I feel like starting as a generic "Adventurer" would be more immersive

Terin

Your "class" in ESO feels kind of meaningless, in terms of story. Which, at least to me, feels kind of strange for an RPG; it seems like the kind of thing that *should* help define who your character is.

But honestly, given how open-ended ESO seems, I feel like it would actually be a lot more inviting to just be a generic "Adventurer", instead of the pre-determined flavors of classes we currently have.

I kind of like the idea of just being a character just out for adventure, maybe hunting treasure, but not really swaying towards any particular class. Just fully immersing in whatever particular quest you find yourself on, instead of that pesky feeling of "this doesn't seem like something *this* character would be interested in doing". Or even worse, not feeling like the class really aligns with what you *thought* they would (ie. Sorcerers do indeed wield magic, but are more "dark" magic than your traditional fantasy wizard).

Particularly for those quests that have you sneaking around or stealing things, that sort of playstyle doesn't always line up with what the "character class" would be.

ArchMikem

That's really a symptom of classic MMORPG design, I remember the singleplayer titles let you mix and match classes, but if we were given the freedom here to mix and match all the class skill trees, thered be found a blatant new META that you'd be required to use, if you want to succeed alongside everyone else.

vsrs_au

ArchMikem wrote: »

That's really a symptom of classic MMORPG design, I remember the singleplayer titles let you mix and match classes, but if we were given the freedom here to mix and match all the class skill trees, thered be found a blatant new META that you'd be required to use, if you want to succeed alongside everyone else.

Is that necessarily an argument against mixing classes? There will probably always be a/some meta builds, regardless of how the game works, because that's just human nature, since players will always gravitate towards the most effective and powerful builds.

Syldras

Terin wrote: »

Or even worse, not feeling like the class really aligns with what you *thought* they would (ie. Sorcerers do indeed wield magic, but are more "dark" magic than your traditional fantasy wizard).

The in-game description is "Sorcerers can use conjuration and destruction spells to hurl lightning bolts and create shock fields, wield dark magic to snare and stun, and summon Daedric combat followers from Oblivion to assist them", to be fair.

Terin wrote: »

Particularly for those quests that have you sneaking around or stealing things, that sort of playstyle doesn't always line up with what the "character class" would be.

I see class descriptions as meaningless in regard of roleplay, to be honest. Yes, they have fancy descriptions with TES lore terms thrown in, but they often don't really make sense. As an example, Dragonknight mentions Akaviri battle traditions - it makes no sense at all that thousands of people from all different Tamrielic races would know these traditions and even master them. Warden doesn't make much sense either, it's rooted in Bosmer religion according to the description ("Wardens are defenders of the Green, master storytellers whose nature tales become magical reality." - "storyteller" in this case refers to the Spinners, priests of Y'ffre), and then they don't even summon creatures typical to Valenwood, but cliff racers and netches.

Dax_Draconis

Maybe "Adventurer" could be a new class. It could even have an arrow in the knee perk.

Danikat

This is the one situation where ESO's almost total lack of recognition of who your character is actually comes in useful. I can't remember anywhere your class comes up in a quest, you certainly won't be asked things like why a Sorcerer would want to join the Fighters Guild, or why a Templar is willing to be a Thief.

The only impact your class has is the 3 class skill lines, so I think of it like picking Skills in the previous TES games (just with more restrictions on the available combinations). My main character is a Templar not because she's some aspirational knight but because (like her predecessors in the other games) she uses Destruction and Restoration magic. The only difference is the convention of dividing magic into eight 'schools' isn't widely accepted yet so most people don't use those names.

Of course you can lean more into the default class identity if you want to. My Warden is a breton who ran away from her life in Daggerfall and lived with the Wyresses for several years, travelling around different Wyrds and even some Reach clans, and that's where she learned her magic (yes I have to ignore the Morrowind tie-ins forced on the class for the sake of marketing). But that's my choice, she could have had an entirely different background if I wanted to give her one.

francesinhalover

Oakensul ring and use wep and guild skills etc. No need for class skills.


