The class system was totally flawed, not that classes itself were the root of the problem. Just the way it handled leveling up was all backwards.
If you only focus on your major skills, you get punished by developing a weaker character.


Anyway, never really used classes because it was more fun to create a custom class.

However, classes are important for NPC's, mainly how they behave.
From a developers perspective it's both easier and interesting to have someone work out and customized AI attached to every single class to make combat more interesting without having to tinker the AI manually for every single NPC.
So, I hope this doesn't mean they have some universal, or unnecessarily complex AI system.

Anyway, I don't feel hot or cold about removing the classes.
I just hope the NPC's have a personality instead of acting and fighting the same, don't care how they did it.

A custom class is a class. Although I agree that it was the leveling and specifically level scaling that was to blame, not Classes themselves.

There are always numbers involved, and I believe with no classes, you have an overall cleaner system, not a dumbed down herp derp version.

And some people think that RPGs don't need numbers, it's their opinion and it doesn't make them any less wrong. And don't tell me that I've never played an RPG before because believe me, many people have been playing since Arena/DaD and agree that a better RPG doesn't always = more numbers, and it's their opinion, there is no fact anywhere on the RPG bible that says "To make thee a better game, one must have moar numbers!"

it's a matter of preference and principle.

I'm done derailing this thread, I'll just say that I think having no classes is one of the best decisions Bethesda has ever made, right next to taking out attributes.

Oh It makes them wrong alright. You cant have an RPG without numbers/stats. You have a choose your own adventure book. I'm still not sure why you keep bringing up "moar numbers". We are talking about Classes

It's not about the numbers or the lack of them.

It's about choosing your class at the beginning, not during the game...

That doesn't mean though that the player needs to know how all those numbers affect their game. Take a look in Oblivion's and Fallout's Settings section in their construction kits. There are literally hundreds of numbers there that the player doesn't need to know about in order to play those games. As for classes, why do I need to pre-select some class-type in order to determine that I would like my character to focus on magic while I'm playing? I'm going to do that anyway, so all that some class selection can do is give me some sort of perk to help me along. But we'll now have 50 of those during the course of a game rather than just a single one at the very beginning. So I really don't see how it's any great loss.

Well, I was going to leave, but I'll respond one last time.

It seems to me that You and Xnarc are the only ones that I see advocating against perks and the removal of attributes/classes.

You know what, you're right, way back in the 90s, you actually "needed" numbers. You got me on that one.

However, this is 2011, what do you want? Updated numbers? Flashy numbers? Numbers that appear in 3D?

Or, a new/cleaner representation of said numbers?

And I won't resort to insults over numbers on a video game. Nobody seems to take "A matter of preference" to heart these days. Apparently there's no such thing as an opinion.

It came from a very simple question. What would happen if we simply didnt ask?

Likely for a good while they were wondering.. ok when do we ask them? What do we ask? How do we make sure new players know what to say at this point?


But then what if we didnt ask?

Nothing explodes if we simply dont ask.

Nothing goes horridly wrong.

Heck as long as they make the names long enough you can get all but the skill increases that class gave you before.. just call yourself blah the ranger or ranger bob... tada.



It was easy to toss out because in the end it was easy to toss.

As for borthsigns... they have only been in 2 elder scrolls and again they were very easy to toss.

Things that are that easy to be rid of and yet generate problems for new players.. go away.

WHO SAID YOU NEED TO?

Christ - did you even read the OP and the rest of the thread? Or did you just come crashing into yet another thread and start beating on the same damned dead horse yet again?

Never mind - those are rhetorical questions.

Because all "class" was in Oblivion was Majors & Minors - and Majors & Minors were all about attribute bonuses & leveling. Which is how numbers got into it, back on page 1 - the leveling system combined with the classes were all about metagaming your stat gains, not actually playing a "warrior" (or mage, or thief, or whatever) in the game world. The numbers were a distraction from the actual game.

I have never been against perks.

In fact it seems that there's a group of people that are for depth, variety etc. They are for gameplay mechanics even if they personally didnt use them. they are for trying to fix somthing that was flawed, instead of just cutting it.

Then there's the group that apparantly doesnt care what they get and will just recite whatever Todd says as if hes going to personally come into your bedroom at night and whisk you away on the back of a unicorn.

Games are not to the point were you dont need numbers. We will always need the numbers.


