Official Discussion Thread for "Developer Deep Dive – Let’s Talk About Class Identity in ESO"

Rungar

to be fair your 24k would jump up if you were using the appropriate raiding "training dummy". The idea behind this combat system is that your supposed to train for hours on end in front of a training dummy until your hands gain muscle memory so you can animation cancel "effortlessly". In order to get the most out of this system only specific skills will work in a specific rotation which funnels you into a very specific playstyle.

then come to the boards after using these theoretically popular builds and cry about lack of class identity....

you see it all revolves around this one crappy idea.

Rehdaun

Sorry but all I see in this article is a bunch of bs and lip service as an attempt to trick the foolish into thinking that Zos actually cares about identity and game play. We see this every 3 months, with the difference this time being a post on the Web site instead of the forums. Yet we have seen very little of this "vision" by the development team, a vision that changes with every post. Instead we see the opposite, the removal of class identity and race identity while affecting the game play so much even members of the top raiding guilds are crying out for Zos to please stop!

Prove me wrong Zos. Show us some of this vision for a change.

Ingenon

ZOS_SarahHecker wrote: »

This is the official discussion thread for "Developer Deep Dive – Let’s Talk About Class Identity in ESO" blog article.

Thanks for posting this!

Personally I think that the large changes in skills in each release are not fun. Because that can require changing many of the skills on the skill bars, practicing new rotations, farming new gear, or worse case shelving a character and starting a new one.

Joy_Division

Just my opinion, but I don;t think the Stonefist change meaningfully meets the criteria set out in this article.

Gandrhulf_Harbard

ZOS_SarahHecker wrote: »

This is the official discussion thread for "Developer Deep Dive – Let’s Talk About Class Identity in ESO" blog article.

ZeniMax Online Studio’s Gameplay Lead Rob Garrett shares his team’s philosophies and vision for both class identity and combat in The Elder Scrolls Online.

Started off COMPLETELY WRONGLY by assuming Class Identity is just about "combat".

Devs being this out of touch with their MMORPG (Note: there is no inherent or implied reference to "combat" in that) is why this game has only ever got worse with each content drop.

All The Best

Ksariyu

Possibly most concerning about this post is how non-committal it is, but after all this time I'm sad to say that's not too surprising. However, it does feel like a step in the right direction, giving players a better idea of the end-goal, and hopefully they can continue to do more stuff like this in the future, perhaps with a bit more depth.

As of right now, I think there are some fundamental changes that need to be made before all the skill changes in order to get the most out of them. Resources, damage modifiers, and weapons (The weapons themselves, not the skill lines) seem to be the biggest things holding the game back from having more diverse playstyles. Currently the most important decision a player has to make is whether they are Stamina- or Magicka-focused, and from there every other decision is made for them. The best skills, the best sets, the best weapon types, etc. are all determined by that one choice. This is especially strange considering that the game already has separate stats such as Damage, Crit, and Recovery, yet all of them are independently kind of useless, and you usually just ignore them to get whatever 5-piece set bonus you want.

The other major thing that I think may need reevaluation is how balance works. Personally, I think it'd work really well if, individually, each class can perform each role at the same level, statistically. Then, players can fine-tune and optimize their own groups via class and set compositions, instead of just, "This is irrefutably better than that." If done properly, this could even remove the need for groups to have pre-determined rosters of 2 tanks, 2 healers, 8 DPS for 90% of the endgame content.

Adernath

Just something to add: In Path of Exile balance is guaranteed in such a way that all 'classes' have access to the same ability tree, but start at different positions. While one gains levels, one can go progressively into a region of a different class and therefore have very special builds.

If that could be implemented in ESO -- perhaps in form of a progression system overwork -- that would be really awesome in my opinion. Not only would it provide a solution for the CP issue but also a way to get more balance overall and class identity at the same time.

silver1surfer69

Here´s my comment for alcast posting this articel on youtube cause thats where i first read it:

Im playing for years with thousands h exp. I find it good that they try to reach a goal and move towards a vision. To get 100% balance is impossible. But if i think back some years it was a lot worse. Imo when the game was launched it felt like a lot of ideas for abilities were mixed together just like oh this sounds cool, lets give this class, this kind of ability. All abilities together have not been a coherent whole, more like the opposite. Back in the day it was about identifying the biggest holes in the balance (the most OP stuff) and use that to master pvp. we are moving away from this and that is good imo. i think its good that they share this target and vision. i back you up on that the changes shouldnt be as drastic (u call it sledgehammer), but eg right now the change is soo needed, i almost quit the game (that never happened to me in all those years) cuase pvp fights are totally broken right now. I dont like to have the changes this often but for me its a sacrifice im willing to take to strive for more balance. Like u said, ZOS pls try to add or distract like 10-15% of the stuff and not 70%-200%. Dots, dizzy and other stuff had been buffed way too much so that it must be taken back this much now. Cheers.

