Look at every "meta" build, you're looking at a hybrid.
Now, some people may try to argue that every build is a hybrid. I disagree. Why? Because the developers clearly have come conception of what should not go together easily, and so in turn they build skills with archtypes in mind. By putting in these limitations, they are drawing outlines for archtypes whether they realize it or not (they of course very much do realize it, but i digress).
Example :
They make it so heavy armor ruins mana regen. Why? Because in their head, they're thinking armor and magic shouldn't really go together.
Melee and heavy armor however? They go hand in hand. There are synergies there. No real restrictions. Why? Because they want them to go together. They want them to synergize.
Another example is elementalism, where you can't cast from horseback. Again they have archtypes in mind for things. Some things they don't really think should go together, and try to steer the player away from that style. Some will argue "That is just a balance issue!!!", but they very clearly chose to nerf it in a specific way that would maintain a kind of archetypal purity.
So there are archtypes they have in mind when designing skills; similar to how certain races suck with certain skillsets.
The Problem
Specialists have HUGE weaknesses and very clearly defined class boundaries. Min/Max Hybrids take just enough to perform sufficiently at a skill, and then spread their points to cover potential weaknesses. In turn, they end up with no real weaknesses.
The choice to be a min/max hybrid is choosing to have no weakpoints on your character.
When you put a hybrid vs a specialist, you'll find basically every time, the specialist will lose.
This is why the game is FULL of min/max hybrids; they perform so much better than being a specialist. The current most popular hybrid appears to be something blended with having a pet. So like, an arcane mounted archer who also has pets appears to be a popular one now. They will have magic for healing themselves and their horse. They will have their bow for killing the horse, and their homing missile pets for extra damage and killing grounded players.
So, they can damage at range, they can't be killed because they're mobile with heals. Should they run out of mana, they can flee, and by then they will have killed your horse (unless you're using the same style of build of course). The pets kill them when they land on the ground. The pets can be healed also from their mount..
It has mobility. It has sustainability. It can deal with mounted opponents. It can deal with foot based opponents. It has plenty of time to escape.
Each weakness covered nets a massive advantage over say, someone who can just shoot a bow perfectly. How does someone who is the perfect archer deal with all of that, or the perfect mage.. Or the perfect warrior... Standalone purist archtype players are shafted by this style of play with MINIMAL reward to compensate for hybridization.
They can't compete.
The Solution
I have a two ways with which this can be dealt with.
1.) Have what i'll call "Synergy bonuses" OR "Specialist Synergy Bonus" OR "Archtype/class synergy bonus"
You have a set of skills in the game that when you max them out, it results in a synergy bonus that boosts the claaracter in a certain way. This synergy bonus will also be LOST if you take skills that don't fit the archtype/class in the synergy bonus. You would only be able to have ONE synergy bonus at a time.
Example :
So you could have a tank archtype/class. Heavy armor to 100, block to 100, melee to 100 etc.. A list of skills that fit the "tank" fantasy. Then have a list of skills that CANNOT be included to achieve this synergy. So NO magic skills for example. Then have many skills that are not relevant to the synergy bonus, and are kind of neutral. So they're not barred from being used, but they are not a necessity for synergy bonus. This in turn gives people room to adapt their class, so all tank specialists aren't identical.
The synergy could then result in a massive bonus to the specialist focus, so you'd say.. Get a MASSIVE boost to your defense for meeting the skill requirements to get the tank archtype synergy bonus.
You could have an Assassin synergy bonus.. Light armor with melee daggers etc... You get the idea.
2.) Alternatively, you could just grant a more significant bonus to whoever gets a skill to 100. Make the bonus specific to the skill.
The reason i like this method less, is it still allows broken hybrid min/max potential if the bonuses are not very carefully selected.
In conclusion..
Hybrids thematically just look bad and don't have a solid identity. They're way too strong and by extension force people to play as hybrids. In turn, you end up with a game full of people using these ugly mismatched builds that just look like a mess. They completely stomp out anyone who tries to go for a specialist approach and it is simply unfair. We really need a way of buffing specialists so that it REALLY means something if you get all your skill to 100 in a specific area.
