Community Wishlist: Class Change Tokens - Reopening the Discussion

DisgruntledFarmer

In the current iteration of the Crown Store, Service Tokens offer players the ability to adjust nearly every starting attribute of their existing characters, except for their chosen class. I firmly believe that the existing Service Tokens have greatly enhanced player freedom, and introducing a Class Change Token would be the next step here.

Many players, myself included, have found that the class of an existing character no longer aligns with our preferred playstyle. However, we are hesitant to abandon the progress associated with that character, including zone completion, questing, and crafting traits. For these reasons, when I floated the idea of a Class Change Token in various zone chats, it was met with general approval.

I understand that changing a character's class would be a significant alteration, and I wouldn't be discouraged by a substantial crown price tag associated with such a token. Additionally, introducing a Class Change Token could potentially encourage players to purchase DLC classes like the Arcanist, knowing they can play these classes without moving away from their existing characters.

To my fellow ESO players: Would you welcome the addition of a Class Change Token?

To any Zenimax employees reading this: Is the addition of such a product currently planned or within the realm of possibility?

Thank you for taking the time to read this!

fizl101

Have a read here (grab a coffee its about 14 pages)

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/626114/class-change-tokens-request-number-73-276/p1

the1andonlyskwex

No, I would not welcome a class change token. As we've seen with race change tokens, the addition of monetized change tokens opens ZOS up to accusations that they are making balance adjustments just to sell tokens, followed by a complete cessation of all balance adjustments.

LunaFlora

it's not within the realm of possibility as Gina stated last year in the thread linked above.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone, just wanted to let you all know that we do not have any plans on implementing class changes tokens at this time. There are a number of technical challenges with implementing them, and it would take a significant amount of time to solve these challenges efficiently and safely.

i would also love it though. it would be really nice to have. but sadly not happening.

RomanRex

LunaFlora wrote: »

it's not within the realm of possibility as Gina stated last year in the thread linked above.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone, just wanted to let you all know that we do not have any plans on implementing class changes tokens at this time. There are a number of technical challenges with implementing them, and it would take a significant amount of time to solve these challenges efficiently and safely.

i would also love it though. it would be really nice to have. but sadly not happening.

To be honest, that post was pure baloney.

I’d love to hear what these “challenges“ are. Many of the changes they’ve implemented in the past few years have been far more “challenging”.

This is a nothing burger but they won’t come out and say they don’t want to do it because they have non-technical rationale for it. I believe they are worried it will reduce overall playtime which is a metric used to gauge their success, but they are wrong.

VouxeTheMinotaur

RomanRex wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

it's not within the realm of possibility as Gina stated last year in the thread linked above.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone, just wanted to let you all know that we do not have any plans on implementing class changes tokens at this time. There are a number of technical challenges with implementing them, and it would take a significant amount of time to solve these challenges efficiently and safely.

i would also love it though. it would be really nice to have. but sadly not happening.

To be honest, that post was pure baloney.

have to disagree with this. in a game developing standpoint, it would cause a lot of problems and quite frankly, makes no sense.

might as well just make a new toon and delete the one you've least played. i mean, it's least played for a reason, right? put the stuff in the bank and delete. deleted too many toons? Talk to ZOS about it, or stop switching up so often?

Have to agree with "1 and only" 's post, they don't need any more tokens, I'm glad Gina spoke up about it. I'm sure they thought they could make some money from it, but they decided the money wasn't worth the, in my opinion, useless token. Cause again, just make a new toon with the same visual look. You'd still have to get it to 50, still have to grind the weapons and skill leveling anyway, you CP is already there, you'll get it after 50. bunch of stuff is account wide, unless I'm missing something imperative to the whole class change (most likely) i really don't understand admittedly

vsrs_au

RomanRex wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

it's not within the realm of possibility as Gina stated last year in the thread linked above.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone, just wanted to let you all know that we do not have any plans on implementing class changes tokens at this time. There are a number of technical challenges with implementing them, and it would take a significant amount of time to solve these challenges efficiently and safely.

i would also love it though. it would be really nice to have. but sadly not happening.

To be honest, that post was pure baloney.

I’d love to hear what these “challenges“ are. Many of the changes they’ve implemented in the past few years have been far more “challenging”.

This is a nothing burger but they won’t come out and say they don’t want to do it because they have non-technical rationale for it. I believe they are worried it will reduce overall playtime which is a metric used to gauge their success, but they are wrong.

