ESO without Class Restriction - as TES would be possible?

prtpj1ub17_ESO

I love TES (IV Oblivion is my favorite) and thinking about TES I always remember we chose skills, spells, etc and create a class (or chose a pre-selected skills combo for a pre-created class).

Each class in ESO has 3 skill lines (which mix existent classes from TES games, as Sorc can be a mage, spellsword, battlemage, etc) and this 3 skill lines fixed, thinking about TES, is very restricted.

ALL other skills ingame are free to pickup and combo with 3 class skill lines. So, I was thinking, why not remove this restriction and all skill lines are free to pick by any char??

I know its a MMO, but ESO with all other skill lines proves a MMO can do this.

Maybe someone will tell: "but doing this, the ESO will never achiev true balanced classes". I think the class been balanced is utopy and a way to all MMO's company having motives to frequent updates trying to balance, which will never happens and if in someway this happens, next update will bring something new which unbalance everything again.

How ZOS would bring new classes as did with Necromancer and Warden? ZOS could bring simply new skill lines and do something like TES do, magicka skills separated by schools (destruction, illusion, restoration, etc) which would allow players to diferent types of mages for example or add in the future unarmed skill line.


Am I too crazy??? Would that be possible for a MMO???

Malkiv

Why are people so against having to make meaningful choices? Not even RIFT has a fully-open class system.

And using the, "You'll never achieve 100% class balance, so might as well just give all skill lines to everyone," is just the lowest common denominator argument when a real argument cannot be made.

caperb

I am still missing WHY you want to do such an awful thing.

Do we play the same game?

prtpj1ub17_ESO

Malkiv wrote: »

Why are people so against having to make meaningful choices? Not even RIFT has a fully-open class system.

Its not about "make meaningfull choices" its about how TES is and why not this could happens on ESO too?

Malkiv wrote: »

And using the, "You'll never achieve 100% class balance, so might as well just give all skill lines to everyone," is just the lowest common denominator argument when a real argument cannot be made.

No, its not about it. All mmo I did play or know about, always the company wants the classes balance and this never happens.
If this real never happens, why this could be a excuse for doesnt remove the class restriction (as TES do)?
I believe this is the main issue for class restriction as a MMO genre

prtpj1ub17_ESO

caperb wrote: »

I am still missing WHY you want to do such an awful thing.

Do we play the same game?

A bit of TES3
And TES4, TES5 and now ESO since 2014

mairwen85

https://www.giantbomb.com/classes/3015-405/

On balance, its actually easier to achieve than most people believe. However, player perceived balance is not the same as actual balance. In eso in particular, the approach where classes may have better affiliation with certain roles or damage/defense, but lack in other areas, the open guild and weapon lines are there to backfill and pad out so each class can fulfill any role--it adds a level of dissonance though, because it means ZOS have to balance outside of classes as well as within the power budget of each class. In a class-less game, we'd more likely be playing the exact same homogeneous builds instead of archetypal builds that have crossover. So we'd end up having 100s of skills with minor differences to provide player flavour.

Player perception of balance is a much bigger issue and will always result in fluctuations and king-of-the-hill classes per patch. Players will often be somewhat right wrt where imbalances are, but they will press for 'balance' that suits their own agenda rather than what is healthy for the game.

trackdemon5512

For the immediate future, absolutely not. ZOS is still trying to balance the current classes out for fairness sake. Now you’re asking to abandon all individuality of characters to where I guarantee basically every DD will run the same meta build and you’re asking to dramatically alter the skill system of the game.

The latter is a bigger issue than the former as the smallest things tend to break the game literally. It’s already been mentioned by the developers that they don’t want to add new systems until the game finally stabilizes and performance increases. A

Also with such a breadth of skills available you would have players complaining that there aren’t enough skill points for proper builds. I’d avoid all this and just leave well enough alone.

Make new toons in the classes you want and roll them as you see fit to accomplish your vision.

Vevvev

As much as I'd love ESO to have a similar system to the single player games (Oblivion is my favorite to) I know it'll hinder this game.

