Fajin wrote: »

Or at least they have to make each class viable enough. Or somehow reward creative builds so this "play what you want" feature is correct.

I think Classes are 'viable' as they are right now so that you can play as you want (as in, any class+race combo can meet the minimum required output for a particular task), but classes definitely don't differ in their approach of getting things done from a game-mechanic standpoint. There's no deep specialization within classes or special interaction between sets, passives, or skills which players can explore.

Ignoring any potential imbalance for sake of discussion, let's look at this example: It used to be for a short time that the Plague Slinger set's skeever corpse could be eaten by werewolves until they patched it out; this could have been a really neat build for werewolves and would fundamentally change how one approaches the drawbacks of being a werewolf. Or how about letting werewolves eat Necromancer corpses? As it is though, Devs are constantly jumping on unintended interactions and patching them out instead of taking ideas from these happy little accidents and adjusting accordingly.

Shaloknir wrote: »

Fajin wrote: »

Like is there? Because literally everyone can tank, everyone can heal, everyone can do damage. Like even everyone can do both single target and aoe damage! The difference is just icons and animations lol.

In my opinion there is a distinctive identity to classes. In general magicka classes seem to have better identity than stamina classes due to using more class abilities.

Here is what I think the class identity is with each class (excluding necromancer, never played one):

• Nightblades are the assassins of ESO. Identity skills - cloak, killers blade, teleport strike. Pretty straight forward. Teleport strike got copied into dual wield skill line. Which is a high crime in my opinion!
• Templars are the devout knights or healers of Tamriel. Identity skills - puncturing sweeps, power of the light, aurora javelin and extended ritual. They are the "good" guys always helping others.
• Dragonknights is pretty cool and unique class! They are the dark knights with draconic powers: ability to spread wings and jump your enemies like the mighty Dovah! Identity skills - Ferocious leap, whip, spiked armor, fiery breath.
• Sorcerers are the magic users of ESO. Lightning hurling mages or warriors that are enveloped in powerful winds. Identity skills - frags, fury, streak, power surge, Atronach, overload, hurricane, shields. Stamina sorcerers give me huge Thor/Odin vibes.
• Wardens are the druids or rangers of Tamriel. They have animal companions and can call magic predators from the sky. Strong identity in flora/fauna of Vvardenfell. Also they use cold magics (huge miss in identity department in my opinion). Identity skills - cutting dive, netch, bear, permafrost, wings (cant recall the name)

While that's quite true, there is more to identity than just that. If all there is to class identity is magic type then you can throw the Necromancer out of the window given they have access to all type of magic and physical based damage.

It has to be a core mechanic, something that only that class has and no other, of course at the expense of something else.

For eg, NB should have more of the 'High risk, High reward' abilities, much like Malevolent Offering. A "I put myself in danger so others may live" type of gameplay. There should be a passive that constitute this mechanic too, something that goes like 'If you are at 30% health, you gain 10% weapon and spell power and reduce your damage taken by 20%'. Hell, if you want to make it even more extreme, make Killer's Blade / Impale deal 450% damage at execute level but the cost now uses health.

As a tank, this ties in with how much 'selfish' heals they have due to managing the low health threshold they might encounter with using strong but ultimately high cost abilities. You can even change Soul Tether (the healing equivalent, can't remember the name) to basically tether-heal nearby players to you but they drain your health instead. With this, you need to basically heal yourself with 'selfish' heal and you build your heals like a true high health blood mage.

For DKs you can have that attritional warfare. Let them be the masters of DoTs and HoTs. They have a Rock for a spammable, let it hit harder. Allow them to transfer magma armour to another low health target, making them kings of mitigation. Allow their dots to be immune to cleanse but requiring short range to cast, which goes well with the fact that they need to have mitigation to go into the fray. To me, Crystal shard mechanic should be given to DK with the rock spammable. Lesser damage but instant cast if using any earthen abilities.

Templars, to me, they need to have that 'Inquisitor' type of mechanic, where the longer they deal damage on a target, the better their damage will be. Kinda like a mark of the zealot, or an unrelenting warrior of the Light / Aedra. This ties in well with heals too, the more they heal that target, theres a chance to proc a crit heal on the target. They basically outlast, endure and excel in long fights but still have the crit proc to burst. Each direct damage can deal the mark, making it great but not overly powerful.

Sorcerers are where charging up should be part of it's core mechanic. (This aside from having to be the pet class, weird as it is.) A charge is created when you either successfully cast a lightning or a daedric spell. The change to bound armaments was a huge step in the right direction but needs more than just one ability.

