[Soapy]

Please stop doing it.

[Slydria]

This really needs an actual explanation. A simple don't do it isn't enough to really get this across.


Omniclassing is where a character swaps freely between a lot of classes, often without any explanation.

Now, being able to try new classes and tinker with a character's build is all fine and fun but there's a point where it stops being reasonable, where you're swapping your classes around like they're clothes in your drawers.

Being a master of everything is the stuff of Mary Sues. Characters aren't meant to be great at everything. Characters should have flaws, it makes them more interesting!

Going "I trained in all these different places and mastered all these different fighting styles" in a short span of time, with no detriment to the other styles is just ridiculous.

At worst, this becomes another way to metagame and pick counter classes to someone. "Hey, this person's a squishy Mage? Well, if I just switch to Void Assassin, I can cutthroat them and win no problem!" I think a lot of people take this too far when it comes to sparring. I think the goal of a 'spar' shouldn't be to necessarily win but to have a good time.

Yes, this game is a power fantasy but c'mon, characters should have some rational ground to stand on, there should be a limit to how strong and how knowledgeable one can be.

I've seen people going "Oh no, I lost our match but I was just holding back, let me show you my true power!" And then switching classes and getting a quick heal in far too many times.


That said, as an issue, this is probably overstated, which is why I haven't really done anything about it. I think most people have been pretty good about this but there's a few stand-outs who don't seem to think that there's anything wrong with it.

[Sawrock]

Once I get a character grounded in a set of two classes, I usually keep them in those classes until:

A: A new class that comes out that is more fitting for the character.
B: I think a class I originally chose for a character doesn't fit a character too well.

Now, this is just my personal opinion, but even having a third class one goes to is too much. It's like having a doctor-mechanic-farmer, it's not possible to have so much training in one's life. And as for the characters who are extremely old, I'd note that it'd be likely one would forget previous fighting styles after dedicating themselves to new ones in intense enough training required for a promoted class.

As for the general problem of omniclassing, I'd personally prefer if we had a mini-destiny system, where we could lock two promoted classes to a character (and their respective base classes, as well). It wouldn't be as useful as destiny classing (so not to invalidate it), but something to help against omniclassing, mechanically, would be good in my book.

[Ranylyn]

^ So long as there's a free way to opt out. Such as, for example, if your character has an IC reason to give a class up. For example: you need to go to a dedicated NPC in each city to do it; it'd be out of the way enough that it wouldn't be possible to change classes at the Arena (And obvious as all hell when people say brb and come back a minute later,) but also wouldn't punish people by making them remake or LE just to fix their mistakes.

Examples I've either personally played or been involved with others who've done:
- Giving up the Void Arts because of a scare with void poisoning and IC pressure to not be reckless.
- An archer whose hand went permanently numb after a brutal incident, leaving them unable to wield bows. (However, they could still use their arm, enabling them to strap a kite shield to it, etc) If not for playby/icon issues, they admitted they'd have likely lost the whole arm.
- Someone training to be a warrior because of a family heirloom weapon, but when they're defeated and the weapon is stolen, they admit that it was never their strong suit anyways, and they were better off pursuing something else.

(That, and on a completely personal note, because it's such a small community, locked-in classes also hurts PVE because "Oh crap, this party has no sustain" and "Oh crap, this party is lacking in raw output" and the like. So I actually have two dedicated PVE Omniclassers I will never PVP with purely to be fair, that I use entirely for RP and being able to fit any role. I have severe IC restrictions on their abilities, and I don't spend more than 10-20 SP in each of their classes as further IC justification; they dabble in everything but aren't especially good at anything. I only PVP on more fixed characters, just to be fair, because it's about the roleplay, and omniclassing is bad roleplay.)

[Lolzytripd]

There shouldn't be a mechanical system for this OOC shaming and complaining to gm's that X is always switching his build to counter others.

[Blissey]

Even though this isn't a suggestion topic, classes could probably be locked to four total -- by four, I mean four base classes (including their respective promo classes), or at least four individual promoted classes with base classes included. That can probably solve most of this. I personally only use three because of destiny, so. It's not too bad.

[Kameron8]

This is why I was fond of SL1's system. If you really wanted to be 'that guy' and change every time something more powerful comes up, you had to roll an entirely new character. Grinding for stats isn't a thing anymore, but I digress.

I don't see any mechanical solution to this being pretty. If anything, this should be discouraged via game rules. Godmodding isn't allowed, and being good at literally everything isn't a far cry from that. If there are people blatantly swapping classes on the fly to 'rematch at their full power', it wouldn't be difficult to encourage GMs to scold those people.

[Snake]

A 'cooldown' when swapping classes, and done. I think Dave suggested this back then.

An archer can freely swap between Arbalest and Magic Gunner, but it should be put on cooldown when this Archer goes Soldier, for example.

Also, there's 'History Traits' that can be used as a base for the char's freedom.

And if one is really lacking patience? Sucks to be them, they'll have to waste 1000 Murai/500 Arena Tokens on a fruit. But still, it's like Kameron said, any mechanical solution will prove to be needless work and more of a hindrance. Players 'can' be conscious enough to not be asshats, and omniclassing, sometimes, is accessible by let's say, one vampire who lived since the doomsday.

He would probably know how to do basic grafting, while throwing punches, sword slashes and firing guns. Said vampire won't be able to be the best at everything he learned in life, but he would still be able to do it on the basic levels. As long as 'ominclassing' is reasonable within a character, I'd not mind buying it.

But you know what would solve this once and for all? Skill Points being used for all classes at once, give it 360 Skill Points that can be used 'universally' between the classes.
And Destiny being more oriented on how a class fights for the bonus points, like, 'Destiny: Melee', 'Destiny: Magic', 'Destiny: Spellblade', 'Destiny: Marksman' etc.
And that would reward more points to be spend while removing the classes that doesn't use the said fighting style from the list. (Destiny: Magic people can't spend points in Soldier or Duelist.)

BUT.

Let's not forget the game is still not 100% completed. We need this freedom to find bugs and test shit. If some people are abusing this freedom, they should be just dealt with it instead of wrecking the whole playerbase who's mostly responsible with it.
This is the same problem of 'Grammar' thread, can't be solved without GM reports for warnings.

[Autumn]

Actually I think just swapping around classes on the fly to counter people or because you lost a fight could just be considered godmodding for rules sake, as Kameron mentioned and be included in the RP guidelines or rules.

[Exxy]

What would be a good standard to keep things at? For instance, I typically rotate between 3, 4 at most, Promo'd classes (2 of which fall within the same tree - and I don't mean 3 or 4 different ones; I mean keeping to said 3/4 from start-to-finish). I'm for the idea people shouldn't use all the classes of the rainbow but I believe some diversity should be allowed - maybe something like two setups they prefer to use being a starting point?