As we know, the Elder Scrolls series are classless games where you pretty much decide what role you're going to play as you go along. You don't limit yourself to it from the start.

That's not a concept new to mmo's, there are others that have done it, but there is many a player who will tell you that it's impossible to have decent mmo content without a class system that enourages cooperative and tactical gameplay, due to interdependency. They see the alternative as gameplay being reduced to characters playing the same role even in epic group content - where everyone is DPS with enough healing/buffing just to cover themselves.

So what do we think? Should TES:O have a strict class system, like most 'traditional' mmo's? Or should it stick to its own singleplayer system, and be classless, just as some experimental indy mmo's have been?

I'll only be happy with a class system if it includes all 21 from Daggerfall/Morrowind/Oblivion.

Acrobat
Agent
Archer
Assassin
Barbarian
Bard
Battlemage
Crusader
Healer
Knight
Mage
Monk
Nightblade
Pilgrim
Rogue
Scout
Sorcerer
Spellsword
Thief
Warrior
Witchhunter

TES has classes and archetypes.

/thread.

I totally agree with this, as long as it has the class system that has ALWAYS been a large feature in most all TES games i will be happy.

There were classes in TES before Skyrim.
But you could make up your own classes in Oblivion. So if they do have classes I had better be able to make a Witcher class.

Umm..no. Never played an mmo before?

Played a few. How is that relevant? TES has, and continues to have, classes and archetypes.

They're not 'classes' as far as mmo classes are concerned. You could hybridise them to your hearts content, and it's effective to do so in a single-player game. In an mmo environment that can lead to class homogeneity - no distinct roles to play. There's a large mmo playerbase out there that seems to hate that, which is why AAA mmo's seem to love sticking to a class system.

Could TES:O get away with leaving that tradition behind? Could it succeed without it? Other classless mmo games havn't made a great job of it so far.

I like how you're trying to make a special "classification" for "MMO classes" when "MMO classes" have been a genre standard for single player RPGs for years.

I'm not interested in quibbling over a definition of what a 'class' is as far as singleplayer games go, and more interested in discussing the actual reality of class-based gameplay and how it tends to dominate mmo gaming.

There's a lot of gamers who will tell you that the trinity is essential to the 'traditional' mmo. Personally I'm sick to the back teeth of it, and am curious as to how traditional TES:O will be, and how the class system could work, or could be left out altogether.

Personally I feel TES:O could do an amazing job with a crossbreed of Final Fantasy Tactics, Disgaea and the TES system.

I hope there are a lot of classes with interesting variety. I'm glad to hear they are moving away from the 'trinity' system, though. I'm very tired of it - from EQ to WOW to Rift to SWTOR - all these big games that think you must have a tank and healer; I got so tired of having to fill the 'perfect' group in order to get anything done. At least in DAOC that wasn't the case unless you were raiding..

For it to work in an mmo point of view, specially a 3 faction pvp based Daoc type of mmo you going to have to have the trinity in some form. You can't have everyone being a "jack of all trades" just running around doing what ever they wan't, you going to have some sort of role system and normally in these cases you have a heavy archetype a damage archetype and a utility archetype. These don't have to be strict roles by any means and can still have a good amount of the flexibility of the TES single player class system.

Classless gameplay does not work in MMORPGs. Why you may ask? Because then everyone would run around with the same Weapon/Armor type and the fotm spec.

Where were the classes in Skyrim? Seriously, there is absolutely nothing stopping you levelling everything to 100 easily, except time invested. I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing but it's silly to say Skyrim had classes. Oblivion did that aspect better, where it actually would take much more time and effort to level up things that weren't part of your class.

To some extent I agree, which is why I mentioned homogeneity earlier in the thread. Yet I'm getting a bit tired of the same old trinity system, and I know a lot of other players are too...yet nobody ever seems to be able to come up with anything better, or at least just different and still viable, whenever this discussion comes up.

So the purpose of this thread was just to see if anybody is able to throw some decent alternatives up that may be likely in TES:O.

Archetypes and classes go hand in hand. You can't have classes without archetypes, and any archetype you have is basically a class.

Unless you're unaware that the skill system is broken down into the "Warrior," "Mage" and "Thief" archetypes.



FFT + Disgaea + TES.

I wanted to make my own thread about this but here we go. So i can see there beeing 2 Possible ways they can go with classes (we know there will be classes, we just know) with alot of subcategories so i will try to explain what i mean here.



