[SUGGESTION] A classless ESO

Bad_Company

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.

Lieblingsjunge

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

Bad_Company

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.

idk

Not the first to bring up this idea and won't be the last. Bad ideas are never ending and often recycled.

But this is also one of the worst ideas ever as it would make the game so boring and vanilla. Ugh. Perish the thought just as this thread will perish.

starkerealm

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.

Trublz

At first thought some people may think this is a bad ide. But this is exactly how Pre NGE SWG was and it was amazing! It created so much diversity in the game and was very fun to play. I'd be down for this change.

Bad_Company

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Not the first to bring up this idea and won't be the last. Bad ideas are never ending and often recycled.

But this is also one of the worst ideas ever as it would make the game so boring and vanilla. Ugh. Perish the thought just as this thread will perish.

There's no need to be so resentful towards this idea. Maybe I'm not the first to bring it up, but I didn't find any thread about this in the past six months, so I thought I would suggest it.
I don't understand why this would make the game boring, would you mind elaborating your thoughts a little?

yodased

The illusion of choice is real here.

Problem being there can not be balance in a situation when you will have certain combinations that seriously over perform over others, and we know what happens when players have access to over performing combinations.

Lieblingsjunge

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.

cjthibs

Trublz wrote: »

At first thought some people may think this is a bad ide. But this is exactly how Pre NGE SWG was and it was amazing! It created so much diversity in the game and was very fun to play. I'd be down for this change.

Yep, that's exactly right.

From a former Bounty Hunter/Beast Tamer/Commando.

Bad_Company

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.

I understand the problem of balance, meaning that more diversity could lead to less diversity. Maybe such issue could be addressed, but it wouldn't be anything different from now, really. We already have a very few, specific builds everyone uses and a majority of less well-performing builds. The difference with this system would be more freedom to the majority, while the min/maxers would just change a bit things up from now.

Trublz

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

idk

Bad_Company wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Not the first to bring up this idea and won't be the last. Bad ideas are never ending and often recycled.

But this is also one of the worst ideas ever as it would make the game so boring and vanilla. Ugh. Perish the thought just as this thread will perish.

There's no need to be so resentful towards this idea. Maybe I'm not the first to bring it up, but I didn't find any thread about this in the past six months, so I thought I would suggest it.
I don't understand why this would make the game boring, would you mind elaborating your thoughts a little?

To explain why it would make the game boring is easy.

We would have one build in game for dps and one build in game for tanking and one build for healing. There is no ifs and es or buts about it.

Oh, your not using this build. Kicked from raid.

Trublz

If you had played SWG pre nge you would all know that this wouldn't make the game any more or less one sided. It would only create more diversity.

Solariken

I love it, very similar to lots of other posts on this topic, but it's what needs to happen.

I think it would also be necessary to rework a lot of the passives to be more specific or require skills to be slotted to be active. The first one that comes to mind is the Nightblade +15% to all regen (which is already OPAF).

Stovahkiin

I think it's a bit too make a change like this, but even if it wasn't there is no way Zeni would get it right without breaking 100 other things or even do it at all.

jedtb16_ESO

nah....

want to try other skills?

make alts

#altoholic

Miszou

Titan Quest did this years ago, and it worked really well. The difference is, the game was designed around it and you could only pick 2 base skill lines from a total of 9:



ESO allows 3 class skill lines from a total of 12, so not only would balancing become a real problem, but so would finding unique names for each combo!

At the end of the day, only people who care about the Flavor of the Weak and losers with no imagination to create their own builds would be cookie cutters. Some of us enjoy creating our own builds and this would certainly give us a huge window of scope to do so.

cjthibs

Miszou wrote: »

Titan Quest did this years ago, and it worked really well. The difference is, the game was designed around it and you could only pick 2 base skill lines from a total of 9:



ESO allows 3 class skill lines from a total of 12, so not only would balancing become a real problem, but so would finding unique names for each combo!

At the end of the day, only people who care about the Flavor of the Weak and losers with no imagination to create their own builds would be cookie cutters. Some of us enjoy creating our own builds and this would certainly give us a huge window of scope to do so.

I say let them have their cookie cutter builds. They can be miserable with their boring conformity with everyone else.
I want to experiment.

idk

Miszou wrote: »

Titan Quest did this years ago, and it worked really well. The difference is, the game was designed around it and you could only pick 2 base skill lines from a total of 9:



ESO allows 3 class skill lines from a total of 12, so not only would balancing become a real problem, but so would finding unique names for each combo!

At the end of the day, only people who care about the Flavor of the Weak and losers with no imagination to create their own builds would be cookie cutters. Some of us enjoy creating our own builds and this would certainly give us a huge window of scope to do so.

