Maybe pump the brakes a little

Zallion · April 16

I know it’s week one of the cycle, but goodness. This seems to be a balance nightmare in its current state and essentially game breaking.

If this goes live, there absolutely needs to be more limiting factors. Diminishing returns on subclassed abilities to some degree or something.

I’ve already made another post dooming and glooming a little but I want to make another separate point here.

ZOS, it is completely acceptable to table this idea. Don’t break your game with a hastily thought through new system. The core of the idea is great, more options who doesn’t love options? But you’re reinventing the wheel in a way that isn’t really necessary. It’s almost a different game at that point. It’s more than okay and respectable to push this off until it’s perfect. We’ve been told you’ll be taking more time with projects and deadlines, this should absolutely be one of those things. I think taking a single skill line from another class would suffice, or maybe even 3rd morph options on class abilities instead, but not this. This system is just chaotic, and slightly insulting to the integrity of the game you’ve been developing for over a decade. Maybe pump the brakes on the idea until it’s super fleshed out? The work needed to balance each and every broken combination that will arise out of this will be too much. We’ll be in a constant state of overperforming metas, large swings in balance changes, more than we’ve ever seen and more than on live. Class identity should not be sacrificed for the illusion of choice. You’re forcing metas here. Just for example: Double bow proc? How am I at any advantage NOT running that in PvP? Makes the “choice” of subclassing Assassination not exactly a choice if I wish to compete. But that is just an example of what will happen at large here. Extrapolated out, Skill lines X, Y, and Z will be meta with little variations, less than we see today. I know some people love this, I get it. But outside of this system this game was never developed to have classes share skill lines. More skills to choose from would be cool and everyone is likely in favor of more choices, but this entire game for over 10 years was built on a class system. Deconstructing that system to be an amalgamation is in my opinion, a little insulting. It’s not the product I’ve come to invest time and money into anymore at that point.

If it goes live, I truly hope you can pull it off, because despite any qualms I ever have I am rooting for this game’s success. But even if it seems like you won’t a little bit, if there’s a sense of jumping the gun and upsetting a proportionally significant percentage of the player base, there’s no shame in postponing or pulling back on the idea.

Goodrods · April 16

I can't wait to get my PTS build to live, however the final balance pass is going to be. I am definitely not a min/max player and here purely for the fun and social play.
Hit the gas, shift and then hit the NOS. I am really liking this move!

olsborg · April 16

Someone had the suggestion that all trees are essentially for offence, defence or healing, all classes 3 skill trees have a home in one of those 3 categories, so what if for example a templars defencive skill tree would only be swappable for a nightblades defencive skill tree? so that way you couldnt have 3 defencive skill trees making for a monstertank way too easily.

ESO_Nightingale · April 16

olsborg wrote: »

Someone had the suggestion that all trees are essentially for offence, defence or healing, all classes 3 skill trees have a home in one of those 3 categories, so what if for example a templars defencive skill tree would only be swappable for a nightblades defencive skill tree? so that way you couldnt have 3 defencive skill trees making for a monstertank way too easily.

this doesn't work because the base classes don't work that way.

Tra_Lalan · April 16

Subclasing is a great idea, but not like this..

The power should come with a cost. Currently it is like mythics without disadvantages. You can leave it as it is, and break the game (making players too powerful and also forcing everyone to subclas), or nerf all class abilities and not brake the game but you will still make all players angry that they got nerfed.

The only solution i see is:
The skills that you pick up from other classes should be less powerfull than they are originaly (when you are in that class). They should only do some % of original power. This way you will still have an option to create a stronger character with other skill trees, but it wouldnt brake the game. You would also have many new options for casual playing like pet sorc with a bear and so on.

Zallion · April 16

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

olsborg wrote: »

Someone had the suggestion that all trees are essentially for offence, defence or healing, all classes 3 skill trees have a home in one of those 3 categories, so what if for example a templars defencive skill tree would only be swappable for a nightblades defencive skill tree? so that way you couldnt have 3 defencive skill trees making for a monstertank way too easily.

this doesn't work because the base classes don't work that way.

