Metronome
Learned
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2020
- Messages
- 277
No classes
Classes are for asses. The only class that actually exists is "adventurer" and anything else is just arbitrarily reducing your options for character development. If you want to be a better wizard, just increase the numbers a wizard would use. If you want to be a better druid, then get perks, traits, skills, whatever which would let you play as one. In a roguelike too classes only make the game more repetitive for no good reason. Races that do the same thing aren't much better.
The only time I've seen classes actually improve things is as character history, like in Darklands. They only exist during character creation. You spend 5 years being this or that, but once you start the game only what you learned or gained during those years carries over.
And hey, maybe somebody could find a way to do classes right but... as of now I've not seen a game with classes (that are not limited to character creation) which has benefited from them. Same problem as automatic point allocation. You are removing an entire dimension of character development for some arbitrary reason.
It's not an issue of genre I think. If you focus most of your attention on combat during development, then adding a "non-combat" route could seem like a waste of time. Someone might only experience 20% of the gameplay on an (actual) pacifist run or something like that. You have to wonder if the time you invested to make such an unpolished experience possible would have been better served improving what your game is designed around. I don't think there is a right answer to this, but that's probably why it's controversial.Besides if you want games with a heavy focus on combat you are better served with other game genres like action games or strategy games.
Also, I don't remember Deus Ex very well, but wasn't the pascifist run in that game just knocking enemies out instead of killing them? It seemed like more of a roleplaying choice than a gameplay one. But it's still combat, you're just a wizard instead of a warrior. That kind of thing.