SOLO players, the recent poll that Zeni made, made me wonder, how do you feel about subclassing?

Hygiliack

I have seen a similar question asked but in general, and I want to know how people like me feel about this and the possibility they change it
This is ofc NOT directed to PVPers who I know are a minority in the game on this end, this question is for people who play solo, who try to do dungeons alone, who play the story(And I know some of us repeat and repeat the story, just like we did in Skyrim, I have played the story like 10 times so far haha) and do overland endgame stuff

I personally LOVE subclassing, and I am not one of those that PVPers complain about doing a copy paste build
I main as a magcanist with Herald, and have mixed and matched storm caller, summoning, shadow, animal companions(one of my favorites) and am still experimenting and having a blast with it.

So what are your thoughts?

I don't know how to make a poll here, but.

Do you like it the way it is now? (I do)
Do you want them to revert it to the way it was?(Doubtful)
Do you want them to restrain it a bit?

Gimme your thoughts

LPapirius

What poll where?

Hygiliack

LPapirius wrote: »

What poll where?

A post that Zos Kevin made in Reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/1nqjcu3/share_your_thoughts_on_esos_classes_with_us/

ESO_player123

I like it. Finally got rid of the Dark Magic skill line on all of my sorcs.
Edit: and I did not take Arcanist skill lines on any of my toons that use subclassing.

IsharaMeradin

I haven't even tried it. I main a mag warden on my Steam account and a stam warden on my Epic account. I'm perfectly happy with what I have from my class & weapon kits. Maybe one day I will try it, but only after I've leveled characters in the other classes so that I've got a better idea on what they have to offer.

Rohamad_Ali

I miss the traditional roles personally. I made one of each class to master them all as best as possible. Now one character can do everything. It's just more raising the ceiling or lowering the floor class techniques to keep the perpetual treadmill of progress going. This one is one tired hamster of hamster wheels.

Dax_Draconis

Love subclassing. It made my Nightblade fun to play again. I hope they don't change or nerf it.

moderatelyfatman

ESO_player123 wrote: »

I like it. Finally got rid of the Dark Magic skill line on all of my sorcs.
Edit: and I did not take Arcanist skill lines on any of my toons that use subclassing.

That's not quite right because it doesn't provide you with a better option: Would you pick subclassing if ZOS buffed Dark Magic and made the skills more useful and fun to play?

LunaFlora

i love Subclassing.

it has made eso more enjoyable for me. Healing, Tanking, Damage Dealing, questing, stealing from NPCs and containers.
it even made me play more Battlegrounds.

ESO_player123

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

ESO_player123 wrote: »

I like it. Finally got rid of the Dark Magic skill line on all of my sorcs.
Edit: and I did not take Arcanist skill lines on any of my toons that use subclassing.

That's not quite right because it doesn't provide you with a better option: Would you pick subclassing if ZOS buffed Dark Magic and made the skills more useful and fun to play?

If they changed Dark Magic so it has the Spear Shards skill that I like very much and the passives from the Aedric Spear skill line then sure, I would keep it.

I also took Grave Lord for my frost Warden for more sources of frost damage and made a Zoo sorc with Necromancer's Skeletal Arcanist and Warden's Bear. So, I do not see anything wrong with my choices or why I should not like subclassing.

spartaxoxo

I'm kind of in between because I do like trials and dungeons but I also don't have any dedicated guild groups that I do stuff with on a regular basis and play solo often..

Anyway, I do like subclassing as a system. But I do think some of the skill lines need buffs to make it feel like it should. In particular, I think cleave/AOE feels bad on most classes making beam feel like too obvious of a choice. That said, I love that I can make characters that feel more unique and customized to the stories I have in mind for them. I think it makes the game feel more elder scrolls, which I dig.

BretonMage

Tbh I think effective builds are just as important to solo players because it would make a huge difference to the amount of content we can do. More effective -> more you can achieve before you die.