Yeah it just isn’t that simple. And I don’t think it should be completely reworked either. We’re over a decade deep on these classes. The iterations of certain skills have been changed, balanced and redesigned enough as it is. I get tweaks for keeping up with powercreep etc but I think complete redesigns this late in the games lifespan is just bad for business. U35 is the best example of that. This would be even worse. People don’t want to have to relearn this game if they put it down for more than a quarter. They’ve been so much better about this lately relatively speaking that it’s sort of sad to see them throw that away now. “Shaking it up” does not equal positive change. People like consistency as well. If I took a hiatus say a year ago and logged in this June, do you think I’d be super excited that everything about my class and every build I’ve ever created and geared out etc is nearly obsolete? It’s a larger blow than them nerfing one over performing skill or set every now and then. In this scenario I’m forced to follow suit on subclassing and whatever restrictive metas inevitably develop as a result or I am handicapping myself. To the folks echoing “bUt ThAtS hOw iT iS rIgHt nOW”, sure, but not nearly to this degree. I would maybe need to change a set or a skill normally, grab a new mythic etc etc. Not blaspheme my class, playstyle, relearn what every skill does as they’ve all changed, sometimes completely redesigned. To me, different game at that point. We have our mains and our alts of our favorite classes because classes add flavor, identity, and a different way to play the game. There is little point in having 5000 whatever combinations if 4994 of those combinations are completely unviable. It’s change for changes sake and I just hope they can foresee the repercussions. It taints the integrity of the game they’ve built thus far.

said no one ever · April 16

Goodrods wrote: »

I can't wait to get my PTS build to live, however the final balance pass is going to be. I am definitely not a min/max player and here purely for the fun and social play.
Hit the gas, shift and then hit the NOS. I am really liking this move!

one does not hit the gas while shifting unless one wishes to grind the gears all to hell and back....

said no one ever · April 16

look. it's the same thing every release cycle. the new shiny is released OP and stays OP until it's no longer the new shiny and it gets nerfed or possibly reduced by the next new shiny. it's marketing 101. that way everyone adopts it and everyone plays into the hype. it's just the normal release cycle, nothing to see here.... move along..

Zallion · April 16

said no one ever wrote: »

look. it's the same thing every release cycle. the new shiny is released OP and stays OP until it's no longer the new shiny and it gets nerfed or possibly reduced by the next new shiny. it's marketing 101. that way everyone adopts it and everyone plays into the hype. it's just the normal release cycle, nothing to see here.... move along..

Id agree with your point here if it wasn’t such an egregious departure from the games original design. I’m okay with things being OP every now and then like a new set or class. Not cool with my class choice meaning much less in the end because I’ll need to subclass into other trees to stay relevant.

ESO_Nightingale · April 16

Tra_Lalan wrote: »

Subclasing is a great idea, but not like this..

The power should come with a cost. Currently it is like mythics without disadvantages. You can leave it as it is, and break the game (making players too powerful and also forcing everyone to subclas), or nerf all class abilities and not brake the game but you will still make all players angry that they got nerfed.

The only solution i see is:
The skills that you pick up from other classes should be less powerfull than they are originaly (when you are in that class). They should only do some % of original power. This way you will still have an option to create a stronger character with other skill trees, but it wouldnt brake the game. You would also have many new options for casual playing like pet sorc with a bear and so on.

yeah so by doing this it's far too easy for this to make subclassing terrible.

valenwood_vegan · April 16

This is absolutely being rushed out to meet a deadline and we'll be dealing with the consequences for months.

It's currently too buggy to be properly tested on the PTS. It's tremendously unbalanced. It's not ready and there is no way it will be ready during a PTS cycle.

Just the initial round of skill changes has dozens of players that I know [, this one included,] talking about plans to potentially leave the game for a while until it all settles down. A couple more rounds of nerfs and changes will turn these plans into reality.

