Subclasses, an interesting idea?

SilverIce58

While I'm sure it's difficult to separate the code combining the skill lines into a class, I think that subclasses would be interesting if done in a more tamrielic storyline way. What I mean by this is that if they ever did give us subclasses, they should have it more like a quest where you work with an npc who is that class, like they have tell you about their class in a way that gives each class more lore behind what they do, how they learned their craft, and then after you finish their questline they tell you that they can teach you one aspect (re: skill line) of their class. This would be a permanent addition that you couldn't change in any way. The players would pick one class firstly, and then one skill line, basically.

The questline could be done by you meeting the illustrious Madam Whim outside of some building where she bestows a gift of a newfound experience and allows you to choose which class you'd like to learn the experience from. Through some applied daedric magic, your character is whisked away to some realm where they and the member of said class find themselves stuck and need to escape. Easy, writes itself almost. This would allow you to do it the quest on separate characters, and only once for each. Now there could be some token to change the skill line, but it'd only work for that one skill line (no changing your actual class), and have a restriction on the token where it can only be purchased once per 180 days or something. Thoughts?

Phanex

I enjoyed it in Final Fantasy 11, where you can sub another job at 1/2 your current job's level.

It didn't make you over powered as you only gained the sub job at that level. So if your main job is level 50 then your sub job is only lvl 25. So you'd only have access to the abilities up to level 25.

Could be helpful in this game. Want some better curing abilities? Sub Warden get access to some low level stuff.

I doubt it will ever happen and most of community will never agree to it, but one can theorize how fun it would be.

EramTheLiar

I guess I already think of Magicka, Stamina, or Hybrid as the subclass. Especially since choosing the stamina or magicka morph of a skill can drastically change how you play the game.

TaSheen

I wouldn't be interested in that at all - I have a multitude of alts for that. I also wouldn't be happy if the devs put a lot of time into something like that.

omnidoh

I think they should abolish "Class" altogether and just revert to skill lines.
Elder Scrolls was never about classes, but abilities, and how those abilities were used by the player.

In an MMO where we have "roles", clearly we need to have tailored abilities to suit the situation, such as defensive, offensive, and restorative. But "classes" are pointless, since they're just "flavors" of the same.

Zeni could do a complete overhaul of classes and instead make everything just skill lines, such as the way the guild and world skill lines work, and accomplish the exact same results.

The question is whether or not it's so absolutely vital that players maintain the illusion of their "class" being something special when it's objectively not. I can tank, heal, and dps on a nightblade just like I can on any other class. The only difference is the flavor. Frankly, it would be far more interesting (to me) if I could build a custom character with abilities chosen across all the skill lines, even more interestingly so if the process for obtaining them was "flavored" by quests and story.

Granted, balancing around passives would be the challenge, but that's nothing that can't be calculated out with a couple spreadsheets in a few excel workbooks. It's all just actions per minute, additive, multiplicative, and coefficient maths that can all be factored out in static scenarios. None of this is rocket-surgery, it just costs development time.

Anyhoo, I'd much prefer they did something universal than the continual recycling of a new "class" in the elder scrolls universe. I enjoy their stories, but I don't enjoy leveling 123,456,789 alts, mostly due to the enormous time-sink involved. Having a universal skill system would be the ultimate in terms of customization, awarding players the greatest freedom for their range of enjoyment.

Inaya1

It's impossible and no one will do it.

Creating a new class is already a severe headache. Imagine that you need to create another class among other classes so that it cannot be better or worse than them. At the same time, so that he gives something unique to the group, or has more strength in solo than the rest and is weaker in the group. In addition, this needs to be tested with all weapon branches, guild skills an ENDLESS AMOUNT SETS. And I'm still silent about pvp.

Now you understand what it means to make just one subclass under any, just one class? It will be necessary to balance absolutely everything in "Leviathan" quantities. Well, and this won't make a profit.

jtm1018

Just give me a new skill line.
A pigilist, a fighter or a monk.
Any of this will do.

BXR_Lonestar

I would ordinarily be down for this, except that they've already spent the past couple of years "standardizing" abilities so all similar abilities across classes behave the same way, nerfing good class abilities in favor of getting us to use more of the generic skill lines, and hybridizing combat to make it much less favorable to specialize in purely magika or purely stamina skills. IMO, these steps are largely responsible for destroying class differentiation, and if you don't fix that first, making subclasses will just result in the same issues.

I think they need to go back and re-buff a lot of class skills. Let class skills shine in intended roles. Let the generic skills be the "fill in the gaps" kind of skills again, and then once you rebuild class individualization, then I think subclass specializations would be awesome.

I found love to see a DK fire specialist or venom specialist that gets bonus burning/poison damage or increased duration on their flame/poison abilities, or a templar arch-healer specialist which globally increases healing power significantly at the cost of decreasing damage output.