Remove the classes but keep the Skill trees

Zordrage

and let us chose the 3 skill trees we want to use and level whenever we want....

Devs from here on out would only need to make Skill trees to expand our characters with options to oblivion.....

and because they are entire trees like what we have now and we are limited to 3 trees like we are now people could not be fully able to make super broken cookie cutter builds like if you could if we could freely chose from all the skills.
( lets face it everyone would run with the one single most optimal thing then )

no more Classes
WAY more freedom
Less tress on devs they dont need to make ENTIRE classes just more and more and MORE skill lines till we choke in them.....
And Balance is not totally broken because of Skills still locked into trees and max 3 trees allowed.

Remove the classes and free up the Skill trees i say !

an example:

a Character running with this 3 skill line and its passives.
- Ardent Flame
- Dawns Wrath
- Shadow

( things would need a little rebalancing tough..... )

Radinyn

It's okay right now, but still nice idea.

CurlyQTip

I would prefer a classless system, however balancing it away from the class based system would require rebalancing the entire game to such an incredible degree that it'd honestly require throwing most of the gameplay out.

at that point you'd have a better time adding and balancing 5 completely new classes, as well as adding a forth skill line to every class.

You would also get healers with Wardens healing skill line, templars healing skill line, and a sorc or dk skill line for buffing or something, getting the sustain a sorc has, and the healing of both templar and warden, just stupidly unbalanced and OP.

Cookie cutter builds would become an even greater problem.

Zordrage

AND we could also get multiple different 2h weapon skill lines for other weapons also different ones....

Tandor

No thanks, the present system is fine as it is. Classless systems with multiple skill choices only ever end up with one template of the month and that's it. Nothing is gained by it.

Zordrage

CurlyQTip wrote: »

I would prefer a classless system, however balancing it would require rebalancing the entire game to such an incredible degree that it'd honestly require throwing most of the gameplay out.

at that point you'd have a better time adding and balancing 5 completely new classes, as well as adding a forth skill line to every class.

You would also get healers with Wardens healing skill line, templars healing skill line, and a sorc or dk skill line for buffing or something, getting the sustain a sorc has, and the healing of both templar and warden, just stupidly unbalanced and OP.

Cookie cutter builds would become an even greater problem.

and then they add more type of healing and buffing skill lines and sudenlly you have MORE options.....

your option right now is lets face it templar or go home lol.....

Mannox

Some of us have been asking for this since beta. ESO should be a class-less game with role requirements (Tank, DPS, Healing etc). I don't think it will happen but then I never expected One Tamriel either.

CurlyQTip

Tandor wrote: »

No thanks, the present system is fine as it is. Classless systems with multiple skill choices only ever end up with one template of the month and that's it. Nothing is gained by it.

Dark Souls has an absurd level of fluidity in character builds, you can make a game without classes that are effective. But that's far more combat focused and refined than most games.

Zordrage

draekab14_ESO wrote: »

Some of us have been asking for this since beta. ESO should be a class-less game with role requirements (Tank, DPS, Healing etc). I don't think it will happen but then I never expected One Tamriel either.

the prob is most people are asking for 100% freedom with skills... and thats just impossible to balance.... and just would not work in a multiplayer game...

Skill in skill lines in the other hand.....

Zordrage

Tandor wrote: »

No thanks, the present system is fine as it is. Classless systems with multiple skill choices only ever end up with one template of the month and that's it. Nothing is gained by it.

you never played RIFT do you..........

CurlyQTip

Zordrage wrote: »

CurlyQTip wrote: »

I would prefer a classless system, however balancing it would require rebalancing the entire game to such an incredible degree that it'd honestly require throwing most of the gameplay out.

at that point you'd have a better time adding and balancing 5 completely new classes, as well as adding a forth skill line to every class.

You would also get healers with Wardens healing skill line, templars healing skill line, and a sorc or dk skill line for buffing or something, getting the sustain a sorc has, and the healing of both templar and warden, just stupidly unbalanced and OP.