If the average player finds that they can no longer do their regular weekly trial group, or pvp run, or whatever it is that keeps them playing... and that they need to read through pages of changes, and completely start over with their builds, and go back to mundane content to level up skills, knowing that it will all probably change again as they desperately try to fix and balance a rushed system, many may just stop playing for a while. Current newer players approaching their *first* build may just give up entirely when they find that all of the work they've been putting in was for nothing. Many of us only have a few hours a week to play, and we log in to do our favorite activities with our friends... breaking up this routine with forced hours of study and rebuilding and grinding, this far into the game's lifespan, is risky.

All it takes are a few people leaving, like a trial leader or a tank or valued guild officer... to have major ripple effects. Zos has even said it, they know this... the thing that keeps people playing long term is their friends.

Remember that we've already lost many important content creators and it's become more difficult for players to even find updated guides and build information.

I know it's too late, but I do hope they slow down and carefully consider the next steps (as they're doing with Vengeance) and bring this idea back when it's actually ready. They need to be very careful and remember the effects that U35 had on the mid-to-end game community.

Compare what they're doing here to how Vengeance is being handled... where we got a test so they could gather and analyze data, but then play was reverted back to normal while they consider their next steps. A change of the magnitude of subclassing needs this sort of treatment as well; it should be on the PTS for a significant amount of time so bugs, balance, unintended interactions, etc., can be worked out there instead of on live.

[Edit for a couple typos].

ssewallb14_ESO · April 16

Yeah I have to agree.

This essentially creates a new game, there's no way the combat team can balance this in a single cycle after it took a literal decade and multiple combat teams to get it to where it is currently on live.

As it is balance is comparable to release in 2014, in addition to the biggest bump in power creep in the game's history.

The only solution I can envision is to put this on hold. Letting it go live will likely have a similar or worse effect to U45 on the health of the game.

Also what happened to "no major overhauls planned?" This is like top 5 in terms of big overhauls in the game's history.

notsojuicy · April 16

TBH, i would rather wanted to see a big overhaul in "Animation" of the game, like Matt Firor wrote in his studio letter...
(ah yeah, here we go again :-))

Because if we look at combat what you're actually pressing and in which timings vs what you see on screen is off,
a complete overhaul on animations to make the game feel more engaging, natural, just a fresh feeling....

Would have been way more appreciated than subclassing and it's related balance fiasco...

As i think in terms of diversity how which class feels to play was hugely gone with hybridization...
now with subclassing if you want to build for min-/maxing, so called meta... will narrow that even further....

Not saying subclassing in itself is a bad idea, but i don't feel in terms of impact to attract new players and make new players stay in the game - Which btw where the money.... Was the right call

A lot of new players don't like the game because it feels bad in the animations vs what you input.... long terms players don't care too much as they used to it, new players have another view on it....

Additionally I dont think 5 weeks pts is enough for such game-changing impact (Sub Classing)
due to balancing based on work-power from Dev at Zenimax.... at least if you want to tackle it seriously and not fix it down the road (which probably will happen like it always does)

sarahthes · April 16

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

Yeah I have to agree.

This essentially creates a new game, there's no way the combat team can balance this in a single cycle after it took a literal decade and multiple combat teams to get it to where it is currently on live.

As it is balance is comparable to release in 2014, in addition to the biggest bump in power creep in the game's history.

The only solution I can envision is to put this on hold. Letting it go live will likely have a similar or worse effect to U45 on the health of the game.

Also what happened to "no major overhauls planned?" This is like top 5 in terms of big overhauls in the game's history.

I believe if they pause this they would have to pause the entire update including the Solstice story update, furnishing vault, etc.

ZOS updates tend to be all or nothing.

Zallion · April 16

sarahthes wrote: »

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

Yeah I have to agree.

This essentially creates a new game, there's no way the combat team can balance this in a single cycle after it took a literal decade and multiple combat teams to get it to where it is currently on live.