Now the question is, for a classless class, what class has the best passives?

Uvi_AUT

vsrs_au wrote: »

ArchMikem wrote: »

That's really a symptom of classic MMORPG design, I remember the singleplayer titles let you mix and match classes, but if we were given the freedom here to mix and match all the class skill trees, thered be found a blatant new META that you'd be required to use, if you want to succeed alongside everyone else.

Is that necessarily an argument against mixing classes? There will probably always be a/some meta builds, regardless of how the game works, because that's just human nature, since players will always gravitate towards the most effective and powerful builds.

But at the moment there are at least 18 Metabuilds. If you remove classes that would go down to 3.

mocap

There are no class related dialogs in the game, afaik. If that's what you're talking about. However, there are few race related. Also some vampires can recognise you as vampire.

ESO role play is not about chatter with NPC (despite absurdly insane amount of dialogs), its more about visual: character appearance, house appearance. In group play your role is determined by your task.

Maitsukas

mocap wrote: »

There are no class related dialogs in the game, afaik.

Vastarie and Azandar have a some exclusive lines for Necromancer and Arcanist characters respectively.

colossalvoids

They didn't made classes to be more immersive experience, that's a balancing act for an mmo space.

Trejgon

This thread is a curious rephrasing of "remove classes" thread....

Terin

I mean, i’m some ways I feel like a really immersive option would’ve been something like “you start out with no skill trees, but based on the guilds or orders you join, you can learn other skills”. Where NPC’s could just be like “hey man, we’d really love to help you become a Templar, but to channel these divine powers you’ll have to truly believe, and won’t be able to connect with your Nightblade powers or whatnot”.

But barring that, I’d still dig more of an “explorer/adventurer/treasure hunter” sort of theme for a class. Whether you’re a bright-eyed adventurer, a would-be pirate in search of gold, or even a historian recovering ancient artifacts for a museum, just something that lets you embrace whatever your most recent quest has you doing. Instead of feeling like “well apparently my class just doesn’t matter, except these strangely-specific spells I’ve got”.

It’s just the one thing I’ve really struggled with when trying ESO. I never quite feel like my character is immersed in the overall experience, because it feels like there’s a disconnect between “what the character is” and “what the character is actually doing”.

Syldras

Terin wrote: »

It’s just the one thing I’ve really struggled with when trying ESO. I never quite feel like my character is immersed in the overall experience, because it feels like there’s a disconnect between “what the character is” and “what the character is actually doing”.

With these things, you really have to use your own imagination a lot when it comes to ESO: Keep in mind who you are playing, act accordingly, if neccessary, even imagine dialogues to be worded a bit differently (you'll realize the last thing really comes handy unless you're playing a very uneducated or forgetful character... you'll notice that when playing for a while, I'm sure).

Same goes for the descriptions of classes and their abilities: I just ignore them. I have a warden character, and no, he's not a priest of Y'ffre creating beasts through reality-changing storytelling, he's using "normal" schools of magic. My main is a sorcerer class-wise, but he doesn't "Call on Azura to send a twilight" (what nonsense...), he just conjures it the normal way: He forces it into service. Same goes for one ability described as "Invoke Meridia's name..." - why would he?! Just because it's somewhere in the game description (that most people don't even remember or pay much attention to), I don't have to make this part of my roleplay.

Terin

See, that kind of thing drives me nuts. Like, I genuinely wouldn’t be able to enjoy that experience (though I can totally respect it!).

For me, immersion is key. I don’t choose classes for where they fall on “Tier lists”, even if they’re fun to look at, but rather I try to choose characters that feel like they would be “canon”, that would blend the most seamlessly into whatever the experience is supposed to be.

So I often wind up playing fairly “vanilla” characters, like human warriors or paladins. But in ESO in particular, the classes feel a bit more flavorful than past Elder Scrolls games, but not quite clearly defined enough that they feel like a concrete identity (save for probably Necromancer, imo).