So yes, it's important to me that a build is both effective and enjoyable. I'm lucky that I've made my peace with Fatecarver, so I don't mind using it anymore, but I would prefer to have actual choice, where more builds are as effective as those using Herald.

So my issue with subclassing was always about the power gap.

Gankform

i like copy paste work, is fast and costs nothing.:)

Toanis

Background: CRPG + TBS + RTS player gone solo MMO player gone progress raider (WoW, SWTOR) gone ranked PVPer (WoW, SWTOR) gone low stakes pvper and solo group dungeon enjoyer before I even started playing ESO.

For my main ESO activities (story/overland, soloing group dungeons and OW-PVP roaming) subclassing gave me more options. Options are good, especially in game modes where only I suffer from bad build decisions.

As someone who spent a couple years having basically a second job where I spent 2-3 evenings a week playing exactly the build the raid group required, I have little understanding for the subclassing complaints from ESO's top tier PVE corner. You didn't complain when you'd have liked to play your character of class X but class Y was performing better. Nothing has changed when you now need to play YYZ but when XYZ turns out to be fine too, you can play your preferred char again.

For PVP it's fair enough to complain, the more build combinations, the harder to balance and the harder to anticipate what an opponent can do. Other games solved that with separating PVP and PVE abilities and ESO seems to go in that direction too.

propertyOfUndefined

I love subclassing. That said, there are some glaring issues in some class skill lines that make them no-brainers in any damage dealing build. I also strongly believe a capstone system should be implemented to level the playing field for players who choose to stay pure.

Zodiarkslayer

I love subclassing. The freedom of choice that it allows me is simply phenomenal.

Are there imbalance problems? Of course there are. That was to be expected. But it's not unsolvable. And it's not to the pve player's detriment.

The Elder Scrolls Online FINALLY feels like an Elder Scrolls game!

fizzybeef

roll back till before subclassing and hybridisation

SkaiFaith

Absolutely agree that it feels more Elder Scrolls now. I haven't done the survey yet but my feedback will likely be to "get rid" of classes - being able to mash everything and anything would give absolute freedom and I love it!

I have applied Animal Companions and Herald of the tome to all my alts of any class - all Oakensoul users.
But I have to say that I rarely use Fatecarver since without crux I find it weaker than spamming Unstable wall of elements in between Heavy Attacks. Kept it for passive penetration mainly.

My main build has Animal Companions, Winter's Embrace and Aedric Spear, but it also has 2 scribed abilities.

Subclassing has made all my alts way more competitive, and buffed my main a bit - More content is achievable solo; happy with it. And even more of it will be appreciated. Can't wait to see what next classes will add to the kit!

Sarannah

Hygiliack wrote: »

Do you like it the way it is now?

Incredibly so! So many options to pick and choose from, from fun builds to effective builds, and everything in between. I have even made builds that surprised myself!

Hygiliack wrote: »

Do you want them to revert it to the way it was?

No, never! People should stop complaining.

Hygiliack wrote: »

Do you want them to restrain it a bit?

No, I actually feel they should open it a bit more, by allowing us to pick multiple skilllines from the same class as well. ZOS should stop trying to balance for the sake of PvP, something will always be meta and PvPers will always complain when someone defeats them. As long as nothing is broken or bugged about skills, they shouldn't touch them(this also goes for gear/CP's/etc).

However, with subclassing there are two things ZOS needs to 'fix':
1: Pure classes need to be able to hold their own with subclassed builds.
2: All classes need to have a main attack like the arcanist's fatecarver(but in their class's style/form), so they can build around that one attack and the fatecarver meta spreads out over all class's their main attacks. (Note: Fatecarver is NOT overpowered, it is just convenient to build around and use. Which is why I feel all classes need something similar.)

Danikat

I'm not strictly a solo player, and I don't expect to be able to solo group areas like dungeons, but I'm mainly interested in exploration and questing, and my free time is erratic so I'm usually playing solo because I can't commit to going through things with a group.

