Subclassing vs Pure class

sweatapodimas · June 23

Perhaps there should be a passive bonus to running a pure class, to balance it out. Everyone is running the exact builds right now, needs help. Otherwise skill-lines are going to be nerfed and pure classes dead completely.

Thoughts?

hoangdz · June 24

Sub-classing isn't problematic. It just highlights the power disparity between classes even more. NB, Sorc, Warden, and Templar are all being used in sub-class builds. These 4 classes were also top tier before U46.

The solution is to buff the underperforming classes (which they should have done) so that we don't have to choose from the same 4 classes to have an optimal build

MincMincMinc · June 25

hoangdz wrote: »

Sub-classing isn't problematic. It just highlights the power disparity between classes even more. NB, Sorc, Warden, and Templar are all being used in sub-class builds. These 4 classes were also top tier before U46.

The solution is to buff the underperforming classes (which they should have done) so that we don't have to choose from the same 4 classes to have an optimal build

Its not even just that, its people only choosing the highest damage skill lines. Subclassing just drastically divided the trinity of damage/heal/tank. Im sure pve saw the similar split in meta, where pvp saw 95% of people just slot the most efficient damage route. PvP just rarely has tanks or healers, but theory wise they both got much stronger. Damage wise in pvp there are two routes. Go assassination for critchance or go Aedric spear with acuity.

The underlying issue is how out of balance the stat system is.

Regen and sustain is basically free and too high. Which makes the capacity sustain aspect of max stats useless while letting people stack more efficient output stats.
Skill scaling and bonuses generally make 1 line of WD/SD worth 50% more than 1 line of Max stat. Furthering the above issue......Except generally 1 line of pen or %dmg will be worth another 40% more damage than WD/SD.
% sources of damage are too plentiful. Take passives for instance, in one I can get 100-200 WD vs another I can get 10% damage done. Keep in mind a 10% damage done output wise is worth closer to 800 WD. With so many % sources being available and strong, you start to undermine both WD/SD and Max stats.

Running the numbers as far as I can tell, the team at zos is only looking at the inputs and not the outputs. By the time you piece together builds certain inputs become useless or absurdly stronger. No wonder every PvP build runs the base max stam/mag and now even the base WD/SD...... Base sustain........Base health recovery.

Thumbless_Bot · June 25

You have to pull yourself out of the weeds, take a step back so to speak, and ask yourself why zos would do this.

It is either that they have given up on balancing classes so they give everyone everything so they cant complain that x is stronger than y because any class can run x. Not that they won't make changes to skills, but when something is broken they have less urgency to balance and or fix it because anyone can run the broken skill or skill lone.

Or that they are running out of ways to keep existing players playing the game so they are throwing everything they can at players to keep them engaged. I've been really enjoying subclassing, but this will lokely fade and we will be left with a game that barely resembles eso from 5 years ago. Whether that is good or bad is a matter of preference.

Not to get trapped in a false dichotomy, there may be other reasons, but these two seem the most likely to me.

MincMincMinc · June 25

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

You have to pull yourself out of the weeds, take a step back so to speak, and ask yourself why zos would do this.

It is either that they have given up on balancing classes so they give everyone everything so they cant complain that x is stronger than y because any class can run x. Not that they won't make changes to skills, but when something is broken they have less urgency to balance and or fix it because anyone can run the broken skill or skill lone.

Or that they are running out of ways to keep existing players playing the game so they are throwing everything they can at players to keep them engaged. I've been really enjoying subclassing, but this will lokely fade and we will be left with a game that barely resembles eso from 5 years ago. Whether that is good or bad is a matter of preference.

Not to get trapped in a false dichotomy, there may be other reasons, but these two seem the most likely to me.

My big question is why are they still grasping onto the oldschool thought process of needing multiple characters. They may keep more players in the game if they went fully to one character account wide everything. Many players leave because of how tedious daily eso CHORES are. Ive lost hundreds of guildies for the shear fact that they dont want to get home from school or work, make dinner, do house chores.....and then hop on a videogame and do more chores. The main gameplay loop should be around gameplay and combat instead of writs and daily 20x character login logout spam.