I played an MMO called Archeage where you could combine three skill lines of your choice to make any kind of character you wanted. It was very fun until you realized that out of the over 200 possible combinations the meta hinged on 4, and of those 4 each one was for a different area of the game (PVP, PVE, healing, and tanking).

All that diversity meant nothing when the most efficient way to do things is found. Like look at Oblivion and Skyrim for instance and pull up the stealth archer meme. That was the most efficient way to play, and while I loved to make mage characters that cheesed other aspects of these games, they could never compare with the efficient killing power of the stealth archer.

VaranisArano

The other TES games are single player games with no real endgame or competitive aspects. It didn't matter if you wanted to play through Skyrim as a stealth archer or a mage who only used frost spells.

ESO is an MMORPG. It has an endgame and it has competitive aspects. That means it does matter to players when certain combinations are "more effective" than other combinations.

What does that mean for "no skill line restrictions"?

It means that many players will choose to use exactly those combinations that are most effective while not using those which are less effective.

Among roleplayers, it increases diversity.
Among endgame players and PVPers, it decreases the diversity we currently have with different classes.

wheresbes

I'm all for builds diversity, so I'd love to see that as well, OP! I'd like, for instance, that we could specialise in frost/flame/shock regardless of the class, or that we could have the ability to conjure a "permanent" creature without necessarily be a sorc or a warden.

They could add new skill lines, in fact (if I remember correctly) they gave out NB skills to other classes or through generic skill lines so I don't really see the issue here ~ a salty nightblade

Faulgor

Malkiv wrote: »

Why are people so against having to make meaningful choices? Not even RIFT has a fully-open class system.

And using the, "You'll never achieve 100% class balance, so might as well just give all skill lines to everyone," is just the lowest common denominator argument when a real argument cannot be made.

If there were meaningful choices, maybe. But the classes largely all play the same.
The more meaningul choices are in your skill bar loadout, which would be limited no matter what.

To the OP, that would have been the ideal design IMO. But by now that ship has sailed. Maybe for ESO2!

SgtNuttzmeg

prtpj1ub17_ESO wrote: »

I love TES (IV Oblivion is my favorite) and thinking about TES I always remember we chose skills, spells, etc and create a class (or chose a pre-selected skills combo for a pre-created class).

Each class in ESO has 3 skill lines (which mix existent classes from TES games, as Sorc can be a mage, spellsword, battlemage, etc) and this 3 skill lines fixed, thinking about TES, is very restricted.

ALL other skills ingame are free to pickup and combo with 3 class skill lines. So, I was thinking, why not remove this restriction and all skill lines are free to pick by any char??

I know its a MMO, but ESO with all other skill lines proves a MMO can do this.

Maybe someone will tell: "but doing this, the ESO will never achiev true balanced classes". I think the class been balanced is utopy and a way to all MMO's company having motives to frequent updates trying to balance, which will never happens and if in someway this happens, next update will bring something new which unbalance everything again.

How ZOS would bring new classes as did with Necromancer and Warden? ZOS could bring simply new skill lines and do something like TES do, magicka skills separated by schools (destruction, illusion, restoration, etc) which would allow players to diferent types of mages for example or add in the future unarmed skill line.


Am I too crazy??? Would that be possible for a MMO???

Because everybody would choose the same three trees. You would remove whatever build diversity this game has left which is barely any. This is a terrible idea.

Anotherone773

prtpj1ub17_ESO wrote: »

I love TES (IV Oblivion is my favorite) and thinking about TES I always remember we chose skills, spells, etc and create a class (or chose a pre-selected skills combo for a pre-created class).

Each class in ESO has 3 skill lines (which mix existent classes from TES games, as Sorc can be a mage, spellsword, battlemage, etc) and this 3 skill lines fixed, thinking about TES, is very restricted.

ALL other skills ingame are free to pickup and combo with 3 class skill lines. So, I was thinking, why not remove this restriction and all skill lines are free to pick by any char??

I know its a MMO, but ESO with all other skill lines proves a MMO can do this.