thegreatme

Rungar wrote: »

to be fair your 24k would jump up if you were using the appropriate raiding "training dummy". The idea behind this combat system is that your supposed to train for hours on end in front of a training dummy until your hands gain muscle memory so you can animation cancel "effortlessly". In order to get the most out of this system only specific skills will work in a specific rotation which funnels you into a very specific playstyle.

then come to the boards after using these theoretically popular builds and cry about lack of class identity....

you see it all revolves around this one crappy idea.

Nope, tried and tested on a Trial level target dummy. Not sure if that's just another "you clearly just don't know what you're doing" jab, but if it is its just kinda becoming humorous at this point There's a saying about assumptions.

But on the actual topic at hand, as you put yourself, if the game funnels you into using only specific skills in a specific rotation and likely with specific gear sets in order to achieve being able to play on the same "level" as others, and make it so there are things which cannot be done in-game otherwise, that's literally the opposite of "play as you want". More "play to the meta or don't bother" with certain activities.

Which I suppose is where the "Optimal vs Viable" loophole comes in, but Viable by definition assumes you can do a passable job and still complete things, not "you can make an attempt but you're bound to fail and *** off your whole raid party by not being BiS".

Considering I've never been yelled at for Standing In Stupid and I'm usually first on on rezs and one of the last to die in a wipe, can effortlessly solo Group Events in public dungeons and with some effort at least some WBs, the likelihood probably isn't "lol maybe you just suck".

probabkyravi

I usually play Stamina Dragonkight and Stamina Sorcerer. RIP identity.

One is AoE beast other mostly single target, both rely 70-90% on weapons for damage. My sorcs class damage is Hurricane and Atro. My DK is Wings and Leap. Not really very inspiring but the sustain/defence and passives suit my yolo playstyle.

Sadly I gotta rely on 2h or DW for my damage coz I only melee. Dizzy is getting hit hard (sorry for the pun) but I have been fine for 5 years with the lack of identity in those 2 beasts of classes, I bring my own identity

Venomous Claw and Noxious Breath are OK but Cyrodiil still full of Templars and now Necromancers have a purge so I don't want them on my DK bar.

I don't think Storcs have any stamina damage apart from Hurricane but its strong and quite fun.

If it ain't broke don't try to fix it it but we could do with some love to break away from our only options being weapons as spam-ables.

Wayshuba

Just think, people watch these folks, who are strong influencers in the ESO community and even they can't stop saying that they way ZoS is doing this is a mess and has people leaving in droves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77XFJ0BhD8k

Not good to see even their influencers are losing hope that ZoS knows what they are doing here (see 22:34 mark). Later in the video he even mentions telling people to give ZoS until the next chapter and says it isn't working because people have had enough. That a game this mature should NOT be going through such drastic swings from patch to patch and that people just feel that the ZoS combat team doesn't have a clue what they are doing.

This is going to accelerate once the U24 patch hits. You can already see it happening just since the U24 patch notes came out. I think ZoS is going to feel this one very hard financially if they allow U24 to go live as is. People are just plain fed up.

Grimm_Cortex

Basically ZOS want to overhaul all class in order to fit the primary objective of the game : "Play as you want".
I think that"s a great way to correct lack on many class, but if ZOS change everything I hope they will give us something in return to switch/change the class of our primary character because no way I'll start over all the game to earn everything.

At start we create our primary character because of the role we want to fit in, if by the end of this big change the class we play don't really fit our expectation we will need to change and loose everything done with it... No thank you.

Please consider a change class option at least one per account.

thegreatme

Grimm_Cortex wrote: »

Basically ZOS want to overhaul all class in order to fit the primary objective of the game : "Play as you want".
I think that"s a great way to correct lack on many class, but if ZOS change everything I hope they will give us something in return to switch/change the class of our primary character because no way I'll start over all the game to earn everything.

At start we create our primary character because of the role we want to fit in, if by the end of this big change the class we play don't really fit our expectation we will need to change and loose everything done with it... No thank you.

Please consider a change class option at least one per account.

I remember when they implemented sweeping racial changes they gave everyone 3 free race change tokens. It wouldn't be a bad idea to implement something similar for class overhauls but the problem is class change tokens don't exist presently. I remember this is a topic that came up as a desired thing in a few of my groups when Necromancer first came out because people wanted to switch their toons to a Necromancer without starting over fresh.

