Class design grumblings

Tonturri

So...It feels like I'm playing a game where it was MEANT to have a design that allowed me to pick any skill line I liked, and instead, I have a mishmash of 'no classes!' and 'there are classes' (in the form of classes where I'm forced to take three skill lines together). It really seems like this design is at war with itself, like ZOS tried to do both and so did both of them badly.

Furthermore, I'm beginning to notice that a lot of things are...well, basically the same thing.

Take Templar's BoL/morphs/etc skill. Compare it to necromancer's Render Flesh. These two skills are effectively the exact same thing with minor variation. ZOS could reskin the morphs of one into the aesthetic of the other and nobody would notice. Hell, one morph of Render Flesh consumes a corpse to basically do the same thing one morph of the templar skill does, except stronger. This is just one example - I'm trying to keep this from becoming a massive wall 'o text, but this issue springs up multiple times across other skills.

Another issue that highlights this...class design issue, I think, is the illusion of choice on some morphs. Now - I want to say that ZOS has been doing a pretty good job, imo, with this portion of things. It used to be a lot worse, and I gotta admit they seem to be starting to cover their bases on this one. That said - remember when Surge has two morphs, one of which was garbage for magicka builds while great for stam setups, and the other morph was the other way around?

So, ultimately, classes are more...a collection of skill lines that feel arbitrarily stitched together, instead of an actual class. In fact, necromancer is the only one I would say has any sort of 'class mechanic' in the form of corpses - every other 'class' (and even necro to an extent - I like the corpse mechanic, but still...) is just a collection of skills with an aesthetic with few actual differences.

Now, whether or not this is ZOS' intent, I can't say, and it doesn't really matter to me - because it seems to result in 'classes' that have few differences to the point where playing a different class is just...a slight change. And it's boring.

Now - I'm not saying the classes are *entirely* the same. There are differences between them (bolt escape vs cloak, for example) and I can appreciate how the availability of certain types of skills can shift a playstyle (sorc's Bolt Escape and shields resulting in a more mobile playstyle, while templar's stand to be a little slower/burlier). However, as I said in the first bit of the post, it seems ZOS tried to smash together two conflicting class design methods and it's making it hard - for me, anyway - to enjoy the game cuz...well, class design impacts almost everything, doesn't it?

Also, I won't get into it too much but I also find the whole...homogenized buff thing to be utterly boring as well - I don't like how ZOS has implemented how classes buff themselves (major/minor system). Anyway, that aside...

In summary - there are differences between classes, but ZOS's class design ideas and the clash between 'play how you want' and 'this is a class because we say so' has resulted in 'classes' that, imo, are nowhere near different enough...to the point where it's the primary reason I stopped playing regularly. I hope they start to implement more things like necromancer's corpse mechanic, OR start to peel apart enforced 'classes' and let people pick whatever they like.

As a side note - you may ask why I haven't extensively detailed how I would fix this issue. Thaaat is because there's a *ton* of different things ZOS could implement and I care more about their design philosophy over the choices they make w/in that.

Anywho, if you've read this far - thanks! I just wanted to get this off my chest. I think the game is great and, ah, wish I could actually stand to play it.

Noxavian

Tonturri wrote: »

So...It feels like I'm playing a game where it was MEANT to have a design that allowed me to pick any skill line I liked, and instead, I have a mishmash of 'no classes!' and 'there are classes' (in the form of classes where I'm forced to take three skill lines together). It really seems like this design is at war with itself, like ZOS tried to do both and so did both of them badly.

Furthermore, I'm beginning to notice that a lot of things are...well, basically the same thing.

Take Templar's BoL/morphs/etc skill. Compare it to necromancer's Render Flesh. These two skills are effectively the exact same thing with minor variation. ZOS could reskin the morphs of one into the aesthetic of the other and nobody would notice. Hell, one morph of Render Flesh consumes a corpse to basically do the same thing one morph of the templar skill does, except stronger. This is just one example - I'm trying to keep this from becoming a massive wall 'o text, but this issue springs up multiple times across other skills.

Another issue that highlights this...class design issue, I think, is the illusion of choice on some morphs. Now - I want to say that ZOS has been doing a pretty good job, imo, with this portion of things. It used to be a lot worse, and I gotta admit they seem to be starting to cover their bases on this one. That said - remember when Surge has two morphs, one of which was garbage for magicka builds while great for stam setups, and the other morph was the other way around?