Wardens are the dual nature class. They should be a "Cast ability A to make ability B from a different skill line better." For a lack of a better word.. symbiotic. An example would be Casting a green balance skill would increase the potency of an animal companion, like when standing in a healing seed area of your own, you deal 10% more damage to enemies. Or perhaps after casting Arctic Wind, crystallized shield or Frost cloak, you gain 400 penetration for your Animal Companions abilities. It's kinda like a two punch, 3 round burst type of combo.

Necromancer are where some of the trouble are. However, they should have stuck with the corpse tethering and play around it more. Bone armor should have provided armor for all nearby allies and then each creates a corpse after use. Should also have a corpse explosion that can either heal, or kill. Using corpses and tethers would be an amazing mechanic of an ESO Necromancer, something different, rather than the weird amalgamation of a Nightblade templar DK we have now.

Just my two cents.

RavenSworn wrote: »

Shaloknir wrote: »

Fajin wrote: »

Like is there? Because literally everyone can tank, everyone can heal, everyone can do damage. Like even everyone can do both single target and aoe damage! The difference is just icons and animations lol.

In my opinion there is a distinctive identity to classes. In general magicka classes seem to have better identity than stamina classes due to using more class abilities.

Here is what I think the class identity is with each class (excluding necromancer, never played one):

• Nightblades are the assassins of ESO. Identity skills - cloak, killers blade, teleport strike. Pretty straight forward. Teleport strike got copied into dual wield skill line. Which is a high crime in my opinion!
• Templars are the devout knights or healers of Tamriel. Identity skills - puncturing sweeps, power of the light, aurora javelin and extended ritual. They are the "good" guys always helping others.
• Dragonknights is pretty cool and unique class! They are the dark knights with draconic powers: ability to spread wings and jump your enemies like the mighty Dovah! Identity skills - Ferocious leap, whip, spiked armor, fiery breath.
• Sorcerers are the magic users of ESO. Lightning hurling mages or warriors that are enveloped in powerful winds. Identity skills - frags, fury, streak, power surge, Atronach, overload, hurricane, shields. Stamina sorcerers give me huge Thor/Odin vibes.
• Wardens are the druids or rangers of Tamriel. They have animal companions and can call magic predators from the sky. Strong identity in flora/fauna of Vvardenfell. Also they use cold magics (huge miss in identity department in my opinion). Identity skills - cutting dive, netch, bear, permafrost, wings (cant recall the name)

While that's quite true, there is more to identity than just that. If all there is to class identity is magic type then you can throw the Necromancer out of the window given they have access to all type of magic and physical based damage.

It has to be a core mechanic, something that only that class has and no other, of course at the expense of something else.

For eg, NB should have more of the 'High risk, High reward' abilities, much like Malevolent Offering. A "I put myself in danger so others may live" type of gameplay. There should be a passive that constitute this mechanic too, something that goes like 'If you are at 30% health, you gain 10% weapon and spell power and reduce your damage taken by 20%'. Hell, if you want to make it even more extreme, make Killer's Blade / Impale deal 450% damage at execute level but the cost now uses health.

As a tank, this ties in with how much 'selfish' heals they have due to managing the low health threshold they might encounter with using strong but ultimately high cost abilities. You can even change Soul Tether (the healing equivalent, can't remember the name) to basically tether-heal nearby players to you but they drain your health instead. With this, you need to basically heal yourself with 'selfish' heal and you build your heals like a true high health blood mage.

For DKs you can have that attritional warfare. Let them be the masters of DoTs and HoTs. They have a Rock for a spammable, let it hit harder. Allow them to transfer magma armour to another low health target, making them kings of mitigation. Allow their dots to be immune to cleanse but requiring short range to cast, which goes well with the fact that they need to have mitigation to go into the fray. To me, Crystal shard mechanic should be given to DK with the rock spammable. Lesser damage but instant cast if using any earthen abilities.

Templars, to me, they need to have that 'Inquisitor' type of mechanic, where the longer they deal damage on a target, the better their damage will be. Kinda like a mark of the zealot, or an unrelenting warrior of the Light / Aedra. This ties in well with heals too, the more they heal that target, theres a chance to proc a crit heal on the target. They basically outlast, endure and excel in long fights but still have the crit proc to burst. Each direct damage can deal the mark, making it great but not overly powerful.

