I made a post previously about how I disagree strongly with the current classes in the game, but I could not seem to word my post well to get the point across. I then read an article by someone with the same complaint who put it better.

There are 4 classes available in the game, all are magic related. Two of these classes, dragon knight and Templar, are made up and do not even officially exist within TES lore. There are about 30 canon pre-made and easily researched classes that are found within every TES game, and yet they felt the need to pull two classes out of their butt? Not to mention, why would all 4 classes be mages? I don't care if one wields a broadsword, or a dagger, every one of them is throwing around fireballs, lightning bolts, and sunbeams; they are all mages. I understand that they are trying to cater to the generic MMO fan, but that type of gamer could not give two craps about lore, or roleplaying. TES is about role playing, it is the poster child of the RPG genre! What happened to the mundane warriors and soldiers and thieves? Since when did everyone start becoming a magical expert?

So what is the big deal you ask. Why do I care that every class is a mage? The great part about an MMO is being immersed into a living world that feels alive because of thousands of other people. When every one of those other people are growing dragon wings and flying around the battlefield, or tossing lances made of light, I feel like I am playing some Olympian God game, not TES. It is total immersion breakage and not found anywhere in TES lore. It cheapens the label. There are no mundane classes, which means every character you see around you is a magic user, which leads you to feel like all of Tamriel is nothing but magic users, because your fellow gamer is what makes up the vast majority of other people in the living world.

If any of you have watched a youtube video of the PVP in ESO, as cool as it looks, its nothing but giant magical explosions, lightning bolts and fireballs. Again, Olympian God game, not TES. That's nowhere near how battles were fought in the elder scrolls. What happened to the sword and shield, mundane combat? When a battlemage shows up on the field and starts tossing fireballs, it should be a game changer. Every soldier shouldn't be casting spells! But yet, that is exactly the way this class system leads you to feel. It breaks the TES experience and makes you feel like you are playing some world of wizards game. The classes are way too specific, and way too magical. The term mage is there for a reason, meaning a person with great many years of magical knowledge and skill. Meaning not every Joe Smith can be a mage. It is an achievement to use magic well. It takes practice and study. This game makes you feel like everyone throws it around like nothing. That is not how the lore states it works! Nor is it the way any TES game did it. In any other TES game, magic was a commitment. If you were going to use spells effectively, you had to commit to it with attributes and skill points/perks, stats, races, birth signs, etc. This game in one way or another forces you into a magic class. There is no mundane class, they don't exist.

Some will argue that you can simply not use any class skills, and just walk around with the class name. That's ridiculous, and almost nobody is going to do that. Anyway, that's my issue. Remove the classes or add some mundane ones!

So basicly... You want to be that awesome battlemage showing up and displaying all your awesomeness to the poor creeps. But you cant, because everyone is a badass battlemage.

Early game balance isnt necessarily endgame balance. People will find different builds, which change the magicka/hp/stamina balance and thus soldier to mage ratio.

Beta has been out for 12 mths, same goes for story line, probably longer and 12 days from launch you post this?

To little, to late.

I agree. They should have Thief and Warrior type non magic "classes", that can optionally choose to train up magic skills.

That is really what you got out of all that? That it is all about me wanting to be a badass? No, it is about me loving TES for the lore, and the roleplay, and the fact that the classes totally contradict that in such a blatant and obvious way. It is immersion breaking for me. Not to mention totally cheap.

Devs don't read these forums... And if they happen to read them, I doubt any of them would read a thread titled "Devs read this!"

I am surprised more TES fans are not bothered by this.....

I don't really disagree with the intent of your post but it really is too late for this. You are basically asking for a new game, or a two class game. I respect your desire to maintain TES lore but the bottom line is it's an MMO. I don't know why there is no true "warrior" class but I imagine the devs have their reasons for it. Someone more informed than I can maybe explain that. I don't have a problem playing the classes in the game now.

They can simply take away the need to pick a class template for those who wish not to, and allow them to pick skill trees. Or add 2 or 3 more mundane classes. No need for game changing changes

I get where you're coming from. I've been a TES lore lover since Morrowind, and the class choices here initially left me scratching my head. What the heck is a Dragon Knight? Since when has TES ever had a Templar order? Only Nightblade and Sorcerer are really supported by previous games. And that's on top of the fact that this game is coming in on the heels of Skyrim, which didn't utilize defined classes at all.

These classes have grown on me, though. The devs are pretty blatantly trying to break players out of the tired tank-healer-DPS roles, which the big three TES divisions (Warrior, Thief, Mage) pretty much cater to. As a chronic MMO player, I am happy to try something different. I'll grant that it was an odd design decision to go with these particular classes, and I wouldn't be surprised if they released some less magic-based classes down the line, but it's one of those things that you have to accept and move on from to appreciate the game as a whole.