Subclassing took a step towards this one character account wide restructure, but then they tacked on the rules that you must have at least one from your original class and not two from the same other class. So now if you are playing around on a build it can be tedious to simply swap around some skills. Oh my 2x Sorc and 1x Warden wants to try another warden line....level, craft, undaunted, fighters guild, skyshards, public dungeons, wayshrines, etc.

Keep in mind the main oldschool mmo playerbase is getting older. Kids, 9-5 jobs, chores, groceries. While at the same time the younger instagram/fortnite generation doesn't want to sit down and spend 3 hours after school doing monotonous inventory chores before they can do basic gameplay.

Xorious · June 25

Back to the origional thread topic, Sub classing vs Pure class, before this gets derailed. I think his idea of retaining class identity by giving a passive bonus would be a step in the right direction. As it stands now things have to be viewed from the perspective of everyone has to have at least 1 skill line from their OC skills. Perhaps giving a passive of some sort for each additional skill line kept would be incentive enough to keep 2/3 or 3/3 of the OC skills. Maybe the passives could be unique to each class to help retain or give that since of class identity...

MincMincMinc · June 25

Xorious wrote: »

Back to the origional thread topic, Sub classing vs Pure class, before this gets derailed. I think his idea of retaining class identity by giving a passive bonus would be a step in the right direction. As it stands now things have to be viewed from the perspective of everyone has to have at least 1 skill line from their OC skills. Perhaps giving a passive of some sort for each additional skill line kept would be incentive enough to keep 2/3 or 3/3 of the OC skills. Maybe the passives could be unique to each class to help retain or give that since of class identity...

Yeah honestly not too bad of a thought. I would make it so any class can run any skill line. However to be able to use the last passive you must be of that class. You could also do this for the active skills. The problem is that the skill system is beyond saving at this point, hard to pick and choose balance wise....because they are so unbalanced.

Restructuring the skill lines would make alot of sense, but I assume they are holding off on a wide dev pass until the vengeance testing is resolved. No reason to put work into something that might have to change. Be nice to cut down the power creep. If every skill wasnt 5 effects maybe they could release more skill lines.

Just try to compare something like capacitor 280 regen to Piercing spear 12% crit damage and 12% damage to blocking enemies. (numerically 12% crit damage is basically worth ~700 regen)

sweatapodimas · June 26

Each class could have a signature master passive maybe? NB 10% damage out of stealth, Tmp channeling damage boost, DK penetration or mobility increase. warden/necro pet damage etc...

but a 10% damage boost would be the easiest.

Navaac223 · June 29

sweatapodimas wrote: »

Each class could have a signature master passive maybe? NB 10% damage out of stealth, Tmp channeling damage boost, DK penetration or mobility increase. warden/necro pet damage etc...

but a 10% damage boost would be the easiest.

Yes that would be the best option : that way, pure necro/templar/arc can have big bonuses while the other classes that already have many good skill lines don't get OP.

Look at nb : it already has everything you can ask for (sustain, damage, healing, brutality/savagery) and it only uses subclassing to get slightly better options. Give pure nb a 10% damage buff and it automatically becomes the best build in cyrodiil. It would be very disappointing to get back to a pre u41 meta

Solariken · June 29

ESO has never had "pure" classes. Classes have always been a hodgepodge of mismatched skill lines.

I don't think there should be any bonus for sticking to the default three lines. Quite the opposite in fact. It takes a lot of time, XP, and skill points to subclass so I think the benefits for doing so should remain.

Tariq9898 · July 1

Definitely need to give more incentive for pure classes. Especially for those who choose to stay pure but are punished for a feature they didn’t even ask for.

ZOS wants players to have absolute freedom? Give pure class just as much incentives as subclassing so that way there are multiple ways to compete and keep up with the group rather than just using the same skill lines.

