They would need to change the whole skill tree system if they did this. Each class has a set of lackluster skills , morphs, and passives that only get by because the system locks you out of other options. And there are several redundant skills that would become usless.

Yes please.

When they announced spellcrafting, they said each spell would go into their respective spellschool. Restoration, destruction, illusion etc etc.

Make all class skills go under their respective spellshcool. All passives are open to be chosen for your own "class"(same amount as you currently have). Remove classes. Welcome to the real TESO.

Samadhi wrote: »

TheMachineKiller wrote: »

spellcrafting.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

AshySamurai wrote: »

Yep. They not totally abandoned it, but I wouldn't expect it in any time soon.

Yep, this is basically correct. Spellcrafting isn't actively being worked on, it's just on the back burner for now.

Best of wishes with your waiting.

Depressing.

jelliedsoup wrote: »

The classes in this game made it a non es game.

Yeah, because no prior Elder Scrolls game ever had classes... except Arena, Daggerfall, Battlespire, Morrowind, and Oblivion, but they don't count, right?

starkerealm wrote: »

jelliedsoup wrote: »

The classes in this game made it a non es game.

Yeah, because no prior Elder Scrolls game ever had classes... except Arena, Daggerfall, Battlespire, Morrowind, and Oblivion, but they don't count, right?

I would almost say it's subjective. The classes in previous games were not as restricted as the ones in ESO. In that sense, unless you wanted to play the class as purist, they did not exist as anything more than stats and leveling parameters (barring arena.)

Shunravi wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

jelliedsoup wrote: »

The classes in this game made it a non es game.

Yeah, because no prior Elder Scrolls game ever had classes... except Arena, Daggerfall, Battlespire, Morrowind, and Oblivion, but they don't count, right?

I would almost say it's subjective. The classes in previous games were not as restricted as the ones in ESO. In that sense, unless you wanted to play the class as purist, they did not exist as anything more than stats and leveling parameters (barring arena.)

In Morrowind there was a significant disadvantage to work off for going outside your major skills. It wasn't insurmountable, and you could end up as good as another class by the end. But you needed to work for it. Unless you were flat out cheating with alchemy.

Oblivion tapered this back a bit. There was a disadvantage for trying to leave your class, but it was a lot easier to overcome. So playing off class was more viable. If anything removing the to hit rolls and spell failure chances seriously undermined the feel of classes in Oblivion.

I can't speak for Daggerfall, I've never spent enough time with it, but I seem to recall the system did push your class' role pretty hard.

AngryNord wrote: »

jelliedsoup wrote: »

The classes in this game made it a non es game.

Strange, I've been able to select a class in all the TES games I've played except Skyrim...

I believe the OP is one of the many players who started playing the series with Skyrim and does not realize that. Skyrim is the odd man out

For anyone who cant use google; http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Classes

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Majic wrote: »

Balanced Imbalance

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Opening up all skill lines to all characters would completely destroy the balance of the game, and not just in the way that people could be snarky about it. In the way that people would stop playing because of how bad it was.

Giving all characters access to the same skills is inherently balanced, so this claim seems somewhat specious.

The only meaningful difference between a classless system and the current system is that some skill lines are partitioned off in the current regime, but since any player can choose to play any class, and all players have enough character slots to play two of each class, even that difference is arbitrary.

As things stand, there are already uber "FOTM" builds, and if we go with your assumption, we would expect there to be four of them, since each class would have that one "uber-build", yet you say "there's actually a lot of diversity in the game".

Or perhaps that's what you mean by "perceived" uber-builds?

It's not clear and seems self-contradictory, hence my questions.

That isn't actually what balance is. Granted, it would be "balanced" when everyone figured out exactly what skills they wanted to use, but that's not the same as having variety within a balance system.

And classes actually don't have "uber-builds" at this point, because the weapon and armor lines create that build diversity. That would be severely impacted if everyone had access to all skill lines, because those skills were balanced with class limitations in mind.

It's really not a good idea, which is why only a few people demand it every few months before it fades back into obscurity.

I don't agree with this. I think from a thematic point all characters in Elder Scrolls games start out with a Class or theme at the beginning. How you choose to develop from there usually grows and changes (but it doesn't need to). You say the game could not be balanced if they allowed an open class system, I disagree. TSW has done pretty well with such a system honestly. The real balance is in what powers and such that you have available at any given time. We have that exact same balance inherent to the gear we wear, the champion points we've spent, and the powers we have slotted in the tray. I highly expect us to get the 'removal' of classes in the form of the Spellcrafting system in the future. While I don't expect them to get rid of classes, I do think they will eventually open up the game with greater variety using the Spellcrafting system and I think that is great. The presumption of a lot of people in this thread against 'classless' seems to be that ZOS has utterly given up on the concept. I highly doubt that. I think instead they want to let the dust settle on the release of their console system, TU, and the release of Justice and Champion systems. They have a lot on their plate and they will need to put in a bit of energy making sure it goes along as smoothly as possible. I also suspect that Imperial City, Orcinium, and Black Marsh all are taking up a good deal of development time as well. I'd also like to add, that by opening up the options of what a player can put in the tray, it will actually help the Devs balance powers as a whole. If they find certain powers are vastly underperforming, they'll also see a lot of players moving away from them. I'm pretty sure they have people studying those metrics even now.

^^^

starkerealm wrote: »

jelliedsoup wrote: »

The classes in this game made it a non es game.

Yeah, because no prior Elder Scrolls game ever had classes... except Arena, Daggerfall, Battlespire, Morrowind, and Oblivion, but they don't count, right?

