How about adding Advanced Classes or Archetypes to increase depth?

burdocklightbringercub18_ESO

So keep the base classes, but depending on your skill/weapon/Armour choices (the main line with spent skill points) add in more advanced archetypes for flavor, bonuses, armor sets, ect. So a Wood elf nightblade who specializes in leather/bow might be Ranger sub-class, or a Dragonknight who is healing/two handed/plate might be Paladin, ect...

This would be similar in one aspect to Archeage, where your ultimate class is chosen from the previous mixture of three subclasses (and as a result has over 120 possible classes).

/discuss.

Faulgor

How I'd like to see something like this done is with new craftable equipment sets. So you would have a set that enhances bow and medium armor skills for nightblades, for example. Or a set for Dragon Knights that turns all fire spells into frost spells, something like that. Lots of new class-specific sets that could also encourage hybrid builds.

Korah_Eaglecry

I could get behind this. I feel like when it comes to the current set up its 'do whatever you like as long as it works' but there doesnt seem to be any sort of specialization going on that youd hope to come across in an MMO. While SWTOR was limited when it came to Advanced Classses. I liked the idea of getting to a point where you ask yourself. Where do I want to go with this character and how would I get there? And from there you chose an Advanced Class.

I can understand why some people might be against this sort of thing. But when it comes to the game. This is one of the things that feels hollow in regards to the game. Youre limited to a Class, can 'do' whatever youd like with the character but theres no specialists or 'experts'. Youre just kind of Jack of All Trades.

burdocklightbringercub18_ESO

Or even do it as say, once you reach Level 50, instead of this Champion system, You get to start levelling say a "Master Class", from Level 1 up, so similar to the old D&D Multiple Classes - You might be a Level 50 Templar, level 22 Master Cleric or Master Bishop, ect. I miss the advanced classes of say the older games, like Wizardry, ect.

Sausage

This could have been much better without classes and let players imagination to work as what class they want to be. I bet theres tons of DKs who're lying to themselves to be Barbarian for example, or Paladins. All they need to do is to rename classes into Birthmarks. Or how many NBs are pissed off, as they cant be Assassins instead of NBs.

TheShadowScout

Is it that time of the month again? Well, then, let me do a quick repost my ideas on the matter, once again...

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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
- Berserker/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
- Druid/Shaman (nature magic, totems, animal summons; color: green/brown)
- Paladin (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, summons would be morphed from the daedric familiar/clannfear/twilight/storm atronarch set to necromancer stuff like skeleton, flesh atronarch, wraith, bone colossus... 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, and their summons will be something along the lines of wisps, ice wraiths and frost atronatrchs... 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.

...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.

Maldrix

What if it was just as simple as each class skill line also had a specialization tree, so lets say once you reach level 25 or 50 or whenever you can specialize into one of your trees.

So if you were a Sorc you could specialize into Storm Calling, Daedric Summoning or Dark Magic.
You could only specialize in one of these trees and what it does is would give you access to 5 more skills in that skill tree, so you might spec into Daedric Summoning, and it would give you access to skills like weapon summoning or different atronachs.

Sausage

Theres tons and tons of classes/sub-classes/professions what people want to be, some may want to be Ranger, some Army Archer, some simple Hunter, some Tracker, hell even Daedrc Archer, the list goes forever. Best way to tackle is to let people use their own imagination, imo.

Septimus_Magna

Personally I really like the ideas mentioned here.

Another good way to integrade Specialized Classes to the game could be with expansion of Mages and Fighters guilds.
Players would have choice to specialize in one tree of either the mages or fighters guild, for example Necromancy at the Mages guild or Hunter at the Fighters guild. Working similar to vamp/ww skill lines, each specialization should come with advantages and slight disadvantages.
The specialized skill lines should have a relative slow progression, something like the progression from the Alliance War skill line but players should be able to progress in both pve and pvp.

I also like the idea of specializing in 1 of the 3 class skill lines but I think that could make weapon skills useless (to a certain degree) and some builds could become even stronger. For example, sorcs with an instant/spamable ranged single target attack could use DW for increased spell power and do even more damage than they do now.

Heromofo

Just going to leave this here make sure to also read Gidorick's Opinion On It.
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/172603/improving-on-eso-s05e01-class-specialization-alchemy-hide-armor-party-ast-and-bigger-armor#latest

Shadesofkin

burdocklightbringercub18_ESO wrote: »

So keep the base classes, but depending on your skill/weapon/Armour choices (the main line with spent skill points) add in more advanced archetypes for flavor, bonuses, armor sets, ect. So a Wood elf nightblade who specializes in leather/bow might be Ranger sub-class, or a Dragonknight who is healing/two handed/plate might be Paladin, ect...

This would be similar in one aspect to Archeage, where your ultimate class is chosen from the previous mixture of three subclasses (and as a result has over 120 possible classes).

/discuss.

I would only be cool with the option for an advanced set of skills in Veteran Content, but since they are supposedly removing Veteran Ranks in a future update, it becomes moot. I suppose, something along the lines of active racial skills unlocked post 50 would be interesting.

Iselin

burdocklightbringercub18_ESO wrote: »

So keep the base classes, but depending on your skill/weapon/Armour choices (the main line with spent skill points) add in more advanced archetypes for flavor, bonuses, armor sets, ect. So a Wood elf nightblade who specializes in leather/bow might be Ranger sub-class, or a Dragonknight who is healing/two handed/plate might be Paladin, ect...

This would be similar in one aspect to Archeage, where your ultimate class is chosen from the previous mixture of three subclasses (and as a result has over 120 possible classes).

/discuss.

As someone who did play Archeage I can tell you that their class variety is a lesser system than the freedom we already have with ours.

The only thing that might be missing here is official names for the popular class combos and perhaps, templates to guide the noobs... of course, all of that is available at fan sites including build names.

Septimus_Magna

Shadesofkin wrote: »

burdocklightbringercub18_ESO wrote: »

So keep the base classes, but depending on your skill/weapon/Armour choices (the main line with spent skill points) add in more advanced archetypes for flavor, bonuses, armor sets, ect. So a Wood elf nightblade who specializes in leather/bow might be Ranger sub-class, or a Dragonknight who is healing/two handed/plate might be Paladin, ect...

This would be similar in one aspect to Archeage, where your ultimate class is chosen from the previous mixture of three subclasses (and as a result has over 120 possible classes).

/discuss.

I would only be cool with the option for an advanced set of skills in Veteran Content, but since they are supposedly removing Veteran Ranks in a future update, it becomes moot. I suppose, something along the lines of active racial skills unlocked post 50 would be interesting.

That would be a risky move, 2/3 of the people are crying over their race choices as they are now. I dont think the differance should become even bigger.