[SUGGESTION] A classless ESO

Doctordarkspawn

If anything this game needs roles to be scrapped. Why?

Because this games definitions of tank, DPS and healer are far more rigid for a game clearly designed at the start to be less rigid. Adding more classes, or the lack of classes, will not fix a fundemental design flaw. So. What's the point, again?

Doctordarkspawn

JD2013 wrote: »

The amount of meta builds this would lead to and everyone playing exactly that to be competitive and nothing else would be depressing.

Classes are fine. Even the ES games up to oblivion had classes of sorts.

Please stop trying to "fix" these systems.

Fun fact.

I come from Champions Online, a game where you could freeform build, building and taking powers from every powerset in the game with minimal constraints. Exactly this happened.

AfkNinja

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

JD2013 wrote: »

The amount of meta builds this would lead to and everyone playing exactly that to be competitive and nothing else would be depressing.

Classes are fine. Even the ES games up to oblivion had classes of sorts.

Please stop trying to "fix" these systems.

Fun fact.

I come from Champions Online, a game where you could freeform build, building and taking powers from every powerset in the game with minimal constraints. Exactly this happened.

We must have played a different game cause I saw quite varied characters in Champions Online.

Mandragora

Bad_Company wrote: »

Hello everyone.

This idea I'm going to talk about came to my mind the very second I learned about the ESO's mechanics and its core system. Ever since, I've been tinkering with it and how it could be implemented in the game, without breaking its fundamental features. I think I know now how it could be done, that's what brought me here writing all this.

What I would like to suggest is to abandon the concept of classes as we know it now. "Classes" would still be a thing, but the limit to really play as you want would be gone. I'll refer to them as Archetypes.
Let me explain.

Every class (4 of them) has 3 unique skill-lines that you have access to. You all know about this, so I'm not going into detail here.
The idea is to give everyone access to all of the 12 class-based skill-lines.
No, it doesn't mean you could grab skills from each of them. Instead, every character could choose its own 3 skill-lines to which he or she can have access.

The implications of such a thing would be as follows (Long Version):

- You can use active and passive skills from 3 of the 12 class-based skill-lines.
- This choice wouldn't be permanent, meaning that when you redistribute your skill points you have to pick 3 skill-lines once again and they can be different from the ones you picked before.
- The classes would cease to exist as we know them, thus lifting the limit to use only the same 3 skill-lines over and over.
- There would be 220 possible combinations, if I did the math right.
- Each combination of 3 skill-lines would have its own denomination. To give you all an example the combination of the Earthen Heart, Restoring Light and Storm Calling skill-lines could make the Druid/Spinner Archetype. All the new names would be lore-friendly and serve no purpose apart from roleplaying and distinction between builds. I'll edit the post with both my own ideas and your suggestions about this.
- Access to 3 skill-lines would make it impossible to spend points in any of the other skill-lines until a skill point reset occurs. This could work the same way Vampirism hinders infections from Lycanthropy and vice versa.
- This system could offer players not only more freedom to play as they want and further improve immersion and the overall experience in the game, but it would give purpose to the so-called veteran players. In fact, those who have reached and completed the end-game content could reset their points and go for new skill combinations and builds.


TL;DR version: gain access to 3 skill-lines of your choice, with the possibility to select different ones whenever you reset your skill points.


List of the possible new Archetypes (to be updated):
- Druid/Spinner (Earthen Heart + Restoring Light + Storm Calling)
- Conjurer (Daedric Summoning + Shadow + Aedric Spear)
- Destruction Master (Ardent Flame + Storm Calling + Dawn's Wrath)
- Warden (Draconic Power + Earthen Heart + Restoring Light)
- Spellsword (Assassination + Ardent Flame + Dark Magic)



This is basically it, I hope it was a good reading and above all I look forward to hearing from you! All feedback is welcome, especially constructive feedback.

Thank you for your time and your patience through this wall of text.

I love this - that would really solve all the problems. But as I did expect - there are some players/devs, that are against any changes or more of RP friendly classes.

Yes, this idea will recycle, because everyone can see it is not right. The same way as players do miss druids, nature magic and hunters, but sadly anything about it will be bashed down at the very beginning

Atleast I can roleplay some sort of monk in this game, which I cannot in other games, where I can play hunter instead...

Woeler

Nah.

Danikat

This is how I expected ESO to work, since it's basically how Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim did it. (I don't remember Arena and Daggerfall well enough to know.)

Yes you could pick a class in Morrowind and Oblivion, but it was just a pre-determined combination of skills. You could also make your own class using any combination you chose. I don't know how anyone else did it but I never used the pre-made ones, I always picked my own skills.

