gc0018 wrote: »

The tricky part is that subclass itself is a good idea. But the way of ZOS to achieve it... is really bad.
Current PTS feeling about subclass: Boring. Only fun for the first 1-2 days. Because there are only a few of combinations of skillines works well. Easily to get bored once you realize most of the combinations are just trash.

Yeah thats kind of what I suspected. Without more potential for integrated passives, how many classes would want to subclass for a balanced 1vX build? These tend to depend on some balance and efficiency rathed than just a busted trick or two.

But it's fun to think of some new parlor tricks. Again if youre an old 1vX sDK youre already Post Class Erasure.

My best play in 4v4s is on Warden right now by far. At most I'm looking at 1 or 2 subclass slots, if any.

LukosCreyden wrote: »

So... when it comes to ridiculous beam dps builds, the main culprit is Necro, yes? (Not on PTS, so cannot test).
If this is the case, they simply need to change GLS (good, real red-blooded patriots of necromancy hate that skill) and change rapid rot (mediocre passive outside of subclassing). As for pvp, ummmmm.... just bring back vengeance campaign i guess?
If not, everyone can just shalks, spectral bow and whichever other spicy meme they want to run and we can all go have a time one-tapping each other.

Don't even need to touch rapid rot. Just make GLS not work outside of Necro skills and make the buff better for Necro skills and it'll be fine.

I think the concept is fine and fits will with TES/ESO, it's just way too much at one time for the player base and development team to handle.

When they were talking about having iterations to test on the PTS before going live, this would've been the perfect thing. I don't understand why they went ahead with this in a single PTS cycle.

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

SaintJohnHM wrote: »

I'm starting to hear many folks grumble about subclassing like many did before the U35 mass exodus of vet HM trial players, and I don't think zos is going to really listen to the feedback. "Subclassing" is grossly unbalanced and is destroying the class identity many have spent years investing in. Maybe they'll get enough new players to not have to worry about losing a few trial players, so zos probably isn't worried about what we think, but it'd be nice if they paused this and gave it a big re-think before releasing it. Many friends left ESO after U35, it's going to be sad to lose a bunch more to this release.

No, nothing will ever be worse than U35 if only for the complete tone-deaf reaction by ZOS on the PTS forum during the whole time.

Are you insinuating that ZoS isn't currently repeating the U35 tonedeafness because to me so far it looks like they are. I can see ZoS digging their heels in even more with subclassing than with U35 because they've made it a huge selling point for U46 for the casuals. Like U35 where they had the casuals believing they were "raising the floor" only to find the floor in the basement once U35 went live. Delaying subclassing for proper balancing or even *gasp* abandoning it due to its myriad of issues would make the devs look bad so IMO they will plow full speed ahead with subclassing without regard for balance thinking they can/will fix any problems that arise in future balance patches.

Until I see one of the higher ups take a look at data presented by long-time players pointing out exactly where the problem is and basically say that players don't really know what they are talking about, it still isn't U35 level of ridiculousness.

Duhne wrote: »

They should have limited subclassing to 1 offensive, 1 healing, 1 tanking skill line, then balancing would be manageable.

I guess they didn't do it because old classes don't have clear distinct skill lines and they went too far on the "play how you want".

I like the idea of subclassing but they won't avoid the huge mess coming with it

Yeah, the biggest problem with that is that the four original classes were a sort of paper-rock-scissors arrangement with DK having tons of tanky abilities but little healing, Templar lots of damage and healing but not much tankiness, etc.

sarahthes wrote: »

A power increase isn't going to be as devastating as U35 was. There's a number of people in endgame who will enjoy seeing how much they can push trials to breaking. A number of players who will be able to accomplish things they couldn't before. I don't think it will be as bad as U35 for that reason. A power squish like U35 is always going to be received more poorly than a power bump.

That said, I also have my concerns. I'm not looking forward to seeing everyone have to play arcbladecro or arcplarcro. So many endgame players hate playing arcanist.