Maybe someone will tell: "but doing this, the ESO will never achiev true balanced classes". I think the class been balanced is utopy and a way to all MMO's company having motives to frequent updates trying to balance, which will never happens and if in someway this happens, next update will bring something new which unbalance everything again.

How ZOS would bring new classes as did with Necromancer and Warden? ZOS could bring simply new skill lines and do something like TES do, magicka skills separated by schools (destruction, illusion, restoration, etc) which would allow players to diferent types of mages for example or add in the future unarmed skill line.


Am I too crazy??? Would that be possible for a MMO???

My biggest problem with the way ESO does their class system is its neither traditional/mmo style nor is is TES style. Instead it is a hybrid mashup that somehow managed to highlight the negatives about both systems while bringing very little of the positives from either.

I like Rifts class system because it has a lot of options but i still feel like i am playing a class that has unique skills and abilities. I like TES 3,4,5 class system( mostly 3 and 4 as 5 was starting to get very watered down) in which practice makes perfect. You have to work on skills you want...a lot.

The TES system would be great for the leveling system we currently have. I would want the skills to be more grindy than in TES since this is an MMO and you play over a long period.

prtpj1ub17_ESO

mairwen85 wrote: »

https://www.giantbomb.com/classes/3015-405/

On balance, its actually easier to achieve than most people believe. However, player perceived balance is not the same as actual balance. In eso in particular, the approach where classes may have better affiliation with certain roles or damage/defense, but lack in other areas, the open guild and weapon lines are there to backfill and pad out so each class can fulfill any role--it adds a level of dissonance though, because it means ZOS have to balance outside of classes as well as within the power budget of each class. In a class-less game, we'd more likely be playing the exact same homogeneous builds instead of archetypal builds that have crossover. So we'd end up having 100s of skills with minor differences to provide player flavour.

Player perception of balance is a much bigger issue and will always result in fluctuations and king-of-the-hill classes per patch. Players will often be somewhat right wrt where imbalances are, but they will press for 'balance' that suits their own agenda rather than what is healthy for the game.

TES IV for example works with class archetyps, but gives the player the option to create his own class. Sometimes with minor differences compared with a archetyps and others complety uniques. I was thinking about that, give players the option to chose a archetype (the game could give the player this option recommending certain skills to fit it) or customize.

prtpj1ub17_ESO

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

For the immediate future, absolutely not. ZOS is still trying to balance the current classes out for fairness sake.

Since 2014? (as many other mmos try to do?)

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Make new toons in the classes you want and roll them as you see fit to accomplish your vision.

I already have each class on 810 (starting double it for stamina + magicka builds)

prtpj1ub17_ESO

Vevvev wrote: »

As much as I'd love ESO to have a similar system to the single player games (Oblivion is my favorite to) I know it'll hinder this game.

I played an MMO called Archeage where you could combine three skill lines of your choice to make any kind of character you wanted. It was very fun until you realized that out of the over 200 possible combinations the meta hinged on 4, and of those 4 each one was for a different area of the game (PVP, PVE, healing, and tanking).

All that diversity meant nothing when the most efficient way to do things is found. Like look at Oblivion and Skyrim for instance and pull up the stealth archer meme. That was the most efficient way to play, and while I loved to make mage characters that cheesed other aspects of these games, they could never compare with the efficient killing power of the stealth archer.

Unfortunatly mmos yet didnt find a way to offer a way to players not build few optimized meta builds and everyone copie and paste that.
This issue as you said exist on Archeage, but exist too on WoW and exist on ESO and others mmos, right?. Players always will google it looking for the right builds.

I think this is a problem which already exist and will not be created by what I said above

validifyedneb18_ESO

Eso has very balanced classes, within a few % of each other. Compare that to wow where their target is a 20% range, which they often fail to achieve.

The reason its so "balanced" is because the meta is so 1 dimensional. Stamina classes especially all use the same sets, same weapons, enchantments, mostly the same abilities.

The reason we have classes is because there is a fear without it the entire user base would gravitate to the exact same build - as they already do today, but with the ability to make every character the exact same.