Alas, I don't know that we'll ever see this happen, but if we do you can bet it will be for crowns and it won't be cheap.

Grimm_Cortex

Fully agreed with your statements, for Necromancer new class I understood why they want every one start fresh. But here we talk about a total change regarding everything ... So now, I would like ZOS consider really to implement the possibility of class change token even if it's not cheap and in Crown currency.

But because they decide after more than 4 years to switch class identity it would be fair that they offer at least one token per account for our primary one. Not for the alt, that I would understand.

wolfie1.0.

Th thing i find the most annoying is that there are not enough active skill options in any of the classes to account for all of the roles and playstyle types in the game. each class either needs another skill tree added or they need to have more morphs added to each skill.

soochie52_ESO

I believe ZOS has focused so hard for so long on attaining the ‘play as you want’ ideal that they are no longer thinking with their gut. They have fallen into a pattern of relying on logic and reasoning to reach this goal that reminds me of Zeno’s paradox: a perfectly logical argument that proved movement is impossible- that you cannot get from point A to point B. But everyone knows instinctively that is just Wrong Thinking.

I would ask ZOS to pay attention to their instinct for fun rather than the logical path they have laid out to achieve the ‘play as you want’ ideal and ADD content rather than NERF content. If there isn’t enough flexibility in classes then add that flexibility with new, additional
class skills,
attribute types,
alchemy affects,
weapon skill lines,
guild or world skill lines,
other options like vamp/ww,
enchantment types,
trait types,
CP options
or some other creative and fun things that can give that flexibility. But let these things be ADDITIONAL to the content that is already there – create that flexibility AND reward everyone with new, fun content at the same time.

Proving these recent changes are no fun is simple – for any ZOS employee that actually plays the game ask yourself: “Do I still like playing the game anymore? Do I feel powerful and full of potential?”

The people making these recent changes have to have had moments where their instincts told them they would make playing the game less fun – I ask them to trust those instincts rather than rationalizing them away.

albesca

soochie52_ESO wrote: »

I would ask ZOS to pay attention to their instinct for fun rather than the logical path they have laid out to achieve the ‘play as you want’ ideal and ADD content rather than NERF content. If there isn’t enough flexibility in classes then add that flexibility with new, additional
class skills,
attribute types,
alchemy affects,
weapon skill lines,
guild or world skill lines,
other options like vamp/ww,
enchantment types,
trait types,
CP options
or some other creative and fun things that can give that flexibility. But let these things be ADDITIONAL to the content that is already there – create that flexibility AND reward everyone with new, fun content at the same time.

I would love a series of class specific quest lines that unlock new skill lines

thegreatme

soochie52_ESO wrote: »

Proving these recent changes are no fun is simple – for any ZOS employee that actually plays the game ask yourself: “Do I still like playing the game anymore? Do I feel powerful and full of potential?”

Yes but I think there's a problem with this because the developers can design anything the way they want and say "Under X, Y, Z conditions which I know because I BUILT it to be this way, this thing is hecking fun and I feel so powerful!". If you're playing under the formula that makes it function better than anything, or tell someone the formula and have them follow it, they say "I see nothing wrong with it, this is super fun!"

Most players aren't following a formula or saying "Under these conditions I will be better than anyone at this and then it will be fun!". A lot of people just scrape through the game with no idea what they're doing except "this sounds like MAYBE what I want" or what works or doesn't except a few guide-making trend setters who focus on nothing but the formula, and then everyone who wants to be "the best" falls back on trendsetter knowledge like Alcast.

I know a lot of people who would mock me for my builds (which in -most- circumstances do everything I want and allow me to play comfortably and do -most- content even solo) because they don't come out of a well-known guide or they never heard of that set before. In a lot of cases my sets work better than the sets of people who mock me for having them because I'm not using Briarheart or Relequin or some other set everyone defers to.

seerevaloc

ZOS_SarahHecker wrote: »

Hi Sarah,

I hope you will read this with patience as I do with your article.

I'm sorry but all that Developer Insight or In-house "so-called understanding" of class identity and class kits;
and moreover, "satisfying class kits" and filling the "so-called gaps" in that set approach;
and moreover, "players should be able to play as they wish" with the latest content;
and moreover, "what makes you unhappy if you see the majority of slots fulfilled with non-class skills";

are just meaningless comparing to the actions Devs have taken (and no, I'm not raged or whatever it is, I read with patience). You guys simply are not aware of the world of an average player (which isn't hit the CP cap) and forgetting easily how long it takes to reach the cap for someone playing daily content, not grinding like slaves. People playing this game just normally and it takes months to reach end-game CP cap. And most of the game players aren't 810CPs already.

