Do you think classes have identity and are fully represented?

Entegre · December 2021

How are you feeling about your class identity. Please discuss if you are not feeling connected to your class. Or if you think each class have solid mechanisms and representation in game.

spartaxoxo · December 2021

No, some/all classes feel/play similar

I said no because I lean more towards no than yes, but I actually think it's somewhere in the middle. They aren't that distinctive but there a few differences between them that really make you want to pick one class over another beyond just different animations e.g. the necro rez ult is a unique mechanic that feels like a reason to go Necro over Templar.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · December 2021

Yes, classes have identity.

Yes, but it not as much as they used to, that is for sure. Too many people want all classes to be equal at all things, and that is definitely diminishing identity. Equality and Identity are sometimes at odds with one another.

VaranisArano · December 2021

When I started playing ESO, my Dunmer Dragonknight was a tanky, firewielding warrior.

Years later, Varanis Arano is still a tanky, firewielding warrior.

I'm quite pleased with how well she's held up over the years despite having made her when I had no clue how to play ESO.

kaushad · December 2021

We could do with some NPCs or even institutions, such as the Harmonious Masters, that identify by the classes. And some books about necromancy. There are loads of NPC necromancers of course, but very little theory that explains how we can launch flaming skulls. There are at least allusion to the Living Death school in one of the Shor's Stone quests.

FeedbackOnly · December 2021

No, some/all classes feel/play similar

Warden stole sorc identity of healer with their ability to give regain to 2 stats instead of 1.

Buff empowered ward

techyeshic · December 2021

No, some/all classes feel/play similar

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

Warden stole sorc identity of healer with their ability to give regain to 2 stats instead of 1.

Buff empowered ward

What? Warden literally was a combination of DK and Templar.

Doesn't really matter any more. Save for DKs being in a good spot with DOTs and whip; it's mostly a combo of tankiness and Procs over class identity. Everything has a heal. Everything has a burst. Even going invisible may not mean much as invisibility pots are common. It's a couple flavors of those Procs, troll tanks, and bash builds.

Raideen · December 2021

No, some/all classes feel/play similar

No.

In order to do good DPS in trials or even PVP we have to resort to skill lines and everyone ends up using the same stuff. Classes lose their identity.

Secondly, the combat in ESO all looks the same. In fact, its difficult to read what another player is doing, especially in PVP. In WOW, if you know the classes, you can read and call out that combat like a sports announcer and react accordingly. The animations for all the classes are different, the spell effects are all different. You don't roll dodge to get out of stuff like every class in eso, each class in wow has its own escape mechanic and they all look different which adds to a unique combat look. Skill lines make all 6 classes in ESO have the same animations (dizzing swing, wall of elements, etc).

New World is no different than ESO, it looks like everyone is doing the same thing.

One of the things I am trying to do as I build my classes in ESO is make them look like their namesake. But its difficult to do so AND pull vet worthy DPS. I am trying to make a 'Dark Wizard' and I REALLY wish Morkuldin was equally as potent for a magicka build as it is for stamina (not that its a good set, but magical swords are cool). https://eso-sets.com/set/morkuldin

I feel the only way classes are going to feel unique is if we have less reliance on skill lines and have more classes to play. 6 is really not enough for an MMORPG, not for a game that is coming up on 8 years old.

Vevvev · December 2021

No, some/all classes feel/play similar

Like Spartaxoxo said it's somewhere in the middle. Some classes lack identity, while others have it so on display that it's seared into out hearts and minds. Whether good or bad.

opaj · December 2021

Yes, classes have identity.

Coming from a TES background (as opposed to an MMO background), I'd say the classes have plenty of identity. In the singleplayer games, class had such little impact on your character's identity that they ended up removing them entirely in Skyrim.

And, uh... That's the way I prefer it. I'd rather be able to freely mix and match anything in order to create a character identity as opposed to a class identity. But I understand that this would destroy what individuality remains in the endgame meta, so I don't expect this to ever happen. Oh well!

peacenote · December 2021

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Yes, but it not as much as they used to, that is for sure. Too many people want all classes to be equal at all things, and that is definitely diminishing identity. Equality and Identity are sometimes at odds with one another.

Could not say it better than this. Agree 100%.

DontWorryAboutit · December 2021

NOPE

The necromancer is not close to being a legitimate necromancer p2w (carry class)

The warden has no clue what it wants to be instead is another p2w (carry class) designed for use in BGs

Every one has fears, stealth mechanic, insane mobility, and ridiculous amounts of CCs [poor magDK]..

