So the reasons we did this:
We noticed that the players knew too many skills too fast, which made the game really easy.
For higher level characters, this became even more of a problem.
People got the idea "I am a Ranger so I MUST learn all Ranger skills asap".
We noticed a lot of people just stuck to one "class" even though we don't think in terms of classes.
We noticed the bonuses in "Way of the..." were OP because we didn't think everyone would quickly go for "all five points in Way of the...".
We noticed a lot of people thought the char customization was kind of "over" for them as soon as they had five points in one of these "Ways" and didn't seem to bother with any of the other abilities. ("I am a warrior and there is a Way of the Warrior ability so as soon as I have five points in Way of the Warrior, my character is maxed.")
We wanted to make players choose what skills they wanted to "equip" instead of simply buying all skillbooks, learning them, and having skillbars full of skills.
Now my personal opinion.
Actually, I also believe not a lot has changed in the skill system.
Your ability now defines how many skills you can learn. In the old system, the amount of skills you could learn was limited too, but by requirements. In the new system, the fact that you only have to put points in "Way of the..." abilities if you want to, and if you want more skills, actually gives you the power to invest more points in other abilities. I mean, why go for five points in "Man-At-Arms" immediately if you only need 2 points to enable you to learn all Warrior skills that are available at that level?
We noticed that a lot of people were quickly putting all their ability points in their "class" ability, thus underestimating the other abilities, and getting the feeling that there was nothing more for them to invest in.
The bonuses you received from the "Way of the..." abilities have now moved to talents. They are still available. Some got removed because they were overpowered anyway. We now have more control, and you have more choice. If you still want them, they are there.
The old system seemed to push you into a class-system and we noticed a lot of people actually thought of it that way. The presets are not classes, they are proposed builds. Yes, there will be an option to completely customize them in the future.
So this "class thinking" is the reason why we changed the abilities, and the reason why we re-organized the categories of the abilities, and improved their tooltips. You can still go full-on wizard, and I believe that a wizard with more than one discipline will always be better than a wizard that specializes in one school only. That was also the idea from the start: that people would mingle different schools. The skills were even written in such a way that they combine very well, so it would not be ideal to only specialize in merely one school. You lose all the synergy and you depend on the rest of your party which may not always be there (or alive). And I'm not only talking about wizards. I also think it is a lot more do-able now to make battlemage-builds and cleric-builds if we're speaking in terms of classes anyway. A warrior build with just one point in an elemental school can learn some Touch spells, or a warrior build can put a point in ranger and learn some healing skills, and I think those are cool combinations.
The previous system didn't seem to provide people with this customization or didn't give enough people the idea or incentive to do it. I think that this new system invites the player more to experiment with different builds. It's not as if you're handicapped with "only 3 skills" or "only 5 skills" if at that point there are "only" four or five skills available. And as soon as more skills are popping up for you, you can choose to "forget" a skill or not, which gives you more choices to make, which is what RPGs are about in my opinion.
If we had a skilltree, you would also not be able to learn every single skill in there. If we had something like a D20 system, you would also be limited and have to choose. The fact that we are classless and work with skillbooks actually just gives you more choice and more power.
I really like this system because as a player, it gives me more "AARGH I HAVE TO CHOOSE" moments. And as a dev, I feel like we have more control over balance and difficulty.