Just because a class uses the blue bar, does not mean it is magic. You can call it all you want, but there are some skills that use magicka, that don't necesarily have to be considered magical abilities.

You can make a pure fighter just fine. Maybe ESO should just allow people to recolor the blue bar yellow for those who prefer that look.

Go away. Really.

Lore - a body of traditions and knowledge on a subject or held by a particular group, typically passed from person to person by word of mouth.

I am firm believer of that definition and I even see the Holy Bibly as a lore book. I don't see why we can't go against the lore in the story or with characters and as we progress through the story, see where the lore books came from and how they changed to become what they were. I like the Lore from previous TES, but I don't see it as, things must always follow lore to a T. Just my take on it.

I guess the Nightblade is the magic Thief class. In previous games illusion magic was useful for invisibility and any Thief worth their salt would not pass up on being able to turn invisible.

To the guy saying I am mad about the color of the bar, please read my post. The skills being magical in the game has nothing to do with them using the magicka resource, it has to do with their effect being either setting crap on fire, calling sun beams from the sky, or draining the life force from the target. That's magic! As for the Thief class, the Thief class did not use magic, if he wanted to turn invisible he got his sneak skill up or popped an invis potion. When he turned to learning magic, he became a nightblade. A spellcaster

While I did play Oblivion and Skyrim, I don't really consider myself an Elder Scrolls fan given that I know little to nothing about the lore (besides the bits of stories revealed through gameplay of the previously mentioned games) so my opinion comes from an MMO-enthusiast perspective.

First, regarding the whole "everyone's a mage" issue, while class abilities are related to magicka, that doesn't necessarily makes them "spells". I played a shadow nightblade and didn't get a "mage" feel at all playing it. He was all stabby stabby and his only "power" was slipping through the shadows, something you'd expect a nightblade to do. You can also slot nothing but weapon abilities if you like, many of which are stamina bound. Of course, if you watch a massive pvp fight, fireballs and explosions are what will be catching your eye. They're visually impressive. But for every magical death spewing sorcerer, there's a nightblade prowling the field, waiting for the right moment to strike. There's a dragon knight defending the squishies from melee assaulters, raising his shield to stop the onslaught. I don't think it's fair to claim battles are a free-for-all magic festival.

I apologize in advance for what I'm about to say but... Elder Scrolls online is not a single player game, it's an MMO. It's an entirely different type of game, a different genre. This isn't intended as the next installment of the Elder Scrolls series, it's an MMO based on the Lore. Honestly, I feel like they did a pretty good job in preserving the general feel of ES games, all things considered. Combat is a lot more dynamic and action-based than a lot of mmos out there.

Hopefully this won't earn be the scorn of the role-playing community, that's not my goal, I'm just stating my honest opinion.

I appreciate your post Cerberus, but most of the class skills are spells in the fact that they have magical effects such as magically draining life from the target at a distance, or freezing them in place with shadows (for the nightblade) or setting everything around you ablaze or breathing fire (for the dragon knight).

Agreed with this. I hope the next new class will be a pure martial combat.

Yes I strongly agree with the OP. I have already mentioned that it would be only logical to open up the game towards the player, when hitting 50 to then be able to pick another class ontop. And maybe at veteran lvl-idk gets the third and then the 4th. But staying on one class? So f*cking boring over time.

Honestly, I still see this as quibbling over nomenclature.

Nightblade is no more inherently "magical" in nature than Naruto is. (And yes, I feel ashamed of having used that anology.)

Sorry, but nightblades *are* magic users.

When you find someone that can drain your life, turn invisible, teleport himself or summon a shade without magic, you can come back with this argument.

When I first looked into skills and saw that every class ability was magicka based, it also made me go "wut? o.O" and while I can't fully explain why they chose to go that way, I can only assume it was a matter of balancing things out. They probably wanted to make all 3 stats relevant for every class, As for the visual aspect of the skills themselves, I'm not sure how they could have achieved skills without involving some sort of "magical element". If everything was to be 100% realistic, this game would be nothing but auto-attacks. Special moves, or skills, are an important part of any good MMO, which is why I brought up the whole -single player vs online multiplayer- argument.

Regarding the "sticking to one class" issue, that's something you'll see in most of the MMOs out there. WoW, FFXIV, Rift, Guild Wars 2, just naming a few off the top of my head. You pick a class and you stick with it. This game actually promotes creativity with the skills, which sets you apart from others with the same class. Some games don't even offer any kind of skill customization at all (I'm looking at you, FFXIV).