This whole game is a giant cluster [snip]

[edited for profanity bypass]

francesinhalover · December 2021

No, some/all classes feel/play similar

Magicka usually gets all the attention. Stam feels like the after thought. So obviously magicka has identity for the most part
Stamina meanwhile...

List focused on stamina.

Visual quality = how easy it is to know what class someone uses with little attention. And how unique it feels.

Best are Sorcerer and warden

Stam morphs ratings
:Great>Good>Alright>Average>Horrible

Best Nightblade and necromancer

Necromancer
-has average visual quality (skeletons , undead ultimates.)
-stam morph quantity is good.
Would be even better if the scyte spammable wasnt garbage on pve because of pvp. (Aparently the scyte isnt that bad for aoe and heal so necro goes up one rank so necro is now great)

Nightblade
-has average visual identity, (you identify it via grim focus glow that's it) having a shadow clone helps.
-Stam morph quantity is Great! Probably the best in quantity and quality of morphs.

Warden
- has great visual identity (easily identifiable thanks to bear , floating heals , glowing weapons)
-Stam morph quantity is alright.

Would be good quality if The only
spammable it has wasn't trash on pve so it can be good on pvp. (Aparently it can be strong on pve? I see some people recommend in builds so warden goes up one rank:it's good now.)

Templar
-has no visual identity.
Only 2 stam abilities worth using on a trial.
One of them flashes the screen and hurts the eyes.
-The stam morph quantity is horrible.

Theres a throwing spear ability. Could be good in pve but not gonna happen because of pvp.

Dragon knight
-has slightly above average visual identity (weapon glow, rotating orb, armor)
-Stam morphs are alright

whip finaly can be used with stam... But is meh. clunky rock is still better.

Stam sorcerer
- has the highest identity in the game (Thanks to hurricane ,critical surge, bound srmaments , the conjured pets). Like you know you are a sorcerer and you feel like one.
- it's Alright in stam diversity

crystal weapon is a reskin of the psijic spammable that never was that liked ,feels clunky to use especialy with
lagg and the animations are kinda bad. But in their defense the skill sounds better than the psijic one and has a cool purple aura.

Pvp should be seperate from pve.

Ksariyu · December 2021

No, some/all classes feel/play similar

Once they pushed the game to only support LA weaving, classes rapidly started to lose identity. Add the fact that there's very little creativity in healing or tanking skills across the board, and every class starts to feel identical.

katanagirl1 · December 2021

Classes have identity unless you want stam build, and then you either have to slot a magicka skill or all weapon skills.

Kwoung · December 2021

No, some/all classes feel/play similar

My answer to the question...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXlSBJRwYAY

Amottica · December 2021

Yes, classes have identity.

Yes as each class clearly has some skills that are unique to that class and, at least with my three characters, there are some of those class skills that I use.

Of course, in the context of some of the other popular, and less popular, MMORPGs out there ESO classes have less identity. That is because MMORPGs have extremely restrictive build choices and ESO allows us access to much more variety.

I will freely give up some of that class identity, not all, for the freedom of choice we get, but we clearly have some class identity.

SeaGtGruff · December 2021

I don't usually play my classes on my characters, and I'm happy that I can tailor my characters to fit my chosen playstyle by using whatever armor types and weapon types I wish regardless of each character's class.

However, I've watched ESO streamers on Twitch who seemed to be playing their classes very successfully, so it's apparent that each class can definitely have a distinctive identity if players choose to play that way.

It's a flexible system, one that doesn't limit players' choices by restricting them from using certain types of armor or weapons based on their classes, yet allows players to focus primarily on their characters' class abilities if desired.

Raideen · December 2021

No, some/all classes feel/play similar

Kwoung wrote: »

My answer to the question...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXlSBJRwYAY

Man, I am at pulling part of the video. This really makes me miss my hunter in WOW (old school, not the current game).
I loved pulling mobs for the tank and CCing, or even off tanking with my PET.

I wish I could control my pets in ESO like I could in wow.

Dojohoda · December 2021

Yes, classes have identity.