So, ultimately, classes are more...a collection of skill lines that feel arbitrarily stitched together, instead of an actual class. In fact, necromancer is the only one I would say has any sort of 'class mechanic' in the form of corpses - every other 'class' (and even necro to an extent - I like the corpse mechanic, but still...) is just a collection of skills with an aesthetic with few actual differences.

Now, whether or not this is ZOS' intent, I can't say, and it doesn't really matter to me - because it seems to result in 'classes' that have few differences to the point where playing a different class is just...a slight change. And it's boring.

Now - I'm not saying the classes are *entirely* the same. There are differences between them (bolt escape vs cloak, for example) and I can appreciate how the availability of certain types of skills can shift a playstyle (sorc's Bolt Escape and shields resulting in a more mobile playstyle, while templar's stand to be a little slower/burlier). However, as I said in the first bit of the post, it seems ZOS tried to smash together two conflicting class design methods and it's making it hard - for me, anyway - to enjoy the game cuz...well, class design impacts almost everything, doesn't it?

Also, I won't get into it too much but I also find the whole...homogenized buff thing to be utterly boring as well - I don't like how ZOS has implemented how classes buff themselves (major/minor system). Anyway, that aside...

In summary - there are differences between classes, but ZOS's class design ideas and the clash between 'play how you want' and 'this is a class because we say so' has resulted in 'classes' that, imo, are nowhere near different enough...to the point where it's the primary reason I stopped playing regularly. I hope they start to implement more things like necromancer's corpse mechanic, OR start to peel apart enforced 'classes' and let people pick whatever they like.

As a side note - you may ask why I haven't extensively detailed how I would fix this issue. Thaaat is because there's a *ton* of different things ZOS could implement and I care more about their design philosophy over the choices they make w/in that.

Anywho, if you've read this far - thanks! I just wanted to get this off my chest. I think the game is great and, ah, wish I could actually stand to play it.

I can only hope that one day they just make skills learn-able via in-game stuff. Therefore it's up to the player to make their own class....

I also hope that one day NPC (not boss) skills will be available to players. Ever wanted to summon a zombie/skeleton/spirt/bone colossus? NPCs can. Ever wanted to back flip over someone? Rogue NPCs can. Ever wanted to do that lightning storm teleport into AoE? NPCs can.

There is so many options for skills that would make classes more fleshed out/add more variety to builds on NPCs it's actually kinda insane.

starkerealm

Tonturri wrote: »

Hell, one morph of Render Flesh consumes a corpse to basically do the same thing one morph of the templar skill does, except stronger.

So it's a stronger ability with an added drawback. No corpses, no benefit. That's not, "the same thing," it's a different skill that fills a similar role.

With respect, it's very apparent your understanding of the game is fairly limited. You look at two abilities in isolation and think, "well, these are similar, so everything else must be." The best example of this is your comparison of Bolt Escape and Cloak.

Cloak is defensive skill that can be used to break combat. It also provides a brief, but significant buff to your resistances each time you cast it. It passively increases your max health for being slotted. And it comes from a skill line that increases all three regen stats.

You can use cloak to better position yourself for an opening strike, but the primary application is to break contact or avoid detection entirely.

Bolt Escape is an offensive CC. It is the most versatile gap closer in the game. It can be used defensively to put distance between you and something trying to kill you, but it's inelegant for that. It passively increases your weapon and spell damage for being slotted, and comes from a skill line that regens your Magicka faster. It also exists in a class that has reduced ability costs (including ultimates), but it's resource recovery will never match that of the Nightblade.

The closest equivalent to Bolt Escape on the Nightblade is Teleport Strike, not cloak. This is, again, say it with me, an offensive CC ability with gap closer functionality. However, it differs from Bolt Escape significantly, because it needs a target, (Bolt Escape can gap close to empty space, making it entirely unique in ESO.) The trade off is that while Teleport Strike has to have a target, it does not have a fixed distance.

The three class lines significantly alter how each class plays. Now, there's some truth that stam builds tend to be a bit more homogeneous than mag builds, but each class does have unique elements. For example: Arguing that a Stamblade and a StamKnight are just the same build with minor changes in their ability visuals would be laughable.

I understand that there are a number of superficially similar elements in various classes, however, the classes themselves have a far greater effect on your playstyle than you may realize. Especially if you're not dealing with level capped characters.

starkerealm

Noxavian wrote: »

I can only hope that one day they just make skills learn-able via in-game stuff. Therefore it's up to the player to make their own class....

Earthen Heart + Daedric Summoning = Game's broken.

Tonturri

starkerealm wrote: »

Tonturri wrote: »

Hell, one morph of Render Flesh consumes a corpse to basically do the same thing one morph of the templar skill does, except stronger.

