Anything Goes
Talk about anything. Keep it clean and don't post pointless crap. Topics without any hope of becoming a relatively sane discussion will be locked/deleted.
I'll start up with this before anything, as goddamn fucking usual because some of you are just way too into rebuttals and like to see everything as a malicious attack.
As an opener, I'd like to confess two things: one is that I've always wanted to make a post about this. I tried playing KY back in its old devteam days, but it never really took off, and one specific dev is a self-righteous asshole with a rich vocabulary, and then it just died, God rest its soul. The other thing is that I'm fully aware of the salt my words might produce in some people, and that a post like this can be easily mistaken for flame bait. I assure you: I won't be reading your responses because I'm interested in what you might say about this, but rather to know when to tell mods to lock this shit and tell you to take it out to the school yard. Those with open wounds looking for beef, don't step on the mine field that is topics of mine like this. That is, the huge mine with my face on it that says "don't blow it".
Do note that I'll try to point out what I see as the good and bad things about both class modifications, or what you'd like to hear: I'll try to "be fair". That won't stop me from speaking my mind, tho.
So let's begin, shall we?
I'll start out pointing the good things that I see about Justified Classes, because it's easier. First thing to note is that I have not played Justified Classes for "a long enough time", and I believe I don't need to: this will be addresed later on. So I jump into Justified Classes, and the first big and consistent thing I noticed is that fidelity is still its highest selling point. Back when JC was KY Classes, fidelity was its selling point, and when the refurbishing was made, it still is. Not to say that it's a bad thing; in fact, it's a positive thing. The amount of detail put into the aesthetics and mechanics of each class' abilities is astoudingly accurate and appealing, ranging from graphical detail to attack and ability portrayals when compared to the actual games the classes come from. That moment I tried JC Search Man (to give one example), and used that altfire, and noticed I was firing an endless barrage of missiles while I was slowly gliding...that joy, you cannot buy. Another good thing I noticed about JC Classes doesn't really steem from the mod itself, but rather on the diligency of its developers at times. I'm calling you out Fyone and co., the passion you put into getting out new content and fixing old content is commendable, and the way I've seen you handling balance discussion with the playerbase is pretty on-the-spot, not being afraid or hesitant of talking about inmediate changes planned for the next release. Not only do you strive to make as much as possible, but also to make sure that what you've set on putting out as a class is as playable as possible.
Yes, as playable as possible. This I mean very specifically, because the worst thing I can point out about Justified Classes is its flawed design philosophy, and by definition the flawed vision on what a class is. There, I said it. Let me explain.
I am part of the Class Based Modification's development team. I have been a part of class design, participated in some discussions for, believe it or not, class balance, reworks and revamps, and discussion. I have seen the process of constructing a class from a concept to a design, and finally into a playable thing. With the little time I've been a part of this development process, I can say without any doubt that the main good thing about Class Based Modification is that it gets what a class is supposed to be made for: to fulfill an specific role, with conveyable limitations, and thus advantanges and disadvantages, that could fit a player's prefered playstyle: this implies that it tries to
create a gameplay for its classes. The main process of creating/balancing/reworking a class in CBM or YD Classes or Jax Classes, your choice, is mainly this: it looks at the original source in a holistic way, then decide/emphasize on an specific role that could be given to said class based on the source, and finally attempt to make it playable.
That is, attempt to. The main flaw here with CBM is that it tries to work with roles that might just not make sense with what the source offers or with what the playerbase sees as effective, or just will not plainly work or be balanced at all: with the design freedom it takes, it also puts a huge weight on itself to make the things the devteam
comes up with to work, and this conflcts with some of the playerbase's visions, which eventually lead to a group of players to make contestatary versions of the CBM classes, in an attempt to "fix what the CBM devteam does not want to".
After this, it's very clear that the difference between JC and CBM is source fidelity and class playability, at least from my point of view. JC struggles to make the fidelity as playable as possible without giving up on the source, while CBM struggles to give each class a functioning and reliable role, without being restrained too much by an specific source.
The strives the JC devteam has taken to "make canon work" are commendable, but they will not be enough because of trying to be as close to the source ends up being detrimental in terms of playability: no matter what you do, the source you've chosen to hog uses a game design philosophy that just won't work if translated as literally as possible. This is something the core game's original developer understood right off the bat when making a first person shooter based off the NES Mega Man games: stuff like weapon or level translation cannot be made as close as possible to the NES games, because NES-styled/SNES/PS1 2D platformer design is not the same as PC 3D shooter design: a close direct translation, with limitations included, will not be an enjoyable experience. Some classes that you've taken liberties with are great, but many still suffer from these stubborn canon limitations. This is what I meant earlier about not needing to play Justified Classes for a long time, because I highly question if I can play a class modification that has classes with a lot of source fidelity but little actual design behind them other than "the main games did that, so it does that too". I could easily just believe that the amount of detail and fidelity JC classes have are a way to hide these class design lagoons, and just call this a "novelty mod", like that really old mod that literally remade each core weapon to behave exactly like they did on the main series games.
Not to say that CBM is free of class design problems, of course. There are always misunderstandings on why a class does an specific thing, when it has a plethora of abilities based on what the sources show that hint on a potential different role or playstyle. When JC Search Man
seems to have a frontal offensive role based on its attacks and the source, CBM/YD/Jax Search Man was meant to have a long wide range and stealth playstyle. Some classes in CBM (because may I remind you, most classes prior to MM6 were made by many different people) still suffer from clear signs of imbalance, lack of direction and harmful simplicity, and the response time the devteam takes for addressing these matters is extremely mood-dependant. While they do nail what I believe a class based game is, or at least what a class should be made from and for, the delay between the discussion process and the execution of the discussion makes it seem like the devteam just plain doesn't care about balancing.
To this, I come up with this conclusion: no big surprise, I like my boy Jax and I prefer the entire role-centered and less-restrained source fidelity concept behind CBM, or at least what I'd call the concept behind CBM, and I benignly call out JC for mantaining a flawed class design philosophy of trying to stay as close to the main games as possible, or at least what I'd call a flawed class design philosophy. But from another point, I wish that CBM showed as much passion to make things look as appealing as possible like the JC peeps, or that it tries to incorporate other aspects of the characters into the class roles that were given to them and JC wasn't afraid of trying. I can see the appeal in both mods, but deep inside I wish that I could help JC to just make canon not just "balanced", but also legit classes, with defined and well-thought roles.
Uh
I guess that's it.
Now let's get it on!
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