Even though some content is (probably) due around the corner, I think it would be awesome to add new classes as an incentive to get this game to grow. Yes, new content is already incentive even though we're like 9 months behind. So many players have quit already. There are very few active high level players. Much respect to people like Rhythm who try to keep the community updated/involved. Something like restoring the durability cap is great, but it's mostly for higher leveled players that need to grind, or want to do arimitama. That being said, the update is also catered toward higher leveled players. Just like when edo was released, we had so many lower levels begging to be carried to edo, or in hermit crab by Kusatsu, because the higher levels continued on with the game, while the people that got used to leeching, or felt they might not have had much of a choice were left behind. If that happens, then it is possible that they will have incentive to grind and level up on their own. That's good. But what if they also quit because of the amount of exp needed? With the required exp dropping to get to level 100, that was easy. But getting to higher levels might take more time than many people might be willing to invest. Especially with the gimp-tastic exp we already get.
So I was thinking a great way to invite new players, or generate more interest is to introduce more classes. This might get more people to play, and the amount of lower levels will increase, and eventually they can progress together, much like the higher levels did when the game first came out. OR people might make a new account just for a new class, and the more experienced players can help since they know what they're doing. It's also to help with class variation. Everyone loves to watch a Sword/TS player spam Thunder beast->Thunder beast-> victory in a dungeon (ZzZzZzZz). No love for the wand users. A great way would be to introduce classes in stats that only have 1 class (within a stat) to begin with. POW has 3 different classes, and it's more or less easy to switch between those classes since you already invested in POW. It's mostly switching magatama. Sure, dex and mnd might vary a bit, but it's not so bad. But what about vitality, mnd, and wis? Spears used to the best class, full supports aren't really needed, and wands are difficult to use due to their SP constraint (if there was a chiami like effect for SP, that might be cool). Okay, you can use a hybrid class, but is spear/wand really a thing (log magatama)? Sure most people spec into dex as their alternative stat, so spear/bow could work (pressure point magatama). But hybrid classes sacrifice overall damage, and they aren't as popular as pure classes. It's a bit of a shame too. I would like to see an ax/ts carry(Bloody festival). Right? Anyone? No? Okay. So these are my ideas for new classes using these forsaken stats. Comparisons are just for visualization. Adding new classes are HIGHLY unlikely (Probably impossible with all the coding. It takes months just for translations.........) But one can hope right?

VIT-Brawler
Weapon: Gauntlets, brass knuckles (thuggin')
Specialty-CQC
Possible moves:
Lightning uppercut (Like Heihachi)
Flaming punch (FALCON PAWNCH)
A flying kick (Dynamic entry! This can take the form of the sword class' move "Dancer's balde" or whatever it's called. It's a hit and run move. On impact, your character will jump away giving the brawler class some kind of ranged move)
Ougi: It makes sense for spirit blast, but re-using that move a third time would be lame. Perhaps something like a flurry of kicks that goes through enemies. (Liu Kang. Although, it might look too funny to take seriously.......)

Wis-Mage
Weapon: Tomes
Specialty-mid range-short (maybe some defensive aspect with using elements like earth and wind as opposed to ice and fire. Get some elemental variation going here)
Possible moves:
Slam your tome into an enemy using wind element! (For lack of a better name, Rasengan! Resembles the wind strike thing on the spear)
Watch your toes. Open up a pool of lava for slow AoE. Good for large minions, or groups of them.
Call of the Haunted (Yugioh!). Call upon the dead to reach up and damage enemies while slowing their movement. Dark element. (Diablo 3)
It's a bit difficult to think of these. Soooooooooooooo onto ougis!
Ougi: Earth barrier. Form a wall of earth around you for a few seconds making you impervious to damage, and the wall will crumble damaging nearby enemies. This is great for team use, as well as recovering to gather yourself or waiting for a moves cool down. The enemies will go toward you due to their aggro, so letting the wall stay up for a few seconds lets them go to you so the move isn't purely to block damage.
Tidal waves: Similar to the bow ougi which is 100% out classed by Amaya's (OP), this will summon tidal waves. But it should have a wider spread, with less range.

