why do MMORPGs use classes?

[Traceur]

Mortal changing the sub-forum name from "races and classes" to "races and skill combinations" so that people won't confuse it with skill restricting classes in MMORPGs made me think: why do MMORPGS (and RPGs in general) use classes at all? i think i'm a little bit naive when it comes to themepark game design philosophy, because i seldom understand it's reasoning, but... why do they use this system in the first place?

historically for roleplaying games, D&D used it because it came from the "war game" genre, and thus still kept each player character by "unit type". and most RPGs just kept after the tradition in all the RPG mediums.

but is there any other reason? is it just tradition or is there a reasoning behind class-restrictions?

[Rathius]

I believe that part of it comes from a balancing perspective. It allows for an easier control over who uses what abilities. Another reason is from a player perspective, it's a guide or focus for some players to build upon. Some players that don't have these constructs will feel lost or think they have the possibility to 'gimp' their character. If they can gimp their character, they feel that it's a design flaw.

[Necromantic]

Yay, my suggestion won.

Humans like to push things into categories, it makes them believe they understand everything. They can forget every additional detail and only have to bear with the prejudices.

You're a goth, a metal head, a hopper, a scientist, a lawyer, a freak, a geek, a bully OR whatever else. You can't be multiple, that would be way too complex for most primitive minds.
Women being the pretties, there for nothing but looking good and collecting berries and men being the the tough warriors.

Prejudices for the win.

[Saviour]

Originally Posted by Necromantic

Yay, my suggestion won.

Humans like to push things into categories, it makes them believe they understand everything. They can forget every additional detail and only have to bear with the prejudices.

You're a goth, a metal head, a hopper, a scientist, a lawyer, a freak, a geek, a bully OR whatever else. You can't be multiple, that would be way too complex for most primitive minds.
Women being the pretties, there for nothing but looking good and collecting berries and men being the the tough warriors.

Prejudices for the win.

I'd agree with your post It's all about "what" you are(which class in MMOs) and not what you can achieve or make yourself in a MMO

[Rathius]

Social constructs seem to be a very strong thing. Which is why labeling and classifying things is popular. They also supposedly make things easier to understand and identify with. As Necromantic said, most people have problems defining complex things, they just can't seem to understand something so complex.

It's like all of the stereotypes that you can see floating around the forums. They've been created for a reason, and most of the time they are very accurate. However... people get upset with stereotypes because they don't fully describe the person or situation.

Once people have a knowledge and access to these stereotypes, they begin to throw them around in order to either make things easier for them to identify with, or to sound smarter. As long as someone seems to exhibit a quality from the stereotype they will usually get branded with that label.

So when it comes to classes, if you cast magic, you are a mage. If you wear heavier armor and use bigger weapons, you must be a warrior. If you move really quick and like to be sneaky, you must be a rouge. The three most basic archetypes for classes.

As games progressed, we started seeing more clearly defined classes, like the knight, the archer, and the cleric. Their jobs were much more specialized and therefore took more words to describe than the basic archetype, so we slapped another label on them to define what they do.

Some of these labels fit well on characters, even in a class-less system. They work in order to adequately describe your character to someone else without droning on and on about it. It also provides players with that mindset to follow and build upon, the template I mentioned earlier.

As more and more specialized characters come from the archetypes we will receive more and more 'class' names to apply to such characters. The archer, the fleet-foot, the sniper, the scout, the arcane-archer, the spell-bow....

[fivetigers]

While I generally agree with the comments on social constructs and people liking to label things, I don't think those are the main reasons for 'Classes' in most MMORPGs. I think the main concern is that people will make gimped characters, waste a few months playing a gimped character, then be mad that their character sucks and quit the game. The other side of the coin is that the devs. don't want 'Flavor of the Week' characters archetypes in which a clearly dominant character build has been discovered to the extent that nearly everyone is using more or less the exact same character build and if you aren't, your character is basically gimped and not truly able to compete with the FotW build.

