Mar 15

Paladins As EZ Mode

Category: WoW

Zen of Design discusses the Blizzcon revelation that Pallys are ‘Easy Mode’ for World of Warcraft.

From the slide:

Warcraft 3 Paladin
Very defensive in nature
Intended to be easy class to play
Constantly struggle between too complex versus not enough to do

Add this to some comments I’ve heard about certain members of the design team not being fans of the concept of World of Warcraft, and it confirms many of the most scathing comments you hear about the Paladin class. With the addition of the class-specific buffs for raids and groups in the 1.9 patch, I’ve seen a lot more folks asking for Pallys for raids.

Even still, I chose the ‘wrong’ class in the eyes of many players on both sides of the Horde/Alliance divide. The Switcher Video (”and then I cast FROST SHOCK”) encapsulates the way a lot of people feel about the class and the choice between Alliance and Horde. With Hordies getting Blood Elves in the expansion, I expect there will start to be a swing back in the Horde’s direction in a big way.

I guess my question is: Why does a MMOG have to have an ‘easy mode’? The game’s learning curve is already quite shallow, a favorable aspect of the game noted by many when considering WoW’s success. With even first time players getting the hange of things fairly quickly, where’s the incentive to make a class easier to play than any other?

All I know is, now that my WoW buddies are hitting 50s I’m glad my Mage is 38. She’s going to get a lot of play in the future.

2 Comments so far

  1. Stormgaard March 16th, 2006 1:10 pm

    I guess I never thought about it that way - but in a way they’re right. Playing a Pally is like playing the game with the safety on.

    A few other observations about Pallys…

    1.) They are really, really cool from a Role Play stand point - even if they aren’t very exciting in combat. You have to admit it will be a VERY good time to be a Paladin when Blizzard gets around to releasing a Northrend Expansion.

    2.) They aren’t necessarily as dull as folks may assume. They are really sort of the “Opposite” of a Rogue. A Rogue kills one-on-one very quickly. A Pally can take on 3 or 4 enemies all at the same time although it takes much longer to bring them all down.

    3.) I’ve just now started getting into Raiding, and the thing I keep hearing is that even though Pallys will never be able to heal as well as Priests when you get a partial wipe the Pallys are usually the ones left standing and the Priests are not - and of course then the Pallys can start rezzing.

    4.) Finally - and this is probably the most interesting thing about the class - is that they are very effective against particular enemies and in particular zones much more so than any other class. I’m speaking about the Scourge and the E&W PL’s of course.

    Totally apart from the world-lore and backstory of WoW, this is a very interesting thing to do with one particular class in a MMO - to make them much more effective than other classes against certain enemies in the game..

    I haven’t played all the classes and I’m sure some of them ARE more effective against certain enemies to one degree or another - but none of them as dramatically so as the Paladin. It begs the question “Why don’t they do that with other classes in the game?”.

    Or why can’t other MMO’s learn from this example? It’s a theory of mine that SWG could take a page from WoW’s Pally model and apply it to the Jedi class. Make Jedi’s more effective against certain enemies and areas of the game - dramatically so, like Pally’s. Chalk up their being unable to go buck-nasty with their force powers on other missions or in other parts of the game to the fact that they are adhering to the “Jedi Code” or something.

    Now what would you do about “Dark Jedi”. I dunno, but now I’m off on a completely different topic! :P

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