Mnd-Music player? (Alright, this one was hard....)
Weapons: Instruments
Specialty-Long range (Supports should stay in the back in case they are needed for healing purposes or other. It make sense to use them as long range classes)
Possible moves:
Blow you opponents away with the power of rock. Use a guitar and form a pillar of lightning. (Like Dante in MvC3/UmvC3)
Soothe the opponent by blowing out their ear drums. Play melodies on a flute and damage enemies. (Tayuya)
Ougi: Party time! Open up a concert and distract enemies using the concert as a target dummy while you slip out the back. Ends with a bang! (I love this idea. It fits the support role as this buys time.)

Had a few comments.

Gravedigger wrote:Even though some content is (probably) due around the corner, I think it would be awesome to add new classes as an incentive to get this game to grow. Yes, new content is already incentive even though we're like 9 months behind. So many players have quit already. There are very few active high level players. Much respect to people like Rhythm who try to keep the community updated/involved. Something like restoring the durability cap is great, but it's mostly for higher leveled players that need to grind, or want to do arimitama. That being said, the update is also catered toward higher leveled players. Just like when edo was released, we had so many lower levels begging to be carried to edo, or in hermit crab by Kusatsu, because the higher levels continued on with the game, while the people that got used to leeching, or felt they might not have had much of a choice were left behind. If that happens, then it is possible that they will have incentive to grind and level up on their own. That's good. But what if they also quit because of the amount of exp needed? With the required exp dropping to get to level 100, that was easy. But getting to higher levels might take more time than many people might be willing to invest. Especially with the gimp-tastic exp we already get.

Definitely a problem... In JP, it's fine, but we simply don't have enough players, causing the area to be depopulated. If the game had lets say.... 20k players active daily, then I would totally agree and say that the current exp rates are fine. But because we only have like 300, it gets really hard for newer players to level up.

So I was thinking a great way to invite new players, or generate more interest is to introduce more classes. This might get more people to play, and the amount of lower levels will increase, and eventually they can progress together, much like the higher levels did when the game first came out. OR people might make a new account just for a new class, and the more experienced players can help since they know what they're doing.

I believe most of the people playing the new weapon type would be the latter. Note that obtaining magatama would also be rather difficult because you'd probably have to farm all of them.

It's also to help with class variation. Everyone loves to watch a Sword/TS player spam Thunder beast->Thunder beast-> victory in a dungeon (ZzZzZzZz). No love for the wand users.

Wand is OP as hell. There is literally no weapon in the game that can match its sheer DPS.
Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGnxaG40GxA
The Japanese server has many wand players that are much, much more powerful than this player is.

A great way would be to introduce classes in stats that only have 1 class (within a stat) to begin with. POW has 3 different classes, and it's more or less easy to switch between those classes since you already invested in POW. It's mostly switching magatama. Sure, dex and mnd might vary a bit, but it's not so bad. But what about vitality, mnd, and wis? Spears used to the best class, full supports aren't really needed, and wands are difficult to use due to their SP constraint (if there was a chiami like effect for SP, that might be cool). Okay, you can use a hybrid class, but is spear/wand really a thing (log magatama)? Sure most people spec into dex as their alternative stat, so spear/bow could work (pressure point magatama). But hybrid classes sacrifice overall damage, and they aren't as popular as pure classes. It's a bit of a shame too. I would like to see an ax/ts carry(Bloody festival). Right? Anyone? No? Okay. So these are my ideas for new classes using these forsaken stats. Comparisons are just for visualization. Adding new classes are HIGHLY unlikely (Probably impossible with all the coding. It takes months just for translations.........) But one can hope right?

Hybrids become completely nonviable once we get the next content patch due to a certain set of magatama being released.

