JamesGoblin

Camelot Unchained Reveals it's 30 Classes

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In a series of live streams that ended this Friday, Camelot Unchained revealed it's 30 classes, with three more (the Crafters) to be revealed in a week or two.

 

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The classes of Camelot are not mirrored between it's three Realms (factions), that is - each Realm will have 11 unique classes. Speaking of factions,

covers each class (separated in Trios, the way they were revealed) and it's connections to Celtic, Arthurian and Scandinavian lore. Say, here is the first one:

 

 

PS The game is in alpha testing and still under the NDA (non disclosure agreement - tests are closed to non-backers, no streams etc.) which should drop as current major graphical overhaul ends and beta tests begin in Q1 2016.

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The thumbnail for that video gave me hope that there'd be a donkey class in that game, presumably to lug other people's equipment around for them.

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The thumbnail for that video gave me hope that there'd be a donkey class in that game, presumably to lug other people's equipment around for them.

Actually, there was serious consideration of Phouka class sometime 2 years ago (CSE calims it's "still a possibility") - a speed class shapeshifting into mounts and/or summoning mounts for allies. Now, what the game will certainly have are caravans and, likely, pack mules and such, but it will be just "regular" animals.

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I am looking forward to the inevitable complaints that the other faction is overpowered.

 

One of the key reasons why asymmetric balance works is that players can play as the faction/character that beat them, and discover that they're not overpowered after all, they just suck at the game. I think, if you're locked to a faction, that's going to be hard to achieve.

 

Also I don't know how they're going to manage keeping the teams even. Normally three-way fights eventually end up with one faction permanently locked out.

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I am looking forward to the inevitable complaints that the other faction is overpowered.

 

One of the key reasons why asymmetric balance works is that players can play as the faction/character that beat them, and discover that they're not overpowered after all, they just suck at the game. I think, if you're locked to a faction, that's going to be hard to achieve.

 

Also I don't know how they're going to manage keeping the teams even. Normally three-way fights eventually end up with one faction permanently locked out.

 

It is good "as long as all three keep on complaining" (Andrew Meggs, CU Technical Director). Very important "detail" is that they don't have to balance, additionally, for PvE and/or 1vs1 which would make it not hard but impossible. It will be some kind of rock-paper-scissors on the level of appropriate trios of classes (one from each realm) and somethng else on the level of Realms.

 

Locking people to one Realm per server, same as non-mirrored classes (and many other details), is very much connected to the Realm Pride and building the community.  People that played Mark's previous Dark Age of Camelot remember shouts such as "Hib for life!" very well =) Hard to achieve that if anybody can go anywhere and be anything, which is kind of "modern" approach. Also, horizontal leveling and no PvE gear treadmill will help a lot with eventual rerolls.

 

Finally, perfectly  balancing the Realms is, OFC, impossible but there is couple things that can be done, including zergs.

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I think we've proved by now that just because both extremes are complaining doesn't mean you've found the happy medium. I'm willing to wait and see, but if one of the factions gets it into their head that they're underpowered, there's going to be no dislodging that. Every nerf will be the developer vendetta; every buff, something they should have done a long time ago.

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I think we've proved by now that just because both extremes are complaining doesn't mean you've found the happy medium. I'm willing to wait and see, but if one of the factions gets it into their head that they're underpowered, there's going to be no dislodging that. Every nerf will be the developer vendetta; every buff, something they should have done a long time ago.

 

But of course, the "as long as all three..." wasn't ment to be taken at face value; It was said half jokingly and half about listenining carefully to who is actually very loud and annoyed, since all three factions are going to have vocal complainers no matter what. And of course, that feedback would be only a part in decision making.

 

Tears, ragequits and forum dramas are inevitable part of that landscape. One of my points was that they have a very good reason for somewhat painful, non-mirrored chaos of classes, and that it's actually not as silly as it might look at first glance.

 

I have no illusions about that approach - It will be not easy, but only eased by no PvE & 1vs1 balancing: "Balancing this will be the ongoing nightmare." - Mark Jacobs, the CEO.

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I'm also not arguing that they don't have good reason to think it's a good idea, it's just that the peculiarities of this kind of PvP means that asymmetric multiplayer is much more fragile than it is in, say, Starcraft. They may have a cunning plan to counter this, I don't know, but I know that this kind of PvP is extremely difficult to get right: I know of at least five games that have tried this style of PvP, more if you count games with only two factions, and I think there's really only been one, maybe two, unqualified successes.

 

(I've never understood the argument that not having to balance for PvE makes things easier. If you're balancing for PvP, properly, you're considering a lot of different scenarios, and those scenarios change depending on the balancing decisions you make. If you're already committed to PvP balancing, PvE balancing isn't much more of a burden because you're only adding a handful of new scenarios. Adding a new class is much more disruptive to balance and yet people don't seem to find that a problem.

 

Well okay, I guess I do understand the argument, I just think it's ignorant.)

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I'm also not arguing that they don't have good reason to think it's a good idea, it's just that the peculiarities of this kind of PvP means that asymmetric multiplayer is much more fragile than it is in, say, Starcraft. They may have a cunning plan to counter this, I don't know, but I know that this kind of PvP is extremely difficult to get right: I know of at least five games that have tried this style of PvP, more if you count games with only two factions, and I think there's really only been one, maybe two, unqualified successes.

 

(I've never understood the argument that not having to balance for PvE makes things easier. If you're balancing for PvP, properly, you're considering a lot of different scenarios, and those scenarios change depending on the balancing decisions you make. If you're already committed to PvP balancing, PvE balancing isn't much more of a burden because you're only adding a handful of new scenarios. Adding a new class is much more disruptive to balance and yet people don't seem to find that a problem.

 

Well okay, I guess I do understand the argument, I just think it's ignorant.)

 

Hey, thanks for kind words =)

 

The RvR balance comes from the people that virtually created the genre some 15 years ago, and "no PvE balance required..." is not even controversial - I heard it a number of times from various developers, besides it being quite simple to grasp as a concept.

 

Edit: another bit of info from tests -  https://twitter.com/CityStateGames/status/677642642063237122; Take a minute to let that sink in =)

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The crafters are finally revaled; All the crafting lovers outthere - prepare for the avalanche!

Besides that, Newsletter 17 is out, same as yesterday's Evening Update, with my new favorite pic inside - Viking caravan master (naturally, I prefer TDD/Arthurians, but the image is kinda nice - so I hope you will forgive me this little betrayal).

 

 

And now, it's time for some controversy.

First of all, I have to make a little intro here before the crowd starts going "looks like crap!" (as many did on Youtube and reddits): this below is an alpha test footage, with pre-alpha low poly/texture models, animations (including even walking) are placeholders etc. - this is NOT the game.

What the video below is showing are some alpha biomes (first half) and 600+ players/bots fighting in a very small area, with high framerate, quite big rendering distance, hundreds of trees/bushes fully rendered etc. - at that point basically any other engine would crash and burn long time ago.

So here is that (in)famous video:

 

 

PS There is already quite lively discussion on MMORPG reddit (and couple other places) about that video upthere, including some folks from CSE.

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