I sort of understand Todd's reasoning, but it still doesn't make sense to me to abolish classes completely. What will your character say when people ask "what do you do?" You'll reply: "Oh, I'm just some guy". Also I think having classes gives a lot of roleplaying potential.

Perhaps a better system that will not "force the player into a specific play style early on" would be to simply have the player pick a class later on, say at level 5? And maybe even extend this idea to picking basic classes like warrior, mage, rogue earlier, and then perhaps allow the player to pick more specialized classes later such as assassin, bard, nightblade, spellsword, witch hunter, agent, healer, berserker, etc.

This way classes can be had while still easing Todd's (questionable) concerns

Since that doesn't happen in the game you can say whatever you want when you imagine it happening.

For gameplay purposes, no differences. For roleplaying differences, yeah I wish they kept them.

This.

Classes are redundant anyways, wasted 5 minutes of playing time for me.

We are who we are and we are defined by our actions, meaning a mage obviously became a mage by using magic and not swinging a warhammer.

Classes were never necessary, i agree with Todd here.

I remember having to go back and change my class a thousand times because i forgot to add something i wanted :brokencomputer:

I'll definitely look for a mod that lets me enter a class name... Somewhere. Just feels better to me.

Im pretty sure you can still 'be a mage' by picking skills to level up instead of being told 'hey, you are a mage'. So the class system will be more like FO3 and NV instead of Morrowind.

I quite like that you can pick and choose what you want to do. Instead of being locked into a set path and have some items or abilities locked to me because I chose to be a Marksman I can suddenly pick up a nice mace and work my way down the blunt weapons path.

If they want to get rid of them, get rid of them. This is one of the (very few) simplifications that I don't think is really misguided. In Oblivion, when a skill got really high, people would sometimes comment on that skill. While Oblivion did it in an annoyingly robotic and repetitive manner, I can see something like that being extended so that people will refer to you as certain things based on what skill levels you have. If you're magically powerful, people could call you a mage or possibly a shaman if you go a bit further north. (not as a specific occupation term, just as a general catch-all for magic users.)

I'll still play my characters according to a a class I designate before I role the character. Free form isn't my thing. Thankfully this system doesn't limit me in anyway, and doesn't limit people who like free form.

Class never mattered, did it? Aside from combat, class... did what? I wish class had an impact, but they're gone now, so no use caring.

...and when you answer "I'm a warrior", they reply: "yes, stupid, I know you call yourself that, but what do you actually do?!!" Skyrim answers this without having you wrap it up in christmas paper. What's so bad about that?


I disagree, I think classes actually hamper and limit your roleplaying potential. In D&D for instance, you'll never be able to learn even the simplest lockpicking without taking at least 1 level of "Rogue". Likewise, you might be a rogue because you're mugging people and you might not even have the slightest idea how to pick a lock, and yet there you are being a master at everything that has ever been associated with the popularistic idea of what a rogue is. Even though your definition of a rogue might be a pickpocket or a spy.

In Skyrim, you are what you do. IRL, you are what you do. In many RPG, you only have to call yourself something and then suddenly you just magically know everything about it.

Yeah, classes didn't mean a thing for me in Oblivion. I'd always pick "custom" so that I could tweak my Major skills for controlled leveling, didn't bother changing the default name from "Adventurer", etc. Class? :shrug: I just used some skills (typically, not even the ones I'd picked as Majors), there was no class.

This makes a but more sense to me for arguing against classes, but I still think they should be in there somewhere. Call me a traditionalist I guess. Why not have a little class indicator somewhere in the menu that simply changes automatically based on the values of your characters skills?

Because it's redundant, and so is this thread. That said, I would never be against a simple line in the character sheet onto which you could write your class' name. But I don't really see the point, most people are able to think abstractly enough for this to be unnecessary.

Well when people ask me what i do im going to say "Im Dovahkiin what about you?" i think that answer will suffice.... But also i really dont mind doing away with classes as it was just a way of limiting what i could train my character to do...

Todd's way of putting it makes perfect sense to me and I love that Skyrim has gone this way. Thanks Bethesda and please keep it this way for all future games (TES and Fallout) that you make as well! :intergalactic:

I don't see how it is redundant. When people ask "what do you do?" sure you could say "I use bows most of the time, and occasionally a short sword. I'm also proficient in light armour and conjuration etc..." but that is cumbersome.

I don't see how a simple, convenient title for your character is such a big deal

There were no real classes in TES ever since Daggerfall. You created a class as a form of limitation, so you won't be able to do everything at once. You could still do anything, even as a warrior you could cast spells, but unless you practiced you wouldn't be good at it, and it wouldn't contribute to your overall level.

Now that classes has been truly removed, the role of limitation has been taken over by the perks.

But if you really need help for your RP about who you are, would you be happy if at the beginning after your name you could add a title, so your name would be "SoAndSo the Class"? I personally don't need anything like that. They could try something like there was in Fable, showing your class, depending your actions, but considering how in Oblivion I nearly always been told I'm a pilgrim that wouldn't work...

classes are still in. they just arent pre picked. it sounds like the game only lets you max out a few skills so we dont have to worry about being "master of all" in a single game. that was my biggest issue with oblivion and morrowind. to be honest im also glad they got rid of attributes as well because it basically said that only mages had high intelligence meaning thieves and warriors were total retards. i would imagine that a battlefield commander has to have a fairly high intellect for his job..........unless he was some spoiled nobles son. you cant be the best thief by being stupid either.

I agree, having a title as you call it helps me identify my character as something different than just "That guy" To me it's not about the class system it's about being able to name the thing you do.

The main point is that they don't go look up your CV. Only your employer does that. I don't know about you, but whenever someone asks me what I do for a living, I usually just answer them. I don't go around shoving character sheet up their faces.

Besides, calling yourself a Warrior is an incredibly vague thing, it says nothing specific about what you do. You're creating an argument based around your desire to have the character sheet show "Class". Maybe you should instead try to ask yourself "how does this actually say anything about my actual, in-game behaviour?"


It's not, that's why they removed it. Very few people care about it, as long as they can play a game that is fun and exciting. So they remove it because it doesn't add gameplay value. Why do they do that? Because they're making a game, and they need to micromanage the time the spend on the game features. They don't waste time on adding less important stuff when they're too busy making the more important stuff work. It's actually very easy math.

Ditching classes altogether makes perfect sense to me. They are a polluting residue from the old days. I wish you'd have explained yourself better. How does class abolition weaken role playing? It's precisely the opposite. It enlivens it - or so i predict, as I haven't played the game yet.
Forgive me but if all your reasoning against abolishing classes ammounts to the embarassment of not being able to state what your character does, then you appear to be holding on to classes for some reason other then better role playing. Give the new mechanics a go and then make up your mind.

As has been said Classes were pretty much redundant in the first games they existed in.

TES especially classes serve no purpose, all they did was make me take longer to master everything, not being a mage didn't mean I couldn't join the mages guild, which arguably it should have.

Classes were supposed to make people play a role, and discourage the "jack of all trades," where the no class feature just encourages the jack of all trades. The new system might discourage that by causing leveling take more time with more skills to invest in, but I don't think it will discourage many people.
Besides, the class offers your character some background. You are in jail for a reason, maybe i was a bandit hedgewizard? But the new system treats me like im fresh out of the womb.

The class system might have had some issues, but in some way it could be fixed.