Then how do groups and raids work? At that point, you don't really need the "holy trinity", and everybody ends up being his own tank, his own DPS, his own healer, and etc.. I would argue that that is definitely not the best way to foster social interaction in an MMO, nor, in my opinion, is it any fun.

Well, except you can't be fulfilling all of those roles all at once, even with a totally open system, so it happens organically, instead of rigidly. The group decides who does what.

In Darkfall (a jack-of-all-trades skill system), we had whole squads during PvP raids that were just healers. They had healing gear, regs, and while they could defend themselves if they were attacked but they usually stayed to the back or middle of a formation. They were pretty squishy and needed guards.

Then again, PvE "raids" are not really a thing you see in skill-based MMOs because they tend to be more sandbox.

From the skill lines they've released so far, we can see that self heals are pretty darn limited. With the exception of the Templar, self heals are only minor things that come from passives.

The fact that you're going to need dedicated healers is what keeps the trinity alive.

Also, just because you could potentially do everything doesn't mean you can do everything at once. Its one of the great things about the 5-slot bar. I can unlock many skills, but only have a few of them available at anyone time. I can use any armor, but only one at a time (or I can get lesser but more varied boons by mixing.) I can use any weapon, but only one (or two with weapon swap) at a time.

That means that I'm still going to have to spec into a particular role if I want to be effective.

Jack-of-all-trades builds often svck, even in TES games. Sure, in Skyrim you could be a sword wielding mage who practices every kind of magic, sneaks around, and uses a bow. But if you spread your perks around that much, you'd get mauled on the highest difficulty settings. You best option is to specialize at least to some degree.

In ESO, I can probably be a DPS/healer. But I'm not going to be as good at DPS as a full DPS and not going to be as good at healing as a full healer.

That's what the classes give us. Unique strategic choices with trade-offs.

delete. wrong post

ESO doesn't have a pure class system. It has a hybrid system. Yes, your class links together three of the skill lines you have available to you, but that is less than half your skill lines. You can easily play the game without using ANY of your class skills, since your weapon line has plenty of attack skills, and there are plenty of other active skills in your race, armor, and guild trees. (Not to mention world skills and PvP skills.)

So yeah. I think people overreact to the "class" thing; they assume it works like other MMOs, where ALL your skills are class-limited. Not the case. There's plenty of flexibility.

This statement is false. One of the earliest MMO's ever made had no classes, no roles, or levels. Only skill paths to follow and multiple skill paths could chosen and several but not all were able to be mastered over a great deal fo time. It was a sandbox 100% pvp and the only safe place in the entire game was the inns. Anyway the point is the game was very popular in its golden age and not one person ever complained about it not having classes, roles or levels and it was always interesting and I have many fond memories of it that will last a lifetime. The Game I am referring to is called Meridian59 and I believe came out in 1995 for $10 a month. Lasted for about 2 years until the owners got greedy and hiked the price up to $30 a month and everyone quit playing it. Some time later the game was modded and the price went back down to $15 but it never became popular ever again. I believe it still exists as a private game server somewhere in germany....

I have almost no memorable moments ever playing WOW that I can barely recall except for my first pvp encounter on the first day of release. So dont go making such false claims when you dont even know.

The only reason class and leveling systems became so popular is because it forces players down a linear path of progression and keeps them spending money as they keep increasing lvl caps and adding more content.(WOW) In no way whatsoever is it a more interesting and fun style of game. Its just what game developers believe makes consistant income because it has worked before, but so has skill based systems but no one cares about them except very old gamers who remember it once upon a time.

I can give you one great example that im sure everyone will remember of a skill based MMO that was very popular UNTIL....... Sony Online Entertainment turned it into a WOW clone.

Can you guess? Star wars galaxies. Thats right, it was a skill based game, and it was an awesome game. UNTIL Sony went and had the game re-tooled to be a level based progression/class/role system, and guess what. The game died, horribly.

It's more likely that it's popular because people like it better..that's why those games rarely exist long in the mmo world now

They are only popular with game developers because they make steady income. Gamers for years have been craving something else that the game developers have refused to give. its just been so long that most gamers have forgotten what it was and newer gamers never knew there could be something better. WOW when it first came out... wowed everyone because it was new and fresh, but now years later everyone is sick to death of that style of game and are craving something new.

If ESO is another wow type game.... its going to fail. People are sick of wow type games.

I'm afraid that's not entirely accurate.

While it is technically an MMO, the game is being developed with the interests of both in mind. There are even diehard MMO fans that are hanging onto every word from the developers and are dissatisfied because they see the game being catered to the single players.

Personally, I will be playing it completely solo.

I will be playing it solo as well but in my mind you should stop thinking of this as the next entry in the Elder Scrolls Series. It is not Elder Scrolls 6. I think of it more like Redguard. A game that is set in the Elder Scrolls Universe that was not part of the series and was different in it's play style.

If you are expecting ESO to be Skyrim part 2 or The Elder Scrolls 6 then you will most likely be disappointed.

I would copy and paste my reply to this topic from the beta forum if I could log in ... Since I can't here is a short version.

Classes encourages different builds and play styles. This is why.

