After Subclassing, What Do You Prefer The Next Patch Focus On?

Artisian0001

fizzylu

Just because anytime they do the third option, I really don't feel the games overall quality really improves that much.... it's always like some areas get better, but then other areas get worse.

LunaFlora

next patch would be update 47 which we already know has 2 dungeons.
i am not expecting anything else big.

So i chose the Housing option seeing as we get that anyways, q1 and 3 updates usually add Master Writ recipes and Structural Furnishing plans.

btw update 48 adds the Eastern part of the Solstice zone.

Cooperharley

Next year I want to see some real, substantial end game gameplay loops or an activity added.

Couldn't care less about housing personally.

I'd love to see a new class and with subclassing I imagine adding in single class lines at a time would be much easier for them.

tomofhyrule

It's not like these are all mutually exclusive, but let's look over all of them in order.
Note that I'm answering based on the 2026 year, since we already know what's coming up in Q3 (2 new dungeons and the wall event) and Q4 (the other half of Solstice and the rest of the story)

- A New Zone w/ 2 New Dungeons & A New Trial
This is almost a given in any circumstance.

I know the letter was implying that they weren't going to add as many new zones and the like, but there's no way that dropping a big zone/story would sell anything at all. There's another thread here on the frontpage showing that the vast majority of forumites who answered play mostly solo... and the forums are known to favor endgame stuff more than the general populace, so that implies that even more players want the solo adventures. ZOS not giving another zone is going to be shooting themselves in the foot.

Trials are also one of the few bones thrown to the sweaty endgame crowd, and Finn's team is the only one that is consistently knocking it out of the park. I can't see them not doing another trial (since that pretty well ensures the endgame will buy the content) or more dungeons (and 2025 is the first year since 2022 that we're back to 4 dungeons instead of just 2)

Every year since Morrowind has managed to give us a large zone with a story, at least two dungeons (but usually 4), at least one full- or mini-trial, and a special feature. Removing too much more than that would cause a lot more people to close their wallets than already have.

- A New Class
Ok, I'm biased here since I really want this one, but logically and logistically it makes sense.

Logically, the fact that Subclassing allows players to take skill lines from other Classes means that adding a new Class will get rid of the main complaint about new Classes: "but then I have to level a brand new character to get to play with the new stuff!" That also gives them an excuse to not add more character slots (they've talked about being at the data limit for that) since players would only need to get the Class to be able to add lines from it and play on their existing characters. Or, if they have a free slot, they can start from scratch (which is a good thing since they're redoing the tutorial and the basegame zones and it'd give a nice excuse for existing players to go back and see it.)

Logistically, it'll sell. A lot. With Subclassing being free, and Scribing already moving to basegame, there's really not much impetus to get the current Season Pass outside of wanting to see the zone. People are already griping about how the value of this Pass is lower than the Chapters before - you get less* content (since the 'feature' is free, the entire zone is the size of one Chapter zone split over two patches, and no Companions has already been confirmed) for more money (since it forces you to buy the corresponding dungeons even if you get them through ESO+ regardless). They'll need something pretty hefty to sell the next Season Pass, since people are already salty enough.

A Class would probably do it. Every DLC Class has not been available without opening your wallet (either by buying the Chapter/Pass or by buying it a la carte with Crowns), so if people wanted to play with the new Class, they'd have to put the money down. Bonus points if it ends up being something that will really draw people, like a Dwemer Artificer or something. That will definitely sell.

- A Patch Focused Purely on Improving Performance/Lag & Fixing Bugs
Ah, the standard "be careful what you wish for."

We had that. Twice. "Bugfixes" was the sole goal of update 39 (Aug 2023) and most of update 43 (Aug 2024, in addition to Home Tours). What, did they not fix all of the bugs? Did you not even know those were bugfixes? After all, from the U39 patch notes: "Welcome to The Elder Scrolls Online v9.1.5, featuring the Update 39 base game patch! During the ESO Global Reveal back in January, we announced that we were taking the time during this development cycle to focus on polishing existing in-game systems and addressing some longstanding requests, which you’ll find throughout this update."

