Update 56 Preview 3: Archetype Overview

[Lynnabel]

Howdy all! You know how in the Producer's Letter this year we announced an exciting new type of character build option? Well, those exciting new character build options are Archetypes, and lets get into what exactly that means:

Archetypes

An Archetype is, in short, a specific and unique type of way to play a specific, existing class. This explanation gets a lot easier if we actually use an Archetype we've built to explain, so for this we're going to use an upcoming archetype - Dark Apostate - as our example.

Dark Apostate is a Cleric archetype. That means that if you see an ability or something that requires you to be a Cleric, Dark Apostate qualifies, as you are a Cleric first and a Dark Apostate second. It also means that in the party window you'll see yourself as a Cleric, and in the Who menu and LFG window - you guessed it, you're a cleric.

What Dark Apostate has that other Clerics do not is different enhancement trees. Dark Apostate has 3 cleric class trees: Dark Apostate, Warpriest, and Divine Disciple. Note that it does NOT have Radiant Servant! This is the big part of what makes an Archetype an Archetype - their trees are different, so the builds that use them will be different.

Archetypes are not just 1 different enhancement tree, though. They can have different class feats (for example, a Warlock Archetype that has new pact choices, or limits your pact choices to something thematically appropriate), different spellbooks (for example, a Bard that focuses more on illusion spells at the expense of its sonic options), replace more than one tree or all of them (for example, a Druid that is a pure caster and forgoes its Wild Shape forms), and even different alignment restrictions (for example, a Paladin that would very much like you to NOT be lawful good).

You can multiclass into an Archetype or a regular class just like you can with regular heroic classes, but you cannot multiclass an Archetype with its base class or another Archetype of the same class. So cleric Archetype + fighter = okay, cleric Archetype + fighter Archetype = okay, but cleric Archetype + different cleric Archetype = not okay, and cleric Archetype + cleric = not okay.

Past Lives and Completionist

Archetypes have their own past lives that fit in with the current Heroic Past Life system. If your majority class is an Archetype, you will earn that Archetype's past life.

An Archetype's past life counts as a prerequisite for the Heroic Active past life feats. Furthermore, an Archetype's past life feat will qualify someone for Heroic Completionist, assuming they haven't earned it already. If you have 1 copy of all heroic class past lives done on a character except for Cleric, for example, you'd be able to qualify for the Cleric portion with either base Cleric or with Dark Apostate. This means that as we release new Archetypees, Heroic Completionist won't be removed from players that have already earned it, and new options will open up for players still on that journey. Finally, with this release, Heroic Completionist will become automatically granted to characters that qualify.

In summary, Heroic Completionist will become: You win DDO! You gain +2 stats and +2 skills. This feat is automatically obtained at level 3 for all characters that have completed at least one class or archetype past life for each of the available classes in the game.

Why Archetypes?

There are a lot of great reasons to go this route, and we'd love to talk through some of them to help explain why we're angling in this direction.

1: Making new classes is hard - both technically and design-wise. There are only so many D&D classes in the books and the ones that are left retread old ground considerably. We'd never be able to make Class 16 without significant overlap with existing character options, something that feels bad from a design perspective and worse from a player perspective. Tons of great design space is locked up already and we needed a way to go back and fill in our gaps.
2: Technically speaking, this is a lot better than making new classes for a lot of reasons due to how DDO's engine functions. There's a ton of work to get a new class up on the LFM panel, for example, that with Archetypes we simply do not need to do. It prevents our UI from becoming bloated in a variety of places. It also prevents player information overload - rather than having 30 classes, sticking to our current 15 means they're still easily recognizable at a glance UI-wise.
3: This allows us to revisit design space that our existing classes touch upon and give it the love it deserves. If an existing class sorta-supports an archetype, this is a way for us to build that idea out and give it support in a way that doesn't mess with existing builds and archetypes.
4: Archetypes are easier for us to build than regular classes which means we can release more of them more frequently. It also means that we can do weirder things with them - if our ideas don't pan out, design-wise, we're not wasting years of work on a risky idea that doesn't land. We can take more risks, which feels great for us and will likely turn out some insane and unbelievable results.
5: Archetypes give us a great way to schedule revamps and retooling of existing class features. We have historically had a hard time pinning revamps down to a set schedule, but this gives us a great way to order and organize our class initiatives. For example, (and we're going into this later down in this post), Dark Apostate releases alongside a revamp of Divine Disciple. If we're building a Archetype, that's a great time to shore up other parts of the class we're building on - since it all fits together into one cohesive whole.
6: Archetypes are an experiment to see if they resonate better with the players than new Universal Trees do. Universal trees are a struggle to design because they need to appeal universally across many builds - and these are the exact opposite. We want to build narrow, flavorful, high-impact and interesting options that players can choose from, compared to Universal Trees that everyone can access on top of an existing class split. This definitely isn't to say that we won't ever make more Universal Trees, but for right now we're trying this new direction to see if it lands better.