So it's a stronger ability with an added drawback. No corpses, no benefit. That's not, "the same thing," it's a different skill that fills a similar role.

With respect, it's very apparent your understanding of the game is fairly limited. You look at two abilities in isolation and think, "well, these are similar, so everything else must be." The best example of this is your comparison of Bolt Escape and Cloak.

Cloak is defensive skill that can be used to break combat. It also provides a brief, but significant buff to your resistances each time you cast it. It passively increases your max health for being slotted. And it comes from a skill line that increases all three regen stats.

You can use cloak to better position yourself for an opening strike, but the primary application is to break contact or avoid detection entirely.

Bolt Escape is an offensive CC. It is the most versatile gap closer in the game. It can be used defensively to put distance between you and something trying to kill you, but it's inelegant for that. It passively increases your weapon and spell damage for being slotted, and comes from a skill line that regens your Magicka faster. It also exists in a class that has reduced ability costs (including ultimates), but it's resource recovery will never match that of the Nightblade.

The closest equivalent to Bolt Escape on the Nightblade is Teleport Strike, not cloak. This is, again, say it with me, an offensive CC ability with gap closer functionality. However, it differs from Bolt Escape significantly, because it needs a target, (Bolt Escape can gap close to empty space, making it entirely unique in ESO.) The trade off is that while Teleport Strike has to have a target, it does not have a fixed distance.

The three class lines significantly alter how each class plays. Now, there's some truth that stam builds tend to be a bit more homogeneous than mag builds, but each class does have unique elements. For example: Arguing that a Stamblade and a StamKnight are just the same build with minor changes in their ability visuals would be laughable.

I understand that there are a number of superficially similar elements in various classes, however, the classes themselves have a far greater effect on your playstyle than you may realize. Especially if you're not dealing with level capped characters.

With respect, it's very apparent you either didn't read any-...yeah. I think I very specifically addressed this part. It's kinda hard to not reply with something snippy and leave it at that, so bear with me. But you're looking at an extremely small part of my entire post in isolation, it seems.

In all honesty - did you read the entire thing? If you did, that means there's something wrong with the presentation - which is fine, but I'd rather someone just say that instead of 'with all due respect, <something I've already addressed>'.

Now - I'm not saying the classes are *entirely* the same. There are differences between them (bolt escape vs cloak, for example) and I can appreciate how the availability of certain types of skills can shift a playstyle

I'm not sure why you seem to be focusing on the two skills I listed as an example of differences that have a not-insignificant impact on playstyle.

If you like, check my forum join date. I can even provide a screenshot of my character select screen if you want further context.

MEBengalsFan2001

The reason why some class skills seem similar in design is that all classes can play all roles. If certain classes could only be healers, magika DD, Stamina DD and tanks it would allow the devs to fine tune the game more but imagine you been playing ESO since launch and your main is a Tank Templar or a Tank Sorc and the devs decide those two classes will not be tanks going forward and can be healers or only magika damage dealers. How do you think the community would react? Pitch forks and torches would be grabbed and players would be headed over to their local Zenimax headquarter with all players no longer playing do to such a dramatic change to the core/base of the game.

Hellvlad

The class differences are more visible in healer and tank roles. DDs of every class will feel and play very close to each other. buff yourself, Layer dots/ AOEs, place a light attack between each skill and and up with your filler attack, rince and repeat.

Tanks however and healers feel really different. The traditional DK stam tank with 1h + shield is really of a complete design and gameplay from lets say a magika warden tank with a forst + healing staff. A necro tank has a larger focus on control powers and AOEs.

Aside from this, I agree with you that the more the powers get "normalized" the more I find myself doing the nearly exact same rotation on every stam DD or magika DD.

starkerealm

Tonturri wrote: »

With respect, it's very apparent you either didn't read any-...yeah.

I read enough to get the gist. You're complaining because there isn't enough class variety in ESO. That means, regardless your /played all, that you haven't spent enough time actually learning to play your classes, and/or, you've spent too much time looking at cookie cutter builds from someone who's dead set on forcing square pegs into round holes.

Gilvoth

they should remove classes and let us choose 2 major and 2 minor skills 2 damage skills and 2 healing skills from a list the same way we can in morrowind SP.

starkerealm

Gilvoth wrote: »

they should remove classes and let us choose 2 major and 2 minor skills 2 damage skills and 2 healing skills from a list the same way we can in morrowind SP.

Which would kneecap build diversity, and result in far more uniformity in high level play. With a bonus that new players could cripple themselves before they even started the tutorial before they got their hands on the game.

