What do you think about 'Cadwell's Classes' as an alternative or addition to Spellcrafting?

dodgehopper_ESO · October 2015

This is an idea that I've had a long time. Why couldn't they give us a new 'Class' to learn in Cadwell's Silver, and then a second new 'class' in Cadwell's gold. Essentially this would allow players to be 3 classes once they have completed the storyline, but they'd still need the skill points to pull it off. It would also mean that you would not have access to the fourth class skill line. This would offer the power diversity that feels reminiscent of traditional TES games, and with the addition of Spellcrafting it would really open up a lot of combinations for players.

Imagine for a moment that you start the game as a Nightblade, and when you enter Cadwell's Silver you decide you want to be a Sorcerer, and finally at Cadwell's Gold you choose to be a Templar. At this point you would have access to a large number of passives of course, at the cost of a lot of skill points. Build diversity would increase, and players would be able to adapt with the tides of various game balances. It would also mean that for the player who is limited for time they do not need to level up 8 different characters to try the 8 different builds: Stam/Magicka * 4 Classes. I do realize they would need to adjust a few things within the classes to balance this, but really what more would need doing to differentiate from what they'd need to do with spellcrafting anyway?

Vangy · October 2015

We would end up with perma cloaking nightblades who can 1 shot people and heal themselves in a 1v5 situation(Templar), reflect projectiles while perma taloning(dk) and streak escape while stacking shields(sorc). Sounds a bit op no?
Jokes aside this would be well out of Zenimaxs ability to balance things lol.

dodgehopper_ESO · October 2015

Well I recognize some abilities should be considered analogs of one another, and not overlap. I actually think this is an issue with powers like Immovable, Sun Shield, Hardened Ward, Bone Shield, Obsidian, etc etc. I don't really feel like kind shields should be stackable. I do think the Restoration Shield should have a place though, because it along with Combat prayer are the only real way for someone to burst heal with a Restoration staff. I do not feel Templar should be 'the Healer' any more than I feel Dk should be 'The Tanker', or NB/Sorc to be 'The DPS'. If I had my way they would have built the game from the ground up without classes, but they did so there we are. The point is with the philosophy behind things like Major/Minor buffs it paves the way to balance a lot of these concerns.

I think that in general combat would be a bit more interesting as well if they made light/heavy attacks, blocking, rolling, sprinting and bashing be effected by the health stat. The warrior build needs love. If I had my way they'd also have simplistic mouse-based combination attacks like Skyrim had, but maybe I'm asking too much (I don't think so, DCUO did it just fine... I love that combat system).

As for running all of those defensive abilities simultaneously, I suspect they would fall prey to enemy cc and other counters. That being said, ZoS could lockout certain abilities from alternate classes, or have certain abilities not be able to be combined together if they are deemed overpowered. There are ways around the problem, and if they can solve them it would also make Spellcrafting more open and interesting.

TheShadowScout · October 2015

Is it that time of the month again? Class shennannigans as part of cadwells rewards? Hoo-kay, lemme repost my "class morph" idea:

Personally I would think the best way to add more "classes" is to give each class, say, three different "class morphs", each with its own new skill/passives line. Perhaps becoming available after completing cadwells silver/gold... to reward people who do play through that - a variation of the idea was to let them do the class morph after silver, and let them pick a cross-class skill line (basic class skills only) after gold...

Some possibilities:

Dragonknight
• Gladiator (offensive self buffs & warcries; color: red/orange)
• Pyromancer (flame resist and even more fire; color: yellow/blue - gas flame!)
• Warlord (defensive group buffs, AoE standards, color: purple/gold)

Nightblade
• Illusionist (illusion summoning, mind magic; color: red/black - NPC illusionist)
• Monk (melee support & assorted “matrial arts” magic; color: blue/purple)
• Ranger (animal summoning and nature magic; color: brown/green)

Sorceror
• Cryomancer (ice magic, color: white/clear - NPC cryomancer)
• Necromancer (death magic and undead summoning; color: cyan - NPC coldfire)
• Spellsword (melee support & buff magic; color: yellow/orange)

Templar
• Shaman (nature magic, totems, summons; color: green/brown)
• Crusader (melee support and aura-style buff magic; color: white/gold)
• Witch-hunter (counterspells, spell resistance/shields, silencing; color: purple/red)

Another possible idea was to not only have an added skill line with its own flavor of visual effects, but maybe even morph the existing effects to match.
So for example if a sorceror goes necromancer, their spells might be color-shifted to necromancer “coldfire” cyan, and if they turn cryomancer, their dark magic crystals will turn ice-ish in effects, spells will get color-shifted to white-blue or white-purple, or a nightblade going ranger would have their reddish effects recolored to something nature-ish green & brown... that sort of stuff. For more visual goodieness and varietee between classes.
Perhaps even morph the spell effects to some degree... like, for summoned armor might look daedric on normal sorc, worm cult / lich on necromancer, and ice armor on cryomancer, etc.
That idea might perhaps take a bit too much coding to be viable though... I'd be happy with pure color shifts.

...of course, all those quick ideas are just very rough concepts, without much consideration but character fluff. I merely tried to give some options, and went for three instead of just two "magica-specialization / stamina specialization" - It's supposed to be more for added character diversity then anything else after all.

Thus for example with nightblades, there might be one magica-caster based with "illusionist", one stamina melee based with "monk" (Yes, a nod at the old D&D class of the name, the first “martial arts” powered class I remember in fantasy gaming) and one pet based as "ranger" since nightblades mesh very well with bow, and giving them woodland creatures for the "hunter" playstyle would seem applicable.