A flat 10% damage buff could work.

Liukke · July 2

Solariken wrote: »

ESO has never had "pure" classes. Classes have always been a hodgepodge of mismatched skill lines.

I don't think there should be any bonus for sticking to the default three lines. Quite the opposite in fact. It takes a lot of time, XP, and skill points to subclass so I think the benefits for doing so should remain.

Sorry but what are you talking about?
I can level up a new subclass skill line in a day if I'm lazy and not nBRP-ing around. I have around 100-150 extra skill points, I'm buying skill lines for all roles on a single character so there's literally zero effort for me to get all the subclass benefits.

If anything, this highlights how older players get it easier, they can level up new lines and test new builds in a fraction of the time it would take a new player.

Back to the main topic, I'm honestly against buffing, with the inclusion of subclasses the average dps just skyrocketed and if we buff now pure classes the game becomes trivial.
Just look at the other post about making trifecta requirements harder...anyone has any idea why? Come on, it's easy to guess...

The only solution would be to make subclass skill LESS powerful, either only active or passive ones, or just the whole tree...it makes no sense to me that I can take an arcanist class and basically transform my character into a 100% usable arcanist. Aside from the innate class mastery you can copy 1:1 what an arcanist does since they use exclusively the herald of tome skills on a one bar setup.

That's what I find just stupid, it's like learning a new language and speak fluently as if nothing happened in a matter of hours.

But well, sadly ZoS opened the pandora's box so they'll definitely not nerf anything, they don't wanna lose the new kids they got by how trivial the game is now...

Sorry for the small rant here but come on, look at what they are doing...discussion about overland difficulty? PvP campaign which now IGNORES every set, skill, thing in the game...they've added so much crap that now the rest needs to be brought up to it, or in case of PvP you need to actively ignore all the benefits to play with "balanced" characters...the solution would be so easy if all these bonuses were NOT so strong

Raz415 · July 3

A passive bonus would be a lame and boring addition. I would rather have REAL subclasses, i.e. choosing a skill tree to specialize in and get bonuses while also doubling down on class identity. Pure classes get an enhanced skill tree, muliclassers get to cherry pick their skill lines. Balance-wise they should perform similarly.

ceruulean · July 6

Each skill line needs to follow to logic of having 1 damage passive, 1 sustain / defense passive, and 1 roleplay passive (like Templar resurrection speed, or draconic power health recovery). Right now the Herald of the Tome line has 4 damage passives. FOUR damage passives. Other classes only have 3 or 2.

propertyOfUndefined · July 7

Other CRPGs with multiclass mechanics usually call this a "capstone". And yeah... it's usually there as an incentive for staying pure.

Not a bad idea, imho...

MincMincMinc · July 8

propertyOfUndefined wrote: »

Other CRPGs with multiclass mechanics usually call this a "capstone". And yeah... it's usually there as an incentive for staying pure.

Not a bad idea, imho...

Yeah, but this is eso where you can play how you want. It just turns out most players want excessive power creep at every level to the point where people are just max capped on half of their stats. People want mounts to move so fast every staircase turns into a projectile physics example.

Peace_Walker · July 8

I agree. we really need some incentive for pure class, like a 10% boost to damage.

CameraBeardThePirate · July 8

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

You have to pull yourself out of the weeds, take a step back so to speak, and ask yourself why zos would do this.

It is either that they have given up on balancing classes so they give everyone everything so they cant complain that x is stronger than y because any class can run x. Not that they won't make changes to skills, but when something is broken they have less urgency to balance and or fix it because anyone can run the broken skill or skill lone.

Or that they are running out of ways to keep existing players playing the game so they are throwing everything they can at players to keep them engaged. I've been really enjoying subclassing, but this will lokely fade and we will be left with a game that barely resembles eso from 5 years ago. Whether that is good or bad is a matter of preference.

Not to get trapped in a false dichotomy, there may be other reasons, but these two seem the most likely to me.