Tonturri

starkerealm wrote: »

Tonturri wrote: »

With respect, it's very apparent you either didn't read any-...yeah.

I read enough to get the gist. You're complaining because there isn't enough class variety in ESO. That means, regardless your /played all, that you haven't spent enough time actually learning to play your classes, and/or, you've spent too much time looking at cookie cutter builds from someone who's dead set on forcing square pegs into round holes.

I'm happy to elaborate and attempt to clear up any misinterpretations, but you're reminding me of the Alik'ir Desert here.

Hellvlad wrote: »

The class differences are more visible in healer and tank roles. DDs of every class will feel and play very close to each other. buff yourself, Layer dots/ AOEs, place a light attack between each skill and and up with your filler attack, rince and repeat.

Tanks however and healers feel really different. The traditional DK stam tank with 1h + shield is really of a complete design and gameplay from lets say a magika warden tank with a forst + healing staff. A necro tank has a larger focus on control powers and AOEs.

Aside from this, I agree with you that the more the powers get "normalized" the more I find myself doing the nearly exact same rotation on every stam DD or magika DD.

I don't particularly care what the meta is - by virtue of being the meta it's always going to tend towards a certain x that's remarkably similar to a lot of other things. Though I do feel bad for some stam builds - and ZOS could probably do a little better for higher end stuff, that's neither here nor there.

Part of what I went into for the original post was the lack of class wide mechanics. There's synergy between skill lines in a lot of cases (as wonky as it can sometimes be), but there are few things that are...skill-line wide, so to speak, like necro's corpses.

I really enjoy that stamina warden was a feasible healer at some point, that nightblade had the whole...attack to siphon health and distribute it to allies thing going - I just wish those kinds of options in playstyle were more widely available. Sorcerer tanks a while back were also pretty cool, though it seems like ZOS has slowly been nudging both healers and tanks towards the same sort of playstyle. I think a good metric is to ask 'what does this actually change?' - in a lot of cases, the answer is 'nothing'.

Perhaps this is something that cannot be adjusted too much due to how ZOS has implemented the major/minor buffing system and how resources work, but even so.

Mind you, not completely disagreeing here - necro tanking and frost staff warden really helped keep me in the game for a little while longer, and I agree that differences can be seen a little easier in tank and healer setups in most cases. Seeing ZOS finally give sorc healers a morph of Surge to work with was a really great day - I just wish they did more of that kind of thing!

Tonturri

MEBengalsFan2001 wrote: »

The reason why some class skills seem similar in design is that all classes can play all roles. If certain classes could only be healers, magika DD, Stamina DD and tanks it would allow the devs to fine tune the game more but imagine you been playing ESO since launch and your main is a Tank Templar or a Tank Sorc and the devs decide those two classes will not be tanks going forward and can be healers or only magika damage dealers. How do you think the community would react? Pitch forks and torches would be grabbed and players would be headed over to their local Zenimax headquarter with all players no longer playing do to such a dramatic change to the core/base of the game.

I put this down partially to a lack of imagination on ZOS' part, and partially to how they've designed the game. They have so many games to draw on, it can be mind boggling sometimes when they make this or that choice for a skill, morph, passive, etc. It does seem like resources and how block works has really limited how they can go about things though.

And, of course, there's more to life than the heal-dps-tank trifecta. But if that's how they want to go about things, more power to 'em. Just thought I would toss my 2c onto the forums.

Gilvoth

starkerealm wrote: »

Gilvoth wrote: »

they should remove classes and let us choose 2 major and 2 minor skills 2 damage skills and 2 healing skills from a list the same way we can in morrowind SP.

Which would kneecap build diversity, and result in far more uniformity in high level play. With a bonus that new players could cripple themselves before they even started the tutorial before they got their hands on the game.

no one was crippled and it worked (still works) perfectly even untill today its perfect and everyone loves it now almost 20 years later!

starkerealm

Gilvoth wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Gilvoth wrote: »

they should remove classes and let us choose 2 major and 2 minor skills 2 damage skills and 2 healing skills from a list the same way we can in morrowind SP.

Which would kneecap build diversity, and result in far more uniformity in high level play. With a bonus that new players could cripple themselves before they even started the tutorial before they got their hands on the game.

no one was crippled and it worked (still works) perfectly even untill today its perfect and everyone loves it now almost 20 years later!

It's entirely possible, easy in fact, to create an unplayable custom class in Morrowind.