Sorcerers are where charging up should be part of it's core mechanic. (This aside from having to be the pet class, weird as it is.) A charge is created when you either successfully cast a lightning or a daedric spell. The change to bound armaments was a huge step in the right direction but needs more than just one ability.

Wardens are the dual nature class. They should be a "Cast ability A to make ability B from a different skill line better." For a lack of a better word.. symbiotic. An example would be Casting a green balance skill would increase the potency of an animal companion, like when standing in a healing seed area of your own, you deal 10% more damage to enemies. Or perhaps after casting Arctic Wind, crystallized shield or Frost cloak, you gain 400 penetration for your Animal Companions abilities. It's kinda like a two punch, 3 round burst type of combo.

Necromancer are where some of the trouble are. However, they should have stuck with the corpse tethering and play around it more. Bone armor should have provided armor for all nearby allies and then each creates a corpse after use. Should also have a corpse explosion that can either heal, or kill. Using corpses and tethers would be an amazing mechanic of an ESO Necromancer, something different, rather than the weird amalgamation of a Nightblade templar DK we have now.

Just my two cents.

I totally agree with you, solid arguments and well thought suggestions how to make class feel more unique. Very intriguing. I hope this happens. Your ideas would also benefit stamina builds.

As i said earlier and numerous times over the years on these forums (with great pushback and scorn despite being proven right multiple times by zos first hand), generally speaking, universally available skills via guild and weapon lines, does contribute to an element of sameness, ie magicka dps with blockade and stamina dps with a number of identical builds between the classes for a long time.

The point though still stands that even still as little as there may be, the intentional design that has existed (believe it or not actually) since the earliest days of this game, was that each class could produce certain levels of success in any of the 3 roles. It's why universal skill lines key to succeeding in a given role were designed they way they were eith things like snb and resto staff. Certain classes leaned more heavily on these skill lines than others but that was just the way of things.

Templars didnt have a "healing skill line" because they were the intended healers, that might sound strange to most of you but when you look at the resto staff and the templars restoring light skill line, alot of the passives do not overlap with one another and the active skills often are parallels of one another. There was a reason funnel health healed 2 other allies, or that obsidian shield granted major mending. Templars identy was not that of "THE" healer, when you stop and realize the key reason they were the dominant healer in groups was because of shards and in lesser groups, a skill not even in their "healing tree", and breath of life even though that skill was often ommitted by templars in groups that pushed scores and had encounters down. Stamina restore was a unique utility the templar brought to a group and, but having exclusive access to such a critical tool for a role overall was why the changes were made to orbs later down the road. many people over the years conflated this with intended role design and never looked back and when the orbs change happened you had two camps -

The "stop homogenizing classes and taking away class uniqueness"

And

"more class variety in roles and group makeup is ideal and an absolutely welcome change, 1 class having a monopoly on a role in an mmo with effectively 10 (at the time) classes is not healthy design".

Regardless of the execution of the philosophy by zos, it's not a strange claim to make that class identity came not from role performance but from how the role was performed in lieu of class mechanics, with obvious varying levels of performance tiers for high end content and groups, which is an entirely different discussion, and from the thematic style of each classes abilities.

Since around TG, zos really started making the solidifying touches in making this point known to players, but the idea was in place LONG before that.

So here is my though, classes were originally put into the game to give players a starting point or direction or focus or SOMETHING.

Since there is an "Audit" maybe going back to the drawling board is need. Here is what they SHOULD do to make this game beyond great, and bring in more players in droves an fix "class identity" blah blah blah.

Keep the classes FINE but change its to like 4 starter class defining abilities. Then make the game the way it should have always have been to begin with choosing abilities from a long list of abilities that allow you to really define and differentiate yourself from others with far fewer restrictions.

Give numerous and plentiful abilities that we all choose from that just work and preform differently.

More options to choose from as a whole give more freedom to change experiment and reduce boredom. It has to be easier to balance this way than what we are dealing with now.

I might have been a bit harsh on zos though because at the end of the day, it was the players that were hollering on zos back to change some of the abilities or core mechanics of certain classes.

The changes to siphon attacks, streak, wings, repentance and to a certain extent, shalks and warden wings all point to players complaining that each class had something the other didn't and why it shouldn't be that way.

Its viable to play all classes for each role but not optimal. I feel a lot of the players just didn't understand that.

A lot of lip service is given to “play how you want”, yet weapons choice rigidly defines what you are and armour type is forced to support that role.

