VaranisArano wrote: »

It would be worse.

Oh, it would bring more freedom to the questing experience. So if your interest is primarily recapturing the nostalgic feel of the singleplayer TES games, it might do the job.

But ESO is an MMORPG, and it has something the single player TES games lack: an endgame. Its got group content like dungeons, trials, and PVP.

A free-form class would very quickly break down into only the best tank, healer, and DD in PVE endgame content while it would make PVP wildly unbalanced.

Also, the single player games didn't need to balance for overpowered stuff. Todd Howard doesn't care that I broke Skyrim with the fortify restoration loop or that I almost always play a stealth archer because he's already got my money. ESO, meanwhile, needs to keep gameplay fresh so players don't get bored and move on to other games. So the cycle of nerfs, buffs, and adjustments would absolutely continue even if you got your freedom to choose a free-form class.

jaws343 wrote: »

All these years of these types of threads and it is amazing to me that people still don't get this.

Cazador wrote: »

Exactly this. Even though eso does have its meta builds you have a choice between magicka and stamina so you have at least 2 per class, at least for pve dps. Having things divided into classes ironically gives you more choice in how you play since every class has its own separate meta(s) and any of them are strong enough for any content.

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

no for both obvious reasons and reasons others have already mentioned

Ksariyu wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

It would be worse.

Oh, it would bring more freedom to the questing experience. So if your interest is primarily recapturing the nostalgic feel of the singleplayer TES games, it might do the job.

But ESO is an MMORPG, and it has something the single player TES games lack: an endgame. Its got group content like dungeons, trials, and PVP.

A free-form class would very quickly break down into only the best tank, healer, and DD in PVE endgame content while it would make PVP wildly unbalanced.

Also, the single player games didn't need to balance for overpowered stuff. Todd Howard doesn't care that I broke Skyrim with the fortify restoration loop or that I almost always play a stealth archer because he's already got my money. ESO, meanwhile, needs to keep gameplay fresh so players don't get bored and move on to other games. So the cycle of nerfs, buffs, and adjustments would absolutely continue even if you got your freedom to choose a free-form class.

The thing is, this argument only goes so far. For starters, the notion that free skill access can't exist in an MMO is false considering there are successful MMOs that already have this (Namely Albion, though others exist). Albion in particular also has PvP as the main endgame, so your argument about PvP being "wildly unbalanced" is just as unfounded (The OP acknowledges the need for balance changes with this idea). The bigger problem though is that you claim the game would "break down into the only the best" build for each role. This is a true statement: that's what a meta is. The thing is, how is that different from now? vDSR right now is showing every group running one DK and one Necro tank, so even though there are six options for tank classes, people are only picking the best combination. Similarly, why has every tank and support player in the past 5 years been slotting Aggressive Warhorn when there are so many other options? Because it's the best. That's not a game issue necessarily, that's just how people play (Though seriously, 5+ years of being meta might show a bit of a balance issue). The point is, your argument essentially comes down to "it's bad because it'd be the same as what we have now," but you also acknowledge that at least for the solo players it might be an improvement, which leaves us. . . net positive? I don't know, we might both need a fact-checker.

jaws343 wrote: »

All these years of these types of threads and it is amazing to me that people still don't get this.

Maybe if there's been years of these threads, it's an indication that something might actually be worth looking into, no? I really wish you were as open with your ideas on why the current setup is better as you are with telling everyone else they're wrong for suggesting a different one. I genuinely don't see where people draw the line between meta and freedom of choice, so perhaps any one of you in this thread could shed some light on that.

Cazador wrote: »

Exactly this. Even though eso does have its meta builds you have a choice between magicka and stamina so you have at least 2 per class, at least for pve dps. Having things divided into classes ironically gives you more choice in how you play since every class has its own separate meta(s) and any of them are strong enough for any content.

So, did it really feel that impactful for you all to have a stamina cost slapped onto your magic?
- Summoning hurricanes through your sheer endurance
- Conjuring stones from the ground with brute strength
- Teleporting to your target and magically gaining a rush of strength
- Manifesting insects by hitting the ground hard enough
Did these actually help you feel like you were playing a different class/character? Did you actually play different because you cast Endless Hail instead of Unstable Wall?
And what of healers and tanks? Doesn't matter what class I play as a healer, I know for a fact I'm gonna have Combat Prayer, Illustrious Healing, Radiating Regen, Energy Orb, Elemental Blockade, and Aggressive Warhorn. And let's not forget that I'll be wearing SPC, unless of course the other healer already is, then there will be some other class agnostic set I'm required to wear. Yeah, lots of freedom I see.

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

no for both obvious reasons and reasons others have already mentioned

Care to elaborate? Let's see if your "obvious reasons" are truly as obvious and infallible as the rest here.

jaws343 wrote: »

But it isn't just a balance change.

To do this, you would have to redo everything. Skills would have to function differently than they do now. Mechanics would have to work differently. Leveling, everything would have to be redone.