The problem with doing it in an MMO however is that it's more competitive. A lot of people want to be the best at not just PvP but PvE (doing dungeons faster than anyone else or whatever) and really couldn't care less about their build beyond that. So they would all be using the exact same build - whichever one is currently considered the best. When everyone can use everything it's not only much harder to balance (because you have to consider how every skill will interact with every other skill in the entire game, not just 1/3 of them) but it's also much easier to change your build to follow the trends.

Of course not everyone plays that way and a lot of people probably would use it to design their own builds based on all kinds of criteria (says the person who played a khajiit focusing on blade, destruction, restoration and medium armour), but the ones who would 'take advantage' of the system are likely to be a big enough (and certainly vocal enough) group to have a serious impact.

starkerealm

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

JD2013 wrote: »

The amount of meta builds this would lead to and everyone playing exactly that to be competitive and nothing else would be depressing.

Classes are fine. Even the ES games up to oblivion had classes of sorts.

Please stop trying to "fix" these systems.

Fun fact.

I come from Champions Online, a game where you could freeform build, building and taking powers from every powerset in the game with minimal constraints. Exactly this happened.

Fun detail about Champions. You can completely break the game with freeform builds, to the point that running endgame dungeon content for, pretty much anything, is pathetically easy. In fact, about the only endgame dungeon I haven't soloed is Nemcon, because you can't get in without a team.

Well built Golds have an utterly hilarious advantage over archetypes, even the premium archetypes.

starkerealm

Supersnake_Lx wrote: »

I can already see the meta builds.

Stamina:
Storm Calling/Shadow - because Streak/Cloak
Assassination - because Incapacitating Strike, Ambush, Surprise Attack, Killer's Blade
Earthen Heart - because Battle Roar

Magicka:
Dawn's Wrath - because beam
Anything else, does not matter because beam, so much Jezus Beam

Healer:
Restoring Light - because everything on there
Anything else, does not matter because Breath of Life is... life; Breath of Life if love

Tank
This is where we could actually see some variety but does it really matter when 99% of players are dps?

Probably wouldn't see any though, because of Inhale/Blood. Then stack Aedric Spear on for the block bonuses, and whichever DK tree offers the same.

For Magicka, the obvious fit is Dawn's Wrath + Storm Calling for the regen and spell damage up. Maybe Dark Magic for Forbidden Knowledge.

Solariken

Discussion and nay-saying is arbitrary, because ZOS will never do it anyway. It's really unfortunate because ESO classes are incredibly shallow and rather unbalanced.

What they MIGHT do, if we push hard enough, is offer class change for sale in the Crown Store. I'm super surprised that they haven't yet tbh.

Or better yet, spellcrafting goddammit. But I hope they fire the guy who developed poisons and get someone more talented to work on spellcrafting. XD

Skinzz

4 different classes made this game unique to me so no thanks

Forestd16b14_ESO

Already suggested and no cause then every one will just only pick the OP stuff and ... honestly I really don't feel like explaining the cycle of stupidity again.

Hluill

starkerealm wrote: »

Trublz wrote: »

Lieblingsjunge wrote: »

Bad_Company wrote: »

Lieblingsjunge wrote: »

No. Do not make this into ArcheAge v2. kthxbai.

Care to elaborate? I'm sure not everyone, myself included, know about ArcheAge and why this would be bad for ESO.

I'll just link a short guide to classes in AA: http://forums.archeagegame.com/showthread.php?2347-The-11-most-common-class-combinations-in-Archeage

You would see healbots run around with cloak. A sorcerer with Breath of Life. A Stamina DK with a negate. It would make the game have even less diversity, as there would be some skill-lines which would be ridiculous together.

Not necessarily. They would have to revamp everything. But consider this. Strong skills would cost more points to obtain. So if you wanted a high level skill it would cost a lot of points to obtain. Meaning the more points you put into one skill line, the less you could put into others. This would prevent people from being able to have all the best abilities at once

TSW tried that. Build diversity was a joke.

The Skill system in ArchAge was the only interesting thing in that game, well, that and the undulating breasts...

The Ability Wheel in The Secret World absolutely ROCKS! I love tinkering with different builds! Just when I think I have the "perfect" build, I encounter some new mob that requires different attacks and damage types. I'll spend hours experimenting with different synergies.

Sure, there are those that favor certain builds and discriminate against others. But they argue and disagree. And, I don't play with those guys. Guys have been min-maxing since Dungeons and Dragons was in the brown books. We called 'em Munchkins. Heck, they were probably doing it long before. Think about how chess has changed...

