Why do people fear the introduction of new classes?

Maybe fear is the wrong word but I see a lot of comments of the sort, " I hope they won't introduce any new classes." Don't new classes just provide for new and different characters and more variety?

I would like 2 more classes. The problem is that they need to fix all other skills before adding new stuff...

Imbalanced. Look at Factions release. Sin primaries aren't very strong, Rits are overpowered.

Look at Nightfall release. Grenth's dervsishes and EF paragons are dominating everything.
It's just it's very hard to balance something the first time.

Part of the reason is balance. Simply put: with more variety, that balance becomes harder to maintain.

So the concern is primarily directed towards PVP. I suppose that makes sense. Perhaps a system of class restricted competition would be useful. Not all but have some areas only open to certain subsets so that different metagames could be maintained. Obviously I don't PVP much so that explains why I asked the question and my probable misunderstanding of PVP dynamics.

Yeah especially pvp.Since the Assasin got out I never stand a chance.

Races either would get unique abilities, which would create PvE hell for people who would happen to choose/like unfavored combination.

Or they would be just skin, which would make em kinda pointless (i am taking minipet and festival hat pointless) for me and just add developer work (models, armors, texturing, lots testing for visual glitches ...)

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also, races introduce some other less important questions:

will people start in same regions or will starter areas be separated to each race? (in ability to group with other people if you happen to choose races that "live" far away ... eww)

will we get racial-only gear, etc ...

lots of stuff that GW avoided nicely.

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so form e races are either pointless or problem, so i dont like em (playing as non-human is not really selling point for me either.).

I don't "fear" the addition of more professions, and ANet certainly has not exhausted that well spring. But, I do feel the game could use some attention and a overhaul. Not as in a skill update, buff or nerf, but in other areas ranging from implementing trade houses to adding dynamic party control options.

PVP

: Balance, lots of things still broken, we rather have those fixed then new profesions, barely adapt to profesions we have new , and new skills and we get more to mess it up,basicly the familiarity gets thrown away.Overpowered classes,overused classes, etc etc , you get the idea.

PVE : People find it kind of annoying , they dont HAVE to but if a new class comes out they want to play it.

Lets say they had a monk a warrior and a ranger at start, then came factions, they played both classes and liked assasins, but because there is now a new character to play they play they dont play the ranger anymore because of lack of time.

Then comes nightfall , and they played both and liked the paragon, but now again time cuts in and they stop playing the warrior.

Then comes a new chapter again, and 2 new classes they try and like class X but cycle repeats they dump the sin.

I mean people hate this, they are almost forced ( not really ) to stop playing a class they like cause theres too many choices.

EDIT: I just like to add, that i would love to get new classes,even with all these sideeffects

The "fear" of the new classes comes from:

balancing issues - new classes mean new skills wich mean new balance problems

more work - getting throught all the campaigns with another 2 chars? meh...

uselessness - the core classes (except for mesmer in pve) will always be the most used and most useful ones, it doesnt matter how many more warrior clones there will be

My personal opinion:

Assassin is fun to be, but kinda useless in pve.
Ritualist is nice to be, but kinda useless in pve.
Dervish is fun to be, but kinda overpowered.

Paragon is the only balanced class that they added.

More classes is a good thing in my humble opinion.

Here are some reason's why people don't like:

More work to "have it all" (2+existing in new chapter to go through)
Don't want to change there current builds to adapt
Afraid there class they like to play have more "competition" when forming parties.
The fact that the new class will be altered after it's release to balance it correctly.
The initial imbalance it may have when introduced.

Jeff Spain in the radio interview have stated that the campaign classes are specialized (and can be harder to play) where the core classes will alway be getting new stuff / more versatile.

How does any of this have any bearing on whether or not people dislike new classes? If I missed a statement about races in this short thread, feel free to correct me.

On point: People likely don't "fear" the introduction of new classes so much as lament the fact that resources are being devoted to those features instead of being allocated to their pet issue. There are those that want a tighter skill balance, or an auction house, or more elite content, and so on. If resources instead go to them, those that want new classes take up the lament. You simply cannot please everyone.

