character classes

Herelacfreahelm

If they decided to give us 2 new character classes in the game my choices would be a druid and a true healing priest class.

I hope they will consider this.

TheShadowScout

Did I read someone type "new character classes"?

I still think just adding new classes would be a kick in the teeth for all the old hands that already played all eight slots into the veteran ranks and would feel rather vexed if a new class they really would have choosen instead for this or that character from their backstory idea suddenly becomes available (unless there also was a class change option, which would be an even worse can of worms)

Thus I shall keep reposting an idea that could benefit both new players on their first character, and old hands with eight veterans:

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 – which incidentally would also give people the whole of cadwells gold to focus on making this new skill line… (a "reward" for finishing cadwells gold might be some alliance change quest, but that is another topic, to be discussed elsewhere…)
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 – golden lightning!)

Templar
• Shaman (nature magic, totems, summons; color: green/brown)
• Crusader (melee support and aura-style buff magic; color: white/gold – holy light)
• 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; crusader is for stamina templars as the class name has been appearing in TES games before, despite tamrielic religions having less a focus on "cross" then where the name originated, 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...

The skills itself are also just rough concepts - some I am quite happy with, others I feel might benefit from more thought and ideas… but it's a start I suppose, a proof of concept kind of notion, something like that… with ample room for refinement and reworking.
(also note that many of those I "borrowed" from existing mobs without knowing the actual in-game name of the abilities, just by remembering what I could from the time some mob used them unsuccessfully against one of my characters, so please, don't get too hung up on the names I used here, all right? )

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.

mtwiggz

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Did I read someone type "new character classes"?

I still think just adding new classes would be a kick in the teeth for all the old hands that already played all eight slots into the veteran ranks and would feel rather vexed if a new class they really would have choosen instead for this or that character from their backstory idea suddenly becomes available (unless there also was a class change option, which would be an even worse can of worms)

Thus I shall keep reposting an idea that could benefit both new players on their first character, and old hands with eight veterans:

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 – which incidentally would also give people the whole of cadwells gold to focus on making this new skill line… (a "reward" for finishing cadwells gold might be some alliance change quest, but that is another topic, to be discussed elsewhere…)
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 – golden lightning!)

Templar
• Shaman (nature magic, totems, summons; color: green/brown)
• Crusader (melee support and aura-style buff magic; color: white/gold – holy light)
• 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; crusader is for stamina templars as the class name has been appearing in TES games before, despite tamrielic religions having less a focus on "cross" then where the name originated, 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...

The skills itself are also just rough concepts - some I am quite happy with, others I feel might benefit from more thought and ideas… but it's a start I suppose, a proof of concept kind of notion, something like that… with ample room for refinement and reworking.
(also note that many of those I "borrowed" from existing mobs without knowing the actual in-game name of the abilities, just by remembering what I could from the time some mob used them unsuccessfully against one of my characters, so please, don't get too hung up on the names I used here, all right? )

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.

Still no "Bard"... Still irrelevant.

TheShadowScout

mtwiggz wrote: »

Still no "Bard"... Still irrelevant.

Still imagine "bard" as guild for everyone to join and learn instead of a class.
Still with a "musical instrument" special "weapon" that cannot attack, but is needed to play "spellsongs" you learn in that guild as abilities, to continously buff or debuff all within earshot... one melody per effect, different sound depending on instrument...

Flak

Afaik they had 5 Classes in early stage of the game, but Necromancer was cancelled and combined with the Sorc.

PBpsy

Flak wrote: »

Afaik they had 5 Classes in early stage of the game, but Necromancer was cancelled and combined with the Sorc.

Pretty sure Necro was never planed. The warden class was supposed to be pretty similar to a templar.

Sausage

I think somekind of spiritual class like Monk, Shaman or Priest. My favorite is Priest, as its old-school thing and ES is old-school IP. Class is build around Regeneration. First skill tree focuses on Health regens, could work as tank, second skill tree focuses on Magicka regen, could work as healer, Third skill tree focuses on Stamina, could work as DPS. If they go with Monk, obvious weapon trees to add would be Staff and Fist trees. Fist weapons has shortest range but highest melee damage.

Herelacfreahelm

Ok maybe they do not need to have any more than the 4 classes, but I would like to see some more skill class morphs which as mentioned by the shadows out would then allow some new class skills.

I hope that the developers will consider this and would expand the game.