3. Skills And PvE
This is possibly the most intriguing part of ESO for me, as it seems to redefine the aspects you'd expect almost entirely. Skills are not entirely class based: you will have to upgrade skills within your class, your guild, your alliance and your weapons. Weapons seem to be a big part of the Elder Scrolls Online experience as anyone can equip any weapons or armor they wish, no matter your class. Though some classes will have base skills preferred by a healer (such as the Templar's healing abilities), any class can pick his role simply by picking up a weapon. If you level up a regeneration staff, you'll unlock its healing skills and the same for a destruction staff. The potential combinations only depend on your play style and what suits your character best. For instance, if your main class is a Sorcerer then you can still throw on a suit of armor and a sword and shield and charge into battle as a tank with the weapons taunting capabilities. They've also delivered a blow to the standard instancing formula as you can choose your line up for a specific dungeon. You don't HAVE to use the tank, healer and two DPS line up; if you know that there is going to be a dungeon with mostly ranged enemies, you can throw forward a Templar (skilled in both taking damage and healing) and four ranged damage classes. Another thing that has caught my eye is the advanced AI that you'll encounter. The enemies focus (usually referred to as Aggro) is changed constantly throughout the fight, directing their attacks to whoever they see as the biggest threat. Tanks, in particular will have to work especially hard to keep the attention on themselves as opposed to sitting and spamming a taunt button. As you progress in levels and difficulty, so will the enemies; the development team explained that this was an aspect they were proud of and the enemies will develop advanced strategies later on in the game to take down even the toughest of teams, bringing a real challenge for all parties involved. With the current combat and instancing situation, team work will be vital for progress throughout the game and not only during late game encounters.