LOL - If you think it's the same i'm not going to burst your bubble.

There's a lot of misinformation and misinterpretation in this thread.

1. Prior Elder Scrolls games allowed you to select a class, but the class just helped you learn some skills faster than others, the classes did not restrict you from learning skills outside the class; in fact, most savvy players designed their own class and were able to master every skill and ability, and max all stats, fairly quickly. While the classes were there, they did not restrict you from doing anything, and by the time you maxed everything, classes were nothing more than a title.
2. Classless systems DO in fact work in MMOs, and quite well, better than class based systems in my experience; TSW is the prime example of this; every player can learn every ability, you pick which ones to use (7 active and 7 passive) and can swap them out freely, while some abilities are key for a given role, there is a huge variety of builds; I think I had something like 32 different builds that I'd switch between depending on the situation when I stopped playing; not only that, the flexibility of the system lets the developers build some pretty unique mechanics into fights, each of the NM dungeons plays quite a bit differently, and players have the flexibility to adapt, it's fantastic and is a system that promotes teamwork instead of dividing people into raging class monkeys; and before you say it, the only reason I don't play there anymore is because of the augment system which became a total grind and you had to run scenarios over and over instead of being able to earn them playing whatever content you want; but the classless system itself was awesome; and guess what, it worked in both PvP and PvE, and yeah, there were FOTM builds, that quickly got obliterated once someone figured out a way to beat them

I realize people who haven't played games like TSW, or who think that because Google says a game has classes (even though in reality the classes don't mean anything at the end of the day) that it must mean they work like WoW or LOTRO (both of which I also played for years), and that must be the way to go, "because that's the way we've always done it."

To them, I introduce:

http://academic.udayton.edu/richardghere/IGO NGO research/Argyris.pdf

Classes are fine to have as long as I'm not restricted from picking skills from any tree I want from any class. And in fact, if they were unrestricted, that would free the devs to make the various classes even more distinct without having to worry about balance.

Other options are:

1) Remove classes
2) Give the guild trees better or equivalent abilities and prevent class passives from affecting non-class abilities

JD2013 wrote: »

WraithAzraiel wrote: »

Getting rid of classes wouldn't add more flexibility, it wouldn't balance the game. It would severely limit diversity. EVERYONE would be pigeonholed into using 1 specific skillbar set up if they wanted to be as effective as possible.


Just think, instead of a couple builds per each class that are the best for whatever roles, there would be 1 build, 1 batch of abilities, 1 this 1 that that works best for each role.

By limiting accessibility to abilities, you're forced to make more diverse decisions.

Also I can't think of a successful MMO that didn't have classes in it.

This isn't Skyrowblivion 42: The Wreckoning. It's not Skyrim 2 With Friends. It's an MMO set in the Elder Scrolls universe. Not an Elder Scrolls game with an MMO flavor.

This .... this guy gets it.

No..... actually.....

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Majic wrote: »

Balanced Imbalance

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Opening up all skill lines to all characters would completely destroy the balance of the game, and not just in the way that people could be snarky about it. In the way that people would stop playing because of how bad it was.

Giving all characters access to the same skills is inherently balanced, so this claim seems somewhat specious.

The only meaningful difference between a classless system and the current system is that some skill lines are partitioned off in the current regime, but since any player can choose to play any class, and all players have enough character slots to play two of each class, even that difference is arbitrary.

As things stand, there are already uber "FOTM" builds, and if we go with your assumption, we would expect there to be four of them, since each class would have that one "uber-build", yet you say "there's actually a lot of diversity in the game".

Or perhaps that's what you mean by "perceived" uber-builds?

It's not clear and seems self-contradictory, hence my questions.

That isn't actually what balance is. Granted, it would be "balanced" when everyone figured out exactly what skills they wanted to use, but that's not the same as having variety within a balance system.

And classes actually don't have "uber-builds" at this point, because the weapon and armor lines create that build diversity. That would be severely impacted if everyone had access to all skill lines, because those skills were balanced with class limitations in mind.

It's really not a good idea, which is why only a few people demand it every few months before it fades back into obscurity.

I don't agree with this. I think from a thematic point all characters in Elder Scrolls games start out with a Class or theme at the beginning. How you choose to develop from there usually grows and changes (but it doesn't need to). You say the game could not be balanced if they allowed an open class system, I disagree. TSW has done pretty well with such a system honestly. The real balance is in what powers and such that you have available at any given time. We have that exact same balance inherent to the gear we wear, the champion points we've spent, and the powers we have slotted in the tray. I highly expect us to get the 'removal' of classes in the form of the Spellcrafting system in the future. While I don't expect them to get rid of classes, I do think they will eventually open up the game with greater variety using the Spellcrafting system and I think that is great. The presumption of a lot of people in this thread against 'classless' seems to be that ZOS has utterly given up on the concept. I highly doubt that. I think instead they want to let the dust settle on the release of their console system, TU, and the release of Justice and Champion systems. They have a lot on their plate and they will need to put in a bit of energy making sure it goes along as smoothly as possible. I also suspect that Imperial City, Orcinium, and Black Marsh all are taking up a good deal of development time as well. I'd also like to add, that by opening up the options of what a player can put in the tray, it will actually help the Devs balance powers as a whole. If they find certain powers are vastly underperforming, they'll also see a lot of players moving away from them. I'm pretty sure they have people studying those metrics even now.

This is the guy who gets it.

I agree in principle, but I think the purpose of the classes is to artificially extend replayability of this game. If there were no classes, then people would get bored after reaching v14 and quit. But since we have 4 classes, that means you have 4x the content as you normally would.