I like the idea of subclassing because it opens up more options for me to design my characters around how I see them. I'm not worried about min maxing or perfect builds (as we're constantly reminded open-world zones are easy enough that almost anything can work) and I've never cared about how ZOS see their classes, I want to make the characters I have in mind.

For example my main is a templar because it's the closest I could get to the Destruction and Restoration combination she normally uses in TES games, but I've never liked the aedric spear skills, they don't fit the character and are far too bright and flashy, so I swapped it out for the Nightblade's Assassination line instead.

I also want to swap out the frost magic from the Warden for something that better fits the theme, but I haven't decided what yet.

amiiegee

As everyone who understands the game has stated before, subclassing and hybridisation should be deleted and rolled back. I understand role player like it thought

ShadowMole25

Personally, I love it. I enjoy making thematic characters whether it is a stylistic or mechanical theme. My themes very often don't match up with the predefined classes which has left me extremely unhappy over the years. However, subclassing changes that up quite a bit and allows me more in my builds.

My main character is a n scout and assassin for the Pact and remains a pure nightblade.
My healing templar will probably stay as a pure templar because I can't imagine any of the other skill lines working thematically, but I also haven't put that much thought into it yet.
My vampire pirate nightblade who was meant to be more of a swordsman/melee fighter focusing on applying DOTs and stealing health from enemies has picked up Aedric Spear and Soldier of Apocrypha to be tankier and able to stay in combat better in addition to keeping Assassination.
My other assassin nightblade, I haven't subclasses yet, but I plan to. This one will probably be keeping Siphoning.
My eccentric unkillable dragonknight who focused around stacking health regen has picked up Shadow and Storm Calling in addition to keeping Draconic Power.
My vampire witch necromancer was actually my first subclassed character as I could never fit this concept in a single ESO class, or I could but not as well as I liked. She kept Grave Lord and picked up Storm Calling and Siphoning to better fit with my idea of the character.
My little bosmer archeologist arcanist who looked a looked a little too far into the depths of magic has kept Herald of the Tome and picked up Dark Magic and Animal Companions.

I have 10 other characters who are in the process of leveling to 50 some of which may not survive the journey if I have other ideas I like better. Many of them will also be subclassing, some of them are already. So all in all, I welcome subclassing because it allows me to better express my characters I as want to. I don't follow build guides and don't care about the meta. Instead I make my own builds to try and optimize without losing the core theme of each character. Some of my builds are better than others, but I enjoy playing all of them.

Pepegrillos

There might be a survivorship bias. Most people sticking with the game seem to like it. At the same time, player population is at its lowest point in 8 years. Those who left or didn't come back might not like it that much.

freespirit

I use Oakensoul and I have found subclassing has given me extra choices, I always seem to have one skill, even though I can only use five, that I cannot decide on, now I am having fun experimenting.

Typically at the present on my mains(Templars) I have two class skills, one weapon skill, one scribed skill and one subclassed skill.

I have never messed with hybrid builds, I feel no need to.

I cannot understand people who want subclassing and hybridisation rolled back, is it because their playstyle has been ruined?

Over the years every class has been hit by nerfs or buffed to excess, these things all work out over time, if we have no change the game would become a very boring place. I have never felt the need the change my characters because of skill changes, maybe I am just lazy! 🙂

fizzybeef

freespirit wrote: »

I use Oakensoul and I have found subclassing has given me extra choices, I always seem to have one skill, even though I can only use five, that I cannot decide on, now I am having fun experimenting.

Typically at the present on my mains(Templars) I have two class skills, one weapon skill, one scribed skill and one subclassed skill.

I have never messed with hybrid builds, I feel no need to.

I cannot understand people who want subclassing and hybridisation rolled back, is it because their playstyle has been ruined?

Over the years every class has been hit by nerfs or buffed to excess, these things all work out over time, if we have no change the game would become a very boring place. I have never felt the need the change my characters because of skill changes, maybe I am just lazy! 🙂

Maybe because pure mag and pure stam builds are not as strong anymore?

