Guild Wars 2

Anyone have thoughts on not adding new classes into the game and relying fully on Elite Specs? My thoughts are found here: https://youtu.be/EujyKkP3Xhw It’s an interesting concept seeing elite specs as new classes.

HenderingHand.9382:

Anyone have thoughts on not adding new classes into the game and relying fully on Elite Specs? My thoughts are found here: https://youtu.be/EujyKkP3Xhw It’s an interesting concept seeing elite specs as new classes.

Repeatedly adding new classes can do more harm to a game than not, and at some point they can become redundant. Quite frankly Anet probably added the Revs for the primary purpose of evening out the class types (three soldiers, three adventurers, three scholars). Personally I don’t anticipate Arenanet adding anymore classes to the game.

Correction, thet are called professions.

On topic, what profession could you add that wouldn’t or couldn’t fit the theme of a current profession. I’m not asking out of disagreement, but just trying to instigate discussion.

I recall seeing a topic asking which profession emulates a Bard archetype in gw2 and there were mixed answers. Could a Bard profession function as a possible addition theme wise? Maybe. But i could also see it as a secialization just as easily.

Classes sound better than professions

Ramoth.9064:

Classes sound better than professions

Subjective. Classes sounds outdated and usually in regards to rigid categories (e.g. scientific classifications) or a school (also rigid). Profession sounds…professional. Part of being a soldier is knowing it is not a job (another classification nomenclature used in another game) but a profession and as your profession, you are not only professional but an expert. And we are certainly soldiers in this game.

Objectively, it doesn’t matter if classes sounds better, thats not what they’re called. It be like if people playing City of Heroes called their power choices Classes or Jobs when, instead they were called Archetypes because that better fits the background of the game, which was based on comic book superheroes.

I feel like people expect to get a new class with every expansion just because we got one with the first,
while I’m pretty sure the main purpose of the rev was to even out the three types of classes, as said before (three soldiers, three adventurers, three scholars)
If that wasn’t the purpose, ANet could’ve easily taken the core idea of the rev and fit it into a warrior/guardian profession.

In regards to class vs profession, as an old gw1 player I did used to go with profession. However I tend not to as much, as class IS easier to write quickly, and that ‘profession’ can also refer to crafting professions (which gw1 didn’t have). Frankly its semantics and isn’t really worth the time.

The Greyhawk.9107:

In regards to class vs profession, as an old gw1 player I did used to go with profession. However I tend not to as much, as class IS easier to write quickly, and that ‘profession’ can also refer to crafting professions (which gw1 didn’t have). Frankly its semantics and isn’t really worth the time.

True. It was more or less an in to start to discuss the subject (I don’t really care what people call them) and a chance to talk about what games call what is essentially the same thing. I personally am particular with such things (as well as acronyms…I dislike them so I tend to say out the acronym when I read or say them but don’t mind typing them) and since I tend to rotate around my MMOs, I do take the effort to keep them straight because it’s useful but also rather interesting.

FFXIV calls their ‘classes’ jobs and it is a staple of the series with its long history of games and mechanics and City of Heroes broke new grounds by calling its ‘classes’ archetypes which makes sense as Wolverine or Storm don’t have ‘classes’ but rather a method of combat and manifestation of power (they wouldn’t be a “regenerator” class or a “weather controlling” class but rather a “bruiser/scrapper” and a “controller” respectively). GW2 is rather odd naming its ‘classes’ professions and going so far as to name their buffs and debuffs boons and conditions. I’m sure there are other variations in names which is part of what draws my attention to various games (beyond the difference in gameplay).

Back on topic, I’d still like to hear a good solid concept for a new profession (crafting or combat) just to see if it could stand on its own uniqueness and also what elite specs such a profession could have to differentiate it from other profession specs.

It just occurred to me as I was re-reading my post but I actually think there are classes within GW2 along with professions. Professions are the actual professions you choose (Warrior, Guardian, Elementalist, etc) while classes are what your professions is likely built to do, which reflects what previous classes in other games do. So you have healers, bunkers, support, dps(power)/(condi)/(burst), walls/tanks, controler(CC) as your classes. Each class has different roles just like in other games but the professions can perform different class roles depending on build although not all professions can perform each role equally.

That being said, you could actually say that professions are just overarching themes made unique by their approach to combat, their lore and origin and their aesthetic loosely divided by armor weight. If that were the case, you could actually make a decent argument for a new professions IF you can make a theme that wouldn’t be very easily emulated on a current professions.

They said that they’re pretty much done with adding professions now they have 3 of each class type. This was stated a few times around the launch of HoT.

If they added another profession then we’d have to also have 10 new elite specs and then there would be complaints that the new profession only has one elite spec and every one else has two and it’s really unfair and they should retroactively add a HoT elite spec for that one and so on and so forth.

There’s little point in bloating the profession roster when the elite specs offer such great potential.