As you see Median is 24 hours (+/- 350-480 CP) and Total playtime is 100+ hours (which is an average 810CP+) average. So median is consisting of >300 and <810 players.

Source: https://steamdb.info/app/306130/graphs/

I was playing Tomb Raider and purchased this game, content & spirit is beautiful. I like it and I will likely to enjoy it in the future too.

---

Let's come to the topic, an average player (not elitist cap-hitter game slave or uber-slacker) plays dailies and enjoy stuff meanwhile gaining between 2-10 CP level every day as many as I can see out there during my gaming sessions.

and to advance new content, there are several benchmarks accepted by the community, like someone with 400CP, expected to deploy 30-35K DPS on 3m or 6m dummies.

---

Can you please tell me how many skills used here from my "Class Kit" as a Magicka Sorcerer?


Hint: If you don't count the Twilight Tormentor, it is only 1 -> Crystal Fragments.

* If I must play with the "defined builds" on popular websites, then it's not "however I want".
* If I use my class kit, everything is doing far lower damage output now. I can't fulfill my role & be competent.
* You're literally forcing me to convert to Stamina build.

Viable -> Optimal is some sort of cheating in terms, you guys seem to like masturbating with your own terms-coverage.
Because yes, with class kit playing is "viable" but not optimal. And it's difficult to play high-end contents (like vSS) viable is not helping me to fulfill my role. What do you think when saying "viable". Hunting overland rabbits? Mudcrabs?

---

* Sorcerers are known to cast spells: The optimal Sorcerer currently is wielding dagger, axe & bow.
* Templars are known to protect the realm with greatswords: The optimal Templar is currently spell casting.
* Necromancers are known to grasp the power of death, resurrecting corpses, siphoning life, etc. are pure-spell casters: The optimal Necromancer currently is wielding dagger, axe & bow.
* Nightblades are rangers, they wield bow & daggers: Only God knows the optimal Nightblade PvE build. It's some sort of PvP class now.
* I don't even know what Wardens & Dragonknights are doing, they're like sub-classes of Templars with all-in-one class kits.
* and it goes...

You can play "viably" with of course any class. But they all lost their optimal setups. I really don't know what your team think & does there. But it doesn't work as to how you figure it.

And a final note: Nobody wants to play any character in "viable" way as you all know it. People play to be optimal. This goal is also pillar of the in-game economy & everything else. They work, they spend, they do tasks to earn keys, crystals, ingredients, etc. to build themselves to "become optimal". Not to kill mudcrabs. And I don't see any optimal way for my Magicka Sorcerer to compete with Stamina Sorcerer currently in the way I like.

Thank you! Cheers.

Elsonso

seerevaloc wrote: »

And a final note: Nobody wants to play any character in "viable" way as you all know it. People play to be optimal. This goal is also pillar of the in-game economy & everything else. They work, they spend, they do tasks to earn keys, crystals, ingredients, etc. to build themselves to "become optimal". Not to kill mudcrabs. And I don't see any optimal way for my Magicka Sorcerer to compete with Stamina Sorcerer currently in the way I like.

I actually do play "viable" and have never chased "optimal" in this game. I doubt that I am alone.

This is likely how I have been able to easily ride through the updates with little more than a yawn. Most of them, anyway.

Squall8882

As a fellow ESO member since launch, I've had a few months we're I've played endlessly to not as much as I've wanted because of responsibilities, however I've started noticing within the past few updates that there is this primal idea of playing any class or race that you would like too and do anything but I feel like we've really pushed aside the Imperial race. Yes it's optimal for mainly tanking. Shouldn't the passives be looked at again to see if there's a better way to make that class more optimal? I mean I feel like there's a lot of potential in a race and a chance to allow him to become more prime on being able to DPS without worrying if he will fail.

Skuly1775

I feel like there should be a second hotbar with 5 slots that is just for class abilities and maybe it uses alt so it would be alt+1-5

ACamaroGuy

Every class ability should have a spammable. Using a dual wield or destruction staff ability should not be more powerful/useful/less expensive to use then your class ability. Class abilities is what separates one class from the other, if we all use the generic abilities as BiS why even bother with different classes?

ACamaroGuy

Squall8882 wrote: »

As a fellow ESO member since launch, I've had a few months we're I've played endlessly to not as much as I've wanted because of responsibilities, however I've started noticing within the past few updates that there is this primal idea of playing any class or race that you would like too and do anything but I feel like we've really pushed aside the Imperial race. Yes it's optimal for mainly tanking. Shouldn't the passives be looked at again to see if there's a better way to make that class more optimal? I mean I feel like there's a lot of potential in a race and a chance to allow him to become more prime on being able to DPS without worrying if he will fail.

