Class Overhaul

Syrpynt · November 2021

Please "replace" classes with something that has more freedom, now that hybridization has been implemented.

Instead of:

• Nightblade
• Templar
• Warden
• Dragonknight
• Sorcerer
• Necromancer

We get to choose only TWO major skill lines from these classes. It is more freedom, but also less freedom to break the game:

• Assassination
• Shadow
• Siphoning
• Aedric Spear
• Dawn's Wrath
• Restoring Light
• Animal Companions
• Green Balance
• Winter's Embrace
• Ardent Flame
• Draconic Power
• Earthen Heart
• Dark Magic
• Daedric Summoning
• Storm Calling
• Grave Lord
• Bone Tyrant
• Living Death

Only TWO. You can only slot 10 abilities, so you should only need 10 options, since there are world/guild abilities as well. And you should only be choosing skills that you will actually USE.

Zenimax benefits from this because this would be the opportunity to sell us: Class respecification tokens!

I know I would respec all 9 of my characters to all be unique.

Pros:
• Theorycrafter's wet dreams: SO many combinations. Metas will always exist, but for others who play for "The Elder Scrolls" aspect, the freedom would be very similar to the single player Elder Scrolls titles, but not TOO free--ya know? Can't know the majority of skill lines. Only the 2 you want most.
• Class respecification tokens would basically HAVE to be released for this to work. ZoS makes monies, players make unique character builds. Win-Win.
• Less passives for players too, can't be too powerful. 2/3 the passives we have now.
• Less need for Skillpoints being wasted into a class just to level it and get passives for it. The alternative I would hope for is another weapon skill line: 1H+Spell. Spellsword players unite!
• Roleplayers will have the visual effects that match their style more because they selected skill lines to fit a theme.
• Every character would have an option to access a "pull", damage shields, pets, self healing, group healing, group buffs, Solo damage focus, group damage focus, etc.
• It would be EXTREMELY hard for meta builders to decipher the "best" build for each patch. This means they would have to either spend more time trying to figure out the best combinations, or simply accept that there are MANY good combinations out there and to enjoy the game for face value and just build what works and makes them happy. (;

Cons:
• Developers would have to do a bit of work to make this happen.
• Class symbols for our characters would only be an aesthetic after this change.
• Someone, someday, would find the "best combination" for PvE and Someone would find the best for PvP and people would follow this meta and ignore the wonders of combination skill lines because many people want the answers handed to them, rather than discover things on their own. IE: Everyone in PvP chooses Shadow for Shadowcloak now. lol This would be silly though bc not everyone likes to sneak, some like to drag their sneakybutts out the shadows with a flare or magelight (;<
• Some skill lines are redundant and have the same major/minor buffs. Solution: Make them flat values, rather than 'tagged' buffs/debuffs.
• Some skills could be broken in combination of each other: Templar sweeps and Crystal Frags..?

I'm sure there are more issues and benefits than what I've posted here. Don't just say "Never gonna work." Constructive criticism is how we build on ideas so bad ideas don't get released and our community goes "Why did the developers even do that?"

I would love a Shadow + Dawn's Wrath (A light/dark Khajiit 'Moondancer' theme). Green Balance + Siphoning Healer. Dark Magic + Earthen Heart Tank.

If you do respond, at least answer these questions:
1.) Whether or not you agree with this proposed change: What 2 skill lines would you combine, and why?
2.) Explain why you do or don't like this. Explain potential solution(s) to the negative(s).
3.) What are your thoughts on a 1H+Spell weapon skill line?

Looking forward to people's responses in debate or support!

the1andonlyskwex · November 2021

This sounds like a balance nightmare. Other MMOs have tried similar things and ultimately this kind of system either leads to a situation where everyone specs the same, or where all of the skill lines are essentially the same with different animations, because nothing else works from a balance standpoint.

Syrpynt · November 2021

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

This sounds like a balance nightmare. Other MMOs have tried similar things and ultimately this kind of system either leads to a situation where everyone specs the same, or where all of the skill lines are essentially the same with different animations, because nothing else works from a balance standpoint.

