Dusk_Coven wrote: »

Heyodude wrote: »

If ZOS really has any idea how to address class identity within the framework of an MMO; then, there are some solid rules they have to outline and never break. It starts with DPS roles, because no one is clambering over one another to make their class as viable as a Dragon Knight tank or as strong of a healer as Templar. It all comes back to the DPS side of things and how this whole MMO has gone off the rails.

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If you pick a Sorcerer, and expect it to be better at wielding swords, you shouldn't be catered to. If you pick a nightblade and want to be the best healer you should regret your decision. If you wear light armor and run two ice staffs to tank DLC content, you should be kicked from your group.

Maybe "no one is clambering over one another to make their class as viable as a Dragon Knight tank or as strong of a healer as Templar" because too many people don't want to think for themselves. Too many people follow online builds and shoot for the biggest numbers and the "best build".
As soon as people start doing that, they are actually DISCARDING class identity and have no right to talk about it.
They were never interested in class identity. They are interested in numbers.

This is not a new issue. This is the issue that roleplayers way back in the age of pen and paper RPGs recognized. There are min-maxers who don't really care about identity or character concept. They care about numbers only. These people should just stop pretending to care about class identity and continue to jig-saw what they think will output the best numbers after every patch.

ZOS wants to make the game fun to look at and to play. ZOS doesn't mind min-maxers. But from the last post about class identity, it seems to me ZOS doesn't want everyone to feel that they need to follow an internet guide or feel bullied by community pressure to conform tightly.

Class Identity starts with IDENTITY. Not numbers. Not even dungeon ROLE. It starts with your personal idea of what you like to play, what you think looks and feels fun. Each class is a bag of SFX to help you find a class you feel is fun to play.
After that, you make reasonable decisions about skills and gear to align with how you want to play that character. What do you envision them doing? Do you want to be tank? Healer? Damage dealer? A generalist to clear tough solo content like Maelstrom?
ZOS wants you to be able to do that competently with any class so that people aren't automatically going to be Templar healer or Dragonknight Tank -- and probably especially to avoid situations where they get passed over because they are not playing a particular class-role combination.

NWO had that problem. For their version of trials, internet guides were recommending exactly what mix of sub-classes. And if you weren't on the list, you either got carried or you didn't get picked because everyone else was too scared to do anything else because they were too scared to fail.

Heyodude wrote: »

If you wear light armor and run two ice staffs to tank DLC content, you should be kicked from your group.

This is the sort of attitude that, taken too far, dumbs down the game to Tank-Healer-DPS. Don't even bother with naming them anything else or any subclasses because there's only one mathematical "best" for a role and that's the only thing you should play for the role.

If you feel such-and-such a build is "wrong" and people must be kicked out, I recommend you go play another game because that's not the direction ZOS is going.
I personally do not support any sort of move to kick anyone as long as they can perform their role. If it's a DPS who slaps on an Ice Staff to "tank" a dungeon they can solo... I don't really care. He's "tanking" and the job's getting done.
If they CAN'T -- trying to fake tank in a Trial? -- then they're gonna get found out in a hurry anyway. Sure they could have Class Identity and a vision for their character, but they also need to be realistic and adjust their skills. And ZOS wants them to be able to do that instead of starting an alt.

Dusk Coven has it EXACTLY right.

In your write up you mentioned that the Sorcerer is a ranged magicka caster (in the lore), that is wrong, in the lore the Sorcerer is a close up blade wielding spellcaster (using quick powerful destruction magic) whilst wearing heavy armour and summoning daedra. Now I am up for that class to be the game, but what passes as a Sorcerer in ESO is not what they are in the lore. Also Nightblades are thieves(sometime assassin's) that use magic for stealth (invisibility/muffle) while also using destruction spells.

The biggest problem that ESO has (apart from poor performance) is the shoehorning all toons into magicka or stamina, remove that and then make other changes for balance etc. I know that some people have an issue with softcaps/hybrids, but if a character can use magicka and stamina abilities with attributes spread across all three, then you can actually have class identity and classes would not be so similar i.e. not all Sorcerers would run the same skill set, because you would have a larger pool of abilities to choose from.

Just an idea.

Are you serious? I mean, are you serious?!

Heyodude wrote: »

[...] no one is clambering over one another to make their class as viable as a Dragon Knight tank [...]