To suggest only those into the flavor of the month or losers would want a class system is absolutely wrong and narrow minded. I play multiple classes but mostly okay the NB and Templar since launch 2 years ago. I enjoy the differences of the classes as many of those I play with enjoy.

I certainly am not a FoTM person so I guess you think I'm a loser. Sorry, but not.

starkerealm

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.

starkerealm

cjthibs wrote: »

Miszou wrote: »

Titan Quest did this years ago, and it worked really well. The difference is, the game was designed around it and you could only pick 2 base skill lines from a total of 9:



ESO allows 3 class skill lines from a total of 12, so not only would balancing become a real problem, but so would finding unique names for each combo!

At the end of the day, only people who care about the Flavor of the Weak and losers with no imagination to create their own builds would be cookie cutters. Some of us enjoy creating our own builds and this would certainly give us a huge window of scope to do so.

I say let them have their cookie cutter builds. They can be miserable with their boring conformity with everyone else.
I want to experiment.

Okay, ignoring that the actual class list for Titan Quest is a little different (one of the masteries is wrong, and the class names are scrambled), that was a game built around the idea that you'd be slapping two of its classes together. The same is true for Grim Dawn. They're fantastic games, and I love the snot out of them. They've also got a really good advancement system, where you commit points into a tree to unlock the higher tiers, rather than advancing specific skills.

That said... Titan Quest is hilariously imbalanced at times. Anything+Dream will be well above the curve, and some specific combinations just flat out perform other classes. Rogues are at a serious disadvantage because their DPS is built off DoTs, and many enemies are immune to some of theirs. Also Hunters don't synergize well with melee classes, generally. Rogue+Hunter is a nightmare to get working.

And, we already see some of this in ESO. We have the armor and weapon pick system to open up our builds. What Titan Quest did by slapping masteries together, we get in ESO through being able to equip any armor and any weapon and then build our character off those shared abilities in addition to our class options.

Bad_Company

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.

Now that you make me think of it, I loved The Secret World so much. I spent a good chunk of time in there and I enjoyed it. One of the few things that bothered me was that with so many skills to choose from builds were all the same. No true diversity. I definitely don't want that to happen to ESO, even though I feel that's a thing already.
It's not like I want to try new skills, as suggested above. I have 8 characters and I'm considering the option to buy more slots. The thing is that to be considered good you have to use the same setup as everybody else. So, free to choose from 12 skill-lines instead of 3 or not, we already have almost no diversity.

Shadesofkin

Many players in ESO do in fact lack class.

Ok, I'm kidding.

Skyrim was the only TES game that lacked what we could call "Classes" it's also the weakest of the series with the least in depth RPG elements and honestly my least favorite.

Classes are good, even if the ones we've been given are a tad restrictive, they're still good. It would be better to have the classes directly give passive increases to various abilities and skills (by name so that they aren't just damage or stat related) and that would help players know what to choose while giving them the freedom to choose other things if they wish to be sub optimal.

starkerealm

Bad_Company wrote: »

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.

Now that you make me think of it, I loved The Secret World so much. I spent a good chunk of time in there and I enjoyed it. One of the few things that bothered me was that with so many skills to choose from builds were all the same. No true diversity. I definitely don't want that to happen to ESO, even though I feel that's a thing already.
It's not like I want to try new skills, as suggested above. I have 8 characters and I'm considering the option to buy more slots. The thing is that to be considered good you have to use the same setup as everybody else. So, free to choose from 12 skill-lines instead of 3 or not, we already have almost no diversity.

A big part of that was just that TSW had a lot of alternate abilities that did the same thing. The Buisness or Hair Trigger? Well, uh... they do the same thing, right? Except Hair Trigger's a focus, and they broke focus attacks.

To be fair, what ESO does really well, is give the classes a place to shine. So, your Dragon Knight won't play the same as a Nightblade, or a sorc, no matter how hard Deltia tries.

Within that context, there are different options for each class. I know people get snotty about things like Nightblade tanks, or Sorc healers, but you can legitimately build what you want within a class.

DHale

No, within the current classes Thera are only a very few abilities each class uses... everyone would use them. This would make maybe a couple of builds viable the rest would be shod.

Morimizo

This is fine by me, especially if they would add some new class skill lines. Would certainly make for better build variety and all aspects of the game way more interesting.

Dark_Aether

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?

JD2013

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.

Ohhgrizyyy

This is a very interesting idea but no lol, Then you'll have characters that can go invis with strong ass heals which will crit if they go invis and insane dps or multiple armor buffs and they will be unkillable...

Ohhgrizyyy

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