In the spirit of EJ's post I clipped above I've worked quite hard to come up with the following:

As an attempt to be objective here is my history in Xen. I was a teenager in the late 90’s and found Xenimus by chance. I played early on when it was its most brutal (pvp, full inventory drop, trolling, item loss in water, etc) and continued likely during its highest populations with 5 servers. I have been an off-and-on visitor/player ever since. I came back for Xen FP, Xen 2 launch and now I’m back after a brief visit in 2018. I’ve never had a Max level character (maybe in early FP) although I’ve likely logged enough hours to do it lol. My primary characters were a 55 fighter back on xen 4, a 58 cleric, and lots of other smaller characters. I’ve been back in Xen 2.0 since late March and picked back up my 32 Ranger (had never played one before X2.0) and got to 43 before my curiosity got the better of me and I started testing, documenting, and evaluating all the other classes to lvl 15 to get data for the wiki. I’ve played all the classes to lvl 15, in some cases multiple times to document spells, stat placement, and growth.

In my opinion currently a lot of the classes feel very much the same. My suggestions would be to further differentiate them and offer perhaps more unique gameplay and build diversity to experience the world. I also think a return of some of the Learned Skills wouldn’t be a bad direction. They would need to be balanced but it could add a new element to the grind including Ej’s work on professions. Currently classes seem to be built around MAX one stat, and fluff one or maybe two by the time your max level. It would be nice to see some build diversity by adding pros/cons and more features on all classes to the non-primary stats. Currently damage output is king, but enhancing the variety and ways to achieve damage could be refreshing to give players a chance to flesh out new min-max. I would also recommend free skill and maybe stat respeccing until lvl 20 to let folks experiment and get a feel for the class and the way they want to play it. I am not a pvp first person so these suggestions do not have a full understanding of the pvp implications, but with work and balance adjustments it should make for a more engaging experience over all. Please know that any and all numbers or effects below could be adjusted or eliminated and are merely place holders.

Here is an example of a redesign I’ve been kicking around.

Warrior: A hardened master of the melee in a world full of magic must compensate with brute force and endurance. They can encase themselves in heavy armor, or rely more on their mobility to avoid blows. If clever enough they can utilize the magic stored in consumable items to reach new heights. (I don’t think we want to go full PoE, Diablo with massive branching skill trees, but allowing for some player specific gameplay focus such as building for Spirit run, Stomp, Spin, consumable focus, etc could build diversity and enhance the class.)

Features:

- Few spells if not None, but skills (spell type currently) cost no Magic Power. (No NV, Invis, velo, robur, etc) This would have an impact on the item economy and increase value of NV while decreasing the value of MP regen/MP Base/MP Steal on equipment for warriors while still being valuable for some classes. It would also encourage cross/play with other players to buff them if they don't want to rely on consumables. (Could be play/conterplay if you dispel a warrior and they can only item rebuff, dispel resistance may become a valuable warrior trait)
- Puzzles requiring spells would need to be adjusted to be covered by an item or having a certain str, etc to open.
- Consumable items would require a rework or enhanced capabilities on a Warrior to compensate for inventory space usage, equipment space, etc. Warrior could use Intel stat for new skills around item usage to extend duration or effect. White pearls or equipment might be the only source of vision enhancement.
- They could have a Much larger hp pool to compensate for the lack of self non-item buffs.
- They could take advantage of items (new and old) to Str amu, Emerald, scrolls, etc. With either learned skills or invested skills these could be enhanced in effect or duration. Also maybe offer this skill to rangers if they maintain a similar feel as to how it is now if you want them more martial than magical.
- Skills could focus around choosing an armor playstyle to offer a bit of variety in build options as well as giving usage to other stats like wis/intel. An example would be Armor Specialization: Light, Medium, Heavy. By selecting this you will no longer be able to equip, or suffer a penalty, or just add bonus to the chosen type for non-specialized armor type. Bonus would need to be determined and balanced. Could be + to Prot, HP base, Att spd, + defend, +to dmg but + dmg received, etc etc.
- Warriors single target melee vs npc currently very prone to miss enemies of equal level which drags down early levels progression and just “feels bad” the Hit formula may need adjustment across the board or Innate + to hit evil could be built into the class levels to give them a better feel to progression but not imbalance pvp. Even with a dramatic increase of +to hit evil, a single target dps would not surpass Spin when presented with 3+ foes.
- Warrior could invest in specialization and enhancement to specific skills (spells)
- Spin Radius enhancement, Spin has a chance to apply weapon mastery effect (bleed, daze) Run Skill (spirit or attack run) enhancement (increase damage, path width, impact site added to end of run location dealing a small aoe of dmg.
- Building Rage: Effects of consumables are reduced but during the effect the warriors innate physical prowess increases. (Lowers healing from items as well as effects like scrolls, emerald, etc. Effectively reducing the cast level of the item.)
- Arcane Understanding: (Intel based) Increases the effects (duration and bonus) of consumable magical items such as potions, scrolls, and breakable amulets.
- Intelligence increases the speed of learned skills.
- Wisdom increases the cap of learned skills.
- Consumable magic item equip slots unlockable or included with class for hit ammy, str ammy, and other new consumable equippable items.

Gameplay Reworks or Features:

- Armor/weapon Classification/simplification: Borrowing from DnD Remove nearly all class requirements from equipment (eight classes can make item details dense), and simply give classes proficiency in different categories or sub-types. These could be innate or require skill investment only available to some classes. Heavy, Medium, Light, Mage armor types (eg. Wizard could come with Mage armor proficiency, and either invest in Light armor proficiency, but have no access to other proficiencies). Staves, One Handed, Two Handed. Blunt, Cutting, Piercing. Each armor would be assigned a type.( Spirit Plate = Heavy, Spirit robe = Mage) Each weapon would be a one or two hand and a damage type. Skills would be offered like now for specializing and generalizing. Some armor may have multiple types to allow many class equip options and still feature stat requirements to wield or wear. Warlocks may have dagger proficiency, but some daggers may not have mage item type.

- New Game Feature - Equipment Bonding: This process will enhance any equipment with a random attribute that class bonds with, but will render it NDNT and add unrepairable durability to the properties. The skill activation would need a confirmation to inform the player that the equipment will no longer be tradable and its durability will be set to XXX. It cannot be performed on already NDNT items. The effect could be adjusted and balanced to prevent making it a requirement, but it would be an item and currency economy adjustment if it removed tradable items from circulation, gave a risk of breaking, and cost to heavy usage. Warriors/Rangers are already heavy consumable hungry classes so maybe they could have a skill or trait that lessened durability usage to balance.

- Imbuement Influence Items: Similar to PoE or last epoch in that there are items during the imbuement process that will influence the outcome of the attempt. They could be specific to a particular property and consumed when used during the imbue attempt. There could even be incredibly rare imbuement items that re-roll the current properties on an item randomly. These influencers could make room for more item properties types as well to allow for more build customization/focus, but still with the random factor in play to drive economy and consumption of rare items used in imbuing. The items effect could stack if they are focused around one particular property, but have diminishing returns. They could also utilize item level to be made usable or specific to certain item level grades.
Thank you for your time.

Missouri