My big question is why are they still grasping onto the oldschool thought process of needing multiple characters.

Because this is how MMOs keep players playing the game.

If they went to a model where everything was on one character, suddenly a large portion of their playerbase would no longer feel obligated to play as much as they do currently.

MMOs are time sinks. More characters = more time spent = more money earned. That's all there is to it.

Yes, there are people that hate their "chores" for each character, but the amount of people that actually quit for that reason are greatly outnumbered by the amount of people that spend time logging into their characters each day to do their chores.

MincMincMinc · July 8

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

You have to pull yourself out of the weeds, take a step back so to speak, and ask yourself why zos would do this.

It is either that they have given up on balancing classes so they give everyone everything so they cant complain that x is stronger than y because any class can run x. Not that they won't make changes to skills, but when something is broken they have less urgency to balance and or fix it because anyone can run the broken skill or skill lone.

Or that they are running out of ways to keep existing players playing the game so they are throwing everything they can at players to keep them engaged. I've been really enjoying subclassing, but this will lokely fade and we will be left with a game that barely resembles eso from 5 years ago. Whether that is good or bad is a matter of preference.

Not to get trapped in a false dichotomy, there may be other reasons, but these two seem the most likely to me.

My big question is why are they still grasping onto the oldschool thought process of needing multiple characters.

Because this is how MMOs keep players playing the game.

If they went to a model where everything was on one character, suddenly a large portion of their playerbase would no longer feel obligated to play as much as they do currently.

MMOs are time sinks. More characters = more time spent = more money earned. That's all there is to it.

Yes, there are people that hate their "chores" for each character, but the amount of people that actually quit for that reason are greatly outnumbered by the amount of people that spend time logging into their characters each day to do their chores.

Yeah, but they already started moving many things to account wide which is my point. Wasn't that the big pve achievement update 35 hooplah already? I thought they already took away the replayability for lategame pve. PvP itself with subclassing wouldnt really be affected, other than the QoL hassle of logging in and out and meta change niches.

The multicharacter model worked well in a growing mmo for replayability, where there really wasnt any. However ESO certainly has enough content for thousands or tens of thousands of hours. I just imagine they would be far more stable or make way more income making it easy for new players to stay in the game.

tomofhyrule · July 8

There’s also a massive difference between “we’re making it so you don’t need several characters anymore!” and “we’re making it impossible to enjoy having a roster of characters!” And unfortunately ZOS has been doing a fair amount of the latter.

I don’t take the “but chores” argument. It is someone’s choice to do writs on 20 characters a day (or to have Dolgubon’s do them for you). I personally can’t be bothered. I do enjoy the level-up procedure though, and am eagerly hoping that a new class will be coming sooner rather than later so I can see the world through all-new skills and not just the same skills but with a different character casting them.

Another big thing is that this is an RPG at heart, so there are two schools of thought: the “I am a player with a toolbox and I like that now I can have one all-purpose tool so I don’t need another,” or the “I am the overseer of a group of characters each with their own personalities and lives, and I hate that my characters are losing their individuality to become chimeras of each other.” Neither is wrong, but a lot of people who push for their way straight up pretends the other way is irrelevant.

Anyway, back to the topic, there should absolutely be some balance added. Of course a meta will exist, but the power creep added from Subclassing meant that one or two setups had an absurd amount more power than anything else, and (the part people like to forget about) supports got jailed even further with basically no choices in their builds. I can see a 5-10% difference from the meta and the average, but not a 50% difference like we have now.

I also don’t think I can agree with the “don’t nerf, just buff” stance. That definitely feels better, but rampant inflation is not a good thing. And this power surge definitely deserves nerfs to bring the top back into line.

MincMincMinc · July 8

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I also don’t think I can agree with the “don’t nerf, just buff” stance. That definitely feels better, but rampant inflation is not a good thing. And this power surge definitely deserves nerfs to bring the top back into line.