Every class can do everything, so long as you pick this one option that everyone else will also be forced to use.

exeeter702 wrote: »

[
Again, you are taking the play as you want mantra way out of the boundaries that the phrase was intended for.

So what?

Why are you so defensive of the status quo?

RavenSworn wrote: »

Kesstryl wrote: »

I don't mind that all classes can fill all roles, but I do mind that they have to rely on non-class skills to do so effectively. This is where the homogonization is killing class identity. Class skills should be tweaked to give something to each role so we don't have to rely on non-class skills to fill the gaps. I think it was a big plan to get us to buy non-class skill lines in the crown store which I absolutely refuse to do. My sorc tank and DK healer were in a better spot before this mess.

But that's the thing, you DO need non class skills to fill in the gaps, regardless of whatever role you choose to be in. A chain pull is a chain pull, no two ways about it. And only DKs have that and I'm fine with that because theres an option for me to at least be competitive. I can choose not to use it and use some other way to pull in mobs and it's great.

I was ok with a couple non class skills on my bar filling the gaps, but last few patches they nerfed and homogonized class skills and buffed non-class skills for their crown store. These days, unless your class is meta for the role, you are using mostly non-class skills to fill your role. That I'm not okay with.

This isn't that type of game. I love games that do that, like EQ1, Vanguard and maybe soon Pantheon. This game is about freedom and I love it

MashmalloMan wrote: »

You just can't please everybody. I think the game is in the best place it's ever been, just small changes need to be made.

We have more class skills that behave with dynamic scaling to offer more competitve results for Stamina identity without taking away from Magicka. Abilities that made DK the best tanks with chains and Templar the best healer with the combustion synergy have been given as universal tools any class can use, yet they still kept their original abilities. I'm sorry, but it was very annoying before when only 2 classes could fill those roles in dungeons.

Of course, there will always be a meta and people will always choose whats best, even if it's 1% better and 20% less fun. That's the problem with this community. Sure, a lot of the pve dps builds feel samey and there is a lot of work to be done, but one thing is for sure. We asked for this. All classes are within 5% dps of each other at an end game level, yet that's still too much for some people. The nerf requests will continually take away from what makes class abilities unique.

I remember thinking how stupid it was years ago that Crit Surge and Power Surge were essentially the same, wasted opportunity, during the PTS when ZOS last minute decided to give Sorc Healers a way of providing a group HOT. Everyone went balistic as if they were taking something away from Mag Sorc when they never should of had 2 morphs do practically the same thing. It took ZOS another 3 months and a major patch, but they did exactly what I suggested the day after they released the first patch notes for Power Surge.

The base ability should provide both Major Sorcery and Brutality, Power Surge should only proc off crit HEALS, instead of damage. I admit, I didn't like the 3s CD and I still think it should be 2s to line up better with how ticks go off in this game, but they did it for a good reason. I saw pages and pages of people complaining, when it was actually a solid idea and WELL overdue.

IMO, they're on the right track and I hope all these major changes mean some more class defining passives and mechanics. Say what you want, but they're aware of providing every class with a specific mini game/mechanic and this couldn't be more clear with how they designed Necro's. They need to adopt that mentality for the original classes. Using corpses may feel like a hit or miss, but having that seperate resource that multiple abilities use is very fun and interesting to me. I'd like to see more of that going forward. An earlier comment mentions Sorc's building up charges. That is a fantastic idea and fits the shock theme excellently.

I just want to add to this, the fact that NB's can now use the Shadow Clone and actually do well with it sustain/dps wise was so awesome to see. I remember being so dissapointed when I first made my sNB to find out it didn't scale well with Stamina when Shadow type dps classes in any other mmo, usually use a Shadow Clone to dish out damage. It just feels right. Very weird they didn't think of that sooner. Super cool change imo.

Same goes with Streak for Stam Sorc and Bound Armaments. I've never had more fun since I've added Streak to my builds now that it actually does decent damage too.

You will always find better class idenity in PVP since it isn't entirely a dps race. I think people expect a little too much from PVE when single target damage is the only thing that will ever matter.

KillsAllElves wrote: »

In this game these terms are an oxymoron.

Class identity comes from specific themed abilities.

Best in slot tank-DK
Best in slot healer-templar.

Trying to make all classes have the abilities to fill all roles is not only ridiculous, it shows the lack of imagination on the developers part.

Best in slot main healer - for current patch Warden so you know Score pushing groups don't run templar healers because stamplars provide the same buff.

Class identity is in the passives

And warden is way better at healing than templar. Just look at the skills and passives.