Subclassing and a Game Publishers Perspective

Maxitude

Most players who love ESO and the Tamriel world want ESO to be a success, because we want to keep playing the game in the future. This of course is what the game publishers want because they make money from an engaged players base. So the question is why and how to implement subclassing?

It is known from marketing theory and practice that, in general, more product choices provided to a consumer lead to larger market share. This is particularly true in oligopolistic markets, of which MMO publishing is an example. One analogy that is apt is between MMO properties and auto manufacturing (an oligopoly). ESO right now has the equivalent of 7 autos available for selection by players; these are the 7 classes. One might think of there being more choices, but using our auto analogy, those other choices (gear, specific skills chosen, etc.) are like a vehicle's trimline rather than a different product. On the downside, there is some research that shows there are decreasing returns to customer retention as the products choice count increases due to choice "fatigue".

With subclassing, we go from having 7 choices (with various trimlines) to 21!3 =1330 choices (at most), assuming that the main class skill line doesn't change the function of the subclass skill lines. ZOS posted over 3000 choices which they probably calculated as 21 main skill lines (7 classes times 3 skill lines each) times 153 subclass combos (18!2) = 3,213 subclass choices. The ZOS calculation assumes that the first / main skill line chosen changes the way the subclass skill lines function, which probably won't be true. Regardless of which calculation is used, the end result is expected to increase the choices to players. This is a good thing in general; however, the change might not affect all players the same.

Regarding player types, we can think of roughly three types of players in an MMORPG: PVP-ers, end-game PVE-ers, and all others (casuals). The first two types are heavily focused on min-maxing the role they play (tank, heals, and dps). Given that, they are concerned not with choice/build diversity but with finding the one (or a few) builds that maximize their contribution to their team. The contribution depends on their roles (tank = survivability and zone control, heals = HPM, and DPS = DPM). This means that the skill lines chosen are even smaller than the calculation results above because, for example, DPS players won't choose healing skill lines is most cases. Ultimately a new meta for each role will be identified and the PVP and end-game PVE players will settle back into a new normal. The number of builds (products) they consider, their product consideration set in marketing lingo, will be different but remain small. The danger is in the details; if the implementation is too disruptive or buggy for these two player types, then they could leave the game.

The story is likely different for casuals. Because, casuals are less focused on min-maxing but rather play style / novelty, they will suddenly have a huge set of builds (products) to choose from. This is potentially beneficial to the game publisher and developer of ESO. More choices, from our marketing theory, enables the ZOS and Bethesda to capture and retain a higher MMO market share. This is good for all players in the long-run due to the game's continued success. The final game outcome will depend on the balance between any increased customer retention from casuals to lost players in PVP and end-game PVE. One danger is choice fatigue for these casual players. ZOS should look to make it easy for new players to acquire and create interesting builds, perhaps through use of a user-friendly build designer directly in the game -- don't wait for the player community to create this as an addon. (This might also be adopted by the other player types if it's implemented well.)

The success of the new subclass system depends critically on avoiding loss of some players while increasing share in others. On a personal note, I find it odd that the devs are considering requiring 2 skill points for each subclass skill. The 2 point requirement puts an artificial and meaningless barrier to new players getting engaged. In contrast it has almost no impact on existing players, whom likely have plenty of skill points available to buy the subclass skills anyways. Inasmuch as engaging and retaining the new casuals will drive part of the financial success of the new system, the devs should be finding ways to make it easy for new players to begin use the subclasses as soon as possible, rather than creating barriers to use.

Elvenheart

I agree with the double points part.

What I wonder is if ZOS now will start selling/adding individual skill lines that will add to the choices?

cuddles_with_wroble

amazing write up and spot on as well!

eso has for a very long time been sustained by hemorrhaging off the end game pve and pvp players thru big sweeping changes while at the same time swelling the floor with new casuals players who dont care and arent invested in any content past normal dungeons and questing.

update 35 did irreparable damage to the end game pve community and subclassing will truly be the nail in the coffin of the already minuscule pvp community, i just wonder at what point will there be not enough casuals to fill the void of every end game player leaving

disky

Yeah, as much as the endgame PvE-focused players are griping over this, I think they will settle in soon enough once they suss out the optimal builds. Endgame players have very little reason not to be able to engage with the system right away, and it's going to give them an opportunity to try out some things that I'm sure a lot of them have been thinking about for a while. I think the real issue is when a player just doesn't want to change, which comes up a lot in conversations here on the forums but it may just be down to the fact that these people are longtime players and a lot of them don't like their game to change very much. I'd bet that many other players will roll with it and enjoy it, certainly if they're more of a TES fan than an MMO fan, since TES has had similar systems for decades. Those players will be more interested in something like this because it more closely mirrors the other games. I can say this because I'm one of those players.

Maxitude

Thanks for the comments folks.

I'll mention as a side note, my player type has evolved over the life of ESO. I started at launch as a serious Cyro PVP player in a hard-core guild. I loved it, but my life changed over time and so did my guild. I now tend to be a casual crafter.

I appreciate that ESO has offered a diversity of play style options to players. It's allowed me to stick with the game over time. Also, as a past TES PC player starting TES with Daggerfall in 1996 I enjoy the story lines and exploring new zones when they come out. It is my hope that ZOS and Bethesda will continue to provide balanced game play diversity in the future. As such, I am hoping that they consider all three player types as they continue development of the subclass concept. It's ambitious but could be a win for all of us if they do it well.

P.S. ZOS don't forget what you started in scribing! There's a lot more you could do with that system. I hope that you don't make it a one-hit wonder and we never see anything new from it.

ragnarok6644b14_ESO

I think you should put it in context. Even leaving out Antiquities, Werewolf, and all the Crafting lines, you have:

17 skill lines from which you can swap active skills
And
22 skill lines from which you can have the passives maxed (including the 17).

Taking 2 of them and replacing it with another 2 is pretty small by comparison, IMHO, and all of this is without talking about Scribing which is another flexible system with lots of individual skill potential.

sarahthes

Tanks and healers roles in ESO are not quite as described in your article so I dismissed the rest of it since that part clearly wasn't researched.

Desiato

Major gameplay upheavals are in the ZOS DNA. At first they happened for existential reasons after an extremely problematic launch, but they became par for the course. ZOS uses them to shake the snowglobe to motivate us to replay old content.

I think a couple of years ago, ZOS knew this would be a slow year for ESO development because of other projects within the ZOS and Bethesda studios which are known to share talent.

Furthermore, they also share an audience and they are surely cognizant about redundancy and cannibalization.

Knowing the Oblivion remaster and TES6 were in the pipeline and with another ZOS project known to be deep in development, I think they decided they would invest less in the development of content for ESO because they expect consumers to spend money that would normally go towards eso on their other offerings. Especially because TES6 will change so much with presumably years of dlc planned, perhaps negating the need for traditional chapter stories in ESO.

I see subclassing as low hanging fruit. It is easier to implement than a brand new system and won't involve an expensive quest (voice acting). I think their primary motivation is that it's cheap, relatively easy and will give players a reason to replay existing content.