Cookie cutter builds would become an even greater problem.

and then they add more type of healing and buffing skill lines and sudenlly you have MORE options.....

your option right now is lets face it templar or go home lol.....

I do vet dungeons on warden, templar isn't the only choice, far from it.

This idea that you need cookie cutter builds is absurd, and you're not fixing this with infinite unbalanced builds that have no limits.

Lynx7386

It's not that simple. The game is balanced around the limitations that the 3 trees have for each class. You aren't meant to get around those limitations.

Aebaradath

Uh, no. NO. Can you not see how broken that would be?

Jolipinator

remove the game keep the shame

Zordrage

as i said it would need some rebalancing but its not as broken as people think lol....

if an Underbudged dying game can do it with a waaay more complicated system compared to what im sugesting Zeni devs should be able too with the WAAAAAAAAY more simple skill lines we are using here....

seriously that they don't do anything with this class system tells more about the devs then the game.....

AlnilamE

Zordrage wrote: »

CurlyQTip wrote: »

I would prefer a classless system, however balancing it would require rebalancing the entire game to such an incredible degree that it'd honestly require throwing most of the gameplay out.

at that point you'd have a better time adding and balancing 5 completely new classes, as well as adding a forth skill line to every class.

You would also get healers with Wardens healing skill line, templars healing skill line, and a sorc or dk skill line for buffing or something, getting the sustain a sorc has, and the healing of both templar and warden, just stupidly unbalanced and OP.

Cookie cutter builds would become an even greater problem.

and then they add more type of healing and buffing skill lines and sudenlly you have MORE options.....

your option right now is lets face it templar or go home lol.....

My Nightblade, my Warden and my friend's DK beg to differ.

I like my classes the way they are, thank you very much.

Tandor

Zordrage wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

No thanks, the present system is fine as it is. Classless systems with multiple skill choices only ever end up with one template of the month and that's it. Nothing is gained by it.

you never played RIFT do you..........

I've played Rift extensively. My main was a Paladin/Champion/Warlord, I think that was called a Warrior. What classes did you play?

If you can confirm that you played a Paladin/Pyromancer/NIghtblade then I'll accept Rift as an example of a classless game.

Emmagoldman

front bar, haunting curse, deep fissure, fear, crystal frag, flame lash Dragon leap
Back bar cloak, hardened ward, harness magica, shimmering shield, bol, ritual
Overload bar. Mines, crit surge, ice fortress, streak, cloak, lotus

So would I be able to use this set up? Curse, fissure, timed with a frag and whip would just about one shot everything off of burst.

Guarlet

No. While it's not perfect (I want to see more viable unique class skills, so stamina characters for example aren't so similar), I am fine with the system as it is. Making ESO classless would require one hell of a huge revamp. I'm far, far more interested in seeing them devote resources to any number of other things.

Avran_Sylt

It would still essentially count as a class based system. Then the passives would need to be balanced around that as well, and all that would essentially happen is segmentation of 5 classes into 15 different mini-classes that need to take all 2-option permutations into consideration.

The added customization is nice, but not worth it IMO. At least, not from scratch.

CurlyQTip

Impossibility aside though, it would be interesting to see how truly dynamic you'd be able to make a healing build in a classless game.

Buffs 4 days mate

DeadlyRecluse

It's a good idea on paper but:

1. streak and cloak on the same build. No thanks. There are likely other absolutely broken combinations, but that one is probably the most obvious combo of cheese. Timed Curse+Purifying Light+Spectral Bow would be insane, too.
2. ZOS has already stated they want each class to have 3 trees that are telegraphed via tooltips and the skill advisor to have a tanking, healing and DPS line for each class. I don't particularly like that, so even ignoring balance issues, unbinding class skill lines seems to be the opposite of the direction ZOS is going.

