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Mirroring classes? Is this good or bad in your opinion?
So, I've always loved diversity. Firmly been in the camp of people that believe it's okay for opposing factions to have different stuff and not a duplicate of the other side. It works for WoW I suppose, but I much more enjoyed something like Dark Age of Camelot which had 3 realms and while classes had similarity (heavy tanks, assassins, archers, support, light tanks etcetc on all 3 sides) the classes were vastly different and had real flavor.
So my question is what do you all feel about how the admin are mirroring classes? I haven't played Aetolia in absolutely forever and have barely begun reading the forums again, but I'd like to know what you all think, if you don't mind.
So my question is what do you all feel about how the admin are mirroring classes? I haven't played Aetolia in absolutely forever and have barely begun reading the forums again, but I'd like to know what you all think, if you don't mind.
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Aetolia has always been structured as a 1v1 sided game; there's internal complexities and tensions (duiran and eno don't perfectly get along, nor do Spines and BL), but overall, with its small population, that's about as deep as the well can be for conflict axes until we triple our playerbase. The way it was set up before was kinda like trying to play Overwatch where one side can only play as the Overwatch characters and the other only as Talon. Mirrors allow the folk upstairs a way to hand everyone all the available tools without disrupting the entire structure of the game's premise and lore. I love it.
On top of it, it also will nearly double the available options people have to explore their character design and roleplay, and the mirrors are, frankly, objectively cooler than the classes they're mirroring. In short, it's an "easy" way to release a flood of "new" classes into the game without making it feel stale. Mirror classes are one of the best ideas this game has ever had, frankly.
Thanks for sharing.
While yes, the mirror version of an ability just needs to perform the exact same mechanics, it also needs to be conceptually similar.
For a very common example, a skill that is described as using voice originally is going to probably need to use voice in its mirror too. There exists a number of afflictions that impede speech for example. It also ensures we leave ourselves room for future changes that introduce new mechanics along a similar vein of thought. As another example, an ability that is described as being magical in nature won't have its mirror counterpart be described as physical.
These aren't hard rules, and we most definitely haven't followed them for every single mirrored ability, but we try to keep it in mind to save ourselves future headaches later on down the road.
To pull apart the mirror Frenzy idea (I know it wasn't a real suggestion, but it serves for illustration purposes), this wouldn't work for a couple of reasons.
(1) It's vaguely magical in nature, while Frenzy is a brute-sourced attack (drawing from your STR stat). Also makes it harder for us to introduce new things that might counter it in the future, if there's a balancing reason to do so. For a kind of bad example, Frenzy might be too strong and we decide to introduce a noodle_arms affliction that reduces its damage, which again isn't going to make sense.
(2) The handtohand_damage artifact affects Frenzy.
(3) Along the same thought, a broken arm stops Frenzy so mouth flies won't make sense there.
It's hard to look at all the positives and call mirror classes "bad". The worst that could happen would be mirror class newbies feeling like they were screwed out of a real class by picking a poorly done mirror. Mirrors so far have been pretty expertly done, though.
Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
I personally was also a fan of the asymmetry and a critic of what the majority thinks will work from a perspective that is usually informed by a desire to win but that's all water under the bridge by now.
At the same time, being able to play whatever class I want while still being on the side I want to be on (last time I was here, it seemed like spirit needed more people, I have no idea if that's still true) does have an appeal to it. This would be enhanced if they successfully changed up the flavor and utility skills like some people were saying would be tried.
For example, I always thought a bloodborn class with "good" rituals would be cool.
Edit: Also, how did they handle stuff like spirit side having to feed off of corpses?
(Web): Abhorash says, "Nerds."
(Web): Abhorash has left your web.
Alela's Affirmations
Carnifex - Warden
Indorani - Oneiromancer
Luminary - Earthcaller
1) There's no spirit equivalents of the vampire classes, either yet or permanently.
2) If it's permanent, does spirit have anything unique?
3) No spirit Teradrim? Are they still a class?
4) What about the utility skills?
4) Again not sure what you're looking for here. If this is re: your earlier question on thematics, like 'eating corpses', it's styled in a way that makes sense for the theme. Oneiromancer, for example, uses 'haruspicy' with the organs to build up their ability to 'impact fate' instead of eating them for essence. If it's about things like the rite of prayer, the classes have something thematic that also fits. Apocalpytia, for example, has 'Dogma'
Dogma (Apocalyptia) Known: No (1035 lessons required)
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Syntax: DIRGE VERSE OF DOGMA
The Dirge began at the dawn and transcends time. At the sunrise, you may recount the dogmatic verses, granting experience to all who attend and blessing them with restored fervour.
Larger audiences to behold the glory of earth shall convey correspondingly larger amounts of experience and renewed fervour.
Should you proclaim the dogmatic verses before one of the five great monoliths, you will be blessed with an ongoing bonus to experience and increased celerity.
This is actually a pretty good example. How would it mess anything up if the rite of dawn clone was done at nightfall, or midnight, or even was replaced with something else entirely? It's not a combat skill anyway. And why would an "Oneiromancer" use organs at all if the organs aren't really impacting the PvP process? At this point I don't feel impressed by the way these have been implemented.
Another possibility might have been to "shuffle" utility skills through different classes, so that each side has more or less the same stuff but the individual classes are still different.
You're welcome to not feel impressed, but given the reception to mirror classes and the frequency at which we see them, I'd say that the vast majority of the game absolutely enjoys and loves them. The fact that you haven't actually logged in and learned these things for yourself and needed the exact details spelled out for you tells me that it didn't really matter how it was implemented anyway, you would have found something to kvetch about.
As for introducing new guilds, that isn't happening. The mirror classes are being introduced into the current guilds. Earthcaller, for example, is part of the Teradrim guild. Tidesage - the recently released Teradrim mirror - is part of the Ascendril guild.