Balance. That's why people don't want new classes.

I wouldn't mind no new classes in the last installment of Guild Wars. They should let you start any character in it tho, provided you have Factions and Nightfall. Add new skills, new greens, obviously new area, new armors(maybe another armor like FoW[cost-wise] but only accessible in this chapter). I think races are a great idea but they should be kept for GW2. Can't add races in last chapter doesn't make sense.

Three Reasons:

1. From a GENERAL PvE perspective, many friends of mine hate having multiple PvE characters because they like to invest in one and get titles/cool armor. I know just as many that like going through the game over and over with different characters, but having a fixed number of classes allows ANet to give more attention to existing classes which in turn allows players to develop their PvE characters even more.

2. From a GENERAL PvP perspective, most of the roles of an MMORPG are filled by existing classes. In PvP, you use the class that excels at a certain area, which is why you see far more healing monks than healing ritualists even though ritualists can heal rather decently. Hence, unless balance is PERFECT (and it never is) some classes become flavor of the month while others rarely, if ever, get used.

3. From the perspective of both, I think many players will agree with me that existing classes could be upgraded with new roles instead of introducing new classes to allow players more "bang for their buck" with their favorite classes.

NOTE: These are general, personal observations, so they obviously do not necessarily represent the opinions of the GW PvE and PvP populations as a whole.

I wouldn't say i fear the characters. but i fear the effects it will have to a lot of things.
first of all theres a major balance issue to work out.
secondly i can't think of anything they have left out the game. everything is pretty much covered in the 10 professions we have now. I can't think of anything they could put on a new profession, i just can't. and i think that if they do some up with something it'll be either stupid with no point to it. or be so close to another class that it wont make sense to play the other one.

And personally i think the time can be used better for other things, no one really needs a new profession, its already confusing enough as it is.

People fear new profession because the class they play may get forgotten.

Assassins' not strong? Is that why they just got nerfed?
Ritualist overpowered? Then why can't I find a group in DoA?

I sort of agree with you on any new professions being too similar to ones already existing. Example, A druid would likely be too similar to ranger, a new warrior-type class like a Bezerker or Barbarian or something would clash with other melee characters. Whats been said already holds true, its all about balance.

Though I'd still welcome any new professions, I don't have anything against them its still variety.

In my opinion the current meta is good in balance, except the spiritway backline with neverending energy. What about a nerf for Soul Reaping that it on gives you 1/4 of your Soul Reaping from spirits instead of 1/2?

I think they can add 2 new proffesions after they changed that. Then all proffesions are good and able to play.

Ofcourse everything is always an opinion.

For PvP new classes means new skills and that causes an imbalanced game.
Since the release of Factions the balance has been a bigger problem than it used to be. It all got worse with the Paragon in Nightfall. So when thinking of chapter 4 and realising you already have an unbalanced game should make reconsider if you really need to add new classes. Also many people are against it on the forums, mainly PvP players.

Ofcourse PvE players would be against what I write, that's obvious. They don't care about the game balance that much and you can satisfy them with some new hack 'n slash content, titles they need to grind for and new classes and armors.
But please be careful with making Elite content, cause every PvP'er I know of has finished it and the average PvE-only player can't and starts opening dozens of threads on forums that they can't make it... *sigh* (I think this is often because the lack of knowledge of different classes their skills, PvE only players are not forced to see the whole picture of what a team does. PvP players will have to when creating a build for the guild or something)

Don't think I'm a PvP player, PvE players I got my rank 10 (close to rank 11) ages ago but the imbalance and low difference of Builds in Heroes Ascent made it unattractive. Also 6vs6 gives to much bounds to create something different. So it drove me to GvG. Besides that I have 3 PvE characters:
(Ranger with 6,7mil XP, 8/10PKM and 291 elites, Monk with 4,4mil XP, 3/5KoaBD and a Necro with 4,9mil XP 3/5KoaBD and 291 elites)

The bits of Information known about chapter 4, if they are true at all, make me believe that chapter 4 will be a PvE chapter that will end the Guild Wars story we know. I hope they that they don't make the same mistake again in Guild Wars 2, that will hopefully be PvP based from the start and has it stated on the games box!