In my opinion, the most non-identity class is the stamina version of Sorcerer. Hurricane helped a little and Crystal Weapon is nice. The stamina version of Templar has second place in this contest. It too has been improved a bit over the years. The rest seem okay to me within the scope of this topic.

kind_hero · December 2021

No, some/all classes feel/play similar

Classes lose their identity because of the optimized builds. Some skills are clearly better than others and in a competitive situation, like a vet trial, you need to pick certain ability over another. Problem is with the fact that most of the time such abilities are outside the class skill set.

My suggestion is to have a way to customize the visual effects and animations of the abilities we use, from several available templates for each class. An example is to change the appearance of the necrotic orb for a nightblade, from the green orb to a dark energy orb (nothing changes, is just a visual effect). Or... weapons for certain classes to be conjured instead of physical (again, just an effect, nothing changes behind). This way, a player could create a better fantasy "personality" for their character. Maybe this could be the base for a new profession or skill line, something crafted, I don't know, but it would be cool to have.

Chilly-McFreeze · December 2021

No, some/all classes feel/play similar

francesinhalover wrote: »

Magicka usually gets all the attention. Stam feels like the after thought. So obviously magicka has identity for the most part
Stamina meanwhile...
List focused on stamina.

Visual quality = how easy it is to know what class someone uses with little attention. And how unique it feels.
Best are Sorcerer and warden

Stam morphs ratings
:Great>Good>Alright>Average>Horrible
Best Nightblade

Necromancer
-has average visual quality (skeletons , undead ultimates.)
-stam morph quantity is good.
Would be even better if the scyte spammable wasnt garbage on pve because of pvp.

Nightblade
-has average visual identity, (you identify it via grim focus glow that's it) having a shadow clone helps.
-Stam morph quantity is Great! Probably the best in quantity and quality of morphs.

Warden
- has great visual identity (easily identifiable thanks to bear , floating heals , glowing weapons)
-Stam morph quantity is alright.

Would be good quality if The only
spammable it has wasn't trash on pve so it can be good on pvp.

Templar
-has no visual identity.
Only 2 stam abilities worth using on a trial.
One of them flashes the screen and hurts the eyes.
-The stam morph quantity is horrible.

Theres a throwing spear ability. Could be good in pve but not gonna happen because of pvp.

Dragon knight
-has slightly above average visual identity (weapon glow, rotating orb, armor)
-Stam morphs are alright

whip finaly can be used with stam... But is meh. clunky rock is still better.

Stam sorcerer
- has the highest identity in the game (Thanks to hurricane ,critical surge, bound srmaments , the conjured pets). Like you know you are a sorcerer and you feel like one.
- it's Alright in stam diversity

crystal weapon is a reskin of the psijic spammable that never was that liked ,feels clunky to use especialy with
lagg and the animations are kinda bad. But in their defense the skill sounds better than the psijic one and has a cool purple aura.
Pvp should be seperate from pve.

I have to disagree on Most things here.

Brrrofski · December 2021

Yes, classes have identity.

For magica, yes

For stam, not really.

Facefister · December 2021

No, some/all classes feel/play similar

What identity? At a certain level, same equipment, same rotation. Ofcourse there are some slight differences here and there but nothing spectacular.

DreamyLu · December 2021

No, some/all classes feel/play similar

I believe it depends on what game content we're talking about.

In PvP and "end game", classes are sort of pre-defined and it's not really accepted to deviate from those. So yes, for that part of the game content, identity gets lost I think, because almost all are doing the same.

In casual PvE environment, I believe it's different. Me for example, I play magicka templar, but far from any of the standard - and/or top - builds. I have a build of my own, more than sufficient for what I do, using only skills I like, and most probably there are many errors in this build but I don't care, it's my and I like it. And I think that casual players are more like me with own tailor sized build, what automatically brings more identity. All that is my impression of course. I may be wrong all along.

francesinhalover · December 2021

No, some/all classes feel/play similar

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

francesinhalover wrote: »

Magicka usually gets all the attention. Stam feels like the after thought. So obviously magicka has identity for the most part
Stamina meanwhile...
List focused on stamina.

Visual quality = how easy it is to know what class someone uses with little attention. And how unique it feels.
Best are Sorcerer and warden

Stam morphs ratings
:Great>Good>Alright>Average>Horrible
Best Nightblade

Necromancer
-has average visual quality (skeletons , undead ultimates.)
-stam morph quantity is good.
Would be even better if the scyte spammable wasnt garbage on pve because of pvp.

