TL;DR? Most equipment is bad. Most class diversity is worse. People gravitate to optimal options. Ergo- class choices are going to feel samey.
Do you want to be a basic hitter? Use this, this, these stats, and this race.
Do you want to be a tank? This, this, that, and these races.
Do you want to be perpetual ass cancer? Dullahan with a Maellia and literally anything else you want please god make it stop.
It's in the nature of things. More gear diversity won't help unless the effects/ scalings are good (Fact: Most of the most interesting weapons have shit scaling to compensate for their effects- which then don't compensate for the bad scaling and make them into these really awesome conceptual things that will never see the light of day because big number = big good.).
More classes won't help unless they're competitive, as we saw with Shapeshifters lukewarm lasting power. The most successful thing I can think of class wise is actually the Black Knight rework- it transformed it from a second string 'Take me for my passives' class into a major mainstay of character building.
And more races? 4/5ths* of the races we have now lag behind. I wish I could draw up a chart of what's bad and why but. . .Well. People have talked it to death already. If you're not a Shaitan/Kaelensian (-Lupine)/Lich/Dullahan/Onigan/Chataran you're gonna have a bad time. Most of the races with really neato-torpedo racial passives fail in racial stats, or they just aren't the ubermensch like Corbie / Dullahan / Lich / Felidae.
This only matters in PvP, which seems to matter less and less as time goes on. This is a healthy thing, imo. Granted, there should be some combos that just DO NOT work. I wouldn't expect a Glykin VA to work just like I wouldn't expect a Papillion Earth Mage to work.
*I speak with hyperbole. But we do have some races that could use some TLC. Wild Elves, Vampires (I know, I know.), Omina, and Theno are ones that come to mind. Some in terms of expanding their flavour (Theno are a difficult find with their theming.), others with their mechanical viability (Vampire. Lol.) and others still with giving them more of an identity (Omina all being played with the 'LOL EVERYTHING BAD HAPPENS TO EVERYBODY NOW RANDOM ROLLS' / not really having more beyond that. Their luck stealing mechanic is kinda neat but they could be so much MORE)
This ended up being really long for a tl;dr. I shouldn't write so much. TL;DR MAKE GOOD ITEM HAVE GOOD EFFECT, STANDARDIZE SCALING, LEVEL PLAYING FIELD FOR MOST RACES
Also for the love of god, please make VA not so skill bloated. You could take half the VA skills and build a mage archetype out of them. Which is awesome. But what's not awesome is having more skills than 53 skill points can possibly take. And then needing to squeeze them all into limited slots.
Do you want to be a basic hitter? Use this, this, these stats, and this race.
Do you want to be a tank? This, this, that, and these races.
Do you want to be perpetual ass cancer? Dullahan with a Maellia and literally anything else you want please god make it stop.
It's in the nature of things. More gear diversity won't help unless the effects/ scalings are good (Fact: Most of the most interesting weapons have shit scaling to compensate for their effects- which then don't compensate for the bad scaling and make them into these really awesome conceptual things that will never see the light of day because big number = big good.).
More classes won't help unless they're competitive, as we saw with Shapeshifters lukewarm lasting power. The most successful thing I can think of class wise is actually the Black Knight rework- it transformed it from a second string 'Take me for my passives' class into a major mainstay of character building.
And more races? 4/5ths* of the races we have now lag behind. I wish I could draw up a chart of what's bad and why but. . .Well. People have talked it to death already. If you're not a Shaitan/Kaelensian (-Lupine)/Lich/Dullahan/Onigan/Chataran you're gonna have a bad time. Most of the races with really neato-torpedo racial passives fail in racial stats, or they just aren't the ubermensch like Corbie / Dullahan / Lich / Felidae.
This only matters in PvP, which seems to matter less and less as time goes on. This is a healthy thing, imo. Granted, there should be some combos that just DO NOT work. I wouldn't expect a Glykin VA to work just like I wouldn't expect a Papillion Earth Mage to work.
*I speak with hyperbole. But we do have some races that could use some TLC. Wild Elves, Vampires (I know, I know.), Omina, and Theno are ones that come to mind. Some in terms of expanding their flavour (Theno are a difficult find with their theming.), others with their mechanical viability (Vampire. Lol.) and others still with giving them more of an identity (Omina all being played with the 'LOL EVERYTHING BAD HAPPENS TO EVERYBODY NOW RANDOM ROLLS' / not really having more beyond that. Their luck stealing mechanic is kinda neat but they could be so much MORE)
This ended up being really long for a tl;dr. I shouldn't write so much. TL;DR MAKE GOOD ITEM HAVE GOOD EFFECT, STANDARDIZE SCALING, LEVEL PLAYING FIELD FOR MOST RACES
Also for the love of god, please make VA not so skill bloated. You could take half the VA skills and build a mage archetype out of them. Which is awesome. But what's not awesome is having more skills than 53 skill points can possibly take. And then needing to squeeze them all into limited slots.
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