People have this fantasy that "Oh, ZOS can just not do updates one patch and magically that'll fix everything! It's because they're adding new things that it all gets worse!" as if 1) the teams doing zone design and art will be able to fix PvP lag, and 2) as if that will bring in a lot of money, particularly from the faction of players who stick to zones and don't have major lag issues.

ZOS has to make money. Them not putting out content will not make money. If they spend more than a single patch putting out zero new anything except minor fixes, people will get bored and leave.

Now if this is a subtle "please fix PvP" thing, I'm sure that Vengeance will return with a vengeance soon...

- More Housing/Crafting Content
This is definitely another "be careful what you wish for."

U43 gave us the long anticipated Housing feature... aka making an in-game version of half of an existing PC addon. To say people were salty was an understatement.

There is one housing feature people want: increased limits. And from every time that ZOS has said it, that's not happening until they officially drop last-gen consoles.

Otherwise... well we get a few Houses every patch or two. There's no way that's gonna slow down, but the housing community would definitely like smaller houses instead of grandiose ($100+) private islands.


We can even consider a few other things as well
- Companions, considering that none are coming this year. People are still waiting for a murderhobo evil-aligned one, and one using the vampire skills as well. Especially if there's a new Class incoming, that'd probably need a Companion of that Class as well.
- Harder Overland, considering we know that this is one of the big things they're looking at too. We don't know if this would be separate instances of the existing zones, or maybe a new zone that's designed to be deadly, but people have been itching for this one. However, if it's a separate zone, they may need to eschew the story since they do talk about how their internal data says many players are already struggling with the difficulty level of the current stories.
- Other features? It's harder to guess if a different feature could be coming in. We've never gotten a new weapon (even though unarmed and 1H only are popular, as are polearms needing new models), but they could add new skill lines for the existing or new guilds (like DB or TG), or even a new minigame (though the last one - Tribute - did fall a bit flat).
- PvP Stuff. Hey, they need some love too. It could be something simple (why isn't Ranked Duelling a thing yet?) up to whatever comes out of the Vengeance tests, up to even adding/replacing redundant Campaignes with a permanent Vengeance. The last time they did anything for PvP was the BG update in U44, but that was controversial to say the least. But its another playerbase that really needs love.

wolfie1.0.

A new class was the closest option. I dont think we are ever getting a new class again. what i think we will get in stead are new subclasses to choose from. Ones that can't warrant a full class. like Bard, that comes to mind.

wabajaa

advanced subclassing with all 21 skill lines

Vonnegut2506

I think you need an "Other" option. I would like them to focus on making the companion system better in many ways -- better AI, more quests for the companions, more customization options, the ability to hold different sets of armor, etc. I don't really need more companions, but I would like them to do more with the ones we already have.

ArchMikem

You forgot to add Quality of Life improvements.

The Console Version has gone all these years without the ability to edit the Camera's Vertical Position and Offset.

mdjessup4906

.

DreamyLu

A new zone for me. My main activity is wandering freely in explorable and discovering new places.

ChaoticWings3

If you are talking about what I want to see next year I would probably say something about a togglable overland difficulty modifier and a solo difficulty for dungeons for story and skill points. I went on my reasons why I want to see these in place in other posts but to summarize: Overland difficulty for adventuring can be too easy at times and I can beat the BBG in about 20 seconds without looking. I wish I could make the combat harder for myself but not others by adjusting the scalability I experience in the Overland content. I want it to something togglable because those that don't want to engage in harder content shouldn't be forced to and those that enjoy harder content but want to farm during their chill time can choose to lower the difficulty to farm nodes or enemies. However their should be an increase in rewards to engaging in harder content like better drop rates on leads, more gold, better quality gear, etc.

Solo mode for dungeon because quests ticks (especially in the early dungeons) can be skipped by players rushing ahead too fast. Quests there can be lengthy and probably have very few players that actually took the time to actually play through them like a regular Elder Scrolls quest so a solo story mode would help players experience it more.

Both of these would take a lot of time to focus on hence why I think it could be a focus for a season. Otherwise a new zone is always something I look forward to.

