In Skyrim, let's say you played a pure mage for about 40 levels, got most of that mastered, then you decide to switch to a fighter with full plate and a two handed sword. You know how you suddenly got your butt kicked a lot, because your were doing almost no damage and the monsters were still in the 40's?

I would imagine that if you were in an mmo, and the game let you switch to a different class at 40th level, you might die quickly if you stayed in the high level zones.

So, my question is, in ESO, if you decide to use a different skill set at a higher level in the game, would you need to go back to low level areas to survive?

You might think that you can just keep switching all your skills up as you level, and that might work. I don't know. However, you might need to master a few specific skills just to keep up with the monsters you are fighting as you level up.

I don't know. What do you guys think?

Example:

Let's say to make the math easy all weapons did 1 hp damage at first level. Let's say you used a two handed sword the whole time. Well, at tenth level it might now be doing 10 points damage a swing. But let's say you switched between all your weapons as you were leveling up. Well all the weapons might only be doing 3 points damage each instead of one doing 10 points. So, now you might have a hard time killing anything.

Or you stay with that two handed sword until you were 40th level. Now you have one weapon that does 40 points and all the others do almost no damage. If you tried to switch now, how hard would it be to stay in a 40th level area?

I think its the weapon level what matters the most.

No. Might need to slot things a little differently, but I can't think of why I'd have to go do low level content to level new skills.

Right..... and?

My example was not good enough?

Even your weapon skills arent good, but if your weapon is, you can kill high level monsters.

Nah, I got you, I just don't think its gonna be that hard all things considered, lol.

I don't know if you played skyrim, but the weapon damage is specifically tied to your skill level.

I would think that while yes the actual weapon damage at first will be low, you can be wearing your armor and other class abilities that are high lvl. So you could continue attacking lvl 50 mobs and your weapon damage will be low at first but again your armor and other abilities will be high lvl so you won't exactly be like starting over.

Now if you went to lvl a new armor type you might want to drop down into lower lvl mobs for a while as likely low lvl skill in armor will have survivability issue against high lvl mobs.

Okay, I read everything you posted except for the example.

They stated that you could respec quickly in the game and that it'd only take a few minutes to do. Lets say you're a warrior or damage dealing mage but the healer in your group drops. You can respec in the span of a few minutes to be a healer spec, so you could do the same from turning to mage to warrior, etc. I think you just have to keep your base class, but you can change all those powers you picked and such and put all that EXP into other abilities as if you leveled them up. You'd just probably want to switch your weapon or armors out accordingly.

So yeah, you can respec easilly, on the fly, and get the skill needed to be good at your new profession. So no worries. They wanted to make it quick, easy, and convenient for us, so I'm assuming it'll also be a free feature.

There's a few reasons why this wont be an issue, but even in Skyrim you could make the switch without too much hassle.

They made mention somewhere that if you switched to a new weapon, that you would level it up quickly at first since you would be getting high level xp for a low level weapon, ie you need 100xp for 2nd level. You kill two mobs worth 150xp each. Welcome to level 3!

Also, it seems likely that you will get earned xp applied to both equipped weapons, so worst case you equip your resto staff and join a pug to level up your sword/shield skills

*edit* Well I guess as another worst case at level 40 you go back to the lvl 15 zone and murder all the mobs to get your skill up. Alot would depend on the weapon too...assuming Destruction staves comes with AoE's might even be quicker to just go back and go all Crazy Train on them!!

Pretty much this.