Doesn't Devona start the introduction movie of Guild Wars with: "My father fought in the Guild Wars"? Gogo for balanced PvP.

Why fear the introduction of new classes? Because a part of GW died when Factions was released and again with NF. Granted, the new skills play a part as well, but overall it's the imbalances that kill pvp and it's clear at this point that anet no longer has the ability to balance new class and skill additions.

The first campaign has 6 core classes which form the backbone of most MMORPGs: the warrior, healer, nuker, etc. Let's call them generalized classes.

But then they started adding specialized classes in the subsequent campaigns. If Anet had planned better, they would've made the original 6 less generalized and more specialized.

Of course people will lean toward the generalized classes because their roles are easily defined and their playstyles are universally understood.

It's kind of weird how you phrased the question...

I don't think people are really "afraid" of a new class in GW (I assume that most would like a new one to keep content fresh), it's rather that players are annoyed with the process that comes with new characters.

For example:
When the paragon was added in, it was nerfed to amazing amounts of hell.
When the sin was added in (remember Golden Phoenix Strike), some parts of it were nerfed to hell.

Alot of the annoyance stems in ANet's balances, meaning PvP can be extremely unbalanced at release (and thus, not fun), meaning that certain classes, probably the new ones, will receive a wack from the nerf bat.

But (off topic), I would still like the addition of new classes. It's what keeps me coming back, and has added more dimensions to GvG at every chapter so far.

In my oppion the 5 core classes are all needed (and yes including mesmer :P) assasin,rits,paragon,dervs not needed but can substitue for example, rits can substatute monks sometimes. Dervs can substatute tanks and,dmg dealers. Assasin,dmg dealers. and paragons are good for nuttin jerks

Pure balance. A-Net break *something* every time they make a minor change, they break *everything* when they make a major change like new classes.

I wouldn't be too worried if they deleted every Rt, P, D and A from the game either TBH. There's still a bunch of issues with all these classes to be worked out (read, there are still some skills in there that need nerfing) and it's going to take someone abusing them to make A-Net do anything.

Am I missing something or do you have a special version of GW...
There are 6 core classes.

They should have made 3 profesions.
Tank, healer, nuker.
And appealed to a huge audience of 200,000 and lasted 3 years before calling it quits. lol

I wholeheartedly agree. I mean, nuances suck, right?

The problem is implementation.

Not even the core classes do what they were supposed to do. Sometimes they do in PvE, others they do in PvP. Sometimes they do things they werent supposed to do.

Warriors should dish medium/high amounts of damage to a single target, while being able to absorb some. Elementalits were supposed to be able to do high damage to a target or medium damage to several(omg, where are jump between targets spells?!).

In PvP (by PvP i dont mean arenas) u see Ele spamming heal party and warriors doing all the damage. In PvE eles do some damage and some warriors do alot of damage while others do nill and try to tank (if u look at tatics and stg lines, they seem supposed to. The problem is that the enemies ignore them and kill the others, then overwhelm the warriors...).

Some like Necros dont seem to find their spot in PvP, while Mesmers cant find their place in PvE, prolly due to the fact few corpses and small groups in PvP fro necros, and too many enemies for Mesmer in PvE.

Archers dont deal that much damage that they can surpasse warriors and monks heal by Protecting+ Divine bonus.

Then the chapter classes. The assassin dealt too much damage to a single target too fast but was unable to endure constant action or facing warriors, too good in PvP and useless in PvE. The ritualist dont ask me, cause i dont know.

The dervish is quite strong in PvE. Avatars create some confusion in PvP(Melandrus and Grenth really change the rules for melee fighters), but due to half of the time being off, and enchantements becoming a potential target, dont replace the better known warriors.