For me, the question is whether they'll manage to address the power creep before U46 goes live and whether a U35-style power squish will follow in U47 or U48 if they don't.

Ph1p wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

A power increase isn't going to be as devastating as U35 was. There's a number of people in endgame who will enjoy seeing how much they can push trials to breaking. A number of players who will be able to accomplish things they couldn't before. I don't think it will be as bad as U35 for that reason. A power squish like U35 is always going to be received more poorly than a power bump.

That said, I also have my concerns. I'm not looking forward to seeing everyone have to play arcbladecro or arcplarcro. So many endgame players hate playing arcanist.

For me, the question is whether they'll manage to address the power creep before U46 goes live and whether a U35-style power squish will follow in U47 or U48 if they don't.

This too. I've mentioned that I share that concern in some of the other posts in this forum.

Twohothardware wrote: »

Ph1p wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

A power increase isn't going to be as devastating as U35 was. There's a number of people in endgame who will enjoy seeing how much they can push trials to breaking. A number of players who will be able to accomplish things they couldn't before. I don't think it will be as bad as U35 for that reason. A power squish like U35 is always going to be received more poorly than a power bump.

That said, I also have my concerns. I'm not looking forward to seeing everyone have to play arcbladecro or arcplarcro. So many endgame players hate playing arcanist.

For me, the question is whether they'll manage to address the power creep before U46 goes live and whether a U35-style power squish will follow in U47 or U48 if they don't.

And why do they need to address the power creep? 99% of the players in the game haven't been able to clear Vet Trials unless they pay for the carry. A lot can't clear the newer DLC Vet dungeons either. That's why there's as many advertisements for paid carries in the game as there are gold sellers.

I think some power creep is normal and maybe even healthy for the game. As ZOS adds new sets, classes, etc. to the game and players spend more time theorycrafting, it's inevitable that DPS goes up. It might even help with long-term motivation, as it adds to player progression, even if they don't get better or level up further.

But overdo the increase and it trivializes the game's content. I led open vet intro trials for 3 years, and it only got easier and easier. Craglorn trials were so simple we only did them on HM, because it felt pointless not to. When I first led a group in vAS+0, it took us 17 min to clear it. Fast forward 2.5 years later and we finished vAS+2 in less time. The same could be observed for every other trial. So your 99% number is clearly just made up. The carry run argument is fairly flimsy, too. After all, the existence of Uber ads doesn't mean that 99% of people can't drive a car.

Too much power creep also widens the gap between the floor and the ceiling, because meta-chasers will get way more mileage out of things like subclassing than ESO novices. That kind of situation was one of the explicit reasons for U35, because ZOS felt they had "to quell some of the obscene damage production at the high end" (source). So at least in the past, ZOS obviously agreed that excessive power creep was something to be addressed.

Twohothardware wrote: »

The old Craglorn trials are nothing at all like the newer trials that I was referencing when I said 99% of the general player base have never cleared them. You're not going into VSS and clearing it without experienced players with high rotations no matter how good you were at leading trials groups. That's why guilds are able to charge charge millions of gold for carries and skin unlocks. It's the same thing with a number of the newer Vet DLC dungeons.

Sure, if you take a bunch of new players that never touched group content, you will struggle in a trial like vSS. But if you put together a team of people that are build for their roles (and not necessarily in a strict meta way), willing to cooperate and give it more than one go, you will clear.

Trials might not be the most popular activity in ESO, but saying that 99% of playerbase cannot clear vet is a disservice to the playerbase.

I think this is probably the best thing to happen to the endgame scene in awhile people are casually hitting over 150k dps right now so unless they nerf a bunch of stuff or raise the difficulty level in general the endgame trial scene should be more accessible now than ever.

If this goes live as is, in some ways I think it could be worse.