It’s obviously just down to personal preference, and I’m probably in the minority for sure. I just quite like the idea of being more of a broad adventurer, where you’re a little more flexible without needing to “adjust your head-canon”.

Either that, or I would also really dig the idea of a totally traditional “Mage”. Like using the classic element a of Frost, Shock, and Flame (where Sorcerer feels like it leans into decidedly “dark” magic, as does the Nightblade from what I could tell).

Syldras

Terin wrote: »

For me, immersion is key.

For me, too. Weird ability descriptions have no influence on that for me, though. They aren't more than descriptions in the menu, npcs never react on them (with two exceptions: necromancers and arcanists are recognized as such by some npcs of the same class, which reflects in a minorly different dialogue; but even in this case, it's only the class that's commented on, never one of the abilities).

Terin wrote: »

I don’t choose classes for where they fall on “Tier lists”

Me neither. I just choose what's closest to the idea I have in mind for my character roleplay-wise.

Terin wrote: »

rather I try to choose characters that feel like they would be “canon”, that would blend the most seamlessly into whatever the experience is supposed to be.
So I often wind up playing fairly “vanilla” characters, like human warriors or paladins.

My main, as an example, is supposed to be from Sadrith Mora, Vvardenfell, and studied magic from a very early age on, which is the only thing that makes sense as he's born into a family that is part of Great House Telvanni for several generations (which is nothing special at all, it's a fairly normal thing in Morrowind). That was the background story I had in mind (for a long time, actually, my main is the same persona I've played in several TES games before ESO), and his class and race are chosen to represent that. A human paladin would be... unusual in that environment and probably wouldn't survive for long either.

I mean, a bit of "head-canoning" is neccessary, no? As in "inventing a background" for your character? At least to me it would be rather strange if there was nothing at all. People don't just fall from the sky as adults one day just to be immediately approached by some quest-giver to become the big hero of whatever. I always saw the fact that you don't have a defined background in the TES games as a design decision so you could make up your own background and past of your character.

Terin wrote: »

Either that, or I would also really dig the idea of a totally traditional “Mage”.

But what is a "traditional mage" in the world of TES? A Mages Guild member? A student of Shad Astula? A Telvanni? A Wyrd?

I understand the wish to play a "generic adventurer", and many people aren't exactly happy that you can't just use "normal" elemental spells like in Skyrim, either. I also don't like the class and ability descriptions much - for me, they seem much too specific. I just don't see how they make immersion impossible, because they really never make any difference in game when it comes to dialogues and story. It's a short description in a menu. That's all.

AnduinTryggva

Yeah. I think it would be great to have a sort of extended tutorial where you can, if you want, get to try basic class skills of the different classes and then you have to decide at the end of the tutorial. Or you pick it at the end of it for your generic adventurer right away if you want to play the tutorial without trying all classes. Might be also a nice teaser for those who like to play arcanist but did not buy the dlc yet. Would be way more immersive and for those who want to go straight to the main content they can skip the tutorial and at this stage decide their class and not during character creation.

Danikat

AnduinTryggva wrote: »

Yeah. I think it would be great to have a sort of extended tutorial where you can, if you want, get to try basic class skills of the different classes and then you have to decide at the end of the tutorial. Or you pick it at the end of it for your generic adventurer right away if you want to play the tutorial without trying all classes. Might be also a nice teaser for those who like to play arcanist but did not buy the dlc yet. Would be way more immersive and for those who want to go straight to the main content they can skip the tutorial and at this stage decide their class and not during character creation.

That would work for some characters, but I'd need entirely new backstories for all of mine, because although they might be new to being an adventurer they're not all kids who have never experimented with their skills before. (In fact my crafter is retired, he was a soldier for years before the start of the game.) That's why they already know the basics of combat and can pick up new skills so quickly.

