Bob Dole ponders class-based sandboxes

[overtyped]

For some time now, Bob Dole has been pondering the absence of developers attempting class-based sandbox games, complete with the rigid combat triangle of DPS, healer, and tank roles. It's worth noting that his curiosity on this matter isn't related to Haven, he simply wonders why no one has tried this before.

Do you think it's because developers who make sandboxes feel that the sandbox aesthetic must lean towards full freedom, and this is why it's never been tried?

[Aerona]

I think it's more straightforward than that. A sandbox game with rigid class roles is like a linear game that doesn't tell you where to go, it just feels weird to play. People play sandbox games for the freedom to define their own characters and objectives within the game framework, and a rigid framework denies that. There may be room for a novelty game that plays with those tropes, but it would be a very small niche. It'd be like Diablo without what makes people play Diablo, or a Bethesda game without what makes people play Bethesda games.

[Robben_DuMarsch]

For some time now, Bob Dole has been pondering the absence of developers attempting class-based sandbox games, complete with the rigid combat triangle of DPS, healer, and tank roles. It's worth noting that his curiosity on this matter isn't related to Haven, he simply wonders why no one has tried this before.

Do you think it's because developers who make sandboxes feel that the sandbox aesthetic must lean towards full freedom, and this is why it's never been tried?

Darkfall: Unholy Wars launched in 2012 as a self-billed sandbox game with a Warrior, Skirmisher (ranged bow based dps), Mage (ranged magical DPS), and Healer, the name of which I forgot. They also eventually added some melee DPS class. I say self-billed, because it was "sandbox" sort of like Ultima Online, not really a true sandbox, like Haven and Hearth.

It ended up eliminating the class system entirely and letting players just mix and match the abilities from the previous classes, to great reception from the small playerbase. I think that it's just fun theorycrafting builds, especially when there's sandbox PVP involved. It's also arguably easier to balance when you don't need to try to give parity in 1v1, small scale, and large fights, to different classes in PvP situations - It's a lot easier to balance "Classes" in PvE games.

Alternatively, you could argue that Albion Online ran from 2016-2022 with a heavy focus on 5v5 Combat with 1 tank, 3 dps, 1 healer, in competitive "sandbox" PvP (although there were metas that often had 1 tank, 2 dps, 2 healer, or 3 dps, 2 healer) - But there are so many asterisks there that I don't really want to get into it, and I don't think it actually counts.

[Sevenless]

For some time now, Bob Dole has been pondering the absence of developers attempting class-based sandbox games, complete with the rigid combat triangle of DPS, healer, and tank roles. It's worth noting that his curiosity on this matter isn't related to Haven, he simply wonders why no one has tried this before.

Do you think it's because developers who make sandboxes feel that the sandbox aesthetic must lean towards full freedom, and this is why it's never been tried?

Albion online despite claiming otherwise very much falls into a traditional damage/tank/healer setup. Due to how the "sandbox choices" are organized, you gotta pick one more or less.

[banok]

ashes of creation is maybe more fo sandpark but doing classes.

Personally I think its a bit arbitary because you can have set classes but have massive customisation within those classes, or well ONE game seems to have done that in guild wars 1 where I would say customising your building within 1 of the many classes has more possibilities than ANY of the non classses games I've played. Character customisation usually boils down to a meta build anyway, darkfall was probably one of the worse cases of this where being able to do everything mean every player played pretty much the exact same way.