It was there to represent who your build was. Its not like your born in prison. So in conclusion there was nothing wrong with classes, unless you just want to make a JOAT, or you have no idea how a TES plays. The stats were not a distraction unless you have ADD. If the variables that determined who you were and who you weren't were "too distracting", then Id say action games are more your speed. That's a genre were you dont have to think and "you just play".

Because of the way the leveling interacted with classes it pretty much forced you be be a "JOAT". You had to level the minor skills which weren't supposed to be important to your character or "class" in order to build you attribute modifiers. It made your class nothing but a name tagged on your character because you had to use skills that weren't part of your class.

And that was the level system particularly the level scaling that was the problem. So there was nothing wrong with Classes. I have never made a JOATs in a TES and Ive probably had over 50 characters through all of the ES games.

Classes were part of the problem. It was the major/minor skills that caused it. Of course it is possible to create non JOAT characters if you don't use the classes as they were intended again making them kind of pointless.

Then what is the point of having a pre-defined class then? Especially since there will be no more distinction between Major and Minor skills.

Classes were obviously not the problem since the same problems in Oblivion didnt happen in the older TES games that all had classes. Its basically for people that wont want to stick with one play type, or dont want to make another build.


But there will be. The skills you use more will level you faster, making them into unofficial majors.

IIRC (and I do because I'm playing it now) morrowind made you use non class skills or minor skills to gain modifiers. So what was the point of a class if you were forced to use skills that weren't part of it anyway? That wasn't part of the level scaling at all. Classes may have worked well that way in arena or daggerfall can't remember which or if it was both because once you chose those skills you were stuck them and them only for the rest of the unless I'm mistaken. The game mechanics were different back then and they don't work so well now, ala oblivion.

Besides classes are still fundamentally there minus the name and the annoying leveling. They simply changed it in a way that works better for this game.

Oh please, spare me the fan boi crap. That's all you whiners seem able to resort to when someone comes along who doesn't agree with you. It's perfectly conceivable that people can make logical decisions without resorting to becoming mere sycophants. And I notice that it's always the same vocal minority that jumps on this bandwagon and feels the need to belittle the majority who accept the changes. It's time to let go of the past, the game is going to change and no amount of whining about it is going to matter.



That doesn't mean that they need to be in the player's face all the time. They can function just as well in the background while the player actually involves him/herself in the game, rather than being obsessed about stats.

This new level system and classes are not mutually exclusive. They got rid of them for people that didnt know what they were going to be doing when they first start the game. those people are called newbs, as in neophytes to the game that dont know how a TES plays. If Im going to be a Mage, I know I will play as Mage. If I get tired of my mage, Im not going to just start doing non mage stuff with him. I'll make a new character. This is somthing people apparently dont understand.


Whos whining?

"The numbers were a distraction" = thoughts of them intruded on gameplay, and took up too high a % of your attention while playing. Having a record sheet to keep track of your skill gains, so you'd know when you hit +5 bonuses, remembering to not go into a dungeon when you were close to those bonuses (so that you wouldn't waste skill points and/or have to break off your dungeon run halfway through), etc, etc, etc.

i.e, alot of the focus of playing was on metagaming, not gaming. Paying attention to the game's systems, rather than the game's content.



(random question - is there an "ignore user" feature on this forum?)

And that is different than having a pre-defined class how then? It will amount to exactly the same thing, making classes completely redundant. The only difference will be that your majors and minor will be determined exactly by how you use your skills, not by some pre-conceived notion of a class.

your the one metagaming worrying about getting a plus 5 every time. Again, sounds like action games are a more appropriate speed for people that think leveling is too complex. I never needed a notebook, or calculator level. There was not really any number crunching. Plus thats why I play RPGs. To think. That's why mindless action games were you just focus on game play are boring to me personally.

You are, in every thread where these issues come up. Attributes and classes are gone, deal with it. While it was possible to come up with some other way where these things may have actually served a useful function in the game they decided not to. And I'm certainly not going to lose sleep over it. I simply accept the decision to design "their" game the way they want to.



You need to get a grip on reality. I wish I had a dollar for every thread I've seen on the forums where people were obsessing about this issue, I'd be rich. And I could only chuckle since I was using a mod that eliminated the monstrosity that the Oblivion leveling system was.

If you don't need classes to force your play style then why do you need them at all? I guess it all comes down to; Class: Spellsword = another stat = better RPG.

Turn it around. Why do you need to get rid of them then?


Didnt know you could tell the tone of my voicee over the internet. :rolleyes:
Again it seems like theres two groups, one that cares what they get and one that doesnt.