Average Player Population by Class and Level - data fun!

[Ephirith]

Originally Posted by stormlord [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Ideally, I'd like to see more games where everybody can be a jack-of-all-trades, not just certain classes. And where you can solve problems using many different methods. But that would be a game that's more skill-based and where you can easily train/untrain. In class-based games, there'd need to be a multi-class system or some way to switch classes on the fly.

They basically tried this exact philosophy in World of Warcraft. In vanilla, all the classes were fairly distinct and you NEEDED certain classes for certain encounters. Then there was a movement at the end of Burning Crusade toward class homogenization, using the tagline, "Bring the player, not the class". They added dual spec which meant many classes could change roles on the fly.

They accomplished their goal in that, for the majority of the playerbase in non-progression raiding or grouping, you could bring nearly any combination of classes and still be viable. I liked that. What I didn't like was how all the classes just felt like different shades of the same color, but it certainly wasn't gamebreaking for me. (For what was gamebreaking, see any internet discussion of WoW, anywhere, ever)