By everyone, do you mean mostly-competitive players, or the large majority of casuals?

Which games?

Gilvoth · November 2021

sounds awesome
i hope they do this.

the1andonlyskwex · November 2021

Syrpynt wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

This sounds like a balance nightmare. Other MMOs have tried similar things and ultimately this kind of system either leads to a situation where everyone specs the same, or where all of the skill lines are essentially the same with different animations, because nothing else works from a balance standpoint.

By everyone, do you mean mostly-competitive players, or the large majority of casuals?

Which games?

By "everyone" I mean anyone that's even remotely competitive, and a lot of casuals too because of competitive players gatekeeping content behind specific builds (i.e. kicking anyone without the meta build from groups).

The main game that comes to mind that had a system like this was The Secret World, and basically all of the skill lines were the same outside of cosmetic differences. Each skill line had a "unique" way of building and consuming resources, but fundamentally they followed a pretty simple cookie cutter design because any truly unique or interesting effect would have created unpredictable interactions between abilities leading to balance problems.

Syrpynt · November 2021

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

By "everyone" I mean anyone that's even remotely competitive, and a lot of casuals too because of competitive players gatekeeping content behind specific builds (i.e. kicking anyone without the meta build from groups).

The main game that comes to mind that had a system like this was The Secret World, and basically all of the skill lines were the same outside of cosmetic differences. Each skill line had a "unique" way of building and consuming resources, but fundamentally they followed a pretty simple cookie cutter design because any truly unique or interesting effect would have created unpredictable interactions between abilities leading to balance problems.

Edits shown in ***

1.) What's different than now? I can only tank endgame content as is, because I don't follow dummy-test rotation builds to be a dps in end-game content because I don't want to change my playstyle to make 100k dps. Most ***people casuals*** can't get into vet endgame groups because the leaders request parse-logs before sending an invite. ***Classes have always had balancing issues. There have been so many nerfs/buffs since launch, I don't believe there would be any more or less nerfs (on average) with this new proposal, vs the current. But that is my opinion and I cannot prove that without data.***

2.) Not every player will have access to too many damage shields if they use Assassin or Shadow. But also not every player will use Shadow because they may want to make an Ardent Flame + Storm Calling destructive mage. And again-- Ardent and Storm don't have damage shields. In all, Each skill line is already fairly unique. And I requested to limit to only 2 skill lines to help balance it, which should be enough. Unless you can give me an example of the "broken" combinations? I may review them tonight if I have time--but fixing a couple of broken combinations is pretty easy--rather than nerfing/buffing entire classes.

the1andonlyskwex · November 2021

The problem is that with so many combinations available it's incredibly hard to predict what will wind up being overpowered. If I could just give you a list of overpowered combinations there probably wouldn't be a problem.

One example that does come to mind though is a healer with Restoring Light and Green Balance. The amount of healing and group support provided by that combination is significantly greater than any current class can provide, and probably way too powerful for good game balance. The solutions to the problem more or less amount to either restricting the combinations that people can use (essentially what we have now), or homogenizing the skill lines so that picking both would be redundant (which is boring).

Syrpynt · November 2021

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

The problem is that with so many combinations available it's incredibly hard to predict what will wind up being overpowered. If I could just give you a list of overpowered combinations there probably wouldn't be a problem.

One example that does come to mind though is a healer with Restoring Light and Green Balance. The amount of healing and group support provided by that combination is significantly greater than any current class can provide, and probably way too powerful for good game balance. The solutions to the problem more or less amount to either restricting the combinations that people can use (essentially what we have now), or homogenizing the skill lines so that picking both would be redundant (which is boring).

