Classes in Dragon Age 4

This also gets even muddier when we fight things like 'Rogue Templars' in the series too.  

Having had some time to think on this, why not just burrow from Mass Effect's (OT) system? You get access to 6 classes, but the choice of weapon you choose to wield is entirely up to you. The base three classes would be Warrior, Rogue, and Mage, and the 3 hybrid classes would be Battlemage (Mage/Warrior), Spellsword (Mage/Rogue), and Lord of Fortune (Rogue/Warrior). You'd still have the starting abilities selected for you, but the option of what weapon you choose to wield is up to you, though mage staffs would come with restrictions if you didn't pick a magic centered class.

You get to retain the more rigid class system, but by allowing players to choose what weapons they want to wield, you get to have more freedom in build variety. The three additional classes also makes it easier for people to better define how they want there playthrough to start off before further defining their character.

Hmmm, if we're gonna go that route, I'd rather just go classless, either with all skill trees open from the start, or "specialisation" skill trees locked off until certain story requirements are fulfilled.

It will depend on the state of the Veil at the start of the game. If the Veil is already down then why not go classless and allow everyone to have some magic as well as martial skills. Several of the warrior and rogue skills in DA2 and DAI already felt a bit too magically for my taste (phantom duplicates for the Champion and two handers able to create earthquakes? let's not get started on the tempest).

Of course, this is divorcing game mechanics from lore. Mages spend much of their training learning how to avoid demons and control their powers. It makes sense that so much of their training needs to be devoted to this that they wouldn't have time to 'dual class' to learn weapon talents or other skills. And if a former muggle has suddenly gained access to magic spells and can throw a fireball when all she's known is picking pockets before, she is going to become an abomination ASAP.

I'm aware. My point is that there is no narrative justification or not a very good one, at least, for locking nearly any of the specializations to any particular class. There's no reason why a rogue shouldn't be able to spec into templar, or a warrior into bard.

But I don't advocate for going class-less per se. I don't much care either way.

My suggestions are to either leave the classes partitioned as is, OR, make the pc classless (including access to magic), and give every party member tailored skill trees that fit their character and background.

I could live with just some of the specializations being class-exclusive. Assassin and Bard for Rogues, and Chamion and Berserker for Warriors, probably. Duelist, Ranger, Templar and Reaver could easily be universally available. And Ranger and Duelist might be entirely superfluous.

Gameplay mechanics aside, 'Bard' means something very specific in this setting and it's a hell of a lot more Roguish than Warriory. Skalds and such are awesome, but there's no real foundation for them in Thedas like there is for Bards as spies and thieving minstrels. 

Andromeda tried to give you mostly free reigns while restricting party members to their specialties. I always thought it undermined Ryder's ability to stake out their own role and function in combat compared to Shepard, and usually played entirely as if I had chosen one of the old classes anyway. Mostly Engineer or Sentinel, since the game puts a lot of emphasis on Ryder interacting with alien technology, and because AI programming and engineering were clear fields of interest for their father.

I really tried to build Ryder(s) based on a particular MET archetype, but... it invariably ended up unsatisfying and I'd have a bazillion unspent points midway through the game. The mechanics were apparently designed to allow you to take most of the talents by the end of a playthrough. I felt like I ended up with a SAM-dependent jack of all trades and master of nothing.

It's clear that MEA SP combat was designed to emulate MP.  No power wheel (RTwP) so you could select from more than 3 talents - ammo types, etc. all consumable with little resource stashes conveniently strewn about unexplored, uninhabited wildlands - lol.

For me, the combat in RPGs is just as much a part of the roleplaying as dialogue is, albeit in a much simpler way. How my character prefers to approach a fight tactically says a lot about them. Same for fantasy. Deciding on a class isn't just about the abilities, it's a kind of self-expression for your character. Rogues and Warriors overlap in ways, sure, but the difference between them seeing and defining themselves as a man or woman of war or just an opportunistic scrapper has heavy implications for who they are as people.

Having the opportunity to switch between approaches on the fly and be more or less equally great at everything takes that extra definition away from the character.

And this is starting to seem like just a good old-fashioned difference of values between you and me, but in my mind and experience it takes significant time and training and application to get good at anything at all, and the idea of people who are good at everything is just silly. Playing a 22-yearold kid who can just choose to be a brilliant soldier with barely any training while firing up their awesome engineering talents the next moment feels like an insult to all the soldiers and engineers in the world who have worked their asses off for years to reach basic competency in their respective trades.

