According to the IGN article, Elder Scrolls Online will be class based. http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/09/the-elder-scrolls-online-details-emerge

Skill based character development has been a defining aspect to the ES series. Bethesda has traditionally done a great job with this method of character development and this is one of the reasons I have always looked forward to playing any Elders Scrolls game. This change alone could be a deal breaker, as skill based character progression is one of the more significant, and positive, distinctions Elder Scrolls 'could' bring into a mmo market that has refined much of the gameplay into a formulaic and repetitive experience.

Citing Ultima Online as an example, a skill based system is doable, fun, and could be popular if given a chance. I know UO did this as well as the prior ES games in that I felt more of a connection to the characters I played since I basically tailored them exactly as I wanted to play them. Uniqueness can go a long way. I don't want to feel like just another Lvl 85 Orc Warrior. And if ESO wants my characters to be like just another Lvl 85 Orc warrior , then I have more reasons not to play this game by virtue of a flood of other class based mmos, some with some unique features, to try out.

Also, I won't play it just because it's *Elder Scrolls*, even though I love the series. I love Star Wars but decided to stay out of the Old Republic ( However, I did like SW: Galaxies). Nowadays, I'm feeling as though scrapping ES's traditional skill based system for a character class system is Bethesda's way of showing me that I'm blatantly being viewed as a cash cow, and that saddens me.

TL/DR: Skill based character progression defines the Elder Scroll series

Skill based character progression can work in mmos

Bethesda has been awesome in holding the banner flag for so long on skill based character progression in rpgs but a change in that for the sake of doing an MMO and Elder Scrolls basically loses its soul.

Skill based progression would be a nightmare to balance in an MMO.

They should have tried. It kinda feels like this game is going to be TES only in name :/

Implying that they didn't try it out in a prototype and found it didn't work.

It's possible they shot some ideas around, and realized it wouldn't work. Just because they ended up with a class system doesn't mean it was the first thing they tried.

Also, remember that Skyrim was the first TES game to NOT have classes. In MW, you choose a class and leveled up ONLY when you leveled up 10 of your major/minor skills from your class. So the statement "Skill based character progression defines the Elder Scroll series" is actually incorrect.

Hope you can make your own class, for instance, picking a sword/shield wielding warrior with some magic abilities, would deal more magic damage that the warrior and more basic ( Or what it's called ) damage than a mage, but would deal less magic damage than a mage and less basic damage than the warrior.

They have those.

They are usually called something along the lines of "Red Mages."

Totally agree.

There were several earlier generation MMOs that were skill based and would have served a good starting point for a company that puts out an rpg franchise with similar character progression.

Also, I don't really see using skills instead of classes as being that much harder, if any, to balance. All classes are, are a set of skills that you basically can't change around, and those decisions on what skills each class gets takes time, balancing etc. Yes, in a skill based system, some skill builds might be overpowered, initially, but don't all mmo go through and balance this stuff out after release? Of course, all mmos do that. Despite its huge success, WoW can't seem to balance its classes and the game is nearly a decade old.

I've played most of the older skill based mmos, and the balancing issues or exploits seemed no more complex or problematic than what many successful, class based, mmos have had to go through.

It's too bad that these devs are bandwagoning, thinking that a class system is the defacto 'way' mmos are done, instead of doing what the studio has done so wonderfully in the past and adapt it to an massively multiplayer experience. God forbid ESO feels unique! So far, nothing I've seen or heard about this game sounds interesting, at least in relation to what other future mmos are promising/offering. Trying not to sound like a hater but Guild Wars 2 looks way more exciting in light of ESO going class based. That's how much this issue matters.

The skill based system was ES's bread to their butter and with that gone, what are we left with, just the butter?

Going to correct the OP and let you know to remember that Bethesda isn't making this game. However I will say that I agree a skill based system would work well. They would be hard pressed to balance it, but they should have given it a chance.

To the person who said that they might have given it a shot, not only do we not know, but you also need to remember that once again, Bethesda has little more to do with this project than citing lore. The suits at Zenimax green lighted this, and I am more than sure they said to Zenimax Online, "Make a traditional MMO with the Elder Scrolls IP, it's safe, and it's a time tested system, plus, it's Elder Scrolls, instant money." It's not like the developers even wanted it, it's what the shareholders said they should do, because they are far too dense to see that WoW's interface and style is growing old and they simply looked at past success.

