Chapter 777: Four Classes
Lin Xue fiddled with the new combat system for a while and discovered that it seemed to be based on the combat system of *Dark Souls*, with some special class skills added in...
In combat, players could roll, use weapons to attack, and whether a hit landed was entirely calculated based on the physics engine's effects.
Lin Xue recalled her previous days of suffering in *Dark Souls* and initially felt a natural aversion to this combat system. But after thinking it over, she realized it was indeed the best combat system available and fit the Western fantasy setting quite well.
What interested Lin Xue even more were the newly learned thief skills.
Stealth allowed her body to become semi-transparent, nearly invisible, with only a faint outline visible when she got very close to an enemy.
Backstab enabled a special attack from behind an enemy, dealing massive bonus damage.
Kidney Shot could put a target into a brief stun state.
However, neither Backstab nor Kidney Shot had a 100% hit rate. If a player operated skillfully, they could dodge them.
The difference was that each skill had different parameters. For example, Kidney Shot was a key skill for thieves, so its judgment range was larger, and an enemy might not be able to dodge it even after rolling.
At first, Lin Xue was puzzled. Wouldn't adding these skills make things too unbalanced?
If the data followed *Dark Souls*, a Backstab execution would instantly take away a third of the enemy's health. Wouldn't a thief sneaking up behind a player and landing a Backstab give them an overwhelming advantage...
But then Lin Xue realized that Chen Mo hadn't completely copied *Dark Souls*' numerical system. He had made some adjustments.
In the current combat system, players weren't as fragile as paper. An early Backstab wouldn't entirely decide the outcome of a fight.
Lin Xue was curious. She had successfully become a thief, but what classes had other players chosen? How many classes were available in total?
...
Lin Xue wandered around Stormwind City and encountered many other players.
These players, like Lin Xue, were immersed in the beauty of Stormwind City, running here and there as if sightseeing.
On the square in front of the Trade District's auction house, players were chatting in small groups. Lin Xue adjusted her voice channel to [Nearby Channel] and could hear what they were saying.
"I just took a tour around Stormwind City. It's amazing! Such a huge scene, absolutely epic!"
"Have you guys found the payment portal? I'm dirt poor and really want to buy something! But right now, I'm broke—can't even afford a bottle of wine!"
"No idea. I'm still completely lost, and there's no tutorial either."
"Why do you need a tutorial? Don't you think it's more fun this way? Exploring the whole city on your own, triggering random quests by talking to NPCs—it feels way more immersive!"
"Hmm, immersive, sure, but it's a bit of a hassle to play. I'd prefer NPCs with exclamation marks over their heads, just pick up the quest and be done."
"Who knows? Maybe Chen Mo is experimenting, deciding which mode to go with based on player feedback."
"Do you think Chen Mo built Stormwind City to pave the way for the world of Azeroth? If he could create the entire Azeroth... wow, that would be incredible!"
"Hard to say. The investment would be huge. A VR world that big would be hundreds of times larger than just Stormwind City. The budget would go up in flames..."
"Man, Serent is practically losing money to become the richest guy, and you're talking to me about money?"
"Oh, by the way, I found out you can trigger special class quests! It seems like four classes have been discovered so far..."
The players chattered away, sharing their experiences in Stormwind City.
So far, the players had identified four classes: Warrior, Thief, Mage, and Priest. The specific trigger condition was that players had to choose a set of armor when entering Stormwind City. Choosing mail armor would attract the Warrior trainer, leather armor would attract the Thief trainer, and cloth armor allowed a choice between Mage and Priest.
The skills for each class were also different. For example, the Priest's skills were Power Word: Shield, Heal, and Smite, clearly positioning it as a support class.
But that didn't mean the Priest was useless beyond healing. In terms of role, it was more like a battle priest...
Just like how Clerics in *Dark Souls* could whack people with small hammers, Priests here also had melee combat abilities. Although their damage output was slightly reduced, their healing ability kept them relatively balanced against other classes in one-on-one fights.
What Lin Xue didn't know was that in the official version, Priests would gain additional combat skills.
...
If following traditional design thinking, the Priest would be a pure healing class, with the tank, damage dealer, and healer forming the classic iron triangle.
However, from the current design perspective, this iron triangle model overemphasized teamwork, which didn't provide a good gameplay experience for tank and healer classes.
Most players wanted to deal damage, which would inevitably lead to an imbalance in the number of damage dealers versus tanks and healers, causing a series of problems.
For example, issues with gear requirements, dungeon queue times, and so on.
Therefore, Chen Mo adhered to two basic principles for the new class design.
First, class characteristics had to be distinct to avoid homogenization. A specific skill had to be exclusive to a particular class—not something everyone could have.
Second, every class had to offer a relatively comprehensive gaming experience. In particular, tanks and healers should have decent damage output capabilities.
Of course, since tanks and healers had their damage output boosted, their tankiness and healing power had to be correspondingly reduced.
In other words, everyone was a fighter, capable of fighting on their own. The differences lay in the emphasis of each class and their combat styles.
This was also a preliminary attempt based on the *Dark Souls* approach.
In Chen Mo's previous life, *World of Warcraft* adopted a completely separate system, which eventually evolved into two entirely different playstyles.
This approach had its pros and cons, but Chen Mo didn't fully agree with it.
The biggest problem was that class balance was essentially a complete mess. Adjusting the same skill for the same class had to consider both PvP and PvE, which were two entirely different systems. The result was that the more adjustments were made, the more chaotic it became, making it hard to balance both.
At the same time, separation meant that if players wanted to master both aspects, even if their skills were up to par, they'd have to grind twice as long to get the corresponding gear.
If this was done to sell more subscription time, then there was nothing to say. But if Chen Mo wasn't considering making money from subscriptions, then this kind of grind-heavy time-wasting was meaningless.
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