You can't just throw all of the skill lines into a bucket and let players choose what they want from them. I guarantee you it would break the game, balance and all, as players chose the optimal skill lines for the playstyle they are attempting. And it would take basically redoing every skill and passive in the game to make it not broken. None of the skills you think you want to use in this fantasy would be even remotely the same as they are now in order for it to be balanced.

Y'all are essentially asking for a new game to be made. At which point, maybe play another game and leave this one alone. Everyone loves to bring up how X game does it better. Well play that game then if it handles combat they way you like it. Stop trying to change this game into that game by attempting to have the entire core structure of the game redesigned because you don't like it.

Cazador wrote: »

Do I play differently on my magicka and stamina characters? Yes I do. They have totally different rotations with few if any duplicated abilities , and with magicka I have the added benefit of hitting enemies from further away without damage dropping by very much. For tanks they have their own strengths and weaknesses per class.
Dragonknights are extremely hard to kill and very good at crowd control.
Wardens can fracture multiple targets at once and speed across the arena rapidly with wings.
Templar can provide additional penetration that others can't with power of the light.
Necromancers can massively increase their health pool and raise dead allies rapidly if needed.
Admittedly I don't really heal so I can't say much on that.
Also, even though I mentioned the meta, it's not required to use it. You can use whatever skills and gear you want. There are a huge number of sets in the game. Just because you aren't using it it doesn't mean it isn't there.

Cazador wrote: »

If you consider a different dot or spammable with a different animation, different sfx and different damage values (you know, all of the things that make them different, and all of what an ability is) then I don't know what to say.
When I said fracture I was referring to breach, I was used to calling it fracture for years is all. Also all tanks provide major breach, not minor.
Edit: punctuation

VaranisArano wrote: »

Right now, we're in a class-restricted system, where we can look around and see that leaderboard content is dominated by very specific class/role combinations, and below that point there's a larger number of viable class/role combinations being used by good players to complete endgame group content. ZOS' goal with class identity was for classes to be viable, but not necessarily optimal in every role, and they've generally hit that mark. Moreover, which class/role combo is optimal changes every so often, and so there's plenty of gameplay variety over time for players who religiously follow the optimized meta.

We've come a long way from the early days of ESO where Dragonknights were the only tanks and Templars the only healers in group content. Or even that Elsweyr patch where the BIS DD build for trials was eight Necromancers, as hilarious as that was. We've got more gameplay variety than that now, especially when you look a little bit below the leaderboards.


Let's compare that to a free-form class situation.

You brought up Aggressive Warhorn earlier, saying that its used by every support player because its the best.

Now, Aggressive Warhorn is an Alliance War skill and therefore available to every player regardless of class. Every support player who wants to have that BIS skill can use it freely without rerolling their character if the meta changes.

Under a free-form class system, every single skill is available to every player regardless of class. Much like how support players choose Aggressive Warhorn because its BIS, now everyone can choose the twelve skills that are BIS for their role.

You say its everyone's choice to play that meta or not, but realistically, who's not going to slot those same twelve BIS skills to be optimal once that we don't have to reroll a character for a new class to get access to the new optimal skills? Instead of situations like vDSR where DKs and Necros have something unique to bring to the table, now we can do it all on a single build. Why wouldn't we? And so we've traded two unique class/role combos for one. Rinse repeat for other roles; why not combine the Warden and Templar unique buffs into one build? Why not make the best Mag and Stam DD possible using the best skills from every class?

I mean, there's always going to be some people making their own niche builds, or roleplaying, or doing self-imposed restrictions. I'm sure there's some support players out there now who refuse to slot Aggressive Warhorn, even if it is BIS for their role. But for the majority of players in PVE and PVP endgame content, once you remove the restrictions of class-specific skills and having to reroll characters to get the meta class/role combos, what you do is create min-maxed cookie-cutter healers, tanks, and damage dealers who're all running the same 12 BIS skills for their role in that content. There's simply no incentive to play a less than optimal build.

We're basically right back at the point of a single build being the only tank option, with everything else being measurably inferior. There's a single healer build, and no reason to run anything else, because its all measurably inferior, etc.

Now, the OP thinks such a system would convince ZOS they don't need to constantly adjust the meta each patch.

Assuming they are correct, that means most endgame players will be using the same 12 BIS skills per role for a long time with no incentive to use measurably inferior builds.

How long before that endgame gets boring with such little gameplay variety over time?

Singleplayer TES games don't have to worry about their players growing bored and moving on to other games because they already have all the money they'll get when we bought the game upfront. Live service games like ESO...not so much.


For what its worth, I think that free-form class systems work fine at the level of overland content and questing. Obviously, since I enjoy the singleplayer TES games, and that's the system they've largely used. I just don't think its going to work well in endgame content for ESO, which means its not going to be healthy for the game overall when ESO depends on long-term player engagement with repeatable content like dungeons, trials, PVP, etc. to keep players engaged on a daily basis after they've finished the 20-40 hours of new quest content they put out every six months or so.