Monsters & Memories

[anvi]

Heard that they are delaying things a bit to redesign a lot of the classes. Many Reeees were wept. I don't really follow this game though.

[Xenich]

Are the classes that much different from EQ?

[Kalarion]

Are the classes that much different from EQ?

Not right now, but apparently they will be.

Archer will get its class uniqueness from arrowheads and specialized gadgets.
Ranger will lose most of its druid spellcasting and focus on the melee/archery style switch and wilderness survival-based group abilities.
Beastmaster will become more like the EQ Berserker with hth and a levelling pet companion.
Shadow Knight loses its ties to necromancy and focuses on drains/transfers, with the ability to learn abilities from monsters (like an FF XI Blue Mage, I assume).
Paladin loses its ties to cleric spellcasting and gains auras and ground consecration effects.
Monk loses its elemental ties and focuses on physical feats and abilities.
Elementalist is leaning hard into pet interactions and deepened elemental spell lines, losing its wizard utility spillover.
Wizard is losing its sword and staff stuff (GAY), and focusing on high damage non-elemental spells that reward kill shots. It's keeping its utility.

The other classes look like they'll be approximately the same.

Each class got its new design vision updated. They're still in the Classes page, go check them out.

https://monstersandmemories.com/classes

EDIT: spelling and grammar.

[Finarfin]

>Check the classes link
>Click on Paladin
>See " Roles: Tank, Healer"
>read defining traits list Two-Hand use for DPS
And all my interest is gone if the devs are too ******** to decide

[Xenich]

Are the classes that much different from EQ?

Not right now, but apparently they will be.

Archer will get its class uniqueness from arrowheads and specialized gadgets.
Ranger will lost most of its druid spellcasting and focus on the melee/archery style switch and wilderness survival-based group abilities.
Beastmaster will become more like the EQ Berserker with hth and a levelling pet companion.
Shadow Knight loses its ties to necromancy and focuses on drains/transfers, with the ability to learn abilities from monster (like an FF XI Blue Mage, I assume).
Paladin loses its ties to cleric spellcasting and gains auras and ground consecration effects.
Monk loses its elemental ties and focuses on physical feats and abilities.
Elementalist is leaning hard into pet interactions and deepened elemental spell lines, losing its wizard utility spillover.
Wizard is losing its sword and staff stuff (GAY), and focusing on high damage non-elemental spells that reward kill shots. It's keeping its utility.

The other classes look like they'll be approximately the same.

Each class got its new design vision updated. They're still in the Classes page, go check them out.

https://monstersandmemories.com/classes

Hmm... making these types of changes this late into the development seems... odd... Did they give any reasoning for it all?

[asf]

it will suck

[Tweed]

This is sounding worse by the minute.

[Kalarion]

Are the classes that much different from EQ?

Not right now, but apparently they will be.

Archer will get its class uniqueness from arrowheads and specialized gadgets.
Ranger will lost most of its druid spellcasting and focus on the melee/archery style switch and wilderness survival-based group abilities.
Beastmaster will become more like the EQ Berserker with hth and a levelling pet companion.
Shadow Knight loses its ties to necromancy and focuses on drains/transfers, with the ability to learn abilities from monster (like an FF XI Blue Mage, I assume).
Paladin loses its ties to cleric spellcasting and gains auras and ground consecration effects.
Monk loses its elemental ties and focuses on physical feats and abilities.
Elementalist is leaning hard into pet interactions and deepened elemental spell lines, losing its wizard utility spillover.
Wizard is losing its sword and staff stuff (GAY), and focusing on high damage non-elemental spells that reward kill shots. It's keeping its utility.

The other classes look like they'll be approximately the same.

Each class got its new design vision updated. They're still in the Classes page, go check them out.

https://monstersandmemories.com/classes

Hmm... making these types of changes this late into the development seems... odd... Did they give any reasoning for it all?

The reasoning wasn't well-presented, and in fact listening to the Q&A for the class changes has convinced me never to listen to at least that dev again. The guy who was running it (I don't know his name) was bitchy and defensive in the most foid way possible. All pushback was poo-poo'd and not dealt with on its merits. "Oh, maybe the problem is we didn't explain it well enough," "oh I can't tell if that criticism is sarcasm or being rude, hahah I just don't get this stuff guys!", "well yeah you guys claim we had themes in mind during development but isn't it weird that none of the devs thought so? But now we have a paper trail and a class design document isn't that great??" and so on. Really annoying.

Personally I'm looking forward to how the changes work out in practice.