I would very much like to live out my Crusader and Paladin fantasies with my Templar tank and actually be let into endgame trials instead of being told to make a new DK because I don't offer anything to the group despite being sturdy enough to do my job.
And I'm sure there are plenty of people who want to be Deathknights and Nature's Guardians and their classes support these fantasies. I don't see how mastering an Akaviri martial art and shouting technique makes you somehow the only person deserving to be a "viable tank". Let's be honest, getting bulky alone isn't what makes a tank in this game. It's only the ability to support the group that matters when we are talking about viability.

Heyodude wrote: »

[...]
Night Blade, stamina melee fighter<--- its in the lore, none of the elder scrolls lore has these guys flinging magic
[...]

And don't spout nonsense like this if you haven't even done your research! Let me remind you of what NIGHTBLADE major skills were in TES3 Morrowind.

• Mysticism
• Illusion
• Alteration
• Sneak
• Short Blade

"Nightblades are spellcasters who use their magics to enhance mobility, concealment, and stealthy close combat."
Could it be that you have Nightblades confused with Assassins and Rogues? Because Nightblades are the magical stealth characters out of the bunch. And yes, Nightblades had a bonus to destruction too, as a minor skill, although the health sapping effects would be attributed to Mysticism.

As much as your statements make sense if you generalize them - set clear expectations and stick to them - your interpretation of them are truly horrifying and I am glad you are not in charge of the changes, OP.

Zorgon_The_Revenged wrote: »

Heyodude wrote: »

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

This is elder scrolls game, everybody can do everything, no need to turn it into class-role locked game with pre-defined abilities packs.

Im not saying you shouldnt be able to pick up a sword and shield and think youre a tank, im just saying its alright if your class will never be better than a dragon knight. Vice versa, a dk should never hold a staff and beat a sorcerer in a game of who can shoot magic harder. there has to be predifined strengths and weaknesses if you want this to be an mmo with balanced content.

A dk should never hold a staff and beat a sorc in a game of who can shoot magic harder?.....what, even if they try really hard?

Ok, I just have to say it. I just got an image in my head of such a duel taking place.

The sorcerer starts gathering magical energy into his staff to cast one of his most powerful and deadly spells.

In response the DK lifts his staff high into the air and.....clubs the sorcerer over the head with it.

The problem with class identity in this game is the player with the whole "Play as you like" thing because apparently people were able to do all things with their main SKYRIM character and the reason I mention skyrim is because classes were a thing in the early days though you had a chance to create a custom one. Skyrim was the only one that you had 100% blank slate. This game however people want to accept it or not, has more class identity than previous TES games since each class has unique skills when previous ones the only difference was passives but now matter the class all spells were basically the same available. And the is also the class participation diversity narrative.

players f: I want to be a DPS/HEALER/TANK at the same time, what a about playing as you want?

Also players: Nerf X class this class has too much damage, healing and tankiness.

ZOS: nerfs applied.

end result: people who were sticking to a roll with their class and making builds for solo content end up screwed and now have to use skill outside the class tool kit to be effective once more.

Players: I want to play like I want to play

Also players: ZOS please put a limit on the amount of each classes that queue up for dungeons or participate in dungeon raids, for the sake of class diversity.

Everybody has their own perspective on what "play as you want" ,Class identity and class diversity mean.

For me class identity is to be able to do any roll that im allowed to by the games design, using as much of the class toolkit as possible.

For me class diversity does not relate to what is the most popular class used but the amount available and its tied to identity as well. What if I want to run a whole Warden only group? or even better have a class specific guild for all content?

This leaves ZOS with a lot of mixed signals on what needs to be done, except for that DK stone fist, everybody wanted a stam whip and that was pretty clear. This is the first game I have played where you don't have a predetermined Class for a roll and that is awesome but if the community carries on whit the whole BiS class thug of war we will end having the whole pick a class just for the passive.

Glurin wrote: »

Sahidom wrote: »

Playing an actual class is meaningless in today's ESO except which has better passives, useful skills, and better synergies with sets for builds: that's the meta.

And that's the problem. Too many metasheep.

Meta is not the game. You shouldn't have to follow what is meta to be viable.

And several of the Class Reps are the leading meta lemming brigade, no offense. I agree meta shouldn't be the driving force whether you're viable or optimal. Unfortunately, developers don't agree. It's like high school where clicks made trends that shaped the climate and environment of the school. Same social dynamics influences ESO.