It's a class you buy. It should be a class you can use for anything. 1000 health, 2000 stamina and 2000 magicka and 196 health/stamina/magicka regen with a 5% reduction in ability cost. Make it worth the $25.

ACamaroGuy

Oh yeah, I love having people tell me my builds are "trash" in no unclear terms because they didn't come out of an alcast guide and tell me I'm stupid for not using it.

I get you on this. As an Imperial Stamplar, I've heard it all.
Imperials are like the Romans, masters of everything. Templar are priests/paladins, peaceful people who help but are fierce warriors when called upon to be so. Healers? Not really, possibly in a small role. I would give that role to the Warden, nature like folks.

Unparagoned1994

I personally don't much like these changes and have heard from countless players on xb1 they don't like them either if your gonna nerf then nerf all don't keep stam necro a good 10k dps higher and make it to where it's useless to even try to rub a mag dps on xb1 or give them a skill like uppercut to where it takes no skill to run mag or stam... need to be combat changes again soon to level everything back out and still have some strong hitting mag characters that come a little closer to the hard hitting stam.. at least 1 or 2.. I just don't understand why keep changing it sooo drastically... minor improvements I get. And shouldn't be able to hit 110k dps either but changes waaaayyyyy to drastic at a time

Mr_Gallows

I find it incredible that you focus on details like that while core elements of the game are out of control and your attempt to patch together the broken pieces, herd the meta around like a headless chicken.

How about a focus on a balance identity for the game. You did one Tamriel. Now do a One combat balance. Start from the ground up with defining stats, the lowest possible number of stats to create a solid balance. Do away with ghost stats like penetration, critical resistance etc.

Attack power, critical chance, critical damage, armour, healing power, health, condition duration, buff duration. Those stats grouped together in different configurations on gear, so you have build freedom, but that freedom comes with compromises. Light armour could feature certain configurations, medium others and heavy entirely different ones. There would be different configurations within each armour type and you'd be able to mix them. Weapons would follow the same system. Mundus stones would follow the same system, presenting different configurations of stats.

Then there's combat. Changing it from the obscure system where you exploit what feels like game glitches to optimise damage, to something less quirky.

Next is the healing/damage balance. Currently it's the balance of healing over time versus damage over time and direct damage versus instant healing. This makes combat silly and balancing it even more so. Damage needs to be high and dots must work or people are immortal, but this puts gameplay into a box and for all the build options you seem to have, you really don't - although you can pick different skill names and visual effects for the same thing. Healing should be greatly reduced and maybe work similarly to ultimates, instead of having cooldowns, which are not a part of the game although it is an efficient way to balance healing.

Dodging should have a special resource instead of using stamina, so that too can be both effective and balanced. Something similar could be done with blocking.

Class identity is so far from being a serious issue for ESO relative to many other things.

ACamaroGuy

Mr_Gallows wrote: »

Do away with ghost stats like penetration, critical resistance etc.

I agree, do away with these types of stats. Weapons/jewelery should add some type of damage to your build, armor sets should help add to sustain and possible modifiers to weapon/jewelery sets. Monster sets should be straight damage, sustain, protection or healing bonuses. Make it interesting, same set name, different bonuses based on the piece of the set. Mix and match up how you add the 5 pieces together.

Grimm_Cortex

wtlonewolf20 wrote: »

Th thing i find the most annoying is that there are not enough active skill options in any of the classes to account for all of the roles and playstyle types in the game. each class either needs another skill tree added or they need to have more morphs added to each skill.

If I may it will be possible to ZoS to add not 2 morphs, but 3 morphs per skilss one for DPS, one for tank and one for heal ... if we can have 4 one for stam and one for magica ...
Everything could be fixed very easily this way and each class could really do each role ...

No?

Ragnarock41

Joy_Division wrote: »

Just my opinion, but I don;t think the Stonefist change meaningfully meets the criteria set out in this article.

Wasn't it the outrage towards stonefist that warranted devs to write this post? To be completely honest, I wouldn't mind its existance if the rest of the class was up to the standarts of other stamina classes like nightblade, warden, templar,necromancer in terms of flexibility and adaptability.

Some say stamDK was invented as a weapon ability class however I see nothing in the class passives that supports this argument either.

I get that there is not much benefit investing money into making an unpopular, ''free to play'' class better, however its completely their fault that this class is bland and unpopular. A class based on dragons, fire, poison,earth and martial arts.. and only these developers could make something as bland as stamDk out of it.