If one has 2 healing skill-lines, they would have very little damage. It would be pretty difficult for them to do solo content. If they are doing PvP, healing and tank roles are already broken in terms of multiple healers using the same abilities and sets that stack, despite having the same names, contrary to "tagged" buffs and debuffs never stacking same-name effects.
The healing aspect, I've discussed in separate threads, and to fix this, I think splitting healing and damage potencies would help. Basically, anything contributing to both right now, should be split so that even dps-healer characters would have to choose one role more favorably. So then having a dedicated healer with 2 healing skill lines wouldn't be so bad if they can only stay alive but can't hurt anyone enough to be considered too "broken" for balance.
• Critical Chance --> Critical healing Chance + Critical Damage Chance
• Spell/WeaponPower --> Damage potency.
• Max Resource --> Healing potency.

But I totally get it and agree. Balancing would still be fairly difficult and there are probably some horrible ability combinations that no one should be able to combine. Sorc Crit Surge and Templar sweeps is probably another one.

Mushroomancer · November 2021

While this would have been interesting if it were part of the base gameplay design, I think it's a terrible idea to implement as an update, or overhaul.
Before I get into why I disagree with your proposal, please, don't give ZOS ideas that they could monetize in an exploitative way, that's just ass-backwards from a costumer standpoint.
Ok, first of all, looking at this in general, I think "it would never work" because it would be a balancing nightmare, nevermind the terrible balancing we get now, it would be pretty much impossible to predict what changes would actually be beneficial or detrimental, since you would be able to combine any two skill lines in the game and patch notes would just become an eldritch-horror tier balancing [snip]. Moreover, when meta eventually does shift, that could mean having to respec, and therefore putting down more of your hard-earned cash just to be on top of the meta (see how this could become easily exploitative).
Now, looking at the pros you list:

Yes, sure, this would be fun to theorycraft around, what I don't think you considered though, is how just two skill lines are actually kinda limiting, for most playstyles, keeping in mind that many roles use just maybe one or two active skills from each skill line or sometimes even just their passives. Let's say I want to play a healer with this new system, and I choose Aedric Spear and Green Balance, so i get both the Warden shrooms and flowers, and the spear synergy, great! Except, now I can buff my teammates with frost cloak, or apply a debuff like PotL. Also, I don't understand how you claim this would keep the freedom of classic TES games, but also then say "We can't have all the freedom now, can we?"
Again, don't give them ideas for more crap they can market, especially when it could be really annoying and exploitative (see the above meta shift example).
Yeah, sure, it would mean less passives, but I fail to see how this is a good thing, passives are, at this point pretty much the only thing differentiating most classes (mostly talking about DDs here, I think healers and tanks still have a decent amount of class diversity), and "power" doesn't just come from class passives, I would say it mostly comes from racial, weapon and CP passives.
I'm sorry, what? I would argue there is an OVERabundance of skill points. There's so many sources of skill points that you end up with a bunch of them sitting unspent. However I will say, I do hope they end up adding more weapon skill lines, that would actually be a way to spend more of those dusty old skill points.
That would be cool, but I think that most roleplayers are asking for alternative visuals for already existing class spells, not to just be able to use other classes' spells to fit their themes. I think this would actually be a decent aspect to monetize.
Well, those options can already be accessed by most class/roles combinations through skills in other universal skill lines, (Silver Leash for pulls; Annulment, Brawler and Bone Shield for, well, shields; weapon and guild skills and passives for the rest), not to mention sets (hell Morkuldyn even gives you a "pet" spirit sword) so I really don't see this point as being valid.
I think you underestimate how quickly and efficiently most high-tier theorycrafters can crunch their numbers. It would probably take longer to envision the best meta for each patch, but not that much longer I reckon.

Looking at the cons:

Yeah, I think "a bit" is putting it very, VERY lightly (although I can see you being sarcastic with your bolding of the phrase). Besides the aforementioned balancing issues, I don't really know the coding specifics of such a change, since I know basically nothing about coding, but I think it would be incredibly challenging, not to mention time and resource intensive, possibly to the point where it wouldn't even be worth the money spent. Plus, I shudder at the thought of the gigantic, wriggling mass of bugs that would come out of such an endeavor.
Yeah, nothing to say about this, classes would pretty much not exist anymore.
Yeah, news flash, this is an MMO, a meta is always going to exist and people are gonna follow it, not because they would disdain the "wonders of combination" but because people like to play efficiently in multoplayer games, especially in a naturally competitive setting like PvP.
Sure, many buffs and debuffs are shared between different class skill lines, but that's what enables you to choose a specific class for a specific role, if you were to isolate a specific buff (or debuff) to one or two skill lines, everyone would flock to those skill lines just to have those buffs for their role.
Yeah, you don't say.