Also, in TSW, they are constantly changing the different abilities. Remember when there was that uber penetration build? Yeah, then they nerfed one ability...

Two things to learn from TSW are that builds change based on mission and mood and that balancing MMOs is an ongoing, never-ending process.

ArchMikem

The idea is to give everyone access to all of the 12 class-based skill-lines.

Do you even realize everyone would take the best of a Templar, and the best of a Nightblade, and combine those skills to make the most unholy force Elder Scrolls PvP has ever known?

MrAppleman

Suggestion! Find a new game.

MrAppleman

Why all these suggestions to severely alter the game that a lot of people enjoy as is. If your ideas are so great go make your own game you want to turn the game upside down because why? You know best?

starkerealm

Hluill wrote: »

The Ability Wheel in The Secret World absolutely ROCKS!

Except that 90% of the wheel is utter garbage, about 8% of what remains is incredibly situational. TSW; or "how to sabotage your tank and wipe the run, because you built something you thought would work." I mean, we're literally talking about a game with abilities that do nothing except interfere with the tank's ability to deal with the boss. Pressure Points comes to mind as an immediate example. It's also plugged to the gills with abilities that are almost the same as each other but with one altered keyword.

I liked the idea that you'd have to tinker with your builds when you were dealing with each enemy using a different deck. The novelty of that wore off someplace in the Carpathians. The way TSW's difficulty works is just tedious, and easily solved if you actually target an enemy in the area you're entering and look at their immunities. At that point the game just becomes a tedious exercise in rebuilding your character every thirty minutes.

starkerealm

MrAppleman wrote: »

Why all these suggestions to severely alter the game that a lot of people enjoy as is. If your ideas are so great go make your own game you want to turn the game upside down because why? You know best?

Honestly, for this kind of a "build your own class" approach, Titan Quest and Grim Dawn aren't bad suggestions. They're very enjoyable games. not MMOs, but still fun in their own right.

Thealteregoroman

No, it would be P2W.

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO

I have an opinion on the subject. Goes a little something like this:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

starkerealm

Danikat wrote: »

This is how I expected ESO to work, since it's basically how Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim did it. (I don't remember Arena and Daggerfall well enough to know.)

Daggerfall, arguably, had the best create a class system in the franchise. With Morrowind and Oblivion you could pick off the menu for your progression, but Daggerfall still had all the weird, class specific, mechanics that were purged from Morrowind. So you could make classes with higher magicka pools, or that couldn't wear certain tiers of armor. How you built your class would affect how quickly you leveled up. So, a very powerful class would level more slowly than normal, while a deliberately underpowered class would level much faster.

Narnor

Well, i can support this idea to an extend.

I like the name "archtype" better than "class". Class in my mind reminds me of "a warrior can dps/tank. A priest can dps/heal" etc.
In ESO i can tank/heal and dps with the same char! (But not at the same time so well ofc)

So i would enjoy the name change, since ESO classes as of now is more about flavour and less about role.

However, im completely against making it "free to all". That would screw balance and make the game incredibly one sided (like others before me have written)

But making a foundation to make new archtypes based on previous ones (after serious PTS time and balance (if ZoS can)) i would support.

Kendaric

I'd love for ESO to become classless, but giving every character access to the 12 current classs skill lines is not the way to do it.

Kalifas

I love your suggestion. Yes please!

ClassCrafting


Monk Class and Hand To Hand Skill Line

Martial Staff Skill Line

Draxys

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

If anything this game needs roles to be scrapped. Why?

Because this games definitions of tank, DPS and healer are far more rigid for a game clearly designed at the start to be less rigid. Adding more classes, or the lack of classes, will not fix a fundemental design flaw. So. What's the point, again?

If you mean eso was designed to be less rigid, you are incorrect. The classes had very distinct purposes at the beginning of the game. Counters and supports from class to class were what made each one great. A 4 man pvp group made up of one each could wreck thanks to the synergies between them.

The homogenization that's been going on with making each class "play the way they want" has ruined these synergies and stripped the game of its identity. We don't need more homogenization through removing classes.

Bad_Company

MrAppleman wrote: »

Suggestion! Find a new game.

MrAppleman wrote: »

Why all these suggestions to severely alter the game that a lot of people enjoy as is. If your ideas are so great go make your own game you want to turn the game upside down because why? You know best?

Suggestion! L2Understand things. I never said I know better than everybody else, nor did I say that this is the best idea ever. It is a suggestion. Let me explain. A suggestion is something that requires approval from both the community and the developers. If you said this to all the things you don't like, well, you'd be playing your own game. Decisions are not up to you only. It is pretty obvious that I lacked insight when I made this post, because now even I see that this idea might be both good in a way and pretty bad in others. So just chill, mate. Be respectful and polite, or people will treat you the same way you treat them.