I really didn't like that the previous tutorials (except the Wailing Prison) put you into very specific situations. It made no sense for my warden to start out on a boat to Vvardenfell, especially since she immediately went back to Daggerfall to start the main story. I deleted and remade her when Greymoor came out purely because that tutorial was a better fit and I'd always hated that I had to ignore part of the game to make her story work.

In that sense the new tutorial is a good compromise. You're told you appeared through a portal but how and why is entirely up to you. Maybe your character created it, maybe someone sent them there, maybe they stole the wrong magic item, maybe they don't know either. It gives you freedom to decide not only where they go next but where they came from and what they'd been doing before.

Terin wrote: »

See, that kind of thing drives me nuts. Like, I genuinely wouldn’t be able to enjoy that experience (though I can totally respect it!).

For me, immersion is key. I don’t choose classes for where they fall on “Tier lists”, even if they’re fun to look at, but rather I try to choose characters that feel like they would be “canon”, that would blend the most seamlessly into whatever the experience is supposed to be.

So I often wind up playing fairly “vanilla” characters, like human warriors or paladins. But in ESO in particular, the classes feel a bit more flavorful than past Elder Scrolls games, but not quite clearly defined enough that they feel like a concrete identity (save for probably Necromancer, imo).

It’s obviously just down to personal preference, and I’m probably in the minority for sure. I just quite like the idea of being more of a broad adventurer, where you’re a little more flexible without needing to “adjust your head-canon”.

Either that, or I would also really dig the idea of a totally traditional “Mage”. Like using the classic element a of Frost, Shock, and Flame (where Sorcerer feels like it leans into decidedly “dark” magic, as does the Nightblade from what I could tell).

I think you misunderstood. No one is saying classes don't matter because we all decide using "Tier lists" or whatever. We're saying they don't matter because they don't actually restrict who your character is. It's not like in some games where if you picked a templar for example you'd then have to pick a deity or cause they've devoted themselves to or specify which daedra your sorcerer has made deals with.

It's exactly the same process you described: imagine the character as a whole, their personality, history, interests etc. and then decide which set of 3 skill lines best suits them. Then pick that class. It does not define them beyond that.

If you're looking for the game to give you an identity then yes you're going to have a problem because it doesn't do that, but the same was true of previous TES games. It's left almost entirely open for you to decide.

For your example the only problem is that flame, shock and frost magic are kept seperate. But you could still make a dragonknight (flame), sorcerer (shock) or warden (frost) who wears light armour robes and uses a destruction staff (which would allow you to add a second element because the weapon's magic type doesn't have to match the class) and ignore the class skill line/s that don't fit. Depending on their story and choices during the game you could add in Mages Guild and Psijic Order skills as well, or the Soul Magic skill line.

AnduinTryggva

Why would you have to re-invent the backstories of your existing characters just because the tutorial is modified?
The past tutorial is part of the personal history of those of your characters that went through it. When you create a new character with the new tutorial he/she gets her own personal history of an adventurer.

Danikat

AnduinTryggva wrote: »

Why would you have to re-invent the backstories of your existing characters just because the tutorial is modified?
The past tutorial is part of the personal history of those of your characters that went through it. When you create a new character with the new tutorial he/she gets her own personal history of an adventurer.

Because if the tutorial is about them being introduced to different types of magic and skills and choosing which ones they want to use then they can't have much prior experience with any of them.

My warden spent a few years before the start of the game travelling around different Wyrds and learning from them. My sorcerer studied the theory of magic for decades, my crafter (whose class is dragon knight) is a retired Imperial soldier who spent decades in the army...and so on.

They all learned the basics of their class before the start of the game, that's why they start off as that class. They may not have much experience with combat casting or taking on quests but they don't need someone to explain to them what a dragon knight or a templar is or to see what skills they have an affinity for.

It would be like someone trying to set up a 'taster day' for me to try out the job I've had for 15 years, just because I'm moving to a new employer.