In conclusion (and I know you asked not to say this), this is never gonna happen, the challenges and risks that would come with this are truly massive and far outweigh the benefits. There is no solution to make this better, it's just not gonna happen because ESO wasn't built with a system like this in mind, and patching it in would be a massive, most likely messy undertaking, not to mention the fact that this would just relegate roles to specific skill lines and paradoxically reduce the player's freedom.

tl;dr: pls no

[Edited for Censor Bypass]

Syrpynt · November 2021

@Mushroomancer , I think you'd want Green Balance and Grave Lord. (;

Jokes aside, yeah I can't say I've ever worked on an MMO, but I do know a bit about balancing content from a modder aspect. And that going to this method would actually simplify many aspects from the developer side, but only after the majority of changes have been done. So like, future work to balance would be simpler because there is less total "quantity of variables" per player (while the "total number of variation" increases), similar to choosing a password: Your alpha-numeric-symbolic library to choose from is your total variation for options, but you have 1 less character length. It's like 1 step back, to increase variety 100 fold. That's why I believe that with the variety, it would take too long for players to decipher which combination is best right away. It would take too much time with the number of sets, races, and then class skills combinations to figure out a perfect meta--and if they do, who cares? There would be so many "top meta combinations" that they're all different that it opens up more vairety, and have strengths and weaknesses based on their choices. If there were to be 20 skill line combinations that would give players all the same dps potential (but different ways of going about it), people would feel less obliged to the "meta". If those 20 sets were all within 1% of max damage output of each other, no one would care which is the "best" because you get more variability in player types and one skill line may be another's weakness. ZoS keeps touting "play how you want", and so long as they keep the bar low enough for casuals to complete normal content, and competitive players can do vet content (but not based on top tier players, as it is now), then it's fine.

Instead of nerfing a "class", now a skill line may be nerfed, and players may want to swap to a different skill line of magic, or not? I mean, people will play how they want to play.

And I wouldn't say it's "never gonna happen." It's increasingly moving towards that direction (just in my opinion), and so it's best to think of solutions now, than to just whine and fight it because the consequences would suck if we didn't try to solve problems in advance.

How do you think they would prevent 2 abilities being combined to be "broken", for PvP and/or PvE?
• Nerfing = Easy fix, but upsets players who weren't abusing the combo. Not a first choice.
• Cooldowns? Animation cooldowns would slow combat and *** off a lot of competitive players. Not to mention all combat in the game is basically scaled to Animation Cancelling.
• Change ability effects/outcomes? Probably what would have to happen. Crystal frags could no longer be RNG for a castless + reduced cost and higher damage. Templar sweeps healing done could be decreased because other skill lines offer healing. etc. Just thought of something new: To prevent combination skills from different skill lines being too powerful, "broken skills" should either have to alternate between skill lines: Sweeps --> Crystal --> Sweeps --> Crystal, or the effect of a powerful ability can only be activated if it is a follow-up to a skill from the same skill line: Crystal --> Sweep = No crystal proc. Sweep --> Crystal = No healing next Sweep. Basically, making it so that people have to rotate their skills for certain abilities, but stick to spammables if you want some bonus effects, thus mitigating potential to spam sweeps all day and then finish with a crystal proc.***

Anyway, I don't mind a class change token because no one is forcing you to respec. You can keep 2 of your original class skill lines, or you can make a new character, spend 6 months grinding for mount stats and skill points again. There are other options than to buy it--so I don't see the issue with "class respec tokens." And usually the tokens are given free per existing character you have upon big updates like that. It's new players or new characters that would have to purchase a respec *after* the update.