In a single player game the only thing that matters is whether YOU are good enough to overcome an obstacle. Being optimal isn't needed. This allows a lot of freedom for people to play in various ways and still be successful. This happens because the game is not balanced around optimal damage builds. This means some people may choose the "optimal" path and be extremely overpowered and breeze through most content.

In a MMO setting this is not possible. Content has to be balanced around people making reasonably good builds, otherwise end game content will be too easy and will be completed as soon as one guild with an optimal playstyle gets enough people.

Without classes this means there would more than likely be one single build that was "optimal" and anyone who differed from this playstyle would not be able to find groups. If a certain ranged bow DPS build was the best, anyone not using it would be kicked out of groups, or find it difficult to find groups. This means people who want to play a different way would find it very difficult. If they altered things so that a dual wield build was a bit better, now suddenly everyone has to choose that, there is still no variety.

By adding classes we now have unique skills. By using class and race combos people are now able to more easilly play in any manner they choose and still be viable. So we have a case where more "freedom" will actual result in severe limitation of playstyles, and a slight restriction now opens up a wide range of options that allows everyone to play in a manner that more closely resembles their perfect character.

My impression is that the MMO trinity is strong with this game. Any more specialization beyond these and it is just fluff.

What I really was surprised to see was that there are zero skills or powers with regard to effecting the world. Only skills and powers related to combat or improving the character. Solo game skills of persuasion, stealth, lockpicking, armorer, etc (things that help you complete quests in the solo games) are ... non existent.

There seems to be minimal interaction with the static world or NPCs other than as quest markers.

hmmm .... does it break the NDA to talk about what the game isn't instead of what it is?

But what about the free pie!?!?!???

Look up Persuasive Will in the mages guild.

I know what I'm talking about, and I say they aren't open ended. I'm lying of course, but I still know what I'm talking about hehe. Actually, writing this confused me, I don't know what I'm talking about, forget everything I just said.

But seriously, what leperchans said, it is open ended, the majority of your choices come from the weapon skills, not the class skills. Class still plays a part in it, but you are in no way pigeon-holed into a specific role by your class.

So how do you explain non-class-based systems in MMOs that also encourage different builds? Case and point, UO has 5 optimal high-end PvP builds and no classes. There is Lumberjack who is a melee berserker, Archer who is, you guessed it, a ranged archer with some CC abilities, a magic healer, a magic DPS and I forget the other one...it's like "trickster" or something and it's a melee rogue type I think. These, mind you, are all builds that players have come up with, not been forced on them by the developers, and to this day players are experimenting with them to try and maximize their effectiveness.

Classes don't actually matter when it comes to creating differing builds, they play very little part in progression at all, in fact, and their true purpose is to give plug-and-play gamers something they can easily identify as what they want to do at the outset, instead of a smorgasbord of individual skills which, lets face it, is too much for most players to handle these days. That being said, the TES crowd seems to handle it fine and come up with many different builds that they find optimal.

Read and be enlightened by one of the design luminaries of the industry: http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/08/28/do-classes-svck/

As far as I know UO had no serious end game dungeon encounters. So when I am talking about problems that occur during raiding, how do you possibly counter my argument with a game that had NO raiding?

Not at all, but can't divulge more though cus of that pesky NDA.

I have to agree with this.... how many MMO have things in it like totally free flying or levitation? Not limited but totally free form. Or water breathing abilities so players can explore underwater area indefinitely? many games in recent years dont have these kinds of things anymore. Morrowind had flying and water breathing. Oblivion just has water breathing, not sure about skyrim... The only flying u can do in wow is riding the gryphons, cant rembmer if there was underwater exploration been long time since I played it. But I recall EQ having both.

You are right pretty much every character skills/ability is 100% related to combat only anymore.

WoW has had underwater exploration since launch. But they added their first underwater zone back in Cataclysm.

It is not that I think that the solo games had just enormous amounts of role play options. Even they are vague intimations of having a purpose other than combat. Things like chopping wood in Skyrim or jewelry making. Basically all that is reduced down to making gold.

But I don't even see the option for anything like that with this - much less crafting for a guild you may belong to. That would be kind of cool - a reason to explore to get items to then craft and others can enchant - real teamwork outside of ranged/tank/healer.

Then what of the option of being able to solve quests by having a combined skill set? Skills other than combat? Lock-picking character skill (not player) to get past a certain point combined with spell ability to activate a certain wazzit.

To me hard core rpg in video games is like some of morrowind/gothic series where if you didn't have the skill level - you don't pass. Period. End of story. Come back when you can. These kinds of things - would to my mind encourage even die hard TES fans to *gasp* socialize. This kind of thing could bridge the gap.

But I don't see any sign of that kind of thing ... Just mobs and combat.

They should do away with the structured class system as its confusing people. Just let players pick 3 starting skill lines from the 12 that are in the classes. This way players can tailor make their own classes like they do in the single player games. I know why the devs have done it but I do not agree with them.

Because then you would have mandatory DPS builds for raiding where you were forced to take certain starting skills and if you didn't then your character could never be optimal. Then when the game is patched to fix the "optimal" (broken) DPS builds you would svck and have to re-roll your character and then that build would be patched etc etc ... and it would be the worst idea ever.

That's irrelevant. UO still had tanks, DPS and Support regardless of what they were used for. The proof is in the pudding, you can have a trinity system without classes.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but this is going to happen anyway. Classes or no classes.