Nightblade
-has average visual identity, (you identify it via grim focus glow that's it) having a shadow clone helps.
-Stam morph quantity is Great! Probably the best in quantity and quality of morphs.

Warden
- has great visual identity (easily identifiable thanks to bear , floating heals , glowing weapons)
-Stam morph quantity is alright.

Would be good quality if The only
spammable it has wasn't trash on pve so it can be good on pvp.

Templar
-has no visual identity.
Only 2 stam abilities worth using on a trial.
One of them flashes the screen and hurts the eyes.
-The stam morph quantity is horrible.

Theres a throwing spear ability. Could be good in pve but not gonna happen because of pvp.

Dragon knight
-has slightly above average visual identity (weapon glow, rotating orb, armor)
-Stam morphs are alright

whip finaly can be used with stam... But is meh. clunky rock is still better.

Stam sorcerer
- has the highest identity in the game (Thanks to hurricane ,critical surge, bound srmaments , the conjured pets). Like you know you are a sorcerer and you feel like one.
- it's Alright in stam diversity

crystal weapon is a reskin of the psijic spammable that never was that liked ,feels clunky to use especialy with
lagg and the animations are kinda bad. But in their defense the skill sounds better than the psijic one and has a cool purple aura.
Pvp should be seperate from pve.

I have to disagree on Most things here.

Thats fine

Supreme_Atromancer · December 2021

They kind of designed themselves into a dead-end. Each class has a built-in theme and identity, and there's just often no room for build diversity inside those things without major forcing.

This is exacerbated by the very limited number of skills/morphs, which were originally meant to give you options within your role, but now really give you no option. Your "choice" is already prescribed by your build/role.

I personally think they had it right initially - identity comes from class, weapons/guild skilllines are natural for handling role/build diversity.

But with what they have now, I think for build diversity, they should look at *how* a class should be doing something. If tanking always means sword and board, there's no real room for anything else. Sorcerers should "tank" with control spells and wards and guards should be able to handle damage mitigation, for instance. A necromancer, conceptually doesn't need a sword and shield if they can bring forth the undead to be their meat shields, given they're the classic pet class in MMOs. Or perhaps they can use necromantic energy to life link to transfer damage away from themselves or something. Dunno, its just spitballing. But if you want classes to have identity, you should be calling to the class's concept for inspiration, imv. No one really knows what a "stamsorc" or a "dk healer" is supposed to be because there is no reference to draw upon except abstract mechanics.

JamuThatsWho · December 2021

No, some/all classes feel/play similar

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I said no because I lean more towards no than yes, but I actually think it's somewhere in the middle. They aren't that distinctive but there a few differences between them that really make you want to pick one class over another beyond just different animations e.g. the necro rez ult is a unique mechanic that feels like a reason to go Necro over Templar.

I agree with this. Each class has sprinklings of individual flavour, but most boil down to very similar gameplay.

Wardens and Necros are definitely a little more distinct in their mechanics; using corpses to empower abilities is a great idea, if a little clunky.

FFXIV nailed class identity, with completely separate progression and individual class stories. But it's a different beast altogether.

I think ESO does an OK job with what it has to work with, and there's no reason we can't have updates in the future.

Bradyfjord · December 2021

No, some/all classes feel/play similar

The way the game is designed/balanced there are two classes right now. One is physical damage, and one is magical damage. You can do anything you want to do, but the game is built and balanced around how you use resources rather than class/lore/etc.

I don't mind that, and I have one maxed toon of every class. But I always go back to my main because I can do everything on him that I want to do.

rexagamemnon · December 2021

No, some/all classes feel/play similar

Classes dont have an identity beside skills. There is no in game content for them at all. No story, no quests, no nothing

Starlight_Knight · December 2021

No, some/all classes feel/play similar

No, classes have gradually had their identity taken away over time untill now they are all the same, if anyone asked me what class to play coming into ESO i would just ask what their favorate colour is.
Oh you like red, play a nightblade.

I remember how cool it was what the DK could use igneous weapons and eveyone had fire damage added to their attacks.
When the warden had a delay on cliff racer instead of an homogonised class spammable.
When the templar could use Sun Shield and be unique in its pvp play style
the list goes on,

Every class uses the same skills, the same gear the same rotation. if you want to run something different and embrace whats left of your class identity, you do so at a cost.

The Elder Scrolls Online

Do you think classes have identity and are fully represented?

Do you think classes have identity and are fully represented? 191 votes