There's always a debate when it comes to whether WoW should, or even can, have a new class added in an upcoming expansion. Even when Demon Hunters came out, some argued that it was already too much (granted, as someone who had been hoping for Demon Hunters since Death Knights were introduced, I was very much on board.)
WoW has introduced a new class with every other expansion, meaning every four years given its two-year expansion cycle. The mechanics of how, exactly, they implement classes has gone back and forth - Death Knights were the first and, for eight years, only hero class with its unique starting experience and cosmetic features. Monks came in at level 1, which I actually think contributed to their being a far less popular class, given the level grind one needed to get through in order to play at max level. Demon Hunters were the most accommodated in terms of leveling - they started a mere two levels below the previous level cap, meaning one did not actually have to play through anything that wasn't Legion content to get them up to speed, allowing players to switch mains right at the start of the expansion with only about a two hour speed bump (Death Knights got high enough to go to Outland by the end of their starting experience, meaning they got to skip vanilla but they still needed to go through Burning Crusade before joining others in Wrath.)
So what is the benefit of a new class?
Well, new classes allow for new styles of gameplay. The Rune system is unlike any other class resource (and used to be far more complex.) Monks and Demon Hunters have introduced new forms of mobility.
But I think the primary advantage to new classes is flavor. The mechanics are a challenge for the developers, and while I think that this challenge forces them to come up with clever new ideas that can be fun, I do think the biggest boost to the game one gets with a new class is a new flavor - a new way to feel about the character you're playing.
I think this is why I've been so big a fan of the hero classes. Death Knights and Demon Hunters carry with them a specific story. After all, most classes are just a kind of job - one trains to be a Mage, or a Hunter, or a Paladin. It's not something that inherently changes you at a physiological level (at least not permanently - Druids and Shadow Priests can shift out of their transformations at will.) But the hero classes are individuals who have been changed at a fundamental level, which justifies both that they need a special story to explain what they are and also that they start at a higher power level than other classes - while I'd say that once you get to level 60 and are smacking around the likes of Ragnaros, levels beyond that are a purely mechanical feature of the game, your earlier levels are still very much telling a story of your character going from a novice and amateur to a skilled and experienced exemplar of your class. Because the training and imbued power for hero classes happens prior to your actual playing them, it makes sense that you'd start at a higher level.
But let's talk about the specific classes that have been added, and why.
Death Knights and Demon Hunters both play very important parts in the story of Warcraft. Death Knights, which admittedly are a more common fantasy trope (they exist in D&D and one could even make an argument that the Ringwraiths from Lord of the Rings are kind of DKs) were the class that kind of embodied the might of the Scourge. We didn't have a dark-magic melee class prior to them, but also with a character as iconic as Arthas, we needed a way for players to follow in his footsteps.
Monks, on the other hand, had not played a huge role in the game's lore. That beings said, Monks have also, over time, become a far more common RPG class. While Chen Stormstout was never as central a character to Warcraft as Arthas (or Illidan) was, his existence as a Brewmaster had led a lot of players to speculate and get excited about playing such a thing. The Monk was a pretty obvious option, especially for introducing the Pandaren and the China-themed Pandaria continent.
Demon Hunters were very much like Death Knights in that they had played a big role in the lore and also they had an exemplar in one of Warcraft's most iconic characters: Illidan Stormrage. Unlike Death Knights, however, there's no real precedent for them as a class in other RPGs - the Diablo III Demon Hunter, which is a bit more in the gothic witch-hunter vibe, is probably a more common trope. That being said, the Demon Hunter's kit was well-developed long before Legion came out, and players were very excited to play them.
So now we get to the first question I wanted to talk about:
With an even-numbered expansion almost certain to be announced at Blizzcon this year, should we expect a new class and, if so, what might it be?
Well, precedent would say that we must - every four years since 2007 we've gotten an expansion announcement that includes a new class. But precedent is not always consistent. After all, Mists of Pandaria gave us both a new class and a single new race, but then Warlords gave us neither. Admittedly, the introduction of Demon Hunters in Legion and then the many Allied Races in BFA would seem to have re-established the pattern of race-class-race-class.
But given that Allied Races have been a very different take on new races than what we've historically gotten, could that mean that we'll see a new take on "new classes?"
The thing about classes as compared to races is this:
Mechanically, race has a very low impact on the game. Your Void Elf Rogue is going to play almost identically to your Gnome Rogue. Yes, there are racial abilities that can have some impact, especially if you're a total min-maxer. I know that I'm hesitant to ever, say, start playing my Death Knight as my main instead of my Paladin given the human reputation buff that the Paladin gets. But you can be effective in any class your race can play, and it's about 98% a cosmetic choice (and 100% for most people.)
What this means is that it's much easier for Blizzard to add races than classes.
Allied Races, and the large number we've gotten, solved a problem: with all these alternate cultures and versions of existing races that players have wanted, it made total sense to make them playable. But if you have simply given us, say, Mag'har Orcs and Dark Iron Dwarves, the players would have been fairly justified in seeing it as a let-down given that they're still basically the same (in terms of animations and models) as existing races. But by giving us eight, rather than the usual two, it makes up for that.
Classes, however, are about 98% a choice in mechanics. To be fair, that might be an overestimate. I find playing a Demon Hunter way cooler than playing a Hunter, for example, in large part due to the story and flavor in the class. But mechanics are really the main thing in a class, and that means balancing and constant vigilance on the part of the developers.
Yes, occasionally a racial ability requires re-balancing, but for the most part, races are fire-and-forget in terms fo design. A class needs to be kept in line with all the new mechanics and standards of a new expansion or even major patch.