Paragon is interesting (YES EF WAS COMPLETLY IMBA), but spears attacks are a bit lacking, and the shouts and chants struggle to grab a position in a PvP team or in a PvE party.

Then comes the change factor. People hate changes. New skills/classes alter the balance, make proven builds useless and open paths to exploitation. Then comes the selling factor from Anet. Anet wants to sell, so try to make appealing skills, wich will generally be more powerfull than current ones.


Actually the better thing the expansions did to my playstyle was the henchies AI changes and the addition of heroes.

Man are they superior to any party, even experienced and good parties (if no TeamSpeak present)? I just pray then will increase the heroes cap from 3 to 7, let them enter every place and pick objects.

They can add as many professions they like, no problem for me. Anyway, I don't have any of the "new" 4 professions as a PvE character. I have 5 core PvE chars (not mesmer)

BTW, if they don't add new professions to a chapter, the content must be big and good for compensation; It's not easy make something better than Nightfall without adding the "promised" 2 professions.

Ok, all the profession bashing aside, WHAT ARE THE NEW PROFESSIONS GONING TO BE? if there is any at all?

Omigoodness, with new classes I'll need new characters and when will I find the time to play them all? I'm having enough trouble with 2 that I play regularly. Perhaps by 2009 or whenever GW2 comes in I'll have done everything I want to do... erm, maybe not.

Introducing new classes worsens the balance even more if Anet doesn't change its policy towards serious regularly maintained balance.

I myself believe new RACES would be way more interesting than any additional classes from now and revive some of the attractiveness of all existing classes, giving people choices in defining their character. The diversity would definitely be more positively overwhelming then 2 new classes which just add to the mess.

I'm coming to believe that the smart move would be to have two seperate skill trees - one for PvE, one for PvP. That way theycan nerf the hell out of paragons in PvP, but we might see less impact in PvE.

I don't fear the addition of more races, as far as ANET doesnt make the game cartoonish and maintain the quality is ok.

We are talking about GW2 , and I am sure there will be balance.

OMFG, I WAS JUST ABOUT TO SAY THAT, LOL.

Also, if would be nice for PvE characters to be able to access all PvP skills unlocked, ONLY while in a PvP area, like battle Isles. GAILE, PLEASE READ THIS. XD

Less impact? Why would you make PvE even easier? Don't bring DoA for the high-end content mechanic in GW is flawed. Very High-Level mobs with insane damage spread over 2-3 skills while a limit to L24 and a diversity in skill-bars would make PvE finally challenging.

I am sure some prefer soloing the whole storyline....

I would like to have 3 new classes for chapter four. . just because I beat the others to quick and got bored.

I made topics to discuss separate skill variants for both PVP and PVE in sardalec and gwonline.
It was not welcomed.
At all.

It really has potential, but everyone just ignored the negatives of what's happening right now and focused how it was a big change and they don't want that big a change. I honestly don't think many people think through about what they want, they just use their gut and knee jerk responses. pffft.

Anyway, I think 2 variants for each mode would be best in the long run, if the game is intended to add many more skills and remain balanced. We shall see how many more GW games are in the works and if new professions are added.

So true, so true. Just look at how many ideas are shot down every day because "this ain't WoW" or any other game out there. Since when is adopting good, proven ideas from other sources a bad idea?

I'm just hoping that the "50 skills that are PvE-only" part of that Inquirer article is one of the true points. If so, perhaps Anet is beginning to lean toward that way of thinking. PvP and PvE are two completely different games, there is no reason they should share the exact same skills. The only thing close to a reason is that it would cause people to have to learn two different ways to use the same skill - but that's essentially how it is now, because of the vastly different play styles needed for each.

No one really "fears" new classes, they're just dreading the long couple of months it takes to balance those new classes, and all the uselessness and overpoweredness that comes with it in the meantime. I don't think it's too different than a whole slew of new skills for old classes, with the exception of the new attributes that come with new classes. Any "fear" that comes from new anything is really just a fear of change. A lot of people fear change.