Alright. Here's a scenario that happened today. I'm playing and cruised over to visit a friend at their guild house, and another player was parsing on the target dummy; and posting 13k DPS. So, I came to a scene where my friend was trying to help the player improve their DPS. So, I chimed in. How are you setup? What gear are you running? How do you have your skill bars setup? Some basic questions to get an idea on what their using. Their response was, he's using the build from Dotz gaming and geared identical to his posted build.

This is a perfect case scenario where a player overly relies on online builds and expects the same results. I couldn't help but face palm myself and feel obligated to put him on the right path with my friend. It's absolutely unfortunate because he spent over 500k gold to mimic Dotz gaming build with crappy results. Sorry Dotz gaming, you were the build he tried and wasted all the gold prematurely than trying to learn the game and his class/build.

This is what regularly happens when meta forces players into builds they a) do not comprehend, b) not fluent to their play style, and c) not always the right build. Unfortunately, trial parse minimums (besides bad online advice) to be "qualified" to join trials is at fault here. After we explained some basic game mechanics and helped him (more spent gold) getting him into sets where he'll benefit the most (contrary to the online build described); the player doubled his DPS.

This is the power of meta and how "elitism" on parses to join trial groups have pushed players before they've learned how to use their class skills, how to add non-class skills for the most benefit to their play style, and the fastest way to lose tons of gold over broken online builds: Dotz gaming isn't the only site with under performing builds.

Glurin wrote: »

Heyodude wrote: »

When someone says Necromancer, the first thing i think of is a Butchy looking two sword wielding barbarian, you know what I sayin?

Yeah, I know exactly what you're sayin.

"Women can't work in [insert industry]. That's a man's job. Women should be at home cleaning and making dinner and taking care of the kids. Not doing man work."

You believe in the stereotypes. Necromancers are all frail old men in black bath robes that spend all their time raising the dead to fight for them because they'd keel over if you sneezed on them.

Glurin wrote: »

Heyodude wrote: »

When someone says Necromancer, the first thing i think of is a Butchy looking two sword wielding barbarian, you know what I sayin?

Yeah, I know exactly what you're sayin.

"Women can't work in [insert industry]. That's a man's job. Women should be at home cleaning and making dinner and taking care of the kids. Not doing man work."

You believe in the stereotypes. Necromancers are all frail old men in black bath robes that spend all their time raising the dead to fight for them because they'd keel over if you sneezed on them.

You are dumb, I dont care that this will get snipped, how you tried to implement generic daytime tv sexism as my narrative is stupid.

I'll throw my own two cents in cause why not.

The problem with current classes is that everyone uses the same buids, caltrops is required in any stam build, wall of elements in almost every DPS build, and the actual issue with DPS as a whole is that the game relies on one form of DPS; a rotation of buffs and DoTs. There is no other form of DPS viable builds and that's because the alternative skill lines are more impactful than the other skill lines.

The way to enforce a better class identity is to just... literally give the classes an identity.

Heyodude wrote: »

Im not saying you shouldnt be able to pick up a sword and shield and think youre a tank, im just saying its alright if your class will never be better than a dragon knight. Vice versa, a dk should never hold a staff and beat a sorcerer in a game of who can shoot magic harder. there has to be predifined strengths and weaknesses if you want this to be an mmo with balanced content.

The thought process that a DK could never beat a Sorcerer in a fight of magic is a shaky one because we can look at lore for this.
Dragonknight: These skillful masters-at-arms use the ancient Akaviri martial arts tradition of battle-spirit, and wield fearsome magic that pounds, shatters and physically alters the world around them.
Sorcerer: 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.

From those descriptions? They both sound like pretty powerful mage classes and they'd be able to go toe to toe regularly. And contrary to popular belief giving classes singular identities actually makes it much harder to balance them (see WoW for example where every raid one class blows all the others out of the water in DPS because their kit is just simply better.)

One way to handle class identity is just by making certain things stronger on them. Maybe Sorcerers get a damage buff everytime they use a new elemental spell stacking for each element. This would give the sorc a much more unique feel to other classes than it does now certainly, for one you'd see Flame/Ice being used in conjunction with their baseline Magicka and Lightning spells to maximize the passive.
Maybe Nightblades deal progressively more damage with poisons and disease/bleed damage as the fight goes on. Yeah it'd make them the premier DoT class but that's already what they are anyhow.
You can make Templar DPS do more damage the longer they remain on a single target. Make them the "FOR THE CRUSADES" type vindicator. This doesn't fix the DoT playstyle but it does markedly put them in a bad/good setup for certain trials and dungeons.