A lot of us forget that Devs don't in fact have free reign.

How exactly do you propose how team dynamics of say... let's go with the smallest possible group of 4 players, would work without having a hard class system?

How exactly do you propose even finding players that have what you want for a specific team set up? With how Skyrim does it, it's very hard to link up with specific archetypes for grouping.


A lot of us also seem to think that publishers are some sort of Mr. Burns or Scroodge McDuck heartless robots who just care about cash. A lot of us also seem to think that developers, namely designers, aren't the ones who actually pitch ideas and projects to publishers with game mechanics already in mind.

I am one of those people who think so because certain publishers have left a bad taste in my mouth for that reason.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if Zenimax Online went the 'traditional' route on their own volition, because hey, this is their first big project, so they thought they might as well be safe about it. I heartily disagree, obviously.

I'm sorry you disagree with smart business. I think it's safe to say that it's better to see a "we've seen that before" game that sells at least decently rather than betting the farm on a potential long shot. There's cases of said long shots being successful, there's also cases of it not. If it's your first big project, going safe can be a good way to bring in money, build a reputation and potentially try something new later.

Good question, the only way I can really answer that is to ask, why have archetypes? I played Ultima Online for many years and we managed doing dungeons without tanks and healers, using our ad hoc healing and blocking abilities, pots, and bandages. The experience was dicey and unpredictable but also exciting and fun as hell. When I would run into players, if we didn't immediately PvP and try to gank each other and maybe even exchanged a few words, we usually became friends and did content together. For once, it would be refreshing for a new mmo to take the training wheels off.

I don't see the devs as bad people. However the nature of companies and the turnover that is bound to occur usually ensures that today's devs for ESO were probably not all, if any, of the same devs that defined the original series. These new people are hired for their skills and not necessarily for their faithfulness to the specifics of this genre building franchise.

And Fathuran, thank you for pointing that out, didn't catch that initially.

Because everything is built around archetypes. Ultima Online had archetypes. It's pretty nearly impossible to not have archetypes because all subsequent gear, abilities and mechanics are built around those archetypes.

Smart business, boring game.

It's great they are playing it safe with a familiar system, but that doesn't mean I'm likely going to get the game. I love The Old Republic to death, mainly due to the fact of "It's Star Wars" despite having the same WoW style which I had played for 6 years until recently, and the Roleplay it offers is stellar. However I don't necessarily enjoy Elder Scrolls as much as Star Wars, and so I won't be getting a game with the same tired old system just because "It's Elder Scrolls." However, of course, I will obviously wait to see what else is being offered, because let's be honest, we're mainly just talking about combat when we speak of the class stuff, and combat usually is the worst part of an MMO.

To each their own, though, we can only wait.

If by archetypes you mean a dedicated role where you will be a 'healer ', I will be a 'tank', and Bob over there is gonna do some damage with fireballs for some epic purples, then you're wrong. The closest you could do to archetypes in UO was to have a skill build that maybe vaguely represented the archetypes that you are much more familiar with. However, dungeons weren't designed to show case responsibilities where you had to have a tank/healer/damage to do anything. Believe it or not there was a time where we weren't shoe horned into these contrived roles. How exciting is it to be a healer? Not very. How exciting is it to be a tank? Not far off the excitement meter from the healer. Why do group dynamics have to revolve around an inescapable dependency with these roles that are ( hint: statistically under represented) not fun?

I mean when the article has the devs promising that being a healer basically won't svck, what does that tell you about the traditional experience of being a healer in an mmo? Exciting? Why not have all the group pitching on the healing when they need to? Why burden that crappy task to one person?

Now, I may be wrong, but from what I gathered in the Game Informer article, it sounds like we may be getting somewhat of a middle ground between 'class based' and 'perk based' combat. It sounds like there will be over-arching 'class' roles (IE mage, warrior, thief) but that each one will have a wide variety of skills associated with them, only a handful of which will be usable in combat. Ergo, you may not have a heavy-armour wearing destruction mage, but you may be able to roll a warrior and choose skills that have a bit of a magical flavour, tailoring it to a more personalized play-style. This would allow them to keep the skills pools in a state of balance with each other, while allowing people a wider range of customization.