Aliniel

Update 46 will open Pandora's Box which will cause a whole new level of unbalanced combat, useless abilities, maybe even entire skill lines. They better be focusing hard on balancing since they have been dead silent for the past weeks(!!).

Sarannah

Though I welcome anything new, what I would really like is for the game to have some reason to ALWAYS play it. An infinite progression system, like expanding CP's into the millions. To me this is 100% a must.

Right now when players are done with content, they are done with the game. If there was an infinite progression system, like ARPG's/MMO's often have, players could always log in and make some sort of progress with their account. No matter how minimal that progress may be.

PS: Second option for me would be to fix the dungeongrouping/multiplayer experience. (Really important if they want to keep new players)
PPS: There is no "other" poll option.

CeeJonesy

crossplay

Arcturus

The mention of a higher and optional game difficulty is a welcome prospect. Currently, the game’s content can often feel so easy that even a toddler could complete it. While accessibility itself is not inherently negative, it becomes problematic when it leads to a design that encourages solo play to such an extent that even trials can sometimes be completed with minimal players, unless specific mechanics, such as the portal pads in Aetherian Archive, necessitate a full group.

I would truly appreciate the opportunity to face more challenging content in overland zones, content that fosters a sense of struggle and accomplishment. Such an approach would encourage more interaction among players, prompting us to socialize, collaborate, and build lasting relationships by achieving goals that are unattainable alone.

Thorncrypt

A werewolf and vampire companion would be fun. Evil aligned characters can be fun for RP reasons.

randconfig

While I would love a new class and new content, I really hope they first...

1. Fix the bugs for the existing classes abilities (see https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/678022/compiled-list-of-confirmed-combat-ability-bugs)
2. Address the incoming PTS changes that broke the Necromancer class, where they nerfed corpse lifetime and maximum corpses + summons allowed in PvP to 5, which killed corpse consumer abilities and the class mastery script...
3. Update the appearance of neglected class abilities, such as making the Nightblade's summon shade ability use your actual player character model instead of some random wood elf model (see https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8319453#Comment_8319453).
4. Lastly, and this is more of my personal opinion, as others might enjoy the current skill line, I wish they would overhaul the Vampire skill line cause it's been unenjoyable since Greymor, and now unviable in PvP since the much needed nerfs to the Undeath passive. I would love it if they would just give vampires the werewolf treatment, as werewolves are so much more fun to play and seemingly easier to balance. Even as a magicka player, I am able to enjoy playing werewolf, but I would never touch the abomination that is the vampire skill line as it is now, especially since I no longer need it for Mist Form on immobile classes, as I can just get that via subclassing. Also, a bonus cherry on top would be to give the vampire ultimate transformation model wings.

I know it takes a lot of work to make changes to the game, but all of these seem really small, like the fixing Nightblade summon shade to be the player character's model with the shadowy shader effect applied seems like something an intern with proper documentation on the code could do in a few hours at most. So if they are able to, I wish they'd just free up resource to just knock all these little things out that have been building up over the 10 years the game has been out.

Cooperharley

Sarannah wrote: »

Though I welcome anything new, what I would really like is for the game to have some reason to ALWAYS play it. An infinite progression system, like expanding CP's into the millions. To me this is 100% a must.

Right now when players are done with content, they are done with the game. If there was an infinite progression system, like ARPG's/MMO's often have, players could always log in and make some sort of progress with their account. No matter how minimal that progress may be.

PS: Second option for me would be to fix the dungeongrouping/multiplayer experience. (Really important if they want to keep new players)
PPS: There is no "other" poll option.

Personally I'm cool with CP expanding even more as long as they give us a reason to...

After CP 1500 there is absolutely no reason to really care about CP. Adding milestone rewards like titles or mounts or cosmetics would be such a nice and easy-to-implement touch. I have no idea why they haven't done this. Yea it's cool to hit 3600, but outside of personal achievement, what's the point? They need to incentivize people to play the game long term and that's an easy way to do so.

Lalothen

None of the above.

Gear - primarily the glaring disparity between sets and their usefulness - remains a huge issue and needs sorting out if there's to be any actual measure of build diversity in this game. We have hundreds of 5-piece sets, the vast majority of which are objectively pointless to use, and the devs have displayed absolutely no innovative thinking with regard to things like class sets - which are yet more 5-piece sets with most once again going on the trash pile. There are so many missed opportunities with gear... it's dreadfully impressive how they've managed to create 500 shades of blandness & redundancy.

