Race / Faction / Class / Name change. At what point should we just Re-Roll?

Gidorick

We've all seen the threads requesting that we be allowed to change our race, faction, class, and name (I've yet to see gender, but assume it's implied with race change). For those that think we should be allowed to change these attributes I have a question.

At what point do you feel a person should just make a new character?

While I understand the desire to make these changes I personally see these attributes as being defining characteristics of my player character. The ability to change these attributes would seem odd to me. These attributes are what makes my character who they are, as much as those attributes make me who I am. It's also quite simple to roll multiple alternate characters to experiment before making a commitment so I could see a player playing 5 or 6 characters to level 10 and then deciding on the attributes they like and making a whole new character with those attributes.

Also considering a game such as ESO is dependant on keeping players playing, the requirement to create alternate characters instead of simply changing the character you already have seems to be beneficial to the longevity of the game and the ability to change these attributes could lead to all PVP players redesigning their vet rank characters into one or two builds, which would destroy PVP diversity.

To me, it seems the overall combined effect of being able to change all these attributes would be detrimental to the long term playability of the game.... so I'm genuinely curious, at what point do you feel a player should just have to make a new character?

Thank you for whatever insight you can provide.

Nestor

Gidorick wrote: »

At what point do you feel a person should just make a new character?

When they want to change their Race, Class or Alliance.

AlnilamE

Of my 7 characters, I have one where I would like to slightly change her appearance and slightly change her name. She's been parked at the bank for months now while I play my other toons and I feel bad. I've considered rerolling since her level is not very high, but I feel like deleting her is a bit drastic considering the minor things I want to change.

But I think that race/class is a bit much. Faction, I can see based on a quest and only one change allowed.

Slurg

Race and class are pretty fundamental to a character due to skill lines and I think re-rolling is very appropriate if someone wants a change there. Alliance changes I could see if there was a significant quest line for defecting from the old and joining a new one.

Gender and name, as well as voice, body and facial mods, are things I think would be appropriate to be modifiable on an established character (at a cost of course).

Kheoss

Had a vr12, that I created during early access, my 6 year old daughter was with me at the time so she helped me craft the toon up. Was a female redguard, came to terms with it as she would watch me play. Had the name I run all my main characters, but wanted to recreate to a male redguard, now been stuck at vr2 for about 5-6 months cause I just can't fathom myself doing all that questing again...

Nestor

Slurg wrote: »

Gender and name, as well as voice, body and facial mods, are things I think would be appropriate to be modifiable on an established character (at a cost of course).

Not sure about the Gender Change, although there are no Gender based differences in the characters as far as stats go so there is no compelling game play reason not to. But appearance, hair style and color and voice for sure.

superquadockyb14_ESO

Honestly this is the last thing that is nagging me from not enjoying the game in utter contentment as I love this game anyway. I would LOVE to have an option to readjust the appearance of my character. In my view its positively FUNDAMENTAL in a game with SOOO many options for character appearance. Why? Well its super easy to make mistakes on character creation and can be very stressful to go through the whole thing again... and again... and again... to get it juuusst right!

Blud

Kheoss wrote: »

...cause I just can't fathom myself doing all that questing again...

This is the point, OP. If there were other ways to level up, I can see re-rolling, but there is at this time only one way (I wanted to put that in all caps, but refrained) to get there via the same exact quests all over again.

If there were alternative leveling paths, or if pvp leveling was more reasonable, then it would be a lot easier for people to just re-roll.

I am an altoholic and I've rerolled quite a few characters, and I have to say I'm quite sick of my faction's starting zone by now. It was amazing the first time through, and still okay the second, but after that it gets to be tough going.

