Subclassing worse than U35?

SpiritKitten · April 19

Not to insult anyone because it isn't your fault, it's ZOS's, but no one agrees on how subclassing works. It's a convoluted, confusing mess. No one knows! So JUST IN CASE, I am powerleveling the skill line I need on an alt.

Wereswan · April 19

Worth noting: the skill point costs are doubled, which includes passives and morphs.

BattleAxe · April 20

Overall from wut I’m seeing I am excited to return to regularly playing eso again so keep subclassing and let’s go. Been awhile since I’ve been hyped for changes in esp even with some nerfs and changes. This is truly wut eso needed this is a welcomed shake up and carries a lot of potential. Precursor to true spell crafting perhaps? Time will tell

SaintJohnHM · April 21

I guess we'll see with this week's PTS patch how bad things are going to be. After a few more days trying out subclassing and seeing how much they gutted pure classes that people already love to play, it's even more disheartening, and I'm not getting my hopes up that they'll undo the damage already caused.

Zyaneth_Bal · April 21

SaintJohnHM wrote: »

I guess we'll see with this week's PTS patch how bad things are going to be. After a few more days trying out subclassing and seeing how much they gutted pure classes that people already love to play, it's even more disheartening, and I'm not getting my hopes up that they'll undo the damage already caused.

It’s too early to expect much of anything. Even if they listened to some feedback it would take more time that that to implement any notable changes.
So don’t expect anything more that minor tweaks to skills in terms of balance.

xylena_lazarow · April 21

Subclassing is an awesome and fun buff that gives us tons of new ways to play.

U35 was a writhing mass of heinous nerfs that deleted half the game (the fun half).

Zero comparison here, clickbait title.

Urzigurumash · April 21

What was so tragic about u35 again? The nerf to light/heavy attacks and the DoT changes? Or did I forget something

moderatelyfatman · April 21

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Subclassing is an awesome and fun buff that gives us tons of new ways to play.

U35 was a writhing mass of heinous nerfs that deleted half the game (the fun half).

Zero comparison here, clickbait title.

Patch 35 was a response to the power jump from Hybridization Homogenisation. The two went hand in hand.

Subclassing Monoclassing is the biggest power jump in the history of the game which is going to lead to the biggest nerf that will kill every pure class build out there. The only thing that will be left in PvE will be a single dps build for endgame.

So in my opinion the OP was correct.

xylena_lazarow · April 21

Urzigurumash wrote: »

What was so tragic about u35 again? The nerf to light/heavy attacks and the DoT changes? Or did I forget something

new jabs animation

new broken tank sets in PvP on top of the dmg nerfs for worst PvP tank meta ever

still 3-4 different dot timers to juggle on my PvE dps at the time

new Flurry animation

still a massive gap between high end raiders and mid level PvE

mid level PvE players now finding themselves unable to clear content at all

complete deletion of pressure archetypes from the PvP meta

new jabs animation, we will never know the truth how or why this happened

literally exacerbated every single problem it attempted to solve

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

So in my opinion the OP was correct

if even one single player has fun with subclassing, it's already better than u35

LukosCreyden · April 21

Yeeeah even if 'subclassing' is an OP mess it is still leagues better than the catastrophy that was U35. At least there will be a good few groups of players that will be happy with subclassing.
A little bit of work to balance things and I will be, too.

SaintJohnHM · April 24

Some folks are saying players shouldn't panic because it's only week 2 of PTS, maybe there's still time to make it so subclassing doesn't ruin the game for a lot of players?

I thought part of the advantage to releasing "seasons" rather than chapters would be so they didn't have to rush new features and release them before they're ready?

Zyaneth_Bal · April 24

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

What was so tragic about u35 again? The nerf to light/heavy attacks and the DoT changes? Or did I forget something

new jabs animation

new broken tank sets in PvP on top of the dmg nerfs for worst PvP tank meta ever

still 3-4 different dot timers to juggle on my PvE dps at the time

new Flurry animation

still a massive gap between high end raiders and mid level PvE

mid level PvE players now finding themselves unable to clear content at all

complete deletion of pressure archetypes from the PvP meta

new jabs animation, we will never know the truth how or why this happened

literally exacerbated every single problem it attempted to solve

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

So in my opinion the OP was correct

if even one single player has fun with subclassing, it's already better than u35

Some were happy with u35 too because they believed what zos said about accessibility and whatever. Even though nothing like that actually happened.