@Danikat : I think you and @starkerealm in particular have made the pros and cons very clear. As stated in the above reply, I am now not convinced this would be good for ESO. It's just as you said, there would be more diversity to some and less diversity to others, at least in the most competitive end-game environments, be it PVE or PVP. It would be a double-edged sword, with its own good side and bad side. The problem is in my experience ESO is full of min/max-ers, which means the bad side would be felt twice as the good one.

I feel like this idea could be worked around to make it balanced if the community wished to help. I'm ready to start from scratch or to even abandon it if the feedback were to be mostly negative.
Keep commenting, though.

Bad_Company

Thealteregoroman wrote: »

No, it would be P2W.

I hope you are just trolling, lol. If you are not, I suggest you look up the definition of P2W on Google

---

@Narnor : I do like your feedback. It's nice to read something that truly aims at explaining things and providing the reader with more ideas, instead of those comments like "NO", "Nah" or "No. kthxbye". If they don't like the idea and do not explain why, they should expect people to come up with it once again in the future. But, whatever.
Now, to your comment. I was thinking, even before I read it, of possible ways to balance this idea. One could be choosing one of the existing classes, then change only one of the skill-lines with any other. Or maybe you could only pick skill-lines in the same order they are in now, meaning that Assassination, Shadow and Siphoning are 1st, 2nd and 3rd, respectively. So you could pick Assassination + Draconic Power + Storm Calling, but not Assassination + Ardent Flame + Storm Calling.
I don't know, really. would love to receive some more feedback. Only constructive feedback, though.

petraeus1

Rather than scrapping classes, I'd like to see we make a character classless and we get to specialize into one of the current classes in-game, with the option to re-specialize for a hefty sum of gold and skill line progression or some other inhibiting factor (like only once a month, or another form of currency).

This way the skill sets don't get broken up (which, as some have argued, might very well lead to a few cookiecutter builds), but we do get some more flexibility and in my mind it fits better than running naked out of the Wailing Prison 'I am a Dragon Knight KAPOW'.

TheShadowScout

I fear tzhat ship has sailed and sunk a long timne ago, I kinda doubt the suits in charge would -ever- let them rebuild That much of their game to make it classless. It would be way too much an investment to get it right for no additional profit after all...

Ohhgrizyyy wrote: »

I do personally hope that in the future they either release a new class or they actually add another 1-2 skill lines to each class

I hope they would go with something like...
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/240186/class-morph-idea/p1
...but then, I would, wouldn't I?

Wolfshead

starkerealm wrote: »

Bad_Company wrote: »

Lieblingsjunge wrote: »

No. Do not make this into ArcheAge v2. kthxbai.

Care to elaborate? I'm sure not everyone, myself included, know about ArcheAge and why this would be bad for ESO.

Cookie Cutters Online.

This would actually, completely, kill build diversity. I know, people whine about build diversity being dead now, but, no, really, it would be completely obliterated.

And also all whine we will get that why you dont have those skills and healer, tank well to total out of door that point. This why i basically stop play MoP for everyone was whine about that you should just this build and nothing else.

Archetypes is why i love Elder Scrolls and Elder Scrolls Online for you build and play like you want.

Mandragora

MrAppleman wrote: »

Why all these suggestions to severely alter the game that a lot of people enjoy as is. If your ideas are so great go make your own game you want to turn the game upside down because why? You know best?

Because this system is not RP friendly and this game claims to be RPG game. If they have classes, that are not suited for RPG, what is the point? If this game would be more close to an action game, I wouldn't complain, but even in Rift, which has really weak stories/quests and is a lot about group content, has better class management than ESO, then I have to say, that it is wrong.

Also it goes against any class archetypes from previous TES games...
This suggestion is very lore friendly a lot more close to experience you could have in Oblivion...
Also if it is compared to Rift, everyone is like : yes, but this is ESO, but they keep forgetting the fact, that if it does work in other games, why it couldn't work in ESO, if it would be altered for it?

Also I'm sick of PvP players complaining about balance and the skills they want or they don't want - everyone knows, that what does matter in PvP nowadays is gear and ranks, balancing -(actually nerfing, which they always claim to be needed in classes they don't play, but they want to beat them) of skills leads to only one thing - boring PVE and broken classes... So I really wish ZOS would have fun first in their mind and then PvP balance - I'm not saying this in ultimate way, but I don't want to have ESO speciality - not just PvP making broken classes, but also in ESO: absence of funny classes completely...