As it is balance is comparable to release in 2014, in addition to the biggest bump in power creep in the game's history.

The only solution I can envision is to put this on hold. Letting it go live will likely have a similar or worse effect to U45 on the health of the game.

Also what happened to "no major overhauls planned?" This is like top 5 in terms of big overhauls in the game's history.

I believe if they pause this they would have to pause the entire update including the Solstice story update, furnishing vault, etc.

ZOS updates tend to be all or nothing.

There’s still plenty of content coming out despite the new system. If the update were announced without subclassing, it would not be lacking all that much to be honest. Zone, story, trial, dungeons, world event, sets and more. That’s a typical update. Sure, nothing as jarring as subclassing, but still a respectable update that is not dependent on the system itself. They can still backpedal if they so chose.

LukosCreyden · April 16

Considering the fact that they have already announced the new system, it would probably be pretty bad for them to cancel or delay it. Many who are feeling positive about it would be disappointed and may drop the game.
No, they need to get their heads into the game and balance the outliers without breaking the original classes. They need to go all hands on deck for this PTS and REALLY take the combat balancing seriously, none of that "we'll adjust two things on week 3" stuff. Some people still want the pure class experience to function. Balance changes should not negatively affect them.

Zallion · April 16

LukosCreyden wrote: »

Considering the fact that they have already announced the new system, it would probably be pretty bad for them to cancel or delay it. Many who are feeling positive about it would be disappointed and may drop the game.
No, they need to get their heads into the game and balance the outliers without breaking the original classes. They need to go all hands on deck for this PTS and REALLY take the combat balancing seriously, none of that "we'll adjust two things on week 3" stuff. Some people still want the pure class experience to function. Balance changes should not negatively affect them.

Same could be said for those echoing the sentiments of my OP. I agree they need to put in everything they have to balance it. My point is don’t rush this. If they’re going to go through with it take more time, as someone else stated, treat it with the same approach as Vengeance. This would be the largest balance undertaking they’ve ever had to do. My points mainly lead to whatever is left in the aftermath will be unrecognizable and it isn’t worth rushing it. This isn’t just slight imbalances that we’re used to, it’s game breaking. The game was never made for this in mind and it’s glaringly apparent.

sarahthes · April 16

Zallion wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

Yeah I have to agree.

This essentially creates a new game, there's no way the combat team can balance this in a single cycle after it took a literal decade and multiple combat teams to get it to where it is currently on live.

As it is balance is comparable to release in 2014, in addition to the biggest bump in power creep in the game's history.

The only solution I can envision is to put this on hold. Letting it go live will likely have a similar or worse effect to U45 on the health of the game.

Also what happened to "no major overhauls planned?" This is like top 5 in terms of big overhauls in the game's history.

I believe if they pause this they would have to pause the entire update including the Solstice story update, furnishing vault, etc.

ZOS updates tend to be all or nothing.

There’s still plenty of content coming out despite the new system. If the update were announced without subclassing, it would not be lacking all that much to be honest. Zone, story, trial, dungeons, world event, sets and more. That’s a typical update. Sure, nothing as jarring as subclassing, but still a respectable update that is not dependent on the system itself. They can still backpedal if they so chose.

I don't think they can revert it from the updated game build. That's why I say it's all or nothing. The updated build is the updated build and it has subclassing.

Twohothardware · April 16

Bro’s, the game is 11 years old. It only has so much life left in it. Let the devs cook and try something new with the classes, even if it turns out to be unbalanced compared to what we’ve been used it.

The game needs a shakeup to generate interest in playing and another toned down half measure like we got with Scribing and Class sets definitely wasn’t it.

valenwood_vegan · April 16

Twohothardware wrote: »

Bro’s, the game is 11 years old. It only has so much life left in it. Let the devs cook and try something new with the classes, even if it turns out to be unbalanced compared to what we’ve been used it.

The game needs a shakeup to generate interest in playing and another toned down half measure like we got with Scribing and Class sets definitely wasn’t it.