Tandor · April 24

I can certainly see the wisdom of giving subclassing an extended run on PTS, especially as each cycle is split between PC NA and PC EU. I do wonder whether ZOS have realised the enormity of this change, and the need to listen far more than usual to the community's views of how it will work out including a whole raft of unintended consequences - much as with the combat changes in U35 and the achievement changes in the earlier U33, both of which were disasters in their own way because not enough attention was paid to the views of the players.

gorynych_88 · April 24

Tandor wrote: »

I can certainly see the wisdom of giving subclassing an extended run on PTS, especially as each cycle is split between PC NA and PC EU. I do wonder whether ZOS have realised the enormity of this change, and the need to listen far more than usual to the community's views of how it will work out including a whole raft of unintended consequences - much as with the combat changes in U35 and the achievement changes in the earlier U33, both of which were disasters in their own way because not enough attention was paid to the views of the players.

Almost the same thing is happening now again. At least they continue to nerf and change old class mechanics (and at the same time buff even more those classes that were enough overpowered, not speaking of multiclasses power bump even) so their vision on these changes is different from noticeable part of the community's one, and it won't end less painful for the game then old huge mistakes like U35 were.
They should have stopped already after 1st week of PTS (with all the feedback and argumented negative reactions for their solutions) and try ANY other ways: buff whole-class players, add restrictions to multiclassers, anything just to keep away from breaking game mechanics to half of players. But they don't listen (except small part of feedbacks for exact abillitites they touch and destroy more and more at PTS but that small fixes mean nothing for the whole system and for already ruined gameplay for most of old classes) so what to do if ZOS don't want then any real feedback out of " I"M SO HAPPY THAT"S A COOL FEATURE I DON"T CARE HOW IT BREAKS THE GAME AND I DON"T CARE ABOUT OTHERS OPINIONS RELEASE THIS TOMORROW AT LIVE!!!111

" But even those "smartheads" wearing armored pink glasses will actually realise very soon what a broken hell the game became after it will come to live and they will start to cry. But it will be too late, caus half of even nowadays not-so-huge population will quit and for those bigbrainers queueing even for the only content they play like daily solo8-BGs and Normal Dunges (which queues even now takes like dozens of minutes usually, out of events) will become some hours long.

Maggusemm · April 24

subclassing will be a great experience with lots of opportunities - most players will love it. For sure.

MJallday · April 24

RebornV3x wrote: »

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.

People are not “casually hitting 150k” - that is a blatant lie and misleading

SOME people are, maybe the top 1%
But on average most people are still < 90k

peacenote · April 24

By the end of the PTS cycle, the feedback thread for U33 AwA was 95 pages long. The feedback thread for U35 combat changes was 39 pages long.

In contrast, the feedback thread for the recent Vengeance Campaign test is 10 pages long. And currently, we're at 7 pages for subclassing.

For better or worse, there's no way subclassing could cause the same level of negative impact that either U33 or U35 did. But I fear it's more because so many people have left or given up testing because of what happened with U33 and U35 and the lack of adjustments or even acknowledgement of the large amount of feedback provided by the community throughout that process. Imo there's no question subclassing will drastically change combat, balance, and the overall play experience in all areas of ESO, and I would expect a change like this to generate a feedback thread to rival or exceed U33/U35 feedback lengths. Now, to be fair, we're not all the way through the PTS cycle, but still.

I predict that subclassing will provide ZOS with an uptick of returning players, and an uptick of playtime for current players, but I think it will be temporary and that there will be long term unintended consequences, which ultimately will be negative but few will completely understand why. Very similar to @Wereswan 's assessment.

JustLovely · April 24

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.

Too late. The ship has sailed.

SaintJohnHM · May 5

I guess we waited an extra week for nothing, U46 is still the worst update I've seen. They fundamentally don't seem to understand why multiclassing this way is garbage.

Zyaneth_Bal · May 5

SaintJohnHM wrote: »

I guess we waited an extra week for nothing, U46 is still the worst update I've seen. They fundamentally don't seem to understand why multiclassing this way is garbage.

They’ve proven countless times already that they don’t even know their own game. No changes here

adamsmith42 · May 5

peacenote wrote: »

By the end of the PTS cycle, the feedback thread for U33 AwA was 95 pages long. The feedback thread for U35 combat changes was 39 pages long.

In contrast, the feedback thread for the recent Vengeance Campaign test is 10 pages long. And currently, we're at 7 pages for subclassing.

I think you picking the wrong variable to account for the decreased amount of feedback.. it's not that AwA was way worse than u35, or that u35 was worse for the game than "sub"classing will be... it's that AwA (and u35) showed that giving ZoS feedback is a waste of time, none of it was acted upon... there were a lot of significant bugs that were found and reported on the PTS, but they didn't get fixed, they made it to live and it was like it was a surprise that they were there, ZoS had to do emergency maintenance and hotfix them... and then there was the feedback that falls into the category of 'opinion'... there were a lot of rational, passionate arguments from long-term players (who probably know the game better than the devs) that explained exactly what the problems were and how they could be fixed/improved, but not only were basically none of the suggestions acted upon, there was almost no engagement from ZoS (go look at the AwA and u35 threads and see how many dev comments there are) So it's not that the threads are shorter b/c each subsequent update has had fewer issues, it's that there are a lot fewer people bothering to give feedback that's just going to be ignored.

