Poll: Does anyone actually like being the "warrior"?

[Shane McCay]

Like many others here, I really enjoy playing a warrior if it is done right. I enjoyed crushing skulls in Oblivion, but Dragon Age II did nothing for me. I've never found much joy in hybrids, though. If I play a class, its going to be that class for the playthrough.

 

[v3n0mat3]

I tend to lean towards the warrior class in almost every fantasy game I've played. Or, at the very least, gravitate towards melee combat characters, in some form. Example: the very first character I rolled in Oblivion was a Dunmer warrior/wizard. This doesn't mean that I do play warriors and melee characters exclusively. My first real (as in, I played him for a long time and really got into character) character in D&D was a sorcerer.

 

[KelsieKatt]

I tend to make at least 2 characters on every game, and in a number of cases 3, and occasionally 4.

I almost always have a heavily armored tank class, and a glass cannon style mage. The 3rd varies based on the game, sometimes it's stealth, others it's a hybrid, etc, and if I get to a 4th character, it could be anything that just happened to be interesting.

 

[WeAreStevo]

See, in a game like Diablo II for instance, I'm all about the Barbarian (essentially Warrior, yes?). However, I would hate being a tank. Tank just seems dull and boring. But then again I despise MMOs so yeah.

In FONV I almost exclusively use melee, and in Dragon Age I was an arcane warrior mage simply because she rocked shit effortlessly with a sword and shield imbued with magic.

But yea, I like the warrior. I'm too lazy for stealth/rogue and I despise the cast spell/RUN FOR YOUR LIFE play of a mage.

 

[Yopaz]

In Deus Ex the fun is being stealthy. In other games it depends on how the game is designed. In Xenoblade I prefer to play the one who's got decent attack, but also works as a healer.
In Tales of Symphonia you can choose a character that is both a mage and a warrior (however I prefer being a warrior there). So all in all warrior is fun if it's designed to be fun.

 

[Naeo]

I find myself tending towards warrior (rather then stealth/mage/ranged/etc) even when it's fairly well balanced. I'll go stealth just as often, and when I do, I'll more often use a bow and arrow/crossbow than other attack styles, when available.

To me, I'll almost always go primarily melee and mix a good helping of mage (see Oblivion, where most of my mage spells I used were either self or touch range). I just prefer the accuracy of melee, since ranged/mage attacks seem too easy to miss with in a lot of games I play.

 

[Akytalusia]

If the warrior is done right, then yes. If its like most mmo's "a dumb piece of turd brick" that does nothing but get punched in the face while dishing out ridiculously small amounts of damage ,no.

you're refering to a tank, and i think he's refering to a melee dps. they're not the same thing. either way though...

OT: no, i don't play dps or tank classes. i'm a healer.

 

[Toriver]

In DnD I'm usually the mage, and in my group at home was the "mage specialist", because it was just the role I was best at in the group, evidenced by my survival rate as a mage compared to other roles, especially the warrior/tank, in my friends' ridiculously hard campaigns.

Though I did have a couple warriors I enjoyed and played pretty well. One was a barbarian that actually managed to be the only character to survive the entire campaign start to finish. The other was a rather unique (for our play-style) take on the mage-fighter hybrid: I fought with my sword and used my magic for defense, utility and distraction. The concept had potential and seemed to work well, but our DM was very stingy with the XP so the character only ended the campaign at CL 3, preventing me from really seeing what I could do with it.

 

[ACman]

Not in CRPGs. Tabletop allows for a certain amount of dynamism but on computer warrior/fighter are usually little more than tanks.

 

[MegaDarkLucario]

I usually play as a mage whenever possible. Why would I want to kill something with a sword when I can send a thousand shards of ice through its brain, before finishing it off with lightning?

 

[CrazyMedic]

I think it depends on the warriors combat, in vanilla oblivion I wouldn't touch a warrior class but with fun combat like in ultra violence II I love my warrior samurai.

 

[Alade]

I play warrior all the time. This is mostly because I love playing as a tank. In my opinion the tank is usually the character with the most control in the group. In DA2 however they screwed up bigtime, tanking wasn't really an option on nightmare mode.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

In fantasy I'm always the warrior. So yeah.

 

[MikeCrick]

I'd say no but I'm always a Paladin...even if there isn't any option for one I still play like one regardless of game or setting.

Those unfamiliar with Paladins (from a 3.5 D&D perspective anyway) Essentially they are good at two things: Talking/Negotiating and taking a lot of hits. I don't mind doing poor damage but I can't stand being squishy like a mage or rogue and falling apart after one hit.

I also find magic quite boring and cheap, it requires less effort. Not that it's easy or less fun because clearly it is, but I just enjoy a long drawn out battle and not destroying everything easily all the time. Provides a challenge I guess.

 

[Lyri]

I feel like I've noticed a trend among class options for games (although it's not exactly a new or hidden phenomenon): that although they're always front and center in the promotions or box art for video games, no one likes playing a warrior/soldier character. It seems a large majority of people, including myself, prefer magic, ranged, and stealth elements to pure brawn. This is apparent in every game from Dragon Age to Dues Ex to the Bethesda RPGs.

It's not hard to see why though. Magic gives people lots of variety and visual spectacle, not to mention the nerd appeal. Stealth makes people feel clever and makes things more suspenseful and intense. Warriors just kind of stand there attacking till someone falls over, and they're basically the "high school jocks" of gaming...

What do you guys think? Do you like playing as a warrior? Is this even a noticeable trend? What have and should designers do to make warriors more appealing?

I've gone from playing mages to nothing but melee fighters in my MMOs.
It's always a class I've noticed that has been more reliable and generally more impressive than I thought it would be.

Across the time I played I've always dabbled in other classes but I always found myself excelling more and more when I picked melee.
When I played WoW my starting toon was a Warlock, my progressive raiding character was a Warrior.

 

[Geno DCLXVI]

There's something strangely satisfying about wading through a swath of enemies, hacking down everything in your way, and emerging victorious. Unfortunately, most RPGs don't work like Dynasty Warriors.

In my opinion the warrior class is best suited to action RPGs/MMOs where there are fewer limits on what one can do. Warriors in current, traditional MMOs are sorely limited by dice rolls and random number generators with regards to dodge chances and damage, particularly in large groups.

In action MMOs, if you jump out of the way of an arrow you've dodged it, it's not "locked" to you like it is in, say, World of Warcraft. While mages and rogues have alternative ways to work around their problems, the warrior can only rely on cold steel. I'm not saying that warriors require more general skill than other classes, though. I'm saying that a lot of current MMOs and RPGs simply aren't "built" for interesting warrior gameplay by sheer virtue of their architecture.

 

[Jedoro]

I like rushing into the fray, kicking the shit out of everything that moves, and being the last one standing, so warrior's my class of choice.

 

[mexicola]

I pretty much always start off an RPG game as warrior and then go other classes on the 2nd playthrough. Warriors serve as something of a benchmark for me so yeah I voted for the 2nd option.

 

[Smertnik]

Almost never, I find it very boring to just bash at things. Mages, rogues and the like offer a much more satisfying gameplay to me due to more varied combat skills. Besides, the warrior class is usually more limited in terms of other gameplay options, like talking (persuading) or mobility (lock picking, hacking, etc).