They should do the cooking in the kitchen and serve the food when it's ready. Imo.

ForumBully · April 16

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

Bro’s, the game is 11 years old. It only has so much life left in it. Let the devs cook and try something new with the classes, even if it turns out to be unbalanced compared to what we’ve been used it.

The game needs a shakeup to generate interest in playing and another toned down half measure like we got with Scribing and Class sets definitely wasn’t it.

They should do the cooking in the kitchen and serve the food when it's ready. Imo.

It's been 10 years of a work in progress. This is as ready as it's going to be without the guinea pigs.

Joy_Division · April 16

Zallion wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

Yeah I have to agree.

This essentially creates a new game, there's no way the combat team can balance this in a single cycle after it took a literal decade and multiple combat teams to get it to where it is currently on live.

As it is balance is comparable to release in 2014, in addition to the biggest bump in power creep in the game's history.

The only solution I can envision is to put this on hold. Letting it go live will likely have a similar or worse effect to U45 on the health of the game.

Also what happened to "no major overhauls planned?" This is like top 5 in terms of big overhauls in the game's history.

I believe if they pause this they would have to pause the entire update including the Solstice story update, furnishing vault, etc.

ZOS updates tend to be all or nothing.

There’s still plenty of content coming out despite the new system. If the update were announced without subclassing, it would not be lacking all that much to be honest. Zone, story, trial, dungeons, world event, sets and more. That’s a typical update. Sure, nothing as jarring as subclassing, but still a respectable update that is not dependent on the system itself. They can still backpedal if they so chose.

I don't agree with that. They want to go with a season pass model and they aren't going to give me a major update to the class or combat system? I already think ESO is on maintenance mode. Doing a trial on the "easy" mode (because that is all the vast majority of the ESO playerbase can do, despite how easy the top 1% make the most difficult content in ESO appear) and some mind-numbingly easy overland zone quests isn't worth $15, let alone dropping $50.

Insofar as what ZOS can do with Subclassing, I not sure what pumping the breaks or slowing down will accomplish. In every RPG that allows for mixing and matching different classes, the tryhards, mix-maxers, sweatlords, always, always, always find combinations that break the game. This has been true every since Advanced Dungeons and Dragons when a fighter, who previously was restricted to just swinging a sword, could also conjure fireballs.

What is ZOS going to do? Apparently nerf the crap out of everything because the top 1% are breaking the game. Joy. So now I have to trash my Arcanist, a class I have become quite attached to, because every single parser is screaming at ZOS that beam breaks the game. This sucks. Because the Arcanist already sucks in the content I am most interested in (PvP) and even with my broken Arcanist and playing with 3 other 2800+ CP PvEers, we sometimes struggle to do something like Bedlam Veil hard mode. It really is not fun trying to play this game when you are not in the top 1% because just as you start to get the hang of a build or like a class, in case the nerf-hammer.

So now I'm going to have to drop $50 for some PvE content that is either too easy or way out of my reach because I am unfortunately Goldilocks, right smack in the middle of these extremes. Either I am not getting any new combat changes because ZOS was told min-maxers will break the game or my combat changes are going to be big fat nerfs, which will make that Trial even more difficult.

Not paying for that.

necro_the_crafter · April 16

I have a question, that I want ZoS to ask themselves.

Why even have class choise on character creating screen at this point? Class sets and class script?

Class identity can burn in coldfires for what I care, would love to see classic TES classless system, but this looks like some just want to mess around and see how things turn out. Lots of obvius gaps and possible exploites, not mentionig bugged interactions between class skills.
Commit to pure clasless system, or make subclasing more about apropriating 1 other class in your kit, but dont make it look like I put my skillbar trough some kind of class randomiser.

Stop worshiping Sheogorath and put aside that skooma bottle. This is madness.

PrinceShroob · April 16

A note here, so everything's clear: subclassing is a base-game feature and is not connected to the season pass at all. That is a curious decision, since every other major new system, such as Scribing, has required purchasing the new content. I wonder if that means the developers are amenable to rolling it back?