That said, I do like the idea, it would be much more fun for what I do, theorycrafting thematic and off-meta builds.

prtpj1ub17_ESO

VaranisArano wrote: »

ESO is an MMORPG. It has an endgame and it has competitive aspects. That means it does matter to players when certain combinations are "more effective" than other combinations.

What does that mean for "no skill line restrictions"?

It means that many players will choose to use exactly those combinations that are most effective while not using those which are less effective.

Among roleplayers, it increases diversity.
Among endgame players and PVPers, it decreases the diversity we currently have with different classes.

Players already look for more effective combinations, this already happens. And different comparing with other more "classic" mmos, ESO doesnt restricts weapons to a classe. Our restriction on almost all skills are stamina vs magicka.

If ESO already heave almost all skill lines open to every char, why cant do the same with the 3 class skill lines??
We havent balanced classes, we have meta builds which almost everyone copie and paste, we have OP builds in pvp...all the problemas could exist removing classe skill restriction already exist in game and others mmos.

validifyedneb18_ESO

prtpj1ub17_ESO wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

As much as I'd love ESO to have a similar system to the single player games (Oblivion is my favorite to) I know it'll hinder this game.

I played an MMO called Archeage where you could combine three skill lines of your choice to make any kind of character you wanted. It was very fun until you realized that out of the over 200 possible combinations the meta hinged on 4, and of those 4 each one was for a different area of the game (PVP, PVE, healing, and tanking).

All that diversity meant nothing when the most efficient way to do things is found. Like look at Oblivion and Skyrim for instance and pull up the stealth archer meme. That was the most efficient way to play, and while I loved to make mage characters that cheesed other aspects of these games, they could never compare with the efficient killing power of the stealth archer.

Unfortunatly mmos yet didnt find a way to offer a way to players not build few optimized meta builds and everyone copie and paste that.
This issue as you said exist on Archeage, but exist too on WoW and exist on ESO and others mmos, right?. Players always will google it looking for the right builds.

I think this is a problem which already exist and will not be created by what I said above

Exactly this, build diversity or dps-diversity which is what that really means, only happens when the content is trivial and the need to minimax is mute.

The pvp community however does have amazing build diversity. I near straight refuse to do serious pve because of the meta problem eso already had.

Again though, *** it, I'd love a classless eso

prtpj1ub17_ESO

validifyedneb18_ESO wrote: »

Eso has very balanced classes, within a few % of each other. Compare that to wow where their target is a 20% range, which they often fail to achieve.

The reason its so "balanced" is because the meta is so 1 dimensional. Stamina classes especially all use the same sets, same weapons, enchantments, mostly the same abilities.

The reason we have classes is because there is a fear without it the entire user base would gravitate to the exact same build - as they already do today, but with the ability to make every character the exact same.

That said, I do like the idea, it would be much more fun for what I do, theorycrafting thematic and off-meta builds.

Thats the point...the issue with everyone using the same meta build already exist. The idea which I said is about add more fun with theorycrafting thematiic and off-meta builds. Players which use the same meta builds, i believe, care about do the job more and more efficiently and be the top one. It will not change, i think, as they will do the same they already do.

idk

An MMO, even an ESO MMO, without class-based skills would get very boring very fast and very restrictive.

OP is correct that ESO having so many skill lines that are available to all does prove something. It proves that removing the barriers to the remaining skills would do exactly what I said and more. ESO already has a great lack of diversity in builds because so many skill lines are available to all builds. OPs suggestion would make it so we have one build to rule them all and turn ESO into one of the most boring MMORPGs to date.

validifyedneb18_ESO

You would need something to drive complete switch ups, like skill combos where if you have 2 skills from different skill lines they get a passive damage boost.
this would go some way towards disrupting the linear "shopping list" where all players are doing is looking at what skill lines give them access to the most highest dps abilities

Araneae6537

I like the idea in theory — then you could, for instance, create an elementalist and choose sorc lightning, warden frost and maybe fire from DK. But I fear that in practice there would be the problems others have pointed out and balance would be even worse if there were only a few specific combinations that were meta.