The only time when I want to play someone who hasn't had to devote years and years of effort into building up their skills is when playing a useless shit who is suddenly forced to wise up and becomes a mediocre jack-of-all-trades out of necessity due to having wasted their life up to that point. Which my Ryder definitely would have felt like if it hadn't been for the synergy between tech skills, Sam and the use of alien technology being such a huge part of Andromeda's story.

I do certainly agree with you on the merits of your argument.  As I have stated at least two of my characters are very involved in their roleplay. 

Just that:

A. the current system still can limit that.  Sure some limits can be fun but if I want to play a rogue who can take a bit of a hit, its pretty difficult to do with the current system and...well that is just as valid for Roleplay. 
B.  Choosing what abilities or what abilities you use in combat can again be just as valid for roleplay then choosing your class.  Choosing archery or roguey abilities can make your character a rogue archetype, even if the game does not call it that.  In Andromeda while you could spec into pretty much anything you didn't have to use everything, and while there was a few unfortunate lines of dialogue here or there that resulted from that decision, it can still mostly work.  Robert could use biotics, but I chose for Robert not use them because I didn't want to RP that.  
C.  From what I have heard, didn't do too much experimentation with this, but being a Jack of all Trades character in Andromeda was a bit..limiting from what I heard?  Which does make a fair bit of sense.  Become an expert on one or two paths or become a generalist at a lot more. 
D.  As I mentioned in the poll while a class less system or disbanding the Warrior and Rogue... would neccessiate other limitations, I mean classes are a limiting factor in what you can do, so this just makes sense.  This was kind of a flaw I didn't mind in Andromeda but it did make sense with me.  Now I can think of two things off the top of my head that could be limiting factors:  Level caps, or limiting the amount of abilities you can have active at one time (and people complain about that limitation when BioWare does them)...or maybe instead of that make stamina/ adrenaline more of a dominant resource which does not let you/ encourages you to more specialize.  Things of that nature. 

I'll take this opportunity to remind you that the DAO mechanics would allow you to build such a rogue, and equip them with massive armor.



It can, but you noticed some discrepancies.



But you just acknowledged some things they'd need to do to accommodate such a change. I would also point out that traditional DA rogues automatically have the ability to detect and disarm traps and unlock things; it's just a class trait. So you'd need to make those purchase-able abilities instead, at least if you want to continue to use traps and locked things in the game world.

As far as reactivity goes - reacting to a specific, well-defined class is a very easy check, and so is looking for a specific talent. Anything more complex can give you some... unexpected, possibly undesirable results.

Not related to combat builds, but here's a thing that actually happened to me once - my warden had enough approval with both Leliana and Alistair to trigger their romantic interest. I was having a dialogue with Wynne, and she talked about those relationships. In the first statement, she referred to Leliana as the object of interest; in the next she mentioned Alistair. Not a big deal, but that sort of thing makes a game feel buggy, and you really raise the risk of that kind of inconsistency when you make reactivity checks more complex.



Hmm... I'm not quite sure what you mean here.

A. Entirely true. But I feel like that's an argument for going back to the versatility of the class system in Origins, not necessarily for abolishing classes altogether. Plenty of RPGs allow for a hardy rogue, or a delicate warrior.

B. Again, true, but every little bit helps when it comes to staying true to a single character concept over what is potentially weeks or months of on-and-off gameplay, during which you'll absolutely be tempted to compromise it if there's no strict framework. Looking at your character sheet and seeing Infiltrator, lv x at the top because that's what you felt the character would be helps anchor them outside just your head. As I said earlier, I can totally see and enjoy the benefits of a classless system. But I still prefer having them to not.

C. No idea. I've only played the game as a tech specialist, give or take Lift, and I never cared to take advantage of the ability to change... protocols? Whatever they're called. It just didn't interest me, just like it also didn't interest me when Kingdom of Amalur did the same thing.

When you have too much freedom, things very easily stop mattering. That's just how it is.

Honestly, I would just vote for classless because usually I really have to twist the arms of any class system to play the character I want. Doing a 3 pure + 3 hybrid would get me most of what I want, but at that point, why no just go with classless with a level cap (so you can't be everything), and for story purposes, have something like class backgrounds like Circle Mage, Apostate, Crow, Templar, etc.