One of the most appealing aspects of The Elder Scrolls Online is its sense of freedom. Players can go to every zone, pursue any quest, and take part in events without having to worry about their respective levels. This ideology also applies to the functionality of classes and their possible builds, but over time this has become less potent.
In The Elder Scrolls Online, players have significant control over what role they would like to play, regardless of class. Nightblades can be tanks, templars can be damage dealers, and dragon knights can be healers; there are no limitations on what a class can do as long as they have the right set up. However, as of recent updates, the individuality of all of these classes has been affected by homogenization.
How Individuality Has Been Reduced in The Elder Scrolls Online
Damage-dealing roles have been the most affected by changing design philosophies, particularly after significant changes to The Elder Scrolls Online's combat. Originally, there were two separate play styles for damage dealers: stamina and magicka. Stamina users utilized swords, axes, and shields, whereas magicka users made use of various staves. Stamina users excelled in damage dealing, but magicka users had the upper hand in utility, striking a balance that provided each with an identity to make every class unique. Magicka-using dragon knights were known for their damage-over-time rotations, and stamina-using nightblades were known for their high skill ceiling.
One of the biggest changes came when physical and magical critical chance were combined into a single stat that was influenced by all types of damage. The goal of this was to encourage hybridization, allowing players to use both magicka and stamina abilities as a third play style. Instead, this has lead to a PvE meta where it is much more optimal to hybridize for dealing damage with all of The Elder Scrolls Online's classes, rather than encouraging a plethora of different approaches.
Another issue that has persisted for much longer is a lack of variety between builds. The Elder Scrolls Online does not make use of traditional gear score mechanics found in games like Final Fantasy 14 and World of Warcraft. Instead, The Elder Scrolls Online has gear set bonuses. These can range from giving the player more maximum magicka to the summoning of a fearsome daedroth, which is one of the most unique gearing systems in an MMO, but does lead to many classes using the same sets of armor.
Another hit to class diversity is that it has become more effective to use dual-wielding and two-handed weapons. Though staves are still viable, arguably the best option for a magicka user is a weapon that does not thematically fit. With magicka and stamina users utilizing the same weapons and many of the same skills due to hybridization, suddenly classes start to blend together. Not all individuality is lost of course, as The Elder Scrolls Online's warden is the only class that can use ice staves offensively to great benefit, granting various buffs and debuffs.
The threat to individuality doesn't exist just for current classes, but new ones as well. The Elder Scrolls Online's future arcanist class, while thematically unique, will likely find its identity tarnished by the lack of build and skill variety. However, with changes like ice staves standing out among the pack, perhaps the future could hold something more unique for the classes in The Elder Scrolls Online.
The Elder Scrolls Online is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.