Here's a re-post of a suggestion that I believe is essential for ESV:

• PLEASE make ESV more class-centric. I mean that you should either be ineffective or completely ineffective at skills that aren't in your class. For example, why should a pure warrior be able to cast beginning spells? Not everyone in Tamriel knows how to cast spells. If you wanted to cast spells as a pure warrior, you would have to get manually trained by someone in that school of magic. Another example is alchemy. One who does not have alchemy in their class should not be able to create potions. Basically, I just hate how in Oblivion you can do everything at a basic level when you only have seven skills for your class. This was actually more alleviated in Fallout 3 where you did not even have the option to pick certain locks or hack certain computers because your skill was too low.

Your thoughts?

I think your skills should be more important to defining your character, yes, but I don't think you should alienate those who didn't realize how important a certain skill would be. Also, I think skills should be more important in dialogue, a la Fallout New Vegas. That's one of the few things that should be brought in from Fallout.

Someone asks for this every time they announce a new TES game. I'm pretty sure most of the fanbase doesn't want it, it hasn't been how the series has worked at any point except with Arena (which is atypical in a lot of ways), and I don't see why they'd change it now. People like being able to build their characters how they like, and on a certain level it makes sense that just about everyone could learn just about anything if they applied themselves - "classes" aren't really a thing in real life, and you aren't born as "Bob the Filing Clerk", with only skills related to filing.

YES.

I kind of agree with you, but not to the same extreme. One of the best things about the elder scrolls is the ability for any character to use any skill - I think a class set up as a pure warrior should still have the option to cast really beginner level spells and make lousy potions.

However, I thought Oblivion pushed that too far. I mean, you started with a healing spell that any character could use, and so of course you are going to be at a disadvantage if you don't use it.That pretty much ruined the possibility of a pure warrior from the start.


So, my opinion: Allow the freedom, but don't shove it down our throats.

I don't want to play a renamed Neverwinter Night/ Dragon Age.

I like doing what I want, when I want. If I'm a pure warrior, and I have 100 blunt, 100 shield, etc.. and I want to train my illusion or destruction magic, I should be able too. That's what RPGs are.

But at least remove the basic "fire" and "heal" spells from the beginning of the game if you haven't chosen Destruction or Restoration in your class.

I'm not opposed to the idea of learning skills that aren't in your class, but I dislike the idea of characters being able to do everything at a basic level when they haven't trained non-class skills at all.


I'm all for that. But what I'm saying is that if you haven't trained certain magic skills that are not in your class, you simply shouldn't be able to cast those spells. Once you train with a trainer for non-class skills, then you can become effective.

I think they only really gave you those skills in Oblivion because they were a part of the tutorial showing you how everything worked, so taking them away after that wouldn't make sense. I'm really not seeing what's wrong with being able to do things at a very (VERY) basic level without it being in your class, though - just because someone's not a chef, doesn't mean they can't make toast without setting their toaster on fire.

But not everyone in Tamriel knows how to cast a spell.

Personally for me, that adds immersion and believability.

Absolutely not, this is an Elderscrolls game. In a elderscrolls game you do what you want, when you want it. If I want to make a class with Marksman, Heavy Armor, Sneak, Light Armor, Blade, Block and never use marksman until I am level 20 with a daedric bow and arrows then I want to be able to do it. If I wanted to be unrealistically limited by words that have no true meaning in real life then I will play WoW or Dragon age or "insert just about every RPG/MMMO besides TES here". One of the beautiful things about TES is it's lack of Classes, why would anyone want to take that away from it? It just isn't TES anymore. Not to mention it is one of the few, if not the only, series to be set up this way. A baker can fight, a librarian can shoot skeet on the weekends. And my warrior can cast spells.

Oh I see. I understand. You're right, my bad lol. But I hate playing games where you can't use magic if you choose warrior class and stuff you know what I'm saying? I like the idea to do some quests before you can learn some spells.

Absolutely right!
This way the re-play value would also go up,one time you can be a thief that understands only in thievery, in another one a magician that only understands in magic, unless you take a hybrid class like Nightblade or Battle Mage, which I think should not be available early in the game, I think we should have 3 main classes (like the Specializations), then later in the game you can branch off to another profession, this would make the game much more challenging and good as you'll have to work to be as awesome as an Assassin, a Nightblade or a Witch Hunter.
This way they can make the three basic classes and then the branches would have more bonuses.

Bethesda, listen to him, he makes sense!

This needs to be my sig!!

Mainly because they don't know any, not because they're especially hard to learn. Spells need to be purchased in Tamriel, and purchasing them costs money, which is something that not everyone has. That doesn't mean that there's a huge group of people who absolutely couldn't learn any spells without special training in spellcasting, only that there's a group of people who can't afford them or don't really feel like investing in them. I'm not seeing why changing this would improve immersion on any level, and you haven't given much explanation as to why it would aside from "because it does".

Specialization, however, should limit your potential. Characters ought to have limits. Training Illusion for a Combat specialist should be arduous.

A Combat specialist/Mage would be difficult build, for example. Your bonuses for Specialization are allocated to skills your Class/play-style doesn't involve.

In as friendly a way as I can possibly say it: NO, NO and HELL NO.

The one feature that placed Elder Scrolls games in a class all their own was the complete divorce from Class Based RPGs. In no other game could you progress simply by practice. It didn't matter what you picked... you progressed based on what you DID. So what if I started with an affinity for sword swinging at the expense of academic pursuits. If I sunk the amount of time in, I gradually got better at alchemy... and you better believe I made one metric butt-load of terrible potions along the way. Drank darn near every one of them as well.

Don't like gaining advancement in everything? That's fine. Don't DO everything.

Those of us who want to master a wide range of arts have always and (hopefully) will always be able to do so, so long as we're willing to put the time and energy in.

This.

I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying, you shouldn't be able to use, or be very ineffective with non-class skills that you haven't trained at all UNTIL you actually train them.

Arduous, but still possible.

Yes.

I think this was the most brilliant explanation of why TES does it the way they do.

Why? i can play tennis and I can program. I spar and fence, but I play soccer too. I can run a 5k, shoot a bow and arrow, cook, and also work construction. Why can't someone swing a sword and cast spells, heck in TES lore Dunmer are known for spell+sword+bow.

For me, magic seems like something that not everyone in the game would be doing. Having people who've learned to cast spells and those who haven't makes more variety.

It actually already works this way. I think they toned it back a bit with Oblivion (can't remember for sure, I haven't played it in a very long time), but not entirely. Basically, overall character progression is considerably slower when you focus on advancing non-tag skills, and the points you receive at each level for increasing your main stats are based on whether you increased primary skills or other ones. Something like that, at least, and the games are generally structured so that it's easier to advance if you focus on your primary skills, but still entirely plausible that you could start out picking a specific set of skills and then totally neglect them if you so choose.

EDIT:
Which doesn't explain why what I just explained about spells not being available to everyone even though everyone might have the capacity to cast them (at least at a basic level) doesn't apply and completely address this in every way.