CaptainRele · April 16

I planned on making my own similar post about how ZOS can still hit the brakes on subclassing. The community is way more likely to get mad if it goes live and the OP combos get nerfed, than if it gets halted before live and people just lose their 170k PTS parses.
I think one possible method for this is to 1) revert a lot of the nerfs to skills and passives (ulti gen during magma, hardened ward healing without a pet, fix dk sustain, change warden damage passive back to damage and not frost damage, etc). And 2) disable subclassing in Cyrodiil, vet instances, and scored instances. This lets people still keep it for overland and questing for their casual fun RP, test it out on live in duels (outside cyro), and most importantly keep it out of raids and cyro until it can be better balanced. Let people nuke world bosses and normal dungeons and dueling opponents with insane combos like GLS boosted fatecarver and daedric prey boosted blastbones and warden bear. But keep endgame and cyrodiil balanced until a solution can be found that keeps subclassing in line without ruining a lot of pure classes.
Casual players win, and endgame PvErs and serious PvPers keep things as is. A net gain!!!

necro_the_crafter · April 16

PrinceShroob wrote: »

A note here, so everything's clear: subclassing is a base-game feature and is not connected to the season pass at all. That is a curious decision, since every other major new system, such as Scribing, has required purchasing the new content. I wonder if that means the developers are amenable to rolling it back?

Maybe if it was behind a paywall, devs would've put a bit more thought into it. Moving skillines "as is" is a craziest desicion they ever came up with.

Compared to other games, subclassing is usually a full on class change OR obtaining some additional perks or skills from other SINGLE class, and usually limited to 1 subclass at the time.
If ZoS would've made it so we obtained a new skilline for subclass, somwhere in world category perhaps, that would boil down esseintials of other class into 2-3 additional skills and passives, but those skills would be balanced to fit your OG class, that would be nice. More power, more variety, keep class identity. That way every class would recieve like 3*6 = 18 new possible skills and 18 new possible passives. which is totals to 18*7 = 126 "new" skills.
For example if im a sorc and subclass as DK, Im getting 3 new skills that a mix of those two classes.
For ardent flame - flame tornado (summons flame tornado at your location that knocks back enemies upon casting, tornado then presist for 8 sec dealind x fire damage each second).
For draconic power - dragons fury (6 second buff that increases light attack speed by 20% but reduses light attack damage by 20%).
for earthen heart - stone form (petrify yourself for 2 seconds, healing for X each second,, while in stone form you take 80% less damage, after you unpetrify, you gain 30% damage mitigation that you gradually loose over 6 seconds, during witch you cannot recast that ability)

OR remove classes completly, and add trainer NPCs that you can learn any class skill from as you level, BUT you have to categorise every class skill in the game so you cant run several spells of same category.
Example - merciless and frags should exclude each other, deep fissure, haunting curse, blighted blastbones also should exclude eachother, hots like ash cloud, budding seeds, cleansing ritual and renewing undeath should also exclude each othe. Ghost, bubble, living threllis should also exclude eachother. Then it will be much more closer to TES fantasy while retaining a semblance of balance.

There is many ways to make this sytem both fun and managable balancewise, but simply exchanging skilltrees as like isnt it.

tomofhyrule · April 16

CaptainRele wrote: »

I think one possible method for this is to 1) revert a lot of the nerfs to skills and passives (ulti gen during magma, hardened ward healing without a pet, fix dk sustain, change warden damage passive back to damage and not frost damage, etc). And 2) disable subclassing in Cyrodiil, vet instances, and scored instances. This lets people still keep it for overland and questing for their casual fun RP, test it out on live in duels (outside cyro), and most importantly keep it out of raids and cyro until it can be better balanced. Let people nuke world bosses and normal dungeons and dueling opponents with insane combos like GLS boosted fatecarver and daedric prey boosted blastbones and warden bear. But keep endgame and cyrodiil balanced until a solution can be found that keeps subclassing in line without ruining a lot of pure classes.
Casual players win, and endgame PvErs and serious PvPers keep things as is. A net gain!!!

