In there Question of the Week column on the Earthrise forums, Masthead Studios answers a question on the game's skill system and the game's lack of classes.

What do you have planned to make sure characters differ? If everyone can get every skill then wont people find "the best" skills and equipment and all end up being the same?
Many MMOs have problems with balancing skills and try to separate players in alternative development paths - classes is the best example - so achieving powerful combinations is limited to one path only, a fighter, a warrior, a thief and so on. Each class has its powerful abilities and developers try to balance them to their best knowledge. Characters in Earthrise will not have classes or take exclusive character development paths. Players will have the same choice of skills and abilities. That alone will not lead to ultimate builds because many skills will not provide players with passive bonuses that directly affect their success in various actions, but instead unlock wide array of carefully balanced abilities they can use in different situations. These abilities will be customizable action templates that can be further enhanced using special system we will announce in detail soon. This system will allow players to modify their abilities to a certain extent. They will be able to create new abilities builds and receive a slight boost but there will always be some disadvantage that they have to live with and take into consideration in almost every situation the ability comes in play. Think of this as the paper/rock/scissors game, where “the best” character template will be beatable by another “best” character template.

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