Tracker: being able to search for the trails of certai number of players or the footprints of specific players and monsters, rare aswell.

Spy: being able to read enemy faction or guild chats in the screen.

Observer: being able to watch other maps from the distance and possibly sharing that live picture to others.

Naturalist: being able to talk to trees and plants or resources and animals to ask for clues or hints about several things that profits gathering, and others. Also if player killing characters have gone that way or how many hostile players or guilds walked across in time

Cartographer: being able to create map objects in the game that shows specific info about the maps, the guild or hideouts and other data that is not shown in the minimap. And instances too... maybe even the mists and avalon.

Astrologist: being able to read the stars to discover rare info about the game for example: rare dungeons, rare chest, rare resources, rare monsters and bosses or aproximations to their spawn times and locations.

Arcanist: being able to sense and read the magic in the environment and players to get info related to magic in albion. Like what hostile or crafting magic in people or land has seen or hasn't vanished yet. Also possibly some clues related to spawns or events related to magical forces.

Sommelieur: being able to analyze food and potions, or fishes and harvest in order to determine random or rare buffs for these objects.

Town cryer: being able to share or sell info from previously watched places, events or rare monsters or resources.

Fortune teller: being able to share or sell random and rare buffs for players. Also to determine how probably is that objects will break or fail for upgrades.

Messenger: being able to transform info about the game into objects and perform special skills or dynamics related to the share and transport of this info, unleashing or awakening buffs or predictions according to traveled distance and time. It might influence gathering, crafting, pvp and pve aswell.

Joker: being able to dance or perform artistic shows to share or sell special buffs.

Taxer: being able to perform activities in faction cities and islands or guild islands, or hideouts to lower or increase taxes for repair stations and player stores.

Scribe: Being able to perform diferent gameplay features and then automatically transform the info gathered by the system about the game into books or scrolls. From simple interactions like trading or heroic abilities, to pvp combat or party logs.

Oportunist: being able to pickpocket players or get tax free repairs and advantages from npc.

Ambassador: being able to influence cities, islands and hideouts in benefit of players, guild or party. Maybe even performing gameplay feature about getting upgrades or buffs or hints about humanoid hostile npc hubs.

Refresh

Don't you think a few more gameplay features would make the game a bit more interesting? Albion feels like an mmo but not so much an rpg. I mean... these abilities doesn't need to be that gamechanging as it sounds. It was merely as example of how could it be.

It feels nice not having limitations on how you play although I've seen the others myself only playing as a mage yet. However... I don't feel the "role" class gameplay. It's almost like a shooter of modern days. Is good but could be better.

Heroic abilities are some kind of "class" skills that can only be learnt for your character once. It means the character can only be "one heroic class" at the time. They are not skills that gives you a direct incom of silver or gold but they allow you to access gameplay features that makes the process interesting: chasing players, chasing monsters and rares, finding rare dungeons, giving hints of events, influencing the cities and the world npc's, influencing the items and gathering infor about the game that some may find useless but others would find usefull. And all this skills would have the chance of being countermeassured by other players with equal skills or counterskills. As example: If you have two arcanists persuing the show up of a legendary mists portal in the same map, both of them could be persuing the same portal -by chance- so the one who is faster to execute the process of the skill (Like doing a few small magical rituals to find it), then they will also be the one in getting the portal. And this might be precisely not the same for counterskills, as a chaser could be counterskilled if a player with another heroic ability, let's say, the naturalist or spy in party manages to use a heroic skill to clear the tracks, then the skill of the chaser would be countered and they wouldn't be capable to be chased for certain amount of time. There doesn't have to be mandstory "counterskilling" for every single skill, but yhe ones that are the most compromising or outsmarting in advance of risk, they could have a measure to provent exploit.

You could get heroic abilities by playing the heroic quests and that is a good way to put some quests in albion for people who enjoys questing. This tasks and missions would have the purpose to perform gameplay mechanics in order to learn and increase your heroic abilities, and not for the solely purpose of questing for story or questing for monotonous gathering with no backstory. Something relatable to hearts transport but with some texts dialogs, but instead of transporting you would be practicing your skills, gaining new pieces of the heroic gameplay the long you perform this quests and the higher you rise your heroic skill. There could be a building in every city... or few buildings in every city... in fact, heroic hubs doesn't need to be in cities. For example they could be located in the open world instead of cities, making possible to localize the game impact they have into the interest of certain -but not restricted to- specific tier zones. As example: the spy could be located in black zone sanctuaries, and tracker heroic skills hub could be located in black zone open lands. This means that heroic skills are an extension of the open world feature, allowing the player mass to congregate for their interest in separated places, this way you avoid adding another reason for players to get out from their main cities. Not all the heroic skills has to be out from cities, like sommelieur and town cryer, there is logic in having their hubs placed in cities, however, fortune teller may have a pretty building in blue zones close to the cities... there is room enough in the game to put this building hubs (Like market or the bank hubs) in the open world and still they could be separated enough for killometers of distance so I bet the game wouldn't feel with less open world space but richer in gameplay.