The second reason, as also stated earlier, is balancing. By having classes, you can say 'this character uses magic but can't fight, and that character can fight but can't cast magic'. Regardless of how balanced that is, there is a balance, especially compared to the uber-build vs. non-uber-build that is completely inferior to the uber-build threat that skill based MMOs face.

The challenge for the devs. is to make sure that a jack-of-all-trades character doesn't become a master-of-all-trades character, and it seems like this issues has been well addressed (in theory) by their common attribute cap system. I'm sure there will still be somewhat 'uber-builds' for different roles, such as an uber-build for magic, an uber-build for melee, ect., but their commom cap system should keep players from creating "THE One! uber-build" to which all other builds are inferior.

[yXXe]

It's there because that is a backhand for the stupid invention called raiding, raiding which in turns makes a player sit his entire evening to gain a reward. It's that magic-"I have to play long to win big"-wheel that has drives the carebear MMO's.

[Lachrymose]

Originally Posted by Necromantic

Yay, my suggestion won.

Humans like to push things into categories, it makes them believe they understand everything. They can forget every additional detail and only have to bear with the prejudices.

You're a goth, a metal head, a hopper, a scientist, a lawyer, a freak, a geek, a bully OR whatever else. You can't be multiple, that would be way too complex for most primitive minds.
Women being the pretties, there for nothing but looking good and collecting berries and men being the the tough warriors.

Prejudices for the win.

ehh, i'm not so sure i agree with this. people don't differentiate themselves from one another and divide themselves up into categorical groups simply because it's easier for them to understand things. it's much more about identity formation.. you need to satisfy certain belongingness needs that can only be satisfied by associating yourself with a group of people, whether it's other goths, geeks, bullies, internet gamers, forum posters, etc... i don't think it's the same with categorizing characters into classes.

i have to agree with tiger in that i think it's much more due to just a balancing act. mages are incredibly intelligent and command magic powers, but they aren't very strong because they spend all their time with their noses in books. warriors are strong, but if they spend all their time training with a sword, they won't be terribly intellectual. rogues must move quietly and quickly among the shadows, and in order to do so, they must be light on their feet, not big and bulky like a warrior.

and then of course there's those hybrid type classes, like a paladin. the paladin isn't as good in combat as a warrior, nor is his healing ability as good as a white mage's, and it's because you can only really excel at one trade, without suffering any tradeoff for something else.

classes provide a system for players to choose characters with different playstyles, but there's the inevitable need to balance these character types out, so that there isn't just one "uber" class. this balancing act is essentially what defines these classes, since you won't see a character that is good with a sword, moves quickly on his feet, and has a vast knowledge of magic..

[Hardwire]

I have always thought sticking people into classes was kinda odd.
I like being able to expand and isnt that what its all about.
Expanding ourselves in a direction to become better or to an end that satisfies oneself. Not be herded into a predesigned corner> /class. Games like what Mo is proposing makes ya think which is a good thing.

Predetermined classes are made up to simplify the game for ppl. Also designing a multi class game is probrably a headache some would rather not deal with. I would assume balance would be a nightmare. Multiclass characters are great IMHO If you dont get an Ogre that is a Wizard/Warrior for instance. Multiclass should be race restricted. Wizards are very intellegent and stoic and Ogres are lumbering oxes with low intellegence. Maybe a Ogre warrior/rogue. Just and example

[Cadderly]

Originally Posted by Traceur

Mortal changing the sub-forum name from "races and classes" to "races and skill combinations" so that people won't confuse it with skill restricting classes in MMORPGs made me think: why do MMORPGS (and RPGs in general) use classes at all? i think i'm a little bit naive when it comes to themepark game design philosophy, because i seldom understand it's reasoning, but... why do they use this system in the first place?

historically for roleplaying games, D&D used it because it came from the "war game" genre, and thus still kept each player character by "unit type". and most RPGs just kept after the tradition in all the RPG mediums.

but is there any other reason? is it just tradition or is there a reasoning behind class-restrictions?