Heruthema

Race/Faction/Class is where I draw the line. Everything else should be a standard part of the game. If you dislike your character in those areas then it is definitely time to re-roll.
I have said it many times - Just add the creation menu selection to the Character Select Menu but do not include the option for Race, Faction or Class. This is a simple change that would enhance the game for most if not all. ZOS seems to be wasting time trying to determine an Artistic Game Friendly way to implement when they could spend those resources on fixing actual problems in the game.

ahstin2001nub18_ESO

instead of defecting from your original faction, i would like to see actual factions. it would be a grinder to appease your enemies (raise the faction with them), but given that your sides are at war you should have to build trust. for continuity of the story, i think now isn't the time. perhaps when they expand the world that all three sides are directly connected to cyrodil (or build for this as an excuse), then perhaps a faction grind should be made open. it wouldn't allow you access to ALL the same quests, but at least it should make the option available to deal with opposing sides (certain quests, vendors, banks, crafting benches, etc). playing with players on opposing sides should be adjusted so that you can cross factions. just because you are enemies with a faction, doesn't mean you have to act hostile with the followers/neutrals within the faction.

edit:i didn't comment on appearance because from my understanding they are going to put something in place to allow players to do this. alliance/race/gender = reroll...

Lynx7386

I'm fully supportive of after-creation customization when it comes to the body and face options you see in the creator (they should have some sort of npc that gives you the body and face customization windows again available in-game), but I do not think that class or race changes should be available. I also do not think that name changes should be readily available, but perhaps should be a real-world cash purchase (say 10$ to rename a character, and put a cooldown on it of like 30-60 days).

As far as body and face editing, a lot of us created our characters back at launch when the creator wouldnt even zoom in on your character's head during creation (and you couldnt manually zoom), so you had no way of knowing what those features would look like close up. there's also been numerous patches and bugs which have inadvertently changed the hair color, eye color, or facial features (adding scars/tattoos or removing them and the like) for player characters, with no way to correct these changes that the player had no control over.

Face/body customization is a must, and it needs to happen sooner rather than later.

Zorrashi

Re-roll when...
You want to change your faction.
You want to change your race.
You want to change your class.
Each affects some sort of in-game mechanic that affects content or how you can play content, therefore I have issues with such changes due to their gameplay scope.

Now naming on the other hand, is purely a batch of letters that others can reference you by. Practically harmless and inconsequential when changed. Same can be said for character appearance changes (not including race) and gender.

Gidorick

Zorrashi wrote: »

Re-roll when...
You want to change your faction.
You want to change your race.
You want to change your class.
Each affects some sort of in-game mechanic that affects content or how you can play content, therefore I have issues with such changes due to their gameplay scope.

Now naming on the other hand, is purely a batch of letters that others can reference you by. Practically harmless and inconsequential when changed. Same can be said for character appearance changes (not including race) and gender.

This makes sense...

It seems completely reasonable to want to change things that don't affect gameplay such as hair, physical attributes, or even the name. There are, however, many people who are requesting to be able to change the attributes that have an impact on gameplay and we haven't heard from those individuals yet...

AlexDougherty

Zorrashi wrote: »

Re-roll when...
You want to change your faction.
You want to change your race.
You want to change your class.
Each affects some sort of in-game mechanic that affects content or how you can play content, therefore I have issues with such changes due to their gameplay scope.

Now naming on the other hand, is purely a batch of letters that others can reference you by. Practically harmless and inconsequential when changed. Same can be said for character appearance changes (not including race) and gender.

I agree.

Changing faction, I can think of dozens of improvements we need before this.
Class Change/Race change, then it's not the same character, lets avoid this.

Name Change, great idea, it just lets us fix our characters name, I personally would add Surnames to my Characters.
I also support a Barbershop/Face Changer, which would allow us to change minor details on our characters, like my Orcs hairstyle (just that for me )

Jitterbug

Name change I'm fine with. Alliance change also fine. Maybe even race change.
But somehow class change feels wrong.

BBSooner

I agree that class should be unchangeable, however I'm open for most else.

Things like alliance, race (interaction-wise), name, hair, face, and gender (unfortunately) have no impact on a play through. Every quest you do, every dungeon you run, every achievement you get is replicated if you play the same class/build. And that's what we really use to identify ourselves, right - our class/build combo (with a small nod to race based on passives). The rest is fluff that - to develop a character completely - requires the running of, basically, 150 levels + future extras of content.