1. No Class restrictions:
That means everyone gets to play the same Classes (wich is probably the most likeley thing to happen) there are two ways of doing this. First comes the most expected version of not a whole lot of them. Basically having 3 Classes a Warrior ,a Thief and a Mage. The classic TES talent trees, this could mean more class customization as a Wizard for example could pick either Restoration Spells or Destruction spells or mix and match a bit.
The other way of doing this would be to include the classic TES classes (not all of them of course) so you could expect basic classes like the Warrior or the Night but also more iconic classes such as the Nightblade or the Battlemage. This is basically the way most mobile Spin Offs of TES handlet affairs. These classes would probably be more specialized and would have class specific abilities and mechanics, for example i could imagine a Barbarian having such as a "Rage" system. Also basically mixing up Armor restriction on the "base classes" for example a Barbarian would be a Warrior that can use heavy armor while a "Battlemage" would be a Mage that can in fact use Armor and Melee weapons opposed to just robes and staves.

2. Classes restricted by Faction or Race: this is an interresting one as it could be done either realy good or realy bad, one again i see 2 ways of handling this. This way could lead both to more uniqueness of the factions but less Roleplay freedom.

Classes restricted by Faction. This actually makes alot of sense to vary the Factions a bit. For Example the Ebonheart Pact features 3 Races that have no skill in any sort of Heavy Armor. This could lead to the "Warrior" class of a "Barbarian" or "Berserker" while their "Thief" class could focus more on Assasination as both Argonians and Dunmer are best known for beeing ruthless assasins (Morag Tong and Shadowscales) and since astrid we know nords can get quite abit of that too.

The Daggerfall Covenant on the other hand has Bretons (known for beeing Knights) Orcs (that have the highest Heavy Armor skill bonus in the Game) and Redguard with a realy high skill in swords, their Warrior class would be the Knight.

The Dominion would be the odd one out with having no Race known for the pure Warrior archetype, however this makes it even more interresting presenting this Faction with the possibility of having a Hybrid class as their main Melee force. Simmilar to the Thalmor Warriors in Skyrim this would add alot more diversity between the Factions.
The second possibility is to get Races that are directly bound to the Races, simmilar to how Warhammer online handles affairs. Now this is probably the biggest hit or miss Solution here. First it would mean a huge ammount of classes that is hard to balance and even harder to make unique. However with their budget i can see this beeing done. So the idea here is that all the Races can get some truly iconic Classes out of their Race, this would also open up the possibilities to show the sub Races of, for example, the Kahjit a Suthaj Kahjit could be a more rogue like character while a Suthaj - Rath could be the Warrior archetype. Dunmer for example could master the disciplin of Necromancy that is frowned upon by other races wihtout forcing that class on Races where it would be less lore apropriate. We could also get some realy iconic classes that as it stands have only been featured in lore such as the barefisted Kahjit Monks, Nordic Tongues or Ra Gada Alkir swordsmen. and that would only be the start of things, you see where im going. This could be highly enthralling but also realy bad depending on how they pull it off.

Of course there are certain Races that lack a lore apropriate counterpart for some classes wich can be fixed with the fact that they are all part of 3 Race Factions. (Orc Mages for example) speaking of this i will be making a thread on the lore board concerning the missing Argonian Warrior archetype , i got a few ideas about that (why didnt anyone think about the "unarmoured hist sap powered berserkers that regain limbs faster than you can chop em off" class yet?)





EDIT: on the Holy trinity: it does NOT mean Warrior, Rogue and Mage. It means Tank, DPS and Heal. and yess you can simply remove that and it works. look at GW 2. i dont talk about beeing jack of all trades, talk about not having that at all. It works man IT WORKS!

Yet the reality is that you could hybridise your class enough to be self-sufficient as far as healing/DPS/buffing etc where concerned. The system isn't built towards interdependency, obviously, because it's been a singleplayer experience so far. The Elder Scrolls class system has been primarily a role playing mechanic.

It wont be any worse than what they have now. You dont need classes to have armor and weapons with different strengths and weaknesses.

Yes those arechetypes were there in Skyrim.. Until you got fed up and decided to switch to another. In Oblivion, if you took a melee based class, you were effectively stuck with that for that character, Skyrim made it ridiculously easy to switch from Warrior to Mage, and it is possible, as already stated, if a similar system is used in TESO it could hurt the gameplay.

The archetypes can never truly exist in a singleplayer game where one person has to fill every role anyway,

TES games have NOT been classless games (till Skyrim which uses an almost mmo like skill tree system), you always picked a class andthat was your main skills/secondary skils list and yes it was a class in a class system , just a very flexible one, even if you made your own class you were STILL a class, you chose your primary skills and secondary skills and that WAS your class those were your class skills and you still only advanced by useing your class skills.


Im not going to judge TESO class's or class system till we actually know what they are, how open/restricted they are and what they can and can't do.

An FFT and FFXI system could easily well recreate the ease of switching and customization TES has.

Never played those games, but see the bit I put in bold? That seems more a trait of Skyrim that TES.

not realy. switching classes is not the same as beeing able to freely spec, and its, all things considered not a very good system. Rather have customization within a class than to be able to play every class with some realy stupid switching mechanic