarded.

How would this add any tactical depth to the game?

Making new professions isn't hard. Most of the existing ones do the same thing, just by attacking energy first, or using corpses, etc. Almost all skills do the exact same thing cross-class, it's just the details that make all the difference.

Main problem you see on the forums is that people just think of the first thing that comes to mind, like a berserker, paladin, assassin, or something of that sort. Then you have people that take it too far and come up with stupid ideas to try to be unique.

Most of the design of a new class comes in its art direction and its thematic design. Come up with something that can manage that and you're set.

Unfortunately, the creators of this game "created" the most archtypical, generic classes imaginable.

Ok, one thing that is a extremely apparent in Guild Wars is targetting. Guild Wars, as it stands is really all based on one simple concept:

Kill the weak/ healer.

Kill the weaker ones, the team falls. Now, in warfare the way to beat an army easily was to outflank it. In Guild Wars, Flanking an enemy is a non-issue, because if they aren't all attacking the monk anyway, then there is no point (since healing is as effective as it is, which definitely seems overpowered to me, since a monk makes such a huge difference in any fight, but acceptable). However, in true wars, it was not possible to take out the weak points of an army without either avoiding the strong points (flanking) or going through the strong points (old fashioned beat-down).

Because the game is so completely based on the concept of weakest first, there needs to be a paradigm shift. Almost everyone thinks 'monk first' Very rarely do you consider another class a priority target (sometimes they should have been).

It has also been commonly said that if you add one class, add a seperate class to counter it. That would have to happen too, without these classes being hybrids. Hybrids are easy to come up with, something unique (like the pre-existing Six) are much more difficult.

I suggest then, two classes. One class which is a Protector class (type not name, doesn't use protection magic, no worries) that is a melee fighter that defends allies instead of attacks enemies. His 'attacks' could be based on his allies being attacked by spells or physical assualts, causing him to respond in some way, be it return of damage, prevention of damage, or taking damage in place of ally. The class should be to the point where he is useless if someone isn't getting directly attacked. This makes him a viable replacement to a primary monk in some cases. He could have similar armor to a warrior, but with somewhat poorer defense so he cannot tank as well as a warrior primary can (sticking to armor roles). Possibly he could also be especially weakened by Dark or Chaos class damage (Hey the Necro gets it from Holy, why not something in the reverse?

And, as a class I suggested, the Daemon (feel free to search for it, but I tried to make it as interesting as possible without overpowering it, with skills that have differing mechanics, while also adding 'clawed' weapons to the game that very different styles of attacks than a warrior has), I envisioned the class to be a 'great-leveler' of sorts, so that the playing field can be leveled. Sometimes healing is greatly overpowered, and if that healing can be circumvented, either by 'tricking' the healing by causing a targets healing to go somewhere else (to another ally or possibly to an enemy) or completely stopping that enemy's ability to heal with a hex for a very short period of time, could also allow for more interesting tactics, since the possibility of killing a non-monk class FIRST is made more possible. Finally due to the mechanics I described for this class, he's hard to interrupt, lessening the effect of probably the most powerful effect in the game right now.

Basically Protectors to keep people alive by mitigation, Daemons to help kill faster with suicidal and very odd ( based on skills I've thought of) tactics/hexes/turning-the-tides enchants.

That's my idea.