Mushroomancer · November 2021

I can see where you're coming from when you speak about balance after such an update, but I'm not completely sold on it, I still think ZOS would find a way to muck it up, and again, it would probably be much worse than what we have now. I guarantee you they would most likely either start to randomly change skills or combinations that are deemed too powerful or just forget about balancing and leave the game as is, because they will have your same thought process of "They're gonna take forever to figure out the meta anyways".
Aside from that though, I don't really get why a lot of people keep referencing this "Play how you want" slogan, it just reads to me like a generic "There's lots of stuff to do in our game" type of tagline and really shouldn't be taken as gospel, and even if that were the case, the game already has plenty of activities and ways to approach them, so I would say the saying still stands even if I think it's bunk.
And let me clarify this, I say it's never gonna happen, because it most likely will not happen, the thing is, even if this didn't pose any challenge to code and implement, I don't really see a big push towards it either from the community or from the developers. I think people are overplaying the whole hybridization changes (Also can you come to an agreement on this? It's either the death of class diversity or the best thing that's ever happened to it, and I think both statements are really exaggerated).
I think your idea of alternating skills from different lines is interesting but it seems to defeat the whole point of combining different skill lines. I mean, what's the point if I get gimped effects on my skills when I chain them together? I also think the overpowered nature of a combination would most likely come from the passives or from very specific skills from each line being used in conjunction with each other in a way that doesn't necessarily involve stringing them together in a rotation or using them as spammables.
I think the only real way of balancing such a system would be to act on those specific combinations alone, but that would definitely draw the ire of people who like to play with those skills, so I don't know...
And looking at your last point, you may not mind class change tokens, but that doesn't mean the entire player base, hell maybe not even the majority, would be okay with them. And don't you see how insane the "Make a new character and spend half a year bringing it up to speed" "alternative" sounds like? That is not an alternative, it's pointless grind just to maybe find a combination that you like, or most likely, given the amount of combinations that would be possible, you're just gonna toss it into the garbage and start all over, really doesn't sound fun at all.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying a system like this wouldn't be interesting or fun to play around, I just think you should look elsewhere for something like this, if ESO was meant to be played this way from the start, then it would have been cool, but it isn't and most likely never will.

Artim_X · November 2021

1.) Whether or not you agree with this proposed change: What 2 skill lines would you combine, and why?

I'm not going to sugarcoat this. I absolutely hate this idea!

2.) Explain why you do or don't like this. Explain potential solution(s) to the negative(s).

What this idea does is crap on players who currently takes a little from each of their skill lines whether it be skills or actual passives. If this idea were implemented there will always be a specific meta setup for healer, tank, or dps role (this would occur on the first day of live and not at some pointkn the future). ZOS can try to rebalance till the cows come home, but they'll never come close to achieving it.

There is no solution. This can't be balanced and this punishes people who aren't altoholics (uses all their skill lines to create a DPS, Healer, Tank, PvP build). The only real solution is to never implement this idea. If you want more options then ask for more unique skill lines.

3.) What are your thoughts on a 1H+Spell weapon skill line?

This is fine. Variety is the spice of life, doesn't require new motifs, and doesn't affect drop rates.

hafgood · November 2021

Going to be honest, there is one thing you are forgetting in your desire to pick and choose from multiple classes, and that is that some of us like the character we play and the skills we have at out disposal.

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean many players want it to change from the classes we have.

And being blunt the meta will be found on the PTS and everyone will be using the same skills / sets, it won't increase diversity, it will decrease diversity, instead of having templars, dks, nightblades, etc which may be Healer, Tank, stam or mag dd, we will end up with a Healer set up, a Tank set up and a stam and mag dd set up

At the moment in end game healers are used to complement one another and will wear different sets and have different set ups, normally they will be two different classes. You will lose this if you go your route.

Please leave this part of the game alone, I like it exactly as it is.

Syrpynt · November 2021

hafgood wrote: »

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean many players want it to change from the classes we have.