Now, some people may try to argue that every build is a hybrid. I disagree. Why? Because the developers clearly have come conception of what should not go together easily, and so in turn they build skills with archtypes in mind. By putting in these limitations, they are drawing outlines for archtypes whether they realize it or not (they of course very much do realize it, but i digress).
Example :
They make it so heavy armor ruins mana regen. Why? Because in their head, they're thinking armor and magic shouldn't really go together.
Melee and heavy armor however? They go hand in hand. There are synergies there. No real restrictions. Why? Because they want them to go together. They want them to synergize.
Another example is elementalism, where you can't cast from horseback. Again they have archtypes in mind for things. Some things they don't really think should go together, and try to steer the player away from that style. Some will argue "That is just a balance issue!!!", but they very clearly chose to nerf it in a specific way that would maintain a kind of archetypal purity.
So there are archtypes they have in mind when designing skills; similar to how certain races suck with certain skillsets.
The Problem
Specialists have HUGE weaknesses and very clearly defined class boundaries. Min/Max Hybrids take just enough to perform sufficiently at a skill, and then spread their points to cover potential weaknesses. In turn, they end up with no real weaknesses.
The choice to be a min/max hybrid is choosing to have no weakpoints on your character.
When you put a hybrid vs a specialist, you'll find basically every time, the specialist will lose.
This is why the game is FULL of min/max hybrids; they perform so much better than being a specialist. The current most popular hybrid appears to be something blended with having a pet. So like, an arcane mounted archer who also has pets appears to be a popular one now. They will have magic for healing themselves and their horse. They will have their bow for killing the horse, and their homing missile pets for extra damage and killing grounded players.
So, they can damage at range, they can't be killed because they're mobile with heals. Should they run out of mana, they can flee, and by then they will have killed your horse (unless you're using the same style of build of course). The pets kill them when they land on the ground. The pets can be healed also from their mount..
It has mobility. It has sustainability. It can deal with mounted opponents. It can deal with foot based opponents. It has plenty of time to escape.
Each weakness covered nets a massive advantage over say, someone who can just shoot a bow perfectly. How does someone who is the perfect archer deal with all of that, or the perfect mage.. Or the perfect warrior... Standalone purist archtype players are shafted by this style of play with MINIMAL reward to compensate for hybridization.
They can't compete.
The Solution
I have a two ways with which this can be dealt with.
1.) Have what i'll call "Synergy bonuses" OR "Specialist Synergy Bonus" OR "Archtype/class synergy bonus"
You have a set of skills in the game that when you max them out, it results in a synergy bonus that boosts the claaracter in a certain way. This synergy bonus will also be LOST if you take skills that don't fit the archtype/class in the synergy bonus. You would only be able to have ONE synergy bonus at a time.
Example :
So you could have a tank archtype/class. Heavy armor to 100, block to 100, melee to 100 etc.. A list of skills that fit the "tank" fantasy. Then have a list of skills that CANNOT be included to achieve this synergy. So NO magic skills for example. Then have many skills that are not relevant to the synergy bonus, and are kind of neutral. So they're not barred from being used, but they are not a necessity for synergy bonus. This in turn gives people room to adapt their class, so all tank specialists aren't identical.
The synergy could then result in a massive bonus to the specialist focus, so you'd say.. Get a MASSIVE boost to your defense for meeting the skill requirements to get the tank archtype synergy bonus.
You could have an Assassin synergy bonus.. Light armor with melee daggers etc... You get the idea.
2.) Alternatively, you could just grant a more significant bonus to whoever gets a skill to 100. Make the bonus specific to the skill.
The reason i like this method less, is it still allows broken hybrid min/max potential if the bonuses are not very carefully selected.
In conclusion..
Hybrids thematically just look bad and don't have a solid identity. They're way too strong and by extension force people to play as hybrids. In turn, you end up with a game full of people using these ugly mismatched builds that just look like a mess. They completely stomp out anyone who tries to go for a specialist approach and it is simply unfair. We really need a way of buffing specialists so that it REALLY means something if you get all your skill to 100 in a specific area.