At least ESO includes a lot of abilities that aren’t class specific whereas some games like GW2 have none. So at least in ESO you aren’t totally stuck if you don’t like a class’s abilities. My magcro healer for instance, is going to use very few necro abilities because I don’t like many of them and/or they don’t fit my vision for the character.

Ryuvain

Wish this game was truly as open. One thing I loved about Skyrim is finding or learning spells along the way. When a spellbook dropped was one of the best feelings I got playing that game.

Class doesn't make much sense for elder scrolls as abilities were never locked. (At least in all the scrolls games I've played.) Specialties or focus is fine, but completely shutting out abilities isn't.

VaranisArano

prtpj1ub17_ESO wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

ESO is an MMORPG. It has an endgame and it has competitive aspects. That means it does matter to players when certain combinations are "more effective" than other combinations.

What does that mean for "no skill line restrictions"?

It means that many players will choose to use exactly those combinations that are most effective while not using those which are less effective.

Among roleplayers, it increases diversity.
Among endgame players and PVPers, it decreases the diversity we currently have with different classes.

Players already look for more effective combinations, this already happens. And different comparing with other more "classic" mmos, ESO doesnt restricts weapons to a classe. Our restriction on almost all skills are stamina vs magicka.

If ESO already heave almost all skill lines open to every char, why cant do the same with the 3 class skill lines??
We havent balanced classes, we have meta builds which almost everyone copie and paste, we have OP builds in pvp...all the problemas could exist removing classe skill restriction already exist in game and others mmos.

You'd lower build diversity down even further.

Consider that even with most stamina and magicka builds using many of the same weapon/guild skills, you still have 12 or so distinct builds in PVE, and even more if you consider that each class has distinct builds for the tank, healer, and DD role.

There's a distinct meta for each class's builds:
Stam Sorc/Mag Sorc (non-pet)/Mag Sorc (pet)
Stamblade/Magblade
StamDK/MagDK
Stamplar/Magplar
StamWarden/MagWarden
Stamcro/Magcro

But let's say you can now pick whatever skills are the most effective from any class and now we're looking at a list of meta builds like:
Tank
Healer
Stamina DD
Magicka DD

If you think copy-pasted meta builds are a problem now, this is not a good solution. This makes that problem worse.

Megatto

We should have had the 18 classes from Arena. Just because.

hafgood

I have a stamplar, a stamsorc, a stamden, a stamdk and a stamblade. And guess what, they all play differently. Take away the class restrictions and guess what - i have 5 stam dd's.

And all 5 are going to end up playing the same with the same skills. What then is the point of me actually spending time on any other than my main? After all they are all identical? Same rotation, same skills, same gear.

At least with classes we get some diversity.

The only diversity you would get would be where specific skills were needed for a trial or dungeon. No thanks.

Dark_Lord_Kuro

That idea sound awful
It kill the need for other characters
Also while meta build already exist, there would be even less option
Now we have a few meta build per roles (mag dps/stam dps/tank/healer) but with that it would be one of each
A personnaly Hope we NEVER get to that

LoneStar2911

We'd all be templar+nightblade (+maybe sorcerer) hybrids. Lol

ealdwin

LoneStar2911 wrote: »

We'd all be templar+nightblade (+maybe sorcerer) hybrids. Lol

Oh, my Templar would pick up Surge in an instant. For PVP it would pick up Streak + Cloak as well. While I'm at it, Backlash would be out and Daedric Curse would be in. Add in Northern Storm and Ice Fortress from Warden, maybe Growing Swarm and Bird of Prey, and yeah... that's a build that should never exist.

Gilvoth

a classless system would absolutely be the Very Best thing to ever happen to eso.
we would choose from 3 major, miner and healing and defensive skills list and be limited as to not allow it to become over powered. it would be perfect and create class balance that we so Desperately need. some complain that OP builds would be created, and boring one trick pony builds would happen, but that is completely False because THAT is what we already Have OP builds, and boring one trick pony builds.
classless system would fix the problems we now have and make endless builds possible, it really would be the very Best thing for pvp, pve, and the entire Game.