In the OP you assert that this is a needed mechanic of an MMO for the sake of replayability and diversity. I however am of the mind that altering something that doesn't change how my character plays will not alter that diversity. As for the replayability, people run through the game again not to play it 100% the same as last time - thus they choose a different class/build combination. The other suggested "defining" features in no way make the game behave differently to your character - which makes them a moot decision.

I see no problem with wanting to alter these moot decisions post character creation. Even better if it's done with a fun/interesting questline for why my character ended up in this new situation. The story even has segments which open the possibility for this: Cadwell's silver and gold is (story wise) given to the character to show the character what it would have been like if they washed up on the shores of the other factions - to sympathize with them. Allowing thecharacter to then choose a final alliance/ideology is the logical next step.

As for personal/meta reasons why to change these things - I can only speak for myself: I like playing with players from another faction more than my starting faction and I want to play my main with them without having to play the entirety of the MMOs content over again exactly the same. Obviously that would come with certain restrictions with Cyrodiil in mind - 6 month lockout or even a one time decision since ultimately it's tied to a quest for character development.

bosmern_ESO

Im gonna let you in on something, there will probably never be a class change.

dharbert

bosmern_ESO wrote: »

Im gonna let you in on something, there will probably never be a class change.

If spell crafting is implemented like they say it is, then the differences between classes and class-specific skills won't matter as much anymore.

Draxys

Name and race change (I think) would be easy to implement, and could be a cash shop type thing. Faction and class change might be a little too complicated, especially faction. Those two shouldn't be done anyway, you should have to reroll for them.

Vyle_Byte

Well, at this point seeing as there is no way to change anything at all, the time to reroll is simply when you aren't happy with what you have.

Someday we will get a barber shop so that we can change appearance, to what point who knows. And when this will happen is up in the air, we've had no update on it as far as I know. But other than that, I highly doubt they will ever let us change anything else, so if you are unhappy with your character other than cosmetics, then its reroll time.

I don't think it matters what we would support, ZOS gonna do what ZOS wants to do lol!

My very first character was created first day of early access, those who were here then will remember that on that day there was a bug where in character creation you couldn't zoom in on your character so it was hard to see what you were really doing. Anyhow poor Lunari looks funny because of this, I played her to lvl 30 or so and now she sits, patiently waiting for a barber shop lol!

Lord_Kreegan

BBSooner wrote: »

<--SNIP-->
In the OP you assert that this is a needed mechanic of an MMO for the sake of replayability and diversity. I however am of the mind that altering something that doesn't change how my character plays will not alter that diversity. As for the replayability, people run through the game again not to play it 100% the same as last time - thus they choose a different class/build combination. The other suggested "defining" features in no way make the game behave differently to your character - which makes them a moot decision.

I see no problem with wanting to alter these moot decisions post character creation.
<--SNIP-->

I don't disagree with your rationale at all; it's quite well thought out and well-stated. However, fundamentally I can't agree with allowing any kind of class/race/name changes in-game and think appearance changes should be minimized to that which a real creature would experience through growth (e.g., aging): changing hairstyles, getting more muscular (or, conversely, fat), maybe getting a little taller, addding a tattoo; not radical changes like a completely new face, shrinking in height, dramatic increases in height or musculature, etc.

That's all just role-playing, anyway.

The problem (consistent with your rationale) is that ESO is a linear story-driven game... thus replayability is to a large extent nonexistent. With the veteran concept where players go through other factions' quest, there is even less replayability.

That is the fate of all story-driven games. SW-TOR solved that problem to some extent by having separate stories for each class and the two factions, but outside of class stories the game is the same for every player (within the faction).