Cooperharley wrote: »

Personally I'm cool with CP expanding even more as long as they give us a reason to...

After CP 1500 there is absolutely no reason to really care about CP. Adding milestone rewards like titles or mounts or cosmetics would be such a nice and easy-to-implement touch. I have no idea why they haven't done this. Yea it's cool to hit 3600, but outside of personal achievement, what's the point? They need to incentivize people to play the game long term and that's an easy way to do so.

CP milestones could be added as part of a more major achievement overhaul, since achievement rewards in general are incredibly lackluster compared to other games like GW2.

Credible_Joe

No 'Other' option, but I have a very concrete idea for what I think the next development push should focus on. I posted a thread for it Here.

TL;DR: New Equipment crafting line for Attuned Spells. Flame, frost, shock, heals, wards. Ranged and touch variants for all types (except wards). Traits, enchantable, all that jazz.

This would allow for new weapon lines for:

• Spellsword, both offensive and defensive
• Staff-less magicka users
• Monk / Pugilist, via dual-wielding two Touch spells

This also wouldn't limit these archetypes to new classes. I believe this is the ideal solution to get all of these archetypes into the players' hands.

xylena_lazarow

Spell dyes like they have in Warframe so we can make our multiclass characters visually coherent.

Sub-racing / race passive mundus stone / whatever. Play how you want.

Dremora playable race. Not a polymorph. Customizable playable race.

Cellithor

I'd like to see new individual skill lines available to everyone that can further expand on what subclassing is trying to do. Maybe the vestige could serve Daedric princes (similar to daedric quests in the main line games) to obtain special skill lines based on the spheres that each of these princes commands.

Obviously not every daedric prince would need to be included due to redundancy with existing skills (arcanist;mora). But as an example, I think the player could get a coldharbour/Molag Bal skill line that involves using cold fire, dark shackles (pull with some kind of debuffs), and even a skill that uses the Mace of Molag Bal to "beat enemies into submission" (stun and breach effects).

Ulvich

We have a few bugs in this game that are really just too old and too annoying. The Stuck in Combat is one.

Sarannah

Lots of great ideas in this thread!

Not into PvP myself, but what about arranged guild vs guild PvP? Where two different guilds set a date and time to meet up and fight eachother, they go to a separate map instance that has two keeps in it. The combat does not start until both guilds agree to start the PvP fighting and all players start at their own keep's main flag(respawn at main flag too). These two keeps are directly in front of eachother, and work just like regular Cyrodiil keeps where one of the guilds needs to capture the both the enemy's keep's flags. After they capture both the enemy's keep's flags, they win. Do not allow siege equipment and only let regular player attacks damage the different doors(walls indestructible to funnel players into the PvP). (Note: Maybe a minimum of 10 players per guild for the PvP to start, and a maximum amount of players of whatever the performance allows. Even if one guild is larger in numbers.)

Supreme_Atromancer

I voted for housing.

The housing system is fantastic, and the artists making them continually make stunning, interesting stuff. And people love it.

There's still a lot of features and functionality that people have been wanting for a very long time, however.

I'm personally still waiting for my ideal dream house to somehow manifest... having the tools to be able to make my own house in the part of Tamriel that I love most is what I hope for; not to share or win competitions, not to show off. But I AM still part of the housing community, so housing stuff that's for people like ME would be amazing.



* New zone is a no-brainer. But skip me on the islands for a bit if we're running out of Tamriel, i'd love to see ZOS completely redo the ugly old zones and give us a pve version of cyrodiil that looks more like the version we love from Oblivion. If we're moving on from the planemeld, rebuild Chorrol and Bruma etc.

* I'm personally OK for a new class for now; I feel like we have a lot of cool character-building options to keep most of us engaged for at least a while. Eventually new weapons or skill lines would be fun.

* I'm happy to have bug fixes be done in tandem with new content, even if I have to wait longer.

katanagirl1

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

I voted for housing.