Release Schedule

We're planning on releasing the first set of 3 Archetypes in a single batch this summer:

Dark Apostate (Cleric): Negative energy, evil magic using, Undead-shrouded necromancer
Stormsinger (Bard): Sonic, Cold, and Electric storm-based spellcasting
Sacred Fist (Paladin): handwraps-using Paladin that combines ki with holy energies

We're trying to cover a variety of playstyles in the first batch, and will continue to spread outwards as the feature develops and players get used to the idea. Its worth noting that our goal here is NOT to make sure each class has a Archetype to start - we will be instead aiming for Archetypees that we think will be fun to build and to play with. Its possible - likely, even - that a class will end up with 2 or even 3 Archetypes before a different class gets its first.

User Experience

So, the big question is, how do players actually choose a Archetype? What's the UX like?

In short, when you select a class during character creation, a side window will appear that will contain the base class (again) and its Archetypes. So you'd pick Cleric, for example, and then a side window appears with Cleric (default) selected, and under that (unselected) will be Dark Apostate. If you choose Dark Apostate, you'll start the game as one.

When multiclassing into a Archetype, you'll talk to that class' trainer, and you'll be asked if you would like to multiclass into the base class or any available Archetypes. If no Archetypes are available, or if you're ineligible for them (because you're already that Archetype or that base class), then you'll just skip right to the leveling up part you're familiar with. Think of it like an optional landing page.

When selecting another player or viewing your own character sheet, Archetypes will be displayed in the class breakdown. So you'll see (for example): Dark Apostate 18, Monk 2. Since those Monk levels are just regular ol' monk, no Archetype is displayed. But since those Cleric levels are an Archetype, that Archetype's name is displayed.

You may swap into a Archetype during a Lesser Reincarnation but not during the Epic Reincarnation re-leveling process. You won't need a +X Heart to swap levels during that LR - swapping into a Archetype during a LR won't count towards class swap totals and doesn't require class swaps to perform.

Summary

It is our hope that players look at Archetypes the same way that we do - as a feature that is absolutely full of potential and a way for us to get funky fresh with our existing classes in a way that isn't intrusive or overcomplex. We want to bring the coolest and most unique stuff out of the books and to the game so that players can experiment, refine, and explore these new and unique options. And, well, they're just a lot of fun to design.

Well, without futher ado, we'd like to debut our first set of three Archetypes for you all today, the links to which you can find right here:

• Sacred Fist
• Stormsinger
• Dark Apostate

Bugs Fixed from previous preview:

• Multiclassing OUT of an Archetype no longer sets your character data on fire and jettisons it out into the ocean (aka breaking your spellbooks, UI, and ability to advance in level)
• The Lifeshaper no longer breaks your character advancement if you try to switch into an archetype, and also no longer turns herself bright green while doing so
• Completionist is now properly granted automatically (and for lam 3: no longer requires a relog)

[Merrillman]

Lynn... my apologies for the lateness of this but I really thought you still checked the discord. I made suggestions there but was just told you no longer check there. I have a few things to say regarding Dark Apostate:

1) Love the concept. Visuals beautiful. Lots of decent stuff.
2) The DA seems to be really missing some "oomph" in the spell or SLA selection. For instance, taking away things like neg burst and not having some form of death aura spell is a glaring hole to me.
3) Why no expansion of debuffs? Curse is just not enough. We need mass versions of things like contagion or poison or energy drain. Thats not OP since things like implosion simply kill 4 things at a time, as does wail (and how does this archetype NOT have wail?? How about losing PW Stun from DD?? MASS PW Stun. No different than hold, really. Easily could be added and make this build so much more useful.
4) No debuff of negative damage? Killin me smalls. Killin me.... Will evil damage actually work on bosses or undead or half the game? Will inflicts? Harm?
5) Why no new flavor? Black Lightning or Darkfire? Neg/Fire or Neg/lightning so you at least have a chance to damage undead or bosses who are almost universally immune to negative? Darkfire could cause fire damage and blind foes. On that note, MASS BLINDNESS!
6) "Drain Lightning" sounds like a natural. Like chain, only it does electric damage and takes either levels or stats (Think Emperor Palpatine!!).
7) What about unique things like rust monster effects, mimic goo or green slime? I think that woul!d be fun on a dark Apostate. They make you sick, vulnerable, debuffed.

I love the concept but view this as extremely niche as is. I've been commenting on a Dark Cleric for years and I am so sad this is not more fleshed out away from inflict. HARM should absolutely have a MASS version. This is no worse than any instakill. I don't want some parts I'm saying here to come off as harsh because I honestly don't mean it to sound that way. I'm saying there is so much that's good in this idea that if you rounded out some of the flavor I think you'd have a home run rather than a single or double.