This would solve a lot of problems.

I know even when I first heard about subclassing, the only think I could think of was that there was no way they could balance it. I actually said to my friends at the time that they should restrict it to normal and overland, and let vet instances and PvP avoid that chaos.

From the general thoughts on the forum, it seems that 90% of players who are excited about subclassing are into customizing their character for lore/roleplay reasons above anything else. Most use single-player games as their argument why it should happen, and they admit to mostly playing solo and not caring about what other players do. (And then the other 10% just want to use subclassing to make a cracked build and watch the world burn). The players who are wary of subclassing are mostly focusing on how it will affect the balance of endgame PvE and PvP.

Subclassing can’t be stopped now that it’s been hyped. But if ZOS would just put the restriction on it that it’s unusable in vet instances and PvP, then pretty well everyone would be fine with it.

Heck, I’d say open subclassing even further in that case - remove the double skill point cost, allow players to take multiple lines from the same class, allow players to trade all three parent class lines off. Go for it! Have fun!
But restrict that to normal and overland only.

Zallion · April 16

Joy_Division wrote: »

Zallion wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

Yeah I have to agree.

This essentially creates a new game, there's no way the combat team can balance this in a single cycle after it took a literal decade and multiple combat teams to get it to where it is currently on live.

As it is balance is comparable to release in 2014, in addition to the biggest bump in power creep in the game's history.

The only solution I can envision is to put this on hold. Letting it go live will likely have a similar or worse effect to U45 on the health of the game.

Also what happened to "no major overhauls planned?" This is like top 5 in terms of big overhauls in the game's history.

I believe if they pause this they would have to pause the entire update including the Solstice story update, furnishing vault, etc.

ZOS updates tend to be all or nothing.

There’s still plenty of content coming out despite the new system. If the update were announced without subclassing, it would not be lacking all that much to be honest. Zone, story, trial, dungeons, world event, sets and more. That’s a typical update. Sure, nothing as jarring as subclassing, but still a respectable update that is not dependent on the system itself. They can still backpedal if they so chose.

I don't agree with that. They want to go with a season pass model and they aren't going to give me a major update to the class or combat system? I already think ESO is on maintenance mode. Doing a trial on the "easy" mode (because that is all the vast majority of the ESO playerbase can do, despite how easy the top 1% make the most difficult content in ESO appear) and some mind-numbingly easy overland zone quests isn't worth $15, let alone dropping $50.

Insofar as what ZOS can do with Subclassing, I not sure what pumping the breaks or slowing down will accomplish. In every RPG that allows for mixing and matching different classes, the tryhards, mix-maxers, sweatlords, always, always, always find combinations that break the game. This has been true every since Advanced Dungeons and Dragons when a fighter, who previously was restricted to just swinging a sword, could also conjure fireballs.

What is ZOS going to do? Apparently nerf the crap out of everything because the top 1% are breaking the game. Joy. So now I have to trash my Arcanist, a class I have become quite attached to, because every single parser is screaming at ZOS that beam breaks the game. This sucks. Because the Arcanist already sucks in the content I am most interested in (PvP) and even with my broken Arcanist and playing with 3 other 2800+ CP PvEers, we sometimes struggle to do something like Bedlam Veil hard mode. It really is not fun trying to play this game when you are not in the top 1% because just as you start to get the hang of a build or like a class, in case the nerf-hammer.

So now I'm going to have to drop $50 for some PvE content that is either too easy or way out of my reach because I am unfortunately Goldilocks, right smack in the middle of these extremes. Either I am not getting any new combat changes because ZOS was told min-maxers will break the game or my combat changes are going to be big fat nerfs, which will make that Trial even more difficult.

Not paying for that.