Kiralyn2000

Zordrage wrote: »

CurlyQTip wrote: »

I would prefer a classless system, however balancing it would require rebalancing the entire game to such an incredible degree that it'd honestly require throwing most of the gameplay out.

at that point you'd have a better time adding and balancing 5 completely new classes, as well as adding a forth skill line to every class.

You would also get healers with Wardens healing skill line, templars healing skill line, and a sorc or dk skill line for buffing or something, getting the sustain a sorc has, and the healing of both templar and warden, just stupidly unbalanced and OP.

Cookie cutter builds would become an even greater problem.

and then they add more type of healing and buffing skill lines and sudenlly you have MORE options.....

Quickly followed by the theorycrafters figuring out this month's One True Build, and anyone not running it gets kicked for being a scrub/leech/bad.

BeefyMrTips

I like it but it would eventually turn into cookie cutter character. The trick we need to do is work on the gameplay, IMO. However, this does sound really interesting.

DanteYoda

Tandor wrote: »

No thanks, the present system is fine as it is. Classless systems with multiple skill choices only ever end up with one template of the month and that's it. Nothing is gained by it.

Which is pretty much what we've got already..

Blutengel

I like classes though... Wouldn't mind some extra skill trees.

Anotherone773

Zordrage wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

No thanks, the present system is fine as it is. Classless systems with multiple skill choices only ever end up with one template of the month and that's it. Nothing is gained by it.

you never played RIFT do you..........

Its been a year or two but i dont recall Rift having a classless system. They have or had classes that gave you a multitude of choices to make different builds. You still had classes, they just had far more choices per class and you didnt need a new character for every subclass.

Jarryzzt

Classless can sort of work, but I don't think in ESO.

First, the logistics of making the change would be enormous, to put it mildly. I have a sneaking suspicion development budget and manhours are already not exactly extravagant, especially not with all the things in the pipeline.

Second, this denies ZOS potential future revenues in that every new class released can be bundled with something to get people to pay for it (even ESO+ people). Now, I have no knowledge of whether they plan to do any more classes in the future - indeed, the balancing task involved at this point would be prodigious - however if I were an executive (perish the thought!) I would, first and foremost, want to keep any and all potential future revenue sources in play (and look warily at any proposal that would shut such down).

Third, I suspect that if you were to unlock class lines the meta would quickly coalesce around 2-3-4-5 optimal combinations (out of 455! 15-choose-3 in maths terms). Because, in part, there is no way to sanely balance 455 combinations against each other, and because in general competitive players will always gravitate towards "what works" (casuals, of course, can do what they want). So what would be the point of the unlock? I mean, from the standpoint of improving the game as a whole, not letting some specific individual theory-hammer an uber-character.

So. Blah. I'd rather they spent the energy rebalancing some of the sets, to be honest. And a few of the skills, too, in particular making more stuff "swing both ways" viz. magicka and stamina while removing or toning down some of the "available to all" skills (because how many stamina rotations have you seen that have hail-injection-caltrops-trap in them, for example?).

Rohamad_Ali

It's more complicated then that factoring in Passives . Would require a full rework of the system .

TheShadowScout

To make this work, they would need to rebalance -everything- since otherwise everyone and their granny would run the very same "super-effective" setup, and just imagine how much fun that would be...

Classless setups are workable, but they would have had to build ESO for that right from the start.
And that ship has sailed, been set on fire and sunk a loooong time ago...

We have the current classes. And they are not bloody likely to throw away all the investment and spend a load of money on replacing it with a different system. Anyone at ZOS who suggests that would get fired by the suits in charge.

...

There are only two things that we can hope for.

For one, that they might -add- stuff to their current system; to make it more diverse. More guild DLCs would seem plausible. More Weapon skill lines, perhaps. Possibly even some sort of class specialization option...

And for another, that the next interesting MMO they make might be classless and with free skill selection for everyone! (Cough, FallOut MMO, cough...)

ccfeeling

Skill tree build Mmorpg

Much easy to balance, nerf post will be cut half