Just because I spoke up about it, doesn't also mean that I am alone with wanting more diversity --fighting against every existing player in ESO to agree with this change. Quite the contrary. You like it the way it is, that's fine. I respect that opinion.

hafgood wrote: »

And being blunt the meta will be found on the PTS and everyone will be using the same skills / sets, it won't increase diversity, it will decrease diversity, instead of having templars, dks, nightblades, etc which may be Healer, Tank, stam or mag dd, we will end up with a Healer set up, a Tank set up and a stam and mag dd set up

The same was said about hybrids before U32: "It won't increase diversity, it will decrease diversity." It's been an awesome success for me so far, because I made builds that would never have worked before. And no, I'm not running Medusa on all of my Magicka/Stamina characters, and everyone who is, is missing the point of the update: The gap between the 'best and the rest' is closing in, so now it is only skill dividing players, not "who grinds for gear longer." I am ok with this.

But anyway, I understand the balancing issue would be the biggest reason the devs may never implement it. But I still see bigger benefits than drawbacks for the idea. So we can agree to disagree, unless more ideas (outside of what has already been discussed) comes up.

Ryuvain · November 2021

I like this idea. Hated the class system ever since I started since I came from other Elder Scrolls games first. (Would love to have a summoner without being bound to lightning and cast times...)

Ksariyu · November 2021

I don't hate the idea. I'm just not sure the benefits are as amazing as you say.

In the case of diversity, yes, there would be the opportunity for DIFFERENT combinations, but you'd actually be reducing the options available to each build. Instead of having 3 class lines to choose from, you now get 2. Not terrible really, but still worth considering.

The bigger issue I see is that the class lines are inherently unbalanced, and I don't mean from a statistical standpoint but mechanically. Using the Dark Magic line for your PvE build? Great, have fun never getting to use Rune Prison because stuns are effectively useless beyond story content. Same with Petrify in Earthen Heart, or Eclipse in Dawn's Wrath. In fact, all of the base game class lines would need to be reworked since they often combine skills that are intended for different roles, as opposed to Warden and Necro which are at least categorized.

You would also be killing builds that currently use skills from all of their class lines, even for aesthetic purposes. Paladin-style characters are the first that come to mind when I think of what could be destroyed with this change. Holy magic, both to heal and harm, as well as close-range combat are the staples of a Paladin, and that requires all three Templar lines.

Besides, if you're going to do away with classes in general, why even limit the number of skill lines you can use? You're always going to be limited to 10 skills anyway, so I don't think adding the extra restriction is really necessary.

I could sit here for a while and come up with more issues, but the point is that this is just a personal preference thing, rather than an actual solution to a problem. As much as I hate to admit it, I think a lot of the problems brought up by you and others who agree with you are ones that stem from the game's core designs, and would require MASSIVE overhauls to fix properly.

Stx · November 2021

I like the class system, my only gripe is that the classes they chose are rubbish. Nightblade and sorcerer make sense, but dragonknight is silly, templar is a bit out there, and warden is just a mess.

I wish they had just chosen classes that were already established in elder scrolls lore. Warrior, crusader, monk, battlemage, etc.

Amottica · November 2021

The most important consideration is that is a change that would take a year or two to design and determine how to implement. That is a core change to the game and not something wise developers would take lightly if they would even consider it.

Additionally, it would offer little in return for all that work as it would merely change up the choices we have for different choices without really offering us much in return since we already have little that limits our builds.

My vote would be no as there are important things they need to work in like improving the performance of the severs, especially Cydoriil. The success of the game also dictates that it would not be wise to make major changes like this.

RD065 · November 2021

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Syrpynt wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

This sounds like a balance nightmare. Other MMOs have tried similar things and ultimately this kind of system either leads to a situation where everyone specs the same, or where all of the skill lines are essentially the same with different animations, because nothing else works from a balance standpoint.

By everyone, do you mean mostly-competitive players, or the large majority of casuals?

Which games?

By "everyone" I mean anyone that's even remotely competitive, and a lot of casuals too because of competitive players gatekeeping content behind specific builds (i.e. kicking anyone without the meta build from groups).