Hell, some of the pregen classes can be borderline unplayable if you mix them with the wrong races. Don't believe me? Roll up a Breton Nightblade. That sounds reasonable, right? Except the low starting agility cripples your ability to get basic training for several class skills. Agility isn't a class attribute, three of your ten skills depend on it. Made worse because you need to raise all of those skills above your starting agility before they'll be at a usable level. This is to say nothing of some classes like Agent or Healer that are built around playstyles that TES3 doesn't support.

If you know how to play, it's not a problem. If you understand the game, it's all manageable. The problem is when your character creation is promising the player an experience that doesn't exist. The Agent tells you that you'll be able to play the game smooth talking your way through problems, and use your social skills to bypass problems. It sounds cool, except of course Morrowind doesn't allow for that. You can sometimes get better dialog from characters, but that's about it.

This is the entire reason Skyrim did away with classes entirely. What Bethesda found from Morrowind and Oblivion was that players would roll up a character, put a couple hours in, and then go back and create a new player that actually fit with their playstyle (or, I'm assuming, get frustrated and abandon the game entirely.)

Picking a class in Morrowind or Oblivion requires you to understand the experience you enjoy, and picking a character that plays into that.

Now, if you're looking at ESO, you pick off the full list of skills. There are no damage or healing skill lines. That's just not how the game's designed. So your new player walks in, and they pick off the menu for skill lines they think sound cool. So they take Dark Magic, Draconic Power, and Dawn's Wrath, because those all sound cool. They want to go around stabbing people and you may have just noticed that skill mix is absolute garbage for a stam build.

This gets even worse if you're asking them to pick their armor and weapon skills. Add heavy armor, because they want to get into a fight, two handed and S&B, because they liked the sword and board experience in Skyrim, and you've got a crippled character that will never be able to run as a stam build.

Maybe you want to be sneaky. You want a stealth archer because that was your favorite thing in Skyrim. So you take Assassination, Shadow, Light Armor, Bow, and maybe Dual Wield.

Do you see the problem?

Light armor on a stam build.

And, because it's part of the class system, it now costs real money, or a lot of grinding to try to walk back those mistakes.

This is how you let a player cripple their character before they start the tutorial.

In the ESO that actually exists, if you look at the Nightblade and say, "I want to play one of those," you're not restricted to being a stamina based assassin. You could also be a tank, a healer, or a shadowy magical assassin. You have options. If none of those play styles appeal, then you might need to roll up a different character. But, there's a very, "what you see is what you get," element to the class aesthetics.

Again, if you're mixing and matching across classes, and you didn't pick Daedric Summoning, and Draconic Power, you did something very... VERY, wrong.

Kahnak

It seems like the OP is kind of all over the place with the point here. On one hand, it seems like you're complaining that abilities are too much like one another:

"Take Templar's BoL/morphs/etc skill. Compare it to necromancer's Render Flesh. These two skills are effectively the exact same thing with minor variation. ZOS could reskin the morphs of one into the aesthetic of the other and nobody would notice. Hell, one morph of Render Flesh consumes a corpse to basically do the same thing one morph of the templar skill does, except stronger. This is just one example - I'm trying to keep this from becoming a massive wall 'o text, but this issue springs up multiple times across other skills."

On the other hand, it seems like you're complaining that there aren't enough abilities that provide the same kind of gameplay:

"I really enjoy that stamina warden was a feasible healer at some point, that nightblade had the whole...attack to siphon health and distribute it to allies thing going - I just wish those kinds of options in playstyle were more widely available."

Tonturri

Kahnak wrote: »

It seems like the OP is kind of all over the place with the point here. On one hand, it seems like you're complaining that abilities are too much like one another:

"Take Templar's BoL/morphs/etc skill. Compare it to necromancer's Render Flesh. These two skills are effectively the exact same thing with minor variation. ZOS could reskin the morphs of one into the aesthetic of the other and nobody would notice. Hell, one morph of Render Flesh consumes a corpse to basically do the same thing one morph of the templar skill does, except stronger. This is just one example - I'm trying to keep this from becoming a massive wall 'o text, but this issue springs up multiple times across other skills."

On the other hand, it seems like you're complaining that there aren't enough abilities that provide the same kind of gameplay:

"I really enjoy that stamina warden was a feasible healer at some point, that nightblade had the whole...attack to siphon health and distribute it to allies thing going - I just wish those kinds of options in playstyle were more widely available."

'those kinds of options' being off meta stuff and the like. New(ish) stuff with a different playstyle. Sorry for the confusion. I don't want everybody to have access to nightblade's siphoning playstyle - I was pointing out relatively unique methods of fulfilling a role. It's the uniqueness I'm after, not copying the exact method and playstyle itself over to other classes.