A lot of the people I played with have already left the game, but those who remained felt stable and consistent and like they'd stick around forever. Yet quite a few of them have already told me this is the last nail in the coffin. Too much is broken for them now, but mostly trust in the development process. For myself, I've considered dropping ESO Plus a few times in the past due to changes I didn't like, but this is the first time I started rearranging my inventory and bank to prepare for not having it anymore, because I don't want to feed more money into a game that no longer delivers the gameplay I enjoy.

Of course my little friendship bubble may well not be representative. The world, in terms of ESO, might only be ending for certain segments of the player base who are already close to breaking point.

But any change on this scale, as some have already mentioned, is going to have an aftermath. There will likely be a lot of changes as ZOS receives data on what the system allows on the live servers. This is when the nerfs might come. This is the second point where the game might leak players due to this, and would be my biggest long-term worry.

Twohothardware wrote: »

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

The old Craglorn trials are nothing at all like the newer trials that I was referencing when I said 99% of the general player base have never cleared them. You're not going into VSS and clearing it without experienced players with high rotations no matter how good you were at leading trials groups. That's why guilds are able to charge charge millions of gold for carries and skin unlocks. It's the same thing with a number of the newer Vet DLC dungeons.

Sure, if you take a bunch of new players that never touched group content, you will struggle in a trial like vSS. But if you put together a team of people that are build for their roles (and not necessarily in a strict meta way), willing to cooperate and give it more than one go, you will clear.

Trials might not be the most popular activity in ESO, but saying that 99% of playerbase cannot clear vet is a disservice to the playerbase.

Have you ever joined a PUG for a newer vet trial? I've joined a few and they never got past the first boss after numerous wipes and people just finally starting leaving.

The only way you're going into vSS with ESO players that haven't cleared it before and actually getting through it is you put together a team of mostly players that routinely clear hard vet trials, know the mechanics, and have enough DPS to carry the rest of the group. Basically a paid carry.

Now maybe things are easier on PC where ya'll got a mod that telegraphs the mechanics to you and tells you when to block and everything but not on console.

All you need to clear vss is a tank who won't fall over, dds who listen, and one person who knows what's going on.

vSS is the first trial I used to teach after vmol because I feel it's easier than vhof for newer raiders. We never had to 'prog' it more than 2 hours.

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

It seems comparable. I see many players planning to leave. Imo this is even worse that u35 because this hits the very core of eso’s combat, classes cease to exist, build diversity and class identity essentially disappear. This is probably the end of eso as we new it, even u35 didn’t affect it on such a fundamental level.

This is my take on it as well. Between vengeance and subclassing the future of ESO looks very grim.

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

Honestly, I kinda understand the knee-jerk reaction statement from Rich, especially now. U35 was no where as bad as we thought, because hey, that's why we have pts to test things out. The first week of U35 was laughably bad, but when it actually comes out, it was fine, not bad at all.

While overreaction is a staple response of gamers in general or really any enthusiasts anywhere with a forum to voice things, I think U35 was singularly a spectacular combination of bad decisions that deserved and continues to deserve the lambast.

That it was doubled down by the fact we went largely until -right now- without changes to Class Abilities that needed correction made it all the worse. While I understood their sentiment of, "we're gonna stop sweeping changes for a while, because they're making you guys mad' they went out of their way to destroy Templar right before they stopped! It's been a long wait as a Main of that class, and I know it's not the only example.

I think the biggest thing was that U35 was where it felt like they went 100% deaf to overwhelming dislike for things like the Jabs or Flurry animations, just ignoring the massive tidal wave of pleas to revert or do better. There was a lot more, but stuff like that and Grim Focus making weapons glow should be EASY wins for keeping customers happy, and we couldn't even get a response. It was very off-putting.

So no, to me anyway, U35 was not "fine," and I personally have become tremendously dubious of changes ever since in a way I never was prior to that Update.

This update no, but the huge nerfs to follow in subsequent updates might be when the community is used to the new power they have.