[Tweed]

Why wouldn't you finalize the class design before you started making the game? Especially when you had so many years of EQ history right in front of you.

[Xenich]

Why wouldn't you finalize the class design before you started making the game? Especially when you had so many years of EQ history right in front of you.

Well, at the least have a solid directional core to them. Tweaking is one thing, but some of the changes seem to be core focuses being shifted which will likely drastically change class focus and play.

I guess we will see how it pans out, but Kal's mention of the dev's attitude is a bit of a red flag for me. Every time I have seen developers get super defensive and bitchy about things, it doesn't seem to work out well to what is coming. Almost like they are that way because they know people aren't going to like it. Time will tell...

[Rienen]

Nick, the Key Class Designer, did quit back in March. They'd been with the project since the beginning and is most likely who Kal was talking about.

[GhostCow]

Are the classes that much different from EQ?

Not right now, but apparently they will be.

Archer will get its class uniqueness from arrowheads and specialized gadgets.
Ranger will lose most of its druid spellcasting and focus on the melee/archery style switch and wilderness survival-based group abilities.
Beastmaster will become more like the EQ Berserker with hth and a levelling pet companion.
Shadow Knight loses its ties to necromancy and focuses on drains/transfers, with the ability to learn abilities from monsters (like an FF XI Blue Mage, I assume).
Paladin loses its ties to cleric spellcasting and gains auras and ground consecration effects.
Monk loses its elemental ties and focuses on physical feats and abilities.
Elementalist is leaning hard into pet interactions and deepened elemental spell lines, losing its wizard utility spillover.
Wizard is losing its sword and staff stuff (GAY), and focusing on high damage non-elemental spells that reward kill shots. It's keeping its utility.

The other classes look like they'll be approximately the same.

Each class got its new design vision updated. They're still in the Classes page, go check them out.

https://monstersandmemories.com/classes

EDIT: spelling and grammar.

This sounds like ****. Which dev was being a *** about it? Hopefully not Shawn. I like his streams.

[Xenich]

To be fair, not all of the changes are so bad, but some seem... odd... I am very leery about things, I just don't like last minute adjustments this late in the game (I thought we were at bug focusing, load balancing, and basic feature development at this point).

I am not saying the changes are entirely bad, some of the class description changes I have seen aren't aren't horrible, my worry is more how this balance plays out so close to their Oct release. Since I haven't played most of beta or have any real depth of knowledge on the classes, my inquiry may be without justification, so I give it that... it is just that it seemed odd to have this major change at this stage. /shrug

[Xenich]

I remember LoTRO in the late stages of the Moria Launch which all of a sudden started doing drastic changes to the systems, which later I found out was because they were sold and the new company was revamping for monetary systems. So I am extremely distrustful of companies throwing out big adjustments across the board at late stages of release.

[GhostCow]

Monk changes sound good, Wizard maybe good, Ranger probably not good but maybe, Shadowknight changes are the worst.

[Xenich]

Monk changes sound good, Wizard maybe good, Ranger probably not good but maybe, Shadowknight changes are the worst.

It all depends on the focus they are seeking for the class. I don't object to changes if they serve a purpose.

Seems like Shadowknight is moving away from a necromancer focus. Disappointing for those who liked the "anti-paladin" concept, but may work if it functions correctly. It is just odd they did drastic changes of class focus this late though.

[GhostCow]

Shadowknights should definitely be about lifetaps and draining stats to buff themselves. Making them something like a blue mage is the most ******** thing I've ever heard

[Kalarion]

Shadowknights should definitely be about lifetaps and draining stats to buff themselves. Making them something like a blue mage is the most ******** thing I've ever heard

But they still are. They're just shedding everything else necromancy-related... skelly pet, poison/corruption dots, presumably castable FD (this is going to hurt badly unless we can get a replacement from a monster ability).

https://monstersandmemories.com/class-shadow-knight

More:
Monster hunter antihero identity and lore
Drains, transfers, and debilitating effects
Collectable[sic] abilities from monster encounters
Depth, upgrades, and scaling across the level range
Fast-casting, short-range abilities

Less:
Necromantic lore and strictly undead theming
Dedicated pets
Generic magical utility

This makes me think even more strongly of some type of merging of FFXI's Dark Knight and Blue Mage on a reread. Dark Knights used magic, but they were the absolute masters of only one type, Dark, which focused exclusively on draining every single primary and derived attribute possible from a target. Which I ******* loved, to be clear. It was one of my favorite aspects of playing DRK. They had access to Elemental magic but it was a sideshow at best.