And that kinda brings us to the core problem of reinventing class identities; the thing that pretty much started it all. "Sorry your class is bad so we aren't taking you in our group." ZOS pretty much leaned away from class identities to fix this issue of exclusivity within the elite gameplay; but the game was younger then and a lot more casual players have shown up since then.

Tldr: Main Issues with creating class identities is this.
1. It's harder to balance when classes are more clear cut; because they start using more exclusive abilities and then you can't just tune one ability to fix half of the classes.
2. PvP becomes marginally harder to balance because (WoW again) either every class has to be able to burst or every class has to be able to take 5,000,000 damage before dying.
3. You'd have to change the core mechanics of the game in some way, namely for DPS and Healers. Currently all healers are heal sticks with mostly the same spells and all DPS are DOT sticks you shake at your enemies until they die. Tanks aren't much better (in my experience) with DKs being warhorn machines who hold right click all day and use some skills and Templars who offheal while tanking.

Do I hope ZOS manages to do it? Hell yeah then I might play more than 3 characters. (Heal/Tank/DPS) and they'll feel different!

Here's my view of what class identity should be, it might not be what you agree with but people will always disagree on certain things no matter what anyway.

The problem with class identity is that it ties in closely with roles, theres no going around it. It's unfortunate but it is what it is.

If there is an analogy that I feel is suitable, it's like going to the doctor for your ailment. It really depend on your ailments right? Like you can always go to any general practitioner but ultimately, you need to go to a specialist for certain things. You can't go to a neuro surgeon for a heart problem right? Neither can u go to an optometrist to check for dental issues. But generally, for regular stuff like the common cold or fever, any type of doctor will do.

However, in terms of basic understanding of the human physiology, all of them have it. All of them have basic understanding of medicines, of tools used. That's the key I feel for class identity. That all classes can do all content but certain class are good for pinnacle content, for hard modes. Even the devs have stated that "viable doesn't mean optimal". And that's a good thing.

This is especially true in group content, because it's important to have the right group setup. I'd say right, not best, because a best setup might mean differently to players. For eg, a right group setup might be a DK tank, a templar healer, a necro stam dps and a mag blade. But perhaps you can also have a Warden tank that can help with off heals so a Sorcerer healer with a magplar and a mag blade might be the right setup.

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

This is elder scrolls game, everybody can do everything, no need to turn it into class-role locked game with pre-defined abilities packs.

I'd like to add here that there should definitely be an option for class change and not some quick fix with tokens (I bet it would be). It would be good to have some tutorial or training involved if you wanted to pursue another class to get a sense of the theme. I understand the power fantasy and play patterns which players should be able to freely explore without having to re-roll characters.

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

Heyodude wrote: »

The idea that somehow ZOS is going to make every class viable at every one thing, when they cant even define what their characters are good at

Right here. You are missing the point.
Maybe they CAN make every class VIABLE (not necessarily best -- they already said that) because they DON'T want to strictly define any class being particularly too good at one thing.

Their exact words were,

To be clear, our goal is for every class to be viable, not necessarily optimal, in any role without heavily relying on non-class skill lines.

They also acknowledged the problem with classes trying to fulfill roles will be dependent on non-class skills to be optimal. However, there is a big gap between their "vision statement" to build class identity (by their definition) and the status quo.

What we don’t want is to create scenarios where, to be effective, you feel obligated to fill a majority of your hotbar slots with non-class abilities. Forfeiting your class identity should be an option, but not a requirement to engage in PvE or PvP content.

The DPS stack crunch and combat mechanic changes is not the tip of the iceberg. IF, and big IF, the developers fully address this statement than they'll rewrite everything that's meta and played today.

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

This is elder scrolls game, everybody can do everything, no need to turn it into class-role locked game with pre-defined abilities packs.

The problem is ZOS is falling between two stools here. We have to pick classes and those classes do have limitation which prevent everybody from doing everything (my templar cannot "Streak"). Because these limitations are in place and have very real impact on gameplay, ZOS needs to make them balanced and should make them meaningful.