:edit: ok, i guess i skimmed your post and missed where you brought up pts engagement lol... but yeah; i agree, there's gonna be a small 'novelty' bump and then big problems... either just that the game is boring with beambots that skip all the mechs, or because the nerfs will be so bad when they come (u47 will be for subclassing what u35 was for hybridization)

Alchimiste1 · May 5

Game is so cooked next patch haha

Orbital78 · May 5

The whole thing seems rushed and includes major sweeping changes that they said they were going to refrain from. I guess they learned nothing from U35 or the other patches. I kind of think they should hold off on the whole subclassing until U47 or something, but it is probably too late now.

sarahthes · May 5

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

SaintJohnHM wrote: »

I guess we waited an extra week for nothing, U46 is still the worst update I've seen. They fundamentally don't seem to understand why multiclassing this way is garbage.

They’ve proven countless times already that they don’t even know their own game. No changes here

The changes are quite impactful for PvE.

I wish they'd given as much care to PvP balancing for y'all's side of the game, though.

Alpheu5 · May 5

peacenote wrote: »

By the end of the PTS cycle, the feedback thread for U33 AwA was 95 pages long. The feedback thread for U35 combat changes was 39 pages long.

In contrast, the feedback thread for the recent Vengeance Campaign test is 10 pages long. And currently, we're at 7 pages for subclassing.

For better or worse, there's no way subclassing could cause the same level of negative impact that either U33 or U35 did. But I fear it's more because so many people have left or given up testing because of what happened with U33 and U35 and the lack of adjustments or even acknowledgement of the large amount of feedback provided by the community throughout that process. Imo there's no question subclassing will drastically change combat, balance, and the overall play experience in all areas of ESO, and I would expect a change like this to generate a feedback thread to rival or exceed U33/U35 feedback lengths. Now, to be fair, we're not all the way through the PTS cycle, but still.

I predict that subclassing will provide ZOS with an uptick of returning players, and an uptick of playtime for current players, but I think it will be temporary and that there will be long term unintended consequences, which ultimately will be negative but few will completely understand why. Very similar to @Wereswan 's assessment.

A lot of the feedback about subclassing is also going into the Classes & Abilities thread since those changes are in response to the main feature, and that thread is 15 pages so far.

However, I don't think that page count is at all a reliable metric for determining how updates are received. All it really shows is where player interest lies at the time. An Elsweyr PTS thread talking about a single morph is sitting at 28 pages long, but I don't think anyone would say that that one change was two-thirds as bad as U35.

My interpretation of the declining density of feedback threads is that fewer people bother to voice their opinions anymore. I remember there being PTS cycles where most of the recent threads had multiple pages to read through. Right now only 5 have more than a single page. Most of them have single-digit responses.

Here is a snapshot of threads from 2018. Notice that the Warden feedback thread has about half the views and 40% more responses than the current Classes & Abilities feedback thread.

SaintJohnHM · May 5

Alpheu5 wrote: »

My interpretation of the declining density of feedback threads is that fewer people bother to voice their opinions anymore. I remember there being PTS cycles where most of the recent threads had multiple pages to read through. Right now only 5 have more than a single page. Most of them have single-digit responses.

Yep, I've been told to not bother giving feedback on the awful U46 multiclassing debacle, and now I can see why. ZOS really doesn't care about our feedback.

Dark_Lord_Kuro · May 8

An awefull idea implemented in an awfull way...what did you expect. I t woulnt be so bad if they simply allowed the powerboost but they are nerfing pure class character to push that trash new system.

YandereGirlfriend · May 8

Subclassing as an idea is largely cool. But it'll also likely take several more Updates to get sorted out.

Which is WAY different than U35 which was basically, "Hey guys, want some nerfs...".

ESO_Nightingale · May 8

In my opinion, subclassing is one of the best systems they've ever released. But its going to be really badly balanced on launch. But now that it's here it's exciting and has a lot of potential.

SaintJohnHM · May 9

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

In my opinion, subclassing is one of the best systems they've ever released. But its going to be really badly balanced on launch. But now that it's here it's exciting and has a lot of potential.

I'm glad you dig it, there are many of though who see that multiclassing has ruined pure classing and the power creep will make a lot of content not as challengingly fun. It's the worst update I've seen, their weekly patches show they don't really know how to fix the problems they've created, and they're not listening to our concerns.