The big difference here that I see between FF XI and MnM (if they go the direction I'm taking them as going) is that DRK was the premier melee damage dealer and couldn't really tank at all. It could mitigate damage in short bursts with drains and clever subclass ability use, but after about 5 seconds if the PLD hadn't taken agro back you were going to get bent over a barrel. DRKs were the definition of glass cannons. It looks like MnM wants to keep them at least in contention for a tanking role, so I probably won't get to relive my glory days of absolutely nuking mobs from orbit on my own

EDIT: added pontifications on Dark Knight.

[Xenich]

My concern is them focusing too much with the classes which removes the complexities of the less focused basic spells. Remember in EQ how so many people thought many basic low level, or narrowly focused spells were "useless" in EQ only to find out later someone figured out some incredible uses for them. That is the problem with narrowing focus too much on some classes. I understand to an extent, it makes it easier to track and balance their focus of play, but at the same time, the beauty of EQ was the ability of classes to find uses for various skills people couldn't see any means for. That is the essence of exploratory gaming.

[Ranselknulf]

I don't mind role overlap.

Gear and progression should help people differentiate over time. Of course low levels might have lots of "tank" options.

Now a tank/healer overlap seems like a bit much and something I'm surprised it took them this long to realize was dumb.

The fact they are so drastically changing classes makes me question their commitment to open the game any time soon.

[Ranselknulf]

Ok, I posted some bait on the M&M forums.

It would be funny if M&M leaned hard into the FFXI style with subjobs / multiclass though.


"With every class now updated, the design groundwork feels, suspiciously complete and final. Naturally, the next logical step would be a multiclass system, if only to let players engage with those refined mechanics in more interesting and slightly chaotic combinations. It would add depth, replayability, and just enough unpredictability to keep theorycrafters enteretained for years. Also, if it somehow produces a few unhinged builds along the way that would be a bonus." - serious forum poster

[anvi]

I like the idea of the class changes. I've never been interested in this game because copying EQ sounds like a bad idea to me. As much as I loved EQ, so much of it I didn't like, and so much that I only loved because it was a huge game. The bad bits are not easy to pick out either. If you pick out all the bad bits and harsh bits then you have a lame easymode candyland adventure. And EQ was a big game, bigger than I think they even intended to make. But without that I would have lost interest a lot sooner. Usually when I reach the late stages of an MMO I lose interest because getting the bestest gear seems pointless when I know there's not going to be anything to do with it. But EQ was so big I was interested to play it all over again with at least 3 other classes to try them out. And big enough that I could go to completely different zones each play through.

I never got interested in MnM because I figured it wouldn't be that big. I also see people summarising what to do and where to go on other forums which I really REALLY hate. "From 1-20 just go to x y z, then go to x y z to 30 ish, and the end with x y z". Well **** why even play? EQ had so much mystery and nobody knew anything, I liked that. Also EQs beta testing was small scale and mostly done internally. The thought of playing a game like this where half the players have already played through it before and want to race to max level faster than anyone because they want to show off their insider knowledge sounds so ********. And I know that's what will happen because I know how people think and act. That's how every mmo is. There will be lists of all the "best in slot" gear and where to get it. The best zones etc. Nobody will need to figure out things like pulling because it will all be figured out already. I was level 25 in EQ before I even heard the term Fear Kiting. Some Bard chick I didn't even know told me about it because I was a Bard too, and back then we were kind of gimped so people felt the need to help each other out.

Also I'm not too interested in playing the EQ classes all over again in a new form. I only really like a few EQ classes. And I've played them to death for 20 years, do people really still want more of the same? There are some things that it did better than other games, but a lot of things have been completely outdone by other games. Vanguard classes were basically an upgrade of EQ classes in every way. Then other games like GW2 and others have added fun new ideas like painting areas on the ground for area spells. Cone shaped attacks and stuff. Do I really want to replay classes designed over 27 years ago? Then there's the graphics... I get they are limited budget but EQ had cutting edge graphics at the time. I can handle low tech graphics in some games, I love Knights of the Chalice 1/2 and TOME4 and stuff. But in a big 3D open world game, I could really do with moody good looking locations. Maybe MnM can achieve that with low fi graphics but so far I haven't been interested in following it. So when I heard about the revamping of classes it was good news to me. It even mentioned the ground painting thing I mentioned above. I know some people probably thing this is gimmicky crap but to me it's not. I spent years playing the best MOBA there is, high speed game full of skill shots and environment interaction and stuff. It would be hard to go back 27 years at this point.