The alternative is your arcanist gets nuked anyway or you’re pigeonholed into using subclassing to keep up. What I’m proposing is that they slow it down to work out the kinks as to not let that be the case. If the community at large is cool with their classes being redesigned for this system then so be it, but that doesn’t appear to be the sentiment of a respectable amount of folks both on these forums and in game. I share the same feeling about the Arcanist. I love the class design. But if I want to play that class, I’ll be forced to slotting x and y, instead of needing to work around or build around class specific metas like we currently do, which is largely my preference compared to the alternative. For example, I have some off meta arcanist pvp set ups that are incredibly fun to play, niche, but work, and I’m proud of the theorycrafting work I’ve put in to get the builds to where they are. When everyone is maincharactering 2 bow procs, I won’t stand a chance unless I fall in line with that meta. Not like it is now where off meta can still be viable. You are forced, FORCED, to subclass to keep up. I don’t NEED scribing on live to be viable. I don’t NEED a specific set or mythic on live to be viable. But if I choose not to subclass? I may as well wave a white flag. And that will go for all content but I’m thinking from a pvp perspective mainly here.

You disagreeing the with the value of content is fair, I’ll admit maybe I’m wrong on that front. But that’s not to say they couldn’t modify or limit this system as to not break the game. I mean the balance history has been all over the place, only recently has it been probably as close to balanced as it’s ever been, and that’s with crazy things like sorc ward etc. The remains of what it will take to balance this will be an abomination of what was built over ten years. I just don’t want to see them rush into something that ruins the game, or atleast what myself and many others like most about the game. If we need something flashy worth the price tag, they can modify this system and put limits in place so that both camps are satisfied. That would take more time, is mainly what I’m asking. I don’t agree with the idea at large, and I’m under no delusion they’re not going to go through with it. I just plead they take their time with it and maybe push it through only when it’s “fully cooked” as the kids like to say.

sarahthes · April 16

CaptainRele wrote: »

I planned on making my own similar post about how ZOS can still hit the brakes on subclassing. The community is way more likely to get mad if it goes live and the OP combos get nerfed, than if it gets halted before live and people just lose their 170k PTS parses.
I think one possible method for this is to 1) revert a lot of the nerfs to skills and passives (ulti gen during magma, hardened ward healing without a pet, fix dk sustain, change warden damage passive back to damage and not frost damage, etc). And 2) disable subclassing in Cyrodiil, vet instances, and scored instances. This lets people still keep it for overland and questing for their casual fun RP, test it out on live in duels (outside cyro), and most importantly keep it out of raids and cyro until it can be better balanced. Let people nuke world bosses and normal dungeons and dueling opponents with insane combos like GLS boosted fatecarver and daedric prey boosted blastbones and warden bear. But keep endgame and cyrodiil balanced until a solution can be found that keeps subclassing in line without ruining a lot of pure classes.
Casual players win, and endgame PvErs and serious PvPers keep things as is. A net gain!!!

As much as this would solve a lot of problems, I don't think they have the capability to do that outside of turning trials and PvP all into vengeance campaigns.

Estin · April 16

This idea definitely needs to be redone. It's current state doesn't seem like it was properly thought out. ZOS has stated more than once that the PTS isn't to test ideas and more to just fix bugs. It's already too late for them to make any substantial changes to this system, notably penalties on subclassed skills or separate balancing on them. There's just no way they can implement that and fix the numerous amount of bugs and OP combinations in just 2 months. Does ZOS not remember what happened with necro and GLS last year? How necro was stuck in limbo with multiple problems for 2 major patches? This update if it's pushed to live as is is going to affect everyone, not just necros, and the game can't afford to go 2 patches major patches to fix the problems subclassing is going to bring. Too much damage will be done and the game will likely not recover from it.

ZOS, please, listen to your community like you say you are doing. You have a saving grace for this in that it's not a paid system to sell the content pass. It's a free update that isn't tied to the season's story. This idea can definitely be put on hold until it's properly fleshed out.

Red_Feather · April 16

The game is so old it's time to take chances and have fun.