As you've already mentioned, the idea of classes is from D&D, which was the beginning of the RPG part of MMORPG. I've actually just started reading an annotated version of Dragonlance (The Chronicles) and I think the authors do a good job of explaining the purpose of classes. Being written by a couple of D&D nerds back in the 80's, and from their actual tabletop experiences, they left some comments about classes. Here's a couple:

"In AD&D, there had evolved from the rules a typical "balanced" party. The balance was found in having enough of the various skills possesed by the different character types so that you always had at least one character with the skill needed at any given time... --TRH"

"Putting the game aside, I think it is the diverse nature of the party that people can relate to. In most groups of friends, each person contributes something unique. The whole is stronger than it's separate parts. --MW"


These are important points when you consider how dependent MMO's are on social interaction. Even with single-player RPG's, classes allow the feeling of having a place in a group and being able to depend on friends.

[mshield]

Well, like others said I also believe that's just like we work. We need to categorize to be able to deal with all this information we get from everywhere.


I also think there will be "classes" later in the game like healer or tank but not because there are no other choices. Because people will try out what good combinations there are and in the end most people will tend to use combinations/skill choices other people refined.

[Ziegler]

The reason is game developers only played DnD. They never played GURPS or Palladium games. (RPGs that were skill based instead of class/level based)

OR

They are running off of the tried and true EQ model...because everyone else does.

[Hardboot]

I've always believed classes are a load of crap and Race/Species should be your only absolute decision.

EvE online if one of the few MMOs that makes the exception to the whole classes ordeal but their skill system basically forces you to take a specific task unless you have a massive amount of time and money... a game geinuesely designed to keep you paying because it takes time, not skill or work to develop your character.

[catmorbid]

Classes are basically simplifications, that allow quickly take a role. The best use of a class would be to remove any complexity from character creation - the worst to emulate class-free progression. The former makes things quicker, and the latter makes things overly complicated.l

In a skill-based game without any classes skill progression should gradually slow down and demand more and more, to force the player to focus all their energy in only few things, instead of learning everything - if that becomes possible, we have a big balance breaker. That's when the game works perfectly without the classes, but it's of course a lot of work. Having classes is much simpler for the developer and the player, because the developer doesn't need to worry about glitches or flaws in their skill system and players don't need to worry about things like freedom of choice.

Then again, I've personally noticed that it's actually easier in the long run to have a class-free system compared to a class-based system. That's simply because when you have a class-based system, adding new stuff is always a pain in the ass, because you have to make sure every class works with that new stuff. However, when you have a class-free system, all you need to to do is add a new skill e.g. and that's it. I'm talking from PnP perspective, but I can't see why it wouldn't apply to crpg/mmorpg perspective as well.

[Neek]

Classes/professions/skill sets, they all blur into the inevitable.

The key is the game in question have classes that are discovered by the players, and if you choose a risky unknown route to allocate your skills, but you have sound vision, SHAZAM! A new class is born and people are soon to copy.

If there's confusion what to call your character's class, I think we're on the right track.

[calleford]

Using classes is a way for the creators to give the customers an easy way of choosing and playing, if you are a warrior you will use your god damn melee weapon and not your crossbow while you are trying to charge a fireball! Anything else would give less dedicated players trouble choosing, and therefore possibly doing a bad job in fights. This will also most likely cause the less dedicated, casual players to quit.

Another thing about classes is that the devs acctually have something more to describe, something else that might bring more people to the game. If the description of a certain class is cool enough, it's destined that more people will want to try it. And ofc, classes sound cool in other ways to certain people than to others, which will probably give a balance in the amount of classes anyway.

[OMGPIE]

Well the human brain wants everything to be put into patterns...it's a fact don't argue. Anyways classes are a good easy way to put things into a pattern. There are classes A B and C and each class does this this and this. It is just easier and more boring I think.