That's the best way I can think of to merge the perk system with MMO combat, anyway.

There was magic in Ultima Online, yes?

Well a skill system is superior and is TES.

It can be done - if one abandons the point of view that all MMOs should have 4 basic character types that fit together like rock-paper-scissors. Yes it would mean that teams and guilds would need to focus on diversifying their characters and could lead to something different than WoW.

It would give a reason to invest time playing other than more of the same ol same ol.

I've not read anything compelling about this except fighting for the throne in a somewhat consistent world. But then different servers and all that normal MMO crud and who cares if you win the throne on one server.

Basically another MMO time waster.

If they had 1st person view, a larger world (expand the heightmap to 10x larger), Skill progression and real time combat then we might be persuaded.

You didn't answer the question. How do you propose team dynamics could work? How do you balance out dungeons and monsters to a group of players, however many there are, that can have full Restoration, full Destruction, full One-Handed and full Heavy Armor?

How would you even begin to set up a search parameter to get players of the particular build you want?

I think it's safe to say that I will not play a "we've seen that before" MMO because all of those MMOs that we've "seen before?" We still see them. I can still play most of the MMOs I've seen before(with a few dead exceptions like RF Online and UC Gundam Online). I can find most of my online friends in the big "we've seen that before" MMO. Why would I put up with gameplay that has just about worn out its welcome(albeit with a few tweaks) in this game rather than a game with more content, more polish, a larger community and all of my old friends?

The answer is I wouldn't.

In regards to TES games being class based prior to Skyrim... I recall the class system being nothing more than an unrestrictive template. Eventually you could build up any skill you wanted... Or you could make your own class. For the sake of not locking out skills as a traditional class based system would do, being able to build up any skills regardless of class, I would still consider the older TES games skill based.

and perhaps in land.. But I have a thought that they will make provinces like Skyrim only half as big.. Oh and the classes.. But were those their idea to start with?

Actually you're incorrect, as there has been the option since Daggerfall to create your own class with your own combination of skills, thus throwing out the played out notions of "warrior", "mage", "thief", "assassin" and forming any combination of character you desire. This has always been the stated point of Elder Scrolls, via the "live another life in another world / be who you want to be" mottos, and characters were never limited by what class they did play. Classes were basically a glorified label to put on your character that had little actual meaning, as it offered no limitation to what your character could do, and offered no drawbacks to using skills outside of your class. TES has very much been a "skill" based system over a "class" based one.

As far as OP goes - I agree, I would much prefer a skill based system when it comes to TES:O, rather than a class system. I fell in love with Star Wars Galaxies because of it's open world + skill based systems, and it was one of the worst moments in my life as a gamer when they tossed out the skill based design in favor of the NGE and classes.

I would still be playing SWG to this day if they had kept their original model, and I'd like to think that many others would be too, and that the population would have been strong enough that they'd never have had to close the game down. Even with what it had become, I felt a sense of sadness as SWG closed it's servers because of how much I loved what it had once had been. I guess even though it was something different, there was comfort in knowing that SWG was always there, in some way, and maybe, just maybe there was hope of it going back to what it once was.

If a Star Wars Galaxies 2, or any other MMO with SWG's original skill based model ever comes back out, I'll be the first in line.

I disagree with only one thing here, and that's the fun-ness of playing a tank. I actually enjoy tanks in the "holy trinity" games. I used to be a mage / range DPS kinda guy, but I eventually came around to playing tanks, and now that's what I prefer. When I played Warhammer Online, I played a Chaos Chosen (which was actually my first tank experience, and what led me to fall in love with the archetype), I just recently went back to EQ (due to it being FTP) and rolled a Shadow Knight, and even though there is no real group dynamic, I went from stealth mage / assassins in TES games to Shadow Knight style mage / tank hybrids.

Odds are, I'll probably be a tank in TES:O, and even though they aren't my thing really, I don't totally hate healers either - it's neat to always have to pay attention to what's going on, and always having something to do that's vital to the rest of the group, that's why I like tanking and healing. Pure DPS classes get boring after awhile.