Go hybrid or use subclassing or be left behind.

Like i know i dont need to explain this to a oakensoul user, youre probably not doing trials or any endgame content

Tandor

Pepegrillos wrote: »

There might be a survivorship bias. Most people sticking with the game seem to like it. At the same time, player population is at its lowest point in 8 years. Those who left or didn't come back might not like it that much.

That's speculation based on very limited data from Steam which doesn't, for example, reflect those who play on Steam but no longer launch through it.

My own view on subclassing as a solo player is that I've no continued interest in it beyond having experimented briefly with one character to see how it worked. I like playing multiple characters because they're different, and I found that switching skills around didn't really achieve anything for me, it just produced a hybrid character that was a bit of this and a bit of that.

AcadianPaladin

I love subclassing. It has restores some of the flexibility that both Oblivion and Skyrim had. I actually would prefer no classes but subclassing Is a great step in the right direction.

Jaimeh

For solo play subclassing is great because there's a lot more combos that are equally effective for the type of content (whereas in PvE endgame you are pigeon-holed in a very specific playestyle, that funnily enough is even stricter than before) and that are also creative. I solo'ed the new dungeons in a kind of fun necro/arc/NB build, that had good damage, it was tanky even with parse food, and it was also good with wrangling up the adds in the trash packs. And it was a very spur of the moment build, I didn't even mess with a lot of things, but it was still effective, and I loved that because I have no patience with tweaking stuff.

AzuraFan

I solo a lot and play a pure class. For that reason, I don't like subclassing as it's implemented. As I said in the pinned thread for the survey, subclassing should make the player stronger in one area but weaker in others. It should not be a free-for-all choose what you want from the skill line buffet with no consequences whatsoever.

Also, class identity matter to me. Subclassing blew that away. There should be an "identity" skill line for each class that other classes can't use.

So, overall, for me the implementation of subclassing is bad. Not the concept.

(Group play is another thing entirely. My fun in the game is more affected there for the reason I posted in the pinned thread.)

magnusthorek

I loved it! As a main Templar, after YEARS of heavy nerfing and/or not much care in terms of improvement, I felt... strong once again, or at least strong enough to keep playing solo the way I like. Sure, the requirement of not allowing more than one skill lines from a different class felt... forced, but overall it was a great feature.

And mind you, when I decided to subclass, I opened every single page on UESP/ESO-Hub, read every single skill, every passive and built my own preferred build without checking on premade builds.

Kendaric

Danikat wrote: »

I'm not strictly a solo player, and I don't expect to be able to solo group areas like dungeons, but I'm mainly interested in exploration and questing, and my free time is erratic so I'm usually playing solo because I can't commit to going through things with a group.

I like the idea of subclassing because it opens up more options for me to design my characters around how I see them. I'm not worried about min maxing or perfect builds (as we're constantly reminded open-world zones are easy enough that almost anything can work) and I've never cared about how ZOS see their classes, I want to make the characters I have in mind.

For example my main is a templar because it's the closest I could get to the Destruction and Restoration combination she normally uses in TES games, but I've never liked the aedric spear skills, they don't fit the character and are far too bright and flashy, so I swapped it out for the Nightblade's Assassination line instead.

I also want to swap out the frost magic from the Warden for something that better fits the theme, but I haven't decided what yet.

That sums up how I view subclassing as well. I'm not worried about min/maxing or even being incredibly effective. The content I play and enjoy doesn't require that anyway.

Generally, when I actually use the subclass feature, I only switch out a single skill line for one that fits a specific character better. I've always viewed ESO's class system as too rigid and restrictive and would like to see it completely redone or preferably abolished.
Because of that I rarely rely on using class skills anyway and prefer to stick to weapon, guild and world skill lines. I prefer more of a typical fighter/warrior/barbarian as a character than mages of any kind.