VIT-Brawler
Weapon: Gauntlets, brass knuckles (thuggin')
Specialty-CQC
Possible moves:
Lightning uppercut (Like Heihachi)
Flaming punch (FALCON PAWNCH)
A flying kick (Dynamic entry! This can take the form of the sword class' move "Dancer's balde" or whatever it's called. It's a hit and run move. On impact, your character will jump away giving the brawler class some kind of ranged move)
Ougi: It makes sense for spirit blast, but re-using that move a third time would be lame. Perhaps something like a flurry of kicks that goes through enemies. (Liu Kang. Although, it might look too funny to take seriously.......)

Wis-Mage
Weapon: Tomes
Specialty-mid range-short (maybe some defensive aspect with using elements like earth and wind as opposed to ice and fire. Get some elemental variation going here)
Possible moves:
Slam your tome into an enemy using wind element! (For lack of a better name, Rasengan! Resembles the wind strike thing on the spear)
Watch your toes. Open up a pool of lava for slow AoE. Good for large minions, or groups of them.
Call of the Haunted (Yugioh!). Call upon the dead to reach up and damage enemies while slowing their movement. Dark element. (Diablo 3)
It's a bit difficult to think of these. Soooooooooooooo onto ougis!
Ougi: Earth barrier. Form a wall of earth around you for a few seconds making you impervious to damage, and the wall will crumble damaging nearby enemies. This is great for team use, as well as recovering to gather yourself or waiting for a moves cool down. The enemies will go toward you due to their aggro, so letting the wall stay up for a few seconds lets them go to you so the move isn't purely to block damage.
Tidal waves: Similar to the bow ougi which is 100% out classed by Amaya's (OP), this will summon tidal waves. But it should have a wider spread, with less range.

Mnd-Music player? (Alright, this one was hard....)
Weapons: Instruments
Specialty-Long range (Supports should stay in the back in case they are needed for healing purposes or other. It make sense to use them as long range classes)
Possible moves:
Blow you opponents away with the power of rock. Use a guitar and form a pillar of lightning. (Like Dante in MvC3/UmvC3)
Soothe the opponent by blowing out their ear drums. Play melodies on a flute and damage enemies. (Tayuya)
Ougi: Party time! Open up a concert and distract enemies using the concert as a target dummy while you slip out the back. Ends with a bang! (I love this idea. It fits the support role as this buys time.)

I think that, at most, CS will add new skills to all the weapons rather than new weapons, and those would be from JP. If I had to think of a new class, then I'd want something with a faster clear time... which goes against balancing. What I think would be good, though, (but won't happen) is to have a tool you can equip as a weapon. That is, something that can't be used to attack but gives other benefits, eg. increased movement speed, display enemies on map etc.

Having said that... a club seems about right for Oni.

Firon wrote:I think that, at most, CS will add new skills to all the weapons rather than new weapons, and those would be from JP. If I had to think of a new class, then I'd want something with a faster clear time... which goes against balancing. What I think would be good, though, (but won't happen) is to have a tool you can equip as a weapon. That is, something that can't be used to attack but gives other benefits, eg. increased movement speed, display enemies on map etc.

Having said that... a club seems about right for Oni.

But don't they already have that with alcohol? when you talk about "gives other benefits".

slapnuts wrote:

Firon wrote:I think that, at most, CS will add new skills to all the weapons rather than new weapons, and those would be from JP. If I had to think of a new class, then I'd want something with a faster clear time... which goes against balancing. What I think would be good, though, (but won't happen) is to have a tool you can equip as a weapon. That is, something that can't be used to attack but gives other benefits, eg. increased movement speed, display enemies on map etc.

Having said that... a club seems about right for Oni.

But don't they already have that with alcohol? when you talk about "gives other benefits".

Alcohol can be used with any weapon so it'd affect the game's difficulty. I just mentioned it as something that's easy to implement that could replace lunge step swords or weapons that are used to scan out ants, etc. and could be considered as an easy to implement new "class" :/

It took them 10 months to translate a map with 4 dungeons just think of how long it will take them to do this.