I also have to disagree that the post by Gina was pure baloney. The ESO game is large and complex software, and changes that may appear to the casual outsider to be simple are frequently complex and difficult to implement. There are various contributing factors to this, some of which are:

• software development staff turnover, forcing newer devs to work with previous devs' code;
• differences in coding style between the various devs: even with coding standards being rigorously followed, not everyone writes code exactly the same way;
• the risk of software regression increases with the complexity of the update, so this risk must be taken into account when prioritising what requested software changes are done.

valenwood_vegan

"We do not have any plans on implementing class changes tokens at this time."

I don't know how they could possibly be any clearer. I have no idea if their explanation for WHY the above is true is "baloney" or not, because I'm not involved with the development of ESO. But like it or not, an answer was given and there's no indication that the answer they have given repeatedly and consistently has somehow changed.

And honestly, if there *are* technical challenges, I'd rather they let sleeping dogs lie. We've had a ton of bugs and technical problems already this year. I think them being aware of the limitations of both the devs and/or the game code is probably a good thing.

RomanRex

Well, if that were the case I would expect to hear a concrete reason beyond “it’s challenging”. Seems like a blanket statement just to continue kicking the can for those requesting it.

I don’t care to be honest. I have zero hope of it happening despite it being a big ask by players for as many years as I’ve been playing.

They will push out things that most players don’t like or didn’t ask for (ToT comes to mind), but then ignore some of the most requested features/QoL improvements. That is why I find it frustrating.

DisgruntledFarmer

"We do not have any plans on implementing class changes tokens at this time."

I don't interpret this as them saying the token isn't in the realm of possibility, but rather that it wasn't planned at that time. As the referenced post took place quite some time ago, I was just hoping to touch base and determine if the community's undeniable interest in such a product prompted ZOS to consider the possibility further.

In response to VouxeTheMinotaur above: Zone completions, quest progress, and crafting traits are not account wide. I personally wouldn't mind making a new character if there was a way to transfer this progress.

Nic727

DisgruntledFarmer wrote: »

"We do not have any plans on implementing class changes tokens at this time."

I don't interpret this as them saying the token isn't in the realm of possibility, but rather that it wasn't planned at that time. As the referenced post took place quite some time ago, I was just hoping to touch base and determine if the community's undeniable interest in such a product prompted ZOS to consider the possibility further.

In response to VouxeTheMinotaur above: Zone completions, quest progress, and crafting traits are not account wide. I personally wouldn't mind making a new character if there was a way to transfer this progress.

Transferring progress could be nice if done well. Like an option when creating a character allowing you to delete another character while retaining all progress made with it.

I don’t care to start from level 1, but zone and quest completion is a massive grind if you start over from nothing.

TDVM

There is no need to add a class change chip, if you want to play a different class, create a new character. The fact that you can't change class is normal for MMOs, there are many MMOs where you can't change classes.

VouxeTheMinotaur

TDVM wrote: »

There is no need to add a class change chip, if you want to play a different class, create a new character. The fact that you can't change class is normal for MMOs, there are many MMOs where you can't change classes.

Agreed. A class change token just seems unnecessary when you can, as TDVM says, make a new toon with the same appearance while many items obtained are account wide. I understand not everything is spread to different toons, such as certain zone achievements and character bound items. But for the sake of immersion, that new character doesn't know of those things or how to do these things because it hasn't been exposed to it.

Having a character that specializes in let's say crafting everything while another character doesn't know how to craft, but is very good at mage abilities (mages guild skill line) adds to each toons personality and specialization, keeping you interested in playing them for more than just the brawn of their battle prowess. I like the idea of swapping toons to better fit the situation in hand, kind of like a "I know a guy" scene in movies or such.

Outside of immersion though, if you want to get those toons to do what previous characters can, you could always buy the skill lines from the crown store. Seems low to suggest, i know, and i understand not everything like those zone achievements are in the store, but that's quite literally the price to pay for some things, otherwise, you will have to help that new character EARN it all over again. Yes it's annoying to repeat things X amount of times for X amount of toons, but it's the sacrifice of most MMO's. I can only imagine how it'll be when scribing is released, I don't know if those are character or account.

I get why people are upset with @ZOS_GinaBruno 's answer to the class change, but even without a full blown essay explanation of why they won't, i can still understand why they won't. I'm sure it was brought to the conference table to the developers for more than a quick "how about this?" "no, next." They definitely thought it through, because again, it would've been a great money source for the amount of times people pull out the wallet to just change to necromancer, hate it, go to templar, hate it, try nightblade, etc., but they decided no for the time being.

Who knows? Maybe it will come though, they're just not ready to implement it into the game because they have focus on something else, or the game's set up isn't ready for class change token. With a game the size of ESO, a simple backspace on 1 letter or even an underscore in a code can set the game up in flames. It takes time, give them a chance.

