Originally Posted by Alodar
As noted classless systems with no restrictions already give you want you want. You can create your cookie cutter archetypes to your heart's content.
I can create a variety of characters tailored exactly to how I want to play in any given playtrough.

I think the crux of Tuco's opinion is that something like Skyrim's design is inherently uninteresting. When you're fully capable of maxing every skill to 100 and getting every perk point, it doesn't offer any meaningful choices.

Yes, you CAN just ignore all the skills and perks you don't want, but the end result is still not very interesting. You max out all the skills you want and grab all the perks you want and have little thought about it.

Meanwhile a flexible system that does offer limitations would be more interesting, that way you cannot become a "Master of all trades" and also have to decide whether you fully specialize into a specific role or if you sacrifice power for more utility by getting a little bit from other roles too.

So I agree with the point that a classless system isn't inherently good, because things like Skyrim exist which facilitate Master of all Trades builds with a total lack of actual decision making besides "I arbitrarily choose not to partake in things"

But on the other hand I'd disagree that they aren't a net plus, at least when they're done right. It's pretty trivial to make systems that offer flexibility that is far better than a class system where you're stuck with whatever arbitrary things a class contains (Yes, even with multiclass oportunities it's still very limiting in what you can have access to, even more so when you slap on D&D crap like Feat acquisition, Extra Attack acquisition, Spell Slot progression and other such things dependent on having X levels in Y class for non-class specific boosts), whilst providing limitations to prevent the system devolving into universal builds.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, things like Kingdom of Amalur's skill trees, FFX's Sphere Grid, Path of Exile's skill tree and Grim Dawn's Devotion system are all examples of providing flexibility. You cannot become a Master of all Trades with them (Except in FFX if you overlevel and thus can acquire the entire sphere grid) due to them having limitations by way of only granting limited points to place into them.

Meanwhile they offer a lot of depth of choice. You can choose to fully flesh out a particular aspect. Or you can sacrifice potential in an aspect to pick up some other things. With also the potential to become a "Jack of all Trades" where you can do everything, just not very well (With you likely lacking the ability to use the best stuff from each aspect. I.e. You won't have the heaviest armour, the biggest weapons, or the strongest spells)

Heck, in some cases (Notably, GD's Devotion system) there can be such limitation that you cannot even obtain everything from a particular aspect. Meaning even if you go fully into say, Fire Damage, you'll still have to pick and choose which Fire Damage bonuses you actually want to take.