Similar thoughts for the sorceror - spellsword for stamina sorcerors, cryomancer since ice staves have no matching skill line yet (while fire and lightning staves sort of have), and necromancer because all too many people really, really want that...

Templar... the druid/shaman is a very natural idea, between breton wyressess, argonian treeminders and bosmer spinners, nature magic meshes very well with Templar healing and sunlight-powered spells; paladin is for stamina templars and a nod at the old D&D class of the same name (possibly subject to TES-ification change), and my "witch-hunter" idea is kinda inspired by the spanish inquisition (Yes, I know noone expected that ), its "warhammer" imperial counterpart and also "Dragon Age", I admit it... seems logical to set up the aedric-flavored templars as natural enemies of the more deadric-flavored sorcerors...

Dragonknight I had the fewest ideas, since I kinda dislike that class. More fire magic for dragonknight magica-casters with pyromancer is a natural first thought... so then I went with "leader-style group play support" and "berserker-style single combatant" flavors, though there may be better ideas then those...

In any case, since more diversity is always something I would love to see... much more fun having more choices in realizing your “perfect” character, especially since the limited number of skills one can actually use at any one time (5+U) makes people having to think and choose anyhow, so adding more active skills only increases a characters choices, not exactly their power...

And yes, spellcrafting might be able to cover some of those... but spellcrafting won't give you passives, which these skill lines should.

This would make a great reward to unlock at Cadwells silver completion, giving your character cadwells gold to work on raising the new skills...

For cadwells gold completion, I would much rather see a special quest that brings with it an alliance change option... something along the lines of "loyalty called in question", with a big choice in the first third of the questline - stay in your original faction, find whoever framed you and prove your loyalty; or defect to another faction, escaping the ones sent to "bring you to justice" and convincing that new faction to take you in...

dodgehopper_ESO · October 2015

Your idea is not bad, and I'm pretty sure I've supported it before @TheShadowScout , I'm just offering another alternative. The one thing I would expect/hope from the Class morphs you propose is that each morph would represent a role: Dps, Tank, & Heals.

TheShadowScout · October 2015

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

The one thing I would expect/hope from the Class morphs you propose is that each morph would represent a role: Dps, Tank, & Heals.

I specifically didn't go for a "tank-DPS-healer" scheme, but instead a "stamina build - magica build - added flavor" theme. Though of course some of my ideas would be more useful for some playstyles... none ought to be specific to them, since there are people who like to switch between tank and DPS for example, and those class morphs should be useful in any instance, instead of locking a player into one style...

zZzleepyhead · October 2015

You shouldn't combine classes that sounds like an unsolvable puzzle, but I do like the idea of having a mutual skill lines rewarded for gold and silver similar to World - Soul Magic.

dodgehopper_ESO · October 2015

I like shadow scout's concept as well actually. I clarified with him on another thread about it, and he was suggesting that the bonus classes you could choose to swap over. So a Templar might choose to swap from Witch hunter to crusader if he wanted. I think that would be a great system. I also like the idea that this concept also allows for Frost, Poison, and Disease to become part of class damage as well. There just aren't enough Frost skills out there, in particular.

UltimaJoe777 · October 2015

Cadwell makes portals, that is all.

dodgehopper_ESO · October 2015

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Cadwell makes portals, that is all.

He also makes beautiful music.

UltimaJoe777 · October 2015

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

show previous quotes

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Cadwell makes portals, that is all.

He also makes beautiful music.

And wears a cooking pot for a helmet.

Shadesofkin · October 2015

I'd rather see an active racial skill such as a Racial Ultimate than I would any other additional skill sets.

Levo18 · October 2015

ZOS is unable to balance the current classes how the hell they supposed to balance spellcrafting where people have so much possibilities to creat a ability? I like the idea of spellcrafting but i dont think ZOS/ESO is ready for it any time soon.

UltimaJoe777 · October 2015

Levo18 wrote: »

ZOS is unable to balance the current classes how the hell they supposed to balance spellcrafting where people have so much possibilities to creat a ability? I like the idea of spellcrafting but i dont think ZOS/ESO is ready for it any time soon.

Says you. Balance this, balance that... Blah blah blah it's all I ever hear people cry about. Did it ever occur to you though that the inbalance is on YOU? Everytime over 9000 of you cry for balance updates Zenimax complies only to hear more cries... It's neverending.

dodgehopper_ESO · October 2015

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

show previous quotes

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Cadwell makes portals, that is all.

He also makes beautiful music.

And wears a cooking pot for a helmet.

In short, he is awesome.

dodgehopper_ESO · October 2015

Levo18 wrote: »

ZOS is unable to balance the current classes how the hell they supposed to balance spellcrafting where people have so much possibilities to creat a ability? I like the idea of spellcrafting but i dont think ZOS/ESO is ready for it any time soon.

I don't think its that far off they just need to get the base framework of the game more balanced and functioning. Once they do that I really don't see it being a problem. This is why I offered my two cents on the whole health-magic-stamina problem with the game currently on here: forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/211441/a-suggestion-towards-balance-between-health-magicka-and-stamina#latest and in other locations.

I think the core framework of the game could use some tweaking, but once they get that handled it should be pretty easy for them to come up with new spells. I think the most obvious needs of the game right now are to create more Cold spells available outside of the Frost Staff. (I Personally would like to see them add an Illusion (fear & Illusions) and Corruption (poison/disease debuff) staves to the game)