So it's a much bigger commitment.
Additionally, it's an area where there's not necessarily as much room for flavor. With races, you can pretty easily come up with something different. Take the Vulpera, for example, as a race many players are predicting will at some point become playable. Just pick an animal, make a humanoid version of it, and you've got a new race. Admittedly, previously established playable races that were animalistic were based on long-existing myths - Tauren are Minotaurs and Worgen are Werewolves - but between the Tuskarr, the Tortolloans, the Hozen, the Jinyu, the Grummles, the Arrakoa... it's pretty easy to slap together a reasonable humanoid animal race.
But with classes, you're dealing with more kind of archetypical forms.
I think it's noteworthy that in 5th Edition D&D, they don't actually add new classes (though this statement might date this post - it's possible the Artificer will come out with the hardcover version of Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron, and we did get a playtesting version of the Mystic a while back) but instead adds subclasses. In three published books - Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, Xanathar's Guide to Everything, and Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica - Wizards has added class options for its twelve playable classes - the D&D equivalent of Specializations - but not any new classes.
So that opens up an interesting notion: What if Blizzard were to, rather than add new classes, instead add new specs to the existing classes? Rather than add, say, Necromancers, maybe instead give Death Knights a ranged DPS spec?
Unfortunately, I don't think this is a likely option. And that's largely due to the way that class and spec design has changed since WoW began.
In Vanilla up until Mists, talents and spec were entwined notions. Rather than picking a spec at level 10 (and even that has changed - largely due to these changes, you now start with a particular spec) you would get access to your first talent point, and you'd begin assigning these points in one of three trees. The more invested you were in a particular tree, the more of an "X" spec character you were. This actually meant that before level 30 or so, a Paladin, for example, was actually pretty comparably capable at tanking, healing, or DPS regardless of where they'd put their talents.
The big thing is that this meant that specs shared a lot of abilities. Every Mage had Fireball, Frostbolt, and Arcane Missiles. The number of unique abilities a spec had access to was actually pretty low.
However, with the changes in Mists, where spec was not tied to these talent trees, Blizzard was able to cut out a ton of abilities that a given spec wasn't likely to use. Druids still have a broad suite of spells and abilities good for all their specs, but that's because Druids are supposed to be the versatile class. It used to be that every class's spellbook looked like that.
But this means that different specs have very little in terms of shared abilities. In other words, specs feel more like individual classes these days - rather than sharing abilities, it's the ease of switching back and forth that makes them feel unified.
In D&D, your class "specialization" (or sub-class) only brings new features every few levels (which is more significant in a game where the level cap is 20.) There are far more similarities between a Monster Slayer Ranger and a Gloomstalker Ranger than there are between a Survival Hunter and a Marksmanship Hunter.
And that's one big reason I think that it would be harder than it sounds to implement a "fourth spec" for each class in WoW. To put it simply, it would require developing 12 new specs (maybe 11 given that Druids already have four) while a new class would be only 3, or even 2, as Demon Hunters proved.
But what of class skins?
Allied Races, with the exception of Kul Tirans and Zandalari, simply use existing models and tweak them a bit. Void Elves are just blue and be-tentacled (sometimes) Blood Elves. Lightforged Draenei are grey Draenei with golden eyes and cooler horns and beards.
So what if we were to do something like an allied race for classes? Take existing classes and change the look and flavor of their abilities, but keep the mechanics?
To be fair, I think this could work. I've always kind of chased the notion of a Battlemage - someone who wears heavy armor and fights in close quarters but also wields arcane magic - in many RPGs (I play an Eldritch Knight in an ongoing D&D campaign, which I think pretty much describes that.) Allowing my Paladin to re-skin his class as some kind of Arcane Knight could give you that without forcing Blizzard to come up with a whole redesign (to be fair, Death Knight might be a better class to re-skin, as Arcane magic tends not to do much healing.)
The downside, which is also an upside for hardworking developers, is that there would be no new mechanics here. You'd need to come up with new animations and new names for abilities, but you could keep everything under the hood working the same way.
I don't think it's problem-free, though.
The biggest issue I imagine is that some classes would be far easier to skin than others. Swap out demons and fel magic for undead and necromancy? You can easily imagine a Warlock as a Necromancer. As I said before, a Paladin or Death Knight could easily be flavored as a Battlemage.
But other classes, especially those less magic-based ones, could pose a serious challenge. Take Rogues, for example. How would you re-skin rogues? Especially given that its specs already kind of cover different flavors of Rogue. Outlaw Rogues are already Pirates (and also kind of 18th Century Highwaymen, though that seems to be a less popular archetype) and Subtlety is already the kind of mystic Ninja spec. So where even could you go with a class that dual-wields, usually daggers, and sneaks around a lot?
Indeed, I actually think a fourth spec for Rogues is more obvious than a class skin - namely a ranged DPS spec that uses bows and such.
And even if classes are feeling crowded, would class skins be closing more doors than it was opening? Take Necromancers, for example. Yes, there's a ton of overlap with both Warlocks and Death Knights in terms of flavor and likely mechanics. But wouldn't it also be cool to have a dark-magic-themed healing class? I'd love to see Necromancers as a hybrid ranged-caster and healer. And if you were just to use it as a skin on Warlocks, you wouldn't be able to do the latter half of that.
I think we'll be due for some big thing class-wise in this year's Blizzcon announcement. But what it actually will be remains a mystery. Ironically, at this point in the post, simply adding a new class actually looks like the simplest option. And I certainly wouldn't complain.
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