The problems with a story-based game become very apparent when you play and level multiple characters simultaneously. In SW-TOR I had sixteen characters (one of every class/sub-class); in ESO I'm playing eight characters. Quests in both games are very formulaic and eventually, even without replaying the same quests with different characters, it becomes quite boring. PvP helps to a point... it at least isn't scripted gameplay.

bertenburnyb16_ESO

no race, faction or class change, some desicions do matter, so reroll would be the only option in my mind, and in the game too (plz dont listen to the whiners this time zos)

MrGhosty

I say if people want to change anything about their character they should have the option to do so, with some caveats to make it for those who want to change for themselves and not to follow flavor of the month builds.

Basic cosmetics (hair,body, gender, adornments)- costs gold to alter can be done as often as you want like respeccing.

Name changes for a cost of real world money, not enough to make it stupid but enough to make sure it doesn't happen every week or so

Class change: possible only once and you don't get a one to one transfer so if you swap from DK to Sorc your new sorc will start at the same level they would have if starting the game with a new character. (some of us chose our characters during early access and from my personal perspective I didn't really know what I was doing but had already made my main a primary character with skillpoints/dyes/mage books collected etc and would probably change the class of my main if I could)

Faction Change: Can change your faction once via quest mechanic that unlocks after completing cadwell's.


Ultimately, I don't think changing classes or races is really going to affect the balance of that game all that much, it would certainly be no different to that person no longer playing the game as one character and then playing it as another. We all also pay a premium for this game and as such should be able to play how we would like (within reason)

As long as these changes were evaluated and balanced based on their capacity to impact others game experience via trolling or other acts I have no issue. We must also keep in mind that rolling a new character to replace one is a massive investment of time and there are many who don't have a lot of time to play. Many I know would probably just stop playing and take their money elsewhere rather than have to slog through the exact same content (in the case of same faction) and I personally would like those people to stay playing as they're helping to make future updates possible with their sub fee.

No matter what we think is right or wrong, we don't really have the right to impress our personal opinions when it comes to how to game on others who might have a different methodology.

Hektlk

Class, race and gender you should not be able to change, as they are a fundamental part of your character. Faction changes on the other hand could be interesting as a means to balance populations.

AlexDougherty

Hektlk wrote: »

Class, race and gender you should not be able to change, as they are a fundamental part of your character. Faction changes on the other hand could be interesting as a means to balance populations.

The problem is that most of the people who want to change factions want to desert a loosing faction, not reinforce it. Which would make the imbalances worse.

BBSooner

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

BBSooner wrote: »

<--SNIP-->
In the OP you assert that this is a needed mechanic of an MMO for the sake of replayability and diversity. I however am of the mind that altering something that doesn't change how my character plays will not alter that diversity. As for the replayability, people run through the game again not to play it 100% the same as last time - thus they choose a different class/build combination. The other suggested "defining" features in no way make the game behave differently to your character - which makes them a moot decision.

I see no problem with wanting to alter these moot decisions post character creation.
<--SNIP-->

I don't disagree with your rationale at all; it's quite well thought out and well-stated. However, fundamentally I can't agree with allowing any kind of class/race/name changes in-game and think appearance changes should be minimized to that which a real creature would experience through growth (e.g., aging): changing hairstyles, getting more muscular (or, conversely, fat), maybe getting a little taller, addding a tattoo; not radical changes like a completely new face, shrinking in height, dramatic increases in height or musculature, etc.

That's all just role-playing, anyway

From a role play point of view I don't see a problem with a character changing their name or class - the former I'm for having in game whereas the latter I think clashes with the meta gaming class/build and should be kept out of game. Changing race is a mixed bag - iirc there is a quest in game where an npc is turned in to an Argonian from a potion (after trying to turn in to a Khajiit) so it's possible from a role play point of view for it to happen. Beyond that, I dunno.

martinhpb16_ESO

Yeh I roled a mail Lidzerd templerer on DC.

I really dont like templerers they suck, esp lidzerds ones.

I've already got to like level 5 and really dont wont to have to do those levelling levels levelled again.

plz plz plz Zeni cans i change him to a Batman Darknight, they is cewl and I wants one with bubbies so can i change it to girl as well.

but not lizerds I wants a she-Legolas but I wants a mustash.

oh and DC sucks can I go EP.

Zeni you are nabs

Thanks