Heroic abilities can be performed under certain rules and according to the resources or world elements that allows you to use them. As example there is no use for players to track others inside cities, but once they get out that could be possible and the complexity of it's precission may come together with risk tier zone. I mean... would you not check your debuff icons before leaving the city? Just in case. And then sommellieurs might require to be close to certain places in order to perform their gameplay, as there could be skills that can be played in the open world but others that requires a city's building or specific place. Let's say a cart of food for them, and there is place enough in cities to add resources and places of interest for heroic skills. They could add to the game more interaction and fun, there is no need to consife that this things would be uggly to see implemented or that they will make the scene overcrowded. By the oposite: cities doesn't feel too normal if you ask me, they feel empty of many things that cities certainly has: vendors, advertisers, and more... every heroic skill might perform a city performance to get clients or yo offer services. There is open space enough for this in the player stores and it is a perfect reason to stimulate players walking into this section of the city, also increasing their interest in refining, or producing items just by walking by. Also the astrologist may have extra requirements, as some skills might work at night better than daylight, every heroic skills is logically linked to some ammount of good enough realism in order play some features. Let's say the fortune teller which hub might be located in red zone, in the open roads, there is real nomad populations of people in the real world who travels along the world or places their communities or work stations in the routes instead of being in the city.

The purpose of heroic skills is to add gameplay mechanics to the game allowing players to have some sense of class identity and having those skills to have impact into the game ina creative way, stimulating players to get out from cities and working with the community or by their own behalf. Also heroic skills brings just a little bit of realism, so the game can have mechanics that won't gtant you a direct incom, but they would enhance your income, or give it a slight chance of having the same game features but in a bit different and funnier way than you usually do. This is fun. Not because you obtain direct benefit with every single skill, but because you have the chance to influence your usual gameplay with inteteresting content. Messenger, taxer, scribe and ambassador are logically to be put in route to travel certain ammount of distances in order to perform their skills, everh single one of them consider travelled distances in diferent ways. As example: Messenger needs to travel to fullfill performance, or to increase value; taxer needs to travel distance in order to validate the features because fast traveling from cities directly would ruin the need to go out into the open world for this, also trackers could be ganked in their labor for other taxers to have their benefits for themselves; scribes by the other hand requires to travel in order to "watch" or "record" gameplay experiences that will later become into objects, which are vaults of information that might have many usses and chances of profit; and the ambassador might be required to travel distances to check into checkpoints, also to validate their performance.

And who say you can't do lots of gameplay features along the way? With every single player having become a heroic class, the world will feel filled with new possibilities for everything that happens around the main already known points of interest. You may find certain heroic contents more interesting as the others do, and that brings diversity of gameplay, and identity as rpg characters. Because albion rn struggles to add tasks and class personality without changing the essence of the game, but when you add new features instead of changing the features you already have, you are nurtring your expetience, adding content, not changing the game that you already know.

What stops you from having an alternative character to experience every heroic skills? Nothing. In fact it is a good thing to happen. It means more interest into investing in economy for your characters, besides, why should you feel stopped from having a new character? What we already have is the base game. Well... add to the base game more interest. The more interest you generate, the more time you play. And we don't have many reasons to spend time in the game. You might have notices that players only log into albion in specific times, and this is good for dynamics but bad for gameplay.

The game must give you reasons to play... and chances for fun. That's what RPG is all about. You are not obligated to become and skill up a heroic skill, but believe, players just want a reason to skill and "become" a role, that's why they play the game to begin with.

Heroic classes doesn't need to be extremely overpowered... albion has a very restrictive essence in which lots of gameplay features are so censored or nerf that you feel restrained for some sort, and I think this wouln't be the exeption for that. Even though, this could be a premium only feature. And believe me I am no way close to become a premium character, but I don't think that denying to the game the chance to become better just because I can't pay the subscription would be awfull. By now there are not many reasons to pay the subscription as beyond from personal islands the status only gives advantages over time. The essence of gaming is not immune to premium content, and this would be a good way to give the game more reason to buy the premium, it might even impact the prices to lower them or increase them according to what the devs trully wants for it.

Albion is almost perfect... it just needs a little more of perspective. And heroic classes in this way... are the kind of gameplay that follows it's own essence, adding gameplay instead of chaging it. It sounds like roleplaying.

This route of thinking does not alter the game Albion is already. It enhances, promote, and reward with diferent perspectives to the same content, giving more variety of function and approach to the same features, also trying to open new paths and possibilities for players to get fun. As said before, there are mechanics into the game that might ressemble this kind of content without being too revolutionary against the essence of the game, and quoted some examples: hearts tansport, buildings, resource trading routes, and zone strategy; all those principles would be taken as the main inspiration for this kind of stuff. Like @fip said above, this suggestions may not be the best suited ideas for the game however I do think the game needs that class of content.

Albion is fun, no matter how many times you do the same over and over... and if that works, then the game works. There is no reason to say "we should stop", because content is what makes an mmorpg, and rpg are defined by impersonating roles and classes, and jobs and professions, and adventures. If the game keeps repeating the same formula without innovation, even that has a limit. And brecilien, I really like it despite of how people complains of empty black zones... you know what? I've started to meet yellow zones and even red zones!, and found that is actually fun content. Because, when the game delivers options and possibilities, you don't feel restrained to the things you like but motivated to see all the other aspects of the game. And something (Not the same) close to the idea of heroic classes -call them in a diferent way... albion paths... royal roles... talent trees or something... -, is surely a good direction to add more reasons to play albion and stimulate economy and world exploration and social interaction.

Edit:

The game already have fight alliance with city factions, and you cannnot be "any kind of hero that you want" because, in order to increase your faction standing, you must remain alligned and not switch to other factions. The idea of "Class talents" has a chance of being even more flexible than that. There could be ways and aspects od that content that could be played by everyone switching marks or signing again for a diferent worker quarters, like faction does, also keeping the best functionalities for those who stay playing for those specific paths, and both of the ways may have premium only content making it very attractive for people to return into the game and buy the subscription once more.