The housing system is fantastic, and the artists making them continually make stunning, interesting stuff. And people love it.

There's still a lot of features and functionality that people have been wanting for a very long time, however.

I'm personally still waiting for my ideal dream house to somehow manifest... having the tools to be able to make my own house in the part of Tamriel that I love most is what I hope for; not to share or win competitions, not to show off. But I AM still part of the housing community, so housing stuff that's for people like ME would be amazing.



* New zone is a no-brainer. But skip me on the islands for a bit if we're running out of Tamriel, i'd love to see ZOS completely redo the ugly old zones and give us a pve version of cyrodiil that looks more like the version we love from Oblivion. If we're moving on from the planemeld, rebuild Chorrol and Bruma etc.

* I'm personally OK for a new class for now; I feel like we have a lot of cool character-building options to keep most of us engaged for at least a while. Eventually new weapons or skill lines would be fun.

* I'm happy to have bug fixes be done in tandem with new content, even if I have to wait longer.

It is too early to think about what comes next, but I agree about housing. Even as a console player, I agree that Home Tours was a nice addition but has been the only thing added since Precision Editing (which was a fabulous addition for consoles without EHT). The players asked for pathing of companions and got that, but it feels like to me that a dedicated housing staff member should be more involved with the housing community and bringing more updates to housing. I’m thinking about both acting on previous requests (except housing slots, which has been discussed already and dismissed for now at least) and interacting more directly with players to anticipate future improvements. Maybe it’s because I am on console and not as well informed, maybe these things are happening and I just don’t hear of it. This is just my take on it.

Cooperharley

Lalothen wrote: »

None of the above.

Gear - primarily the glaring disparity between sets and their usefulness - remains a huge issue and needs sorting out if there's to be any actual measure of build diversity in this game. We have hundreds of 5-piece sets, the vast majority of which are objectively pointless to use, and the devs have displayed absolutely no innovative thinking with regard to things like class sets - which are yet more 5-piece sets with most once again going on the trash pile. There are so many missed opportunities with gear... it's dreadfully impressive how they've managed to create 500 shades of blandness & redundancy.

Cooperharley wrote: »

Personally I'm cool with CP expanding even more as long as they give us a reason to...

After CP 1500 there is absolutely no reason to really care about CP. Adding milestone rewards like titles or mounts or cosmetics would be such a nice and easy-to-implement touch. I have no idea why they haven't done this. Yea it's cool to hit 3600, but outside of personal achievement, what's the point? They need to incentivize people to play the game long term and that's an easy way to do so.

CP milestones could be added as part of a more major achievement overhaul, since achievement rewards in general are incredibly lackluster compared to other games like GW2.

Agreed

Cooperharley

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Spell dyes like they have in Warframe so we can make our multiclass characters visually coherent.

Sub-racing / race passive mundus stone / whatever. Play how you want.

Dremora playable race. Not a polymorph. Customizable playable race.

We have skill styles currently, they just need to stop beating around the bush and do full RGB colors at a time rather than for 1-3 skills.

Just release all blue variants for a skill via doing some achievement thats easily accessible in game. Then a different one for red, green and so on.

Heronisan

Subclassing is nowhere near finished, so we will be going into what will essentially be a live beta test while they figure out how to balance properly.

I think its funny how in the interview they mentioned the the dungeon team said "dont break our dungeons and trials with subclassing" and combat team said dont worry it wont happen.

That is exactly what will happen, endgamers are literally drooling thinking about subclassing release date, so much content will be completely trivialised.

Its like the dungeon team know better then the combat team how combat in this game actually works

while i have wishes of them actually polishing ingame features like IA, all the stupid amount of useless sets, many many old class skill lines, make old classes have a dedicated tank/dps/heal skill line to make it actually fair, skills where 1 morph is literall dogwater and the other one clearly superior (templar blazing shield etc, like so many morphs and skills are so underused And not touched for YEARS) and much more.

The future will be mostly balance changes while they try to tune down all the overperforming combos during their live beta test.

Twohothardware

Next big update needs to include Crossplay. Unless they're planning to move ESO to a new engine then Crossplay should be priority by next year if they're going to do it.