Elsonso

DisgruntledFarmer wrote: »

To my fellow ESO players: Would you welcome the addition of a Class Change Token?

Not really. In my opinion, the number of available character slots is enough reason to pass on this feature, but that is for a different thread.

DisgruntledFarmer wrote: »

"We do not have any plans on implementing class changes tokens at this time."

I don't interpret this as them saying the token isn't in the realm of possibility, but rather that it wasn't planned at that time. As the referenced post took place quite some time ago, I was just hoping to touch base and determine if the community's undeniable interest in such a product prompted ZOS to consider the possibility further.

While Gina said that "quite some time ago", it was only last year, and that means that it is still quite relevant. I am confident that plans for this game go out years.

Yes, it could change, as she qualified it with "at this time". This is the "never say never" philosophy for answering a question "No". If they drop the "at this time", which they have done in the past to answer other feature requests, then I think it is time to lower the coffin into the ground.

Mesite

You could start a new toon today and it will have caught up with your other one in a year or two. Even if it takes 4 years, ESO isn't going anywhere.

Silaf

I know many want this but it's potentially pay to win. It would be possible to make it work by adding a 2 year long cooldown for account once used and limiting it to 1 character.

Still even with this extreme restriction... can't help but see it as a pay to win problem.

With this is not like i don't understand people requesting it.
Changing main character after a wile may be impossible after all recipes, furnishings motifs ecc take a lot of time to farm.

Nic727

TDVM wrote: »

There is no need to add a class change chip, if you want to play a different class, create a new character. The fact that you can't change class is normal for MMOs, there are many MMOs where you can't change classes.

You forget the fact that:

1. We choose a class and play our only single character forever.
2. Then ZOS add a new class that maybe fit better our role that we tried to accomplish in our current class.

For example, I chose Templar at first because I wanted to heal people and light power was closer to nature I could get. They added Warden later, the class I would have loved to play first.

Whatever, I’m just a casual Elder Scrolls player and don’t want to waste my time discovering everything again from map completion and discover, enchantment, crafting, etc.

It’s not about being Meta or whatever like some people in other thread are thinking. It’s just that not everyone is hardcore gamers who only play this game non-stop.

TDVM

Nic727 wrote: »

TDVM wrote: »

There is no need to add a class change chip, if you want to play a different class, create a new character. The fact that you can't change class is normal for MMOs, there are many MMOs where you can't change classes.

You forget the fact that:

1. We choose a class and play our only single character forever.
2. Then ZOS add a new class that maybe fit better our role that we tried to accomplish in our current class.

For example, I chose Templar at first because I wanted to heal people and light power was closer to nature I could get. They added Warden later, the class I would have loved to play first.

Whatever, I’m just a casual Elder Scrolls player and don’t want to waste my time discovering everything again from map completion and discover, enchantment, crafting, etc.

It’s not about being Meta or whatever like some people in other thread are thinking. It’s just that not everyone is hardcore gamers who only play this game non-stop.

So what?
1) Not everyone does and many have multiple characters and don't limit themselves to character attachment
2) ZOS always give 1 free slot for a new character.

You don't have to unlock everything on a new character, you can just have a main who has explored everything and knows everything and play out your role on others. Classes in the game is just a convention and limit it for this is not worth it. In such a token is not a strong need only because someone limits himself in this situation. It would be much better to deal with the game in technical terms. And just play without worrying about it. Maybe it will be in the future when the developers will be ready for it, but clearly not in the near future. Play for fun without worrying about nothing

darvaria

Would be a lot of Crown sales on this one. I'm a marketing person, so I could NOT overlook the increased revenues. Should make it where it can NOT be purchased by those cheap 3rd world countries too. I've never understood that logic.

darvaria

BUT, a flip side is you might lose crowns spent on bringing up a new class. I've leveled a necro, warden & arcanist ... using 100% of crown store upgrades. I'm wanting to think I spent about $900 US on that necro ... but I bought all sky shards, books, all skill lines, etc. And whatever gold I needed, I sold crowns. I did that on my necro. Can't remember what I spent on the other two but not quite that much. I If I decide to main my Warden in this patch, I will upgrade all. I have 35K crowns saved for topping off a character. But idk, may stay with my templar. (that would have been $900 US full price crowns. Seems like I purchases a year sub to get more and I do buy crowns on sale)

So .... class change tokens might cut out some revenues .... would need market research to see how many players buy up a character from crown store.

Darv

TDVM

No