The main game that comes to mind that had a system like this was The Secret World, and basically all of the skill lines were the same outside of cosmetic differences. Each skill line had a "unique" way of building and consuming resources, but fundamentally they followed a pretty simple cookie cutter design because any truly unique or interesting effect would have created unpredictable interactions between abilities leading to balance problems.

I bet the ones you refer to are the minority who play this game.

GrizzlyTank · November 2021

Would definitely have liked to see the ability to not need multiple characters to play all the "classes", especially when they haven't bothered to add class specific morphs for the generic weapon skill-lines.

And each skill line tend to cover it's own niche like a element, so balance shouldn't be that messy.

tenryuta · November 2021

every skill has been monotonized(single targets do x, aoes do y, anything with debuff/buff does z, +/- depending on all depending on additional factors), removing a third skill tree from every class will end this game(healers will use warden/temp heal trees, tanks will use dk/necro/sorc trees, derps will use one execute tree along with anything that gives more universal passives like sorc daedric line).

new worlds skill lines, or micro perks is awful, and copying it would be a bad move, and a stab at everyone who loves the game, and spent many jiggy-watts and dollars supporting the devs.

Mushroomancer · November 2021

RD065 wrote: »

I bet the ones you refer to are the minority who play this game.

This is most likely gonna sound rude or even elitist, but I gotta ask.
I'm sorry, but if you are in the purported majority of people that doesn't identify as "even remotely competitive" a.k.a. you don't play any content that adheres to a specific meta, why do you even care about balance or build variety? It's not like overland content requires you to play in a specific way, with a specific build, hell not even most normal group instances require that. And the change proposed by OP won't even carry any benefit for people who just RP or care about how their skills look, because skills from different classes don't match in terms of visuals and feel (unless you want to be a really confused guy that can use a spear of aedric light, but also enjoys summoning literal demons and imps from oblivion, for some reason).

If you want build variety in a meta-sensitive setting, you're never gonna get enough. There's always gonna be the BiS skill setup/gear/CP combination, and the change that OP is proposing won't change that, it could even make it worse.
If you want customization when it comes to the way skills look and feel, then I get it, because it would be genuinely cool to be able to customize the way spells and skills look like based on a specific theme on a character, but, first of all, that can and should be a merely cosmetic option, and secondly, I don't see that happening very soon, if at all, sadly, since ZOS doesn't seem to be too concerned about customization when they can't stuff it in a gambling crate.

buttaface · November 2021

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

This sounds like a balance nightmare.

Couldn't agree more. Just because they have homogenized CP and many sets doesn't mean broader is needed and especially that ZOS has the wherewithal to correctly implement such. Their track record over years is evidence that they do not.

Uvi_AUT · November 2021

I like classdifferences, but that would be too much, even for me.
I think the current system in ESO is pretty good actually. I just wish there would be other gameplaystiles than.
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Athan1 · November 2021

It's an interesting idea, but it's too late to implement it so it won't happen.

A game with this feature that comes to mind is Tree of Savior, where you build your own class by combining three different sub-classes from a class tree. For example, I am a "cleric" and have three different specializations/skill lines, exorcist, crusader, and chaplain. The game is more basic but there are like 80 sub-classes or so from 5 trees, which is a "theorycrafter's wet dream". As others have noted, note that there are still optimal combinations with this kind of set-up.

Araneae6537 · November 2021

I would be okay with this, might even like it, if the option to keep the three class skill lines was maintained so that you could have three class skill lines from the same class or two from two different classes (or three, though for sure in that case some bonuses would need to not stack). I’m very happy with some of my characters and wouldn’t want them to lose anything. For others, maybe their chosen class didn’t end up appealing to me or fitting my character concept as much as I’d hoped and so being able to mix it up would be welcome.

Eldemar_Kron · November 2021

pls no

like combat team balanced current state of game

P.S. a lot of classes got synergies of all skilltrees they have build in passives and such change will just break it.

Tommy_The_Gun · November 2021

Well, if I only play one niche class (for example mag nb) and I have no interest in other classes all of the sudden I would lose 1 skill line...