See 30 seconds of this:
21 KILLS HON REBORN Behemoth - MQEEE

Also elephant in the room is THJ. Playing EQ but as 3 classes combined, boosted too, pulling entire zones by yourself and blasting everything down, is so much more interesting than playing oldschool EQ. So is being able to play solo in a meaningful way, not just soloing scraps. I felt the exact opposite when I played EQ but that was over 20 years ago. I don't think I have the patience to go on 3 hour adventures with strangers anymore. What Ranselknulf got me excited. Update the classes to be more engaging and give me multiclass and I'd be all in. I've seen people on another forum talking about how THJ was a turning point for MMOs and I think it is true. It's like a cross between Diablo and EQ, there's really no going back to split pulling mobs 1 at a time for 0.5% xp.

[GhostCow]

The graphics in MnM are good. Even my zoomer fiancee thinks they look good. My only complaint is the block hands. I wish they'd spend a few more polygons on fingers instead of painting them on blocks. Even EQ had fingers on the goblins in Kunark. That's been a pet peeve of mine since back in the days when we couldn't afford the polygons for fingers.

[rusty_shackleford]

ghostcow forcing his zoomergf to play a game made for genx boomers while she plays subway surfers and watches tiktok on two other monitors

[rusty_shackleford]

Now a tank/healer overlap seems like a bit much and something I'm surprised it took them this long to realize was dumb.

fake news, anti-hybrid slander, etc., etc.,
same reason hybrids were poop in WoW originally, they were "too good" in EQ (they were not, warriors just sucked)

[Kalarion]

Now a tank/healer overlap seems like a bit much and something I'm surprised it took them this long to realize was dumb.

fake news, anti-hybrid slander, etc., etc.,
same reason hybrids were poop in WoW originally, they were "too good" in EQ (they were not, warriors just sucked)

I don't think the point here is that hybrids are too good as-is. I think the point is that they're foolishly chasing after some ******** idea of "unique identity" and hybrid per se is being thrown into the trash in pursuit of it ("oh Paladins should be their own thing without being connected to clerics in any way!!")

I think that's stupid. On the other hand, a lot of the ideas they're talking about for each class seem really interesting to me. We'll see how it turns out.

[Ranselknulf]

Have to say I'm glad I haven't purchased this yet.

It might be good some day, 10 years down the road when private servers come along.

[Xenich]

Now a tank/healer overlap seems like a bit much and something I'm surprised it took them this long to realize was dumb.

fake news, anti-hybrid slander, etc., etc.,
same reason hybrids were poop in WoW originally, they were "too good" in EQ (they were not, warriors just sucked)

I don't think the point here is that hybrids are too good as-is. I think the point is that they're foolishly chasing after some ******** idea of "unique identity" and hybrid per se is being thrown into the trash in pursuit of it ("oh Paladins should be their own thing without being connected to clerics in any way!!")

I think that's stupid. On the other hand, a lot of the ideas they're talking about for each class seem really interesting to me. We'll see how it turns out.

I have mixed feelings about it. On one side, I see why they have concern. Some of the classes that shared abilities with core classes created serious problems in EQ with them balancing to content (I am not talking about class to class balance). So there may be some logic by cutting out those connections so they can balance the class easier within its own concept without having to worry about cross class spells. On the other side, those classes they are adjusting may change the playstyle that made them interesting and the removal of a lot of those basic spells could reduce a lot of the complexities of them.

With the SK, it seems that they will still be generally the same type of character, just without the basic magic and necromancer theme. How many of the necromancer like abilities will they retain and will it allow them to play in the manner they did in EQ?

The paladin looks like it is going to be more focused on tanking with "emergency" healing. Healing from Paladins in early EQ were very situational and definitely "emergency" focus. The Paladin here kind of reminds me of the WoW Release pally in some ways, where their abilities were "strike" focused through combat as opposed to the heal bots they became later on. Honestly, I prefer a more melee based paladin as opposed to the caster based that WoW moved them into.

Anyway, it is hard to see what it will look like when they have it done, so I am undecided if this will be bad or not.

[GhostCow]

I hit level 21 last night. I'm fully addicted to this game now like I was to EQ in 2001. I don't know how anyone who liked Everquest could not possibly like this game.

[Tweed]

I hit level 21 last night. I'm fully addicted to this game now like I was to EQ in 2001. I don't know how anyone who liked Everquest could not possibly like this game.

I wish I did, but I don't. I don't want to relive all the bad parts of EQ again.