Hades has posted an article about the state of Massively Multiplayer games, where he hopes to figure out how to capture the casual gamer market. Chief on his attacks is the class system, which again gets, in my opinion, a bad rap. A snippet:

My problem with class based games is that it creates tons of downtime that simply isn’t called for. Most of the downtime, inside or outside a guild, comes from organizing your group. You can litterally sit there for hours trying to organize your groups, especially if you are relying on pick up people, just to do a task that takes 30-60 minutes. When it comes to dealing with groups in PVE or PVP, I stand by my statement from 2003.

This has nothing to do with class-based systems or use-based systems, but rather has more to do with player differentiation at all. If you have players who have different skillsets, you will end up in situations where you just don’t have the skills you need to complete a puzzle or dungeon. Whether those skills are granted automatically by classes, grinded through via use-based skills, or left under the pillow by the Advancement Fairy, player differentiation means that some players are going to do the job.

World of Warcraft chose to deal with this problem in a way that is frighteningly obvious – by having soloable content from levels 1 to 60. Players can always find a quest they can complete at any stage in their career, and if they want to be anti-social, they can reach level 60 without once grouping up. And while most players DO group up, it gives you an ability to make progress and advance while waiting for your group to get together. (Incidentally, the problem with timesink in WoW is usually not finding groupmates, but gathering them together)

The other thing that WoW does that is interesting is that they have a relatively high degree of character mutability – players can make choices which push their characters in specific directions. Druids can serve as healers, tanks, or DPS in a pinch. A shadow priest can serve as DPS or healing. Hunters can pull out different pets which drastically change their role in combat. None of these transformed classes are as potent as a pure warrior, a pure rogue, or a healing-devoted priest, but as a general rule, this mutability works well until at least the higher level raids, when groups become less tolerant of halfway measures.

Imagine the United States Infantry having to fight like this: “An infantry platoon is about 28-30 soldiers broken down into 4 squads. Instead of each soldier carrying his own weapon and ammunition so they are well rounded warriors, they have been modified to fight using today’s class based environment. In each 8 man squad you now have 1 soldier carrying the weapon, 1 soldier carrying the bullets, 1 soldier carrying 30 round magazine to put the bullets in, 1 soldier carrying the gas mask and chemical attack kit, 1 soldier who does the scouting, 1 soldier who has to apply the first aid kit in the event of a wound, 1 soldier who will aim the rifle, and finally 1 soldier who will actually do the firing. 1 warrior, and 7 support soldiers who have limited capabilities. If the soldier firing gets killed, no one else can fire the weapon. If the soldier carrying the bullets gets killed, the weapon has no ammo. If the soldier with the first aid kit dies, there’s no one to heal. Etc.

If you ignore the overly simplified strawman example, you don’t have to imagine very hard to imagine a class-based army. So sayeth Wikipedia.

The United States Army particularly emphasizes the fireteam concept, as do most special operations units. An United States Army Rangers fireteam consists of 4 soldiers equipped with a personal weapon and special equipment based on position:

  • Team Leader — first man in command, provides tactical leadership
  • Grenadier (M203) — operates the grenade launcher
  • Automatic Rifleman (M249 SAW) — provides suppressive fire for the fireteam
  • Rifleman — carries communications equipment and covers the rear

One thing that is important, in my opinion, is that classes create new tactical situations. I’ve been levelling up a priest in WoW lately (51, woot!), and one thing that has stood out is that most of the dungeons are doable with a wide assortment of party types. Completing a dungeon like Uldaman is achievable with a priest and 4 rogues, three priests and two tanks, or a standard, ‘well-mixed’ party. And in each of those parties, playing my priest well is completely different. The tactics change based on my group makeup, which ends up making how I play the same content varied.

Of course, you don’t need classes for this, but classes end up telling me how I need to play. If you’re the only priest in a party with 4 rogues, you know you have to stay alive at all costs. If players can ‘build their own class’, you don’t have those clear clues on what the capabilities of your party is.

Original comments thread is here.