Yeah the people that call for power creep and are opposed to addressing it are wild. At a certain point it wont matter if people are just maxing out all of the stat sheet on every build.

I always give the example of movement speed. As a stat it has an actual calculated expected value. The original speed of your character was designed in a way to fit the world map sizes, physics engine, Skill ranges, and mechanics like gap closers or streak. Over the years with systems and changes people went from around 100-130% to sitting at 160-200% in combat. If I move fast enough that I need to worry about projectile motion off staircases in combat we have an issue.

CameraBeardThePirate · July 8

MincMincMinc wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

You have to pull yourself out of the weeds, take a step back so to speak, and ask yourself why zos would do this.

It is either that they have given up on balancing classes so they give everyone everything so they cant complain that x is stronger than y because any class can run x. Not that they won't make changes to skills, but when something is broken they have less urgency to balance and or fix it because anyone can run the broken skill or skill lone.

Or that they are running out of ways to keep existing players playing the game so they are throwing everything they can at players to keep them engaged. I've been really enjoying subclassing, but this will lokely fade and we will be left with a game that barely resembles eso from 5 years ago. Whether that is good or bad is a matter of preference.

Not to get trapped in a false dichotomy, there may be other reasons, but these two seem the most likely to me.

My big question is why are they still grasping onto the oldschool thought process of needing multiple characters.

Because this is how MMOs keep players playing the game.

If they went to a model where everything was on one character, suddenly a large portion of their playerbase would no longer feel obligated to play as much as they do currently.

MMOs are time sinks. More characters = more time spent = more money earned. That's all there is to it.

Yes, there are people that hate their "chores" for each character, but the amount of people that actually quit for that reason are greatly outnumbered by the amount of people that spend time logging into their characters each day to do their chores.

Yeah, but they already started moving many things to account wide which is my point. Wasn't that the big pve achievement update 35 hooplah already? I thought they already took away the replayability for lategame pve. PvP itself with subclassing wouldnt really be affected, other than the QoL hassle of logging in and out and meta change niches.

The multicharacter model worked well in a growing mmo for replayability, where there really wasnt any. However ESO certainly has enough content for thousands or tens of thousands of hours. I just imagine they would be far more stable or make way more income making it easy for new players to stay in the game.

It's not about replayability, or wanting to complete things on all characters as a player.

It's about needing to complete things on multiple characters to keep people playing the game.

Look at Scribing: You only need to do the full quest line once, so ZOS could've just as easily made scripts account wide as well. They didn't so that you have to play and farm the game on multiple characters. It forces you to spend more time in the game.

Yes, there are multiple things that have moved to being account wide, but keeping specific things character based forces players to sink more time into the game. It’s how MMOs work. "The chase" needs to exist in some way in order to keep players hooked.

MincMincMinc · July 8

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

You have to pull yourself out of the weeds, take a step back so to speak, and ask yourself why zos would do this.

It is either that they have given up on balancing classes so they give everyone everything so they cant complain that x is stronger than y because any class can run x. Not that they won't make changes to skills, but when something is broken they have less urgency to balance and or fix it because anyone can run the broken skill or skill lone.

Or that they are running out of ways to keep existing players playing the game so they are throwing everything they can at players to keep them engaged. I've been really enjoying subclassing, but this will lokely fade and we will be left with a game that barely resembles eso from 5 years ago. Whether that is good or bad is a matter of preference.

Not to get trapped in a false dichotomy, there may be other reasons, but these two seem the most likely to me.

My big question is why are they still grasping onto the oldschool thought process of needing multiple characters.

Because this is how MMOs keep players playing the game.

If they went to a model where everything was on one character, suddenly a large portion of their playerbase would no longer feel obligated to play as much as they do currently.

MMOs are time sinks. More characters = more time spent = more money earned. That's all there is to it.

Yes, there are people that hate their "chores" for each character, but the amount of people that actually quit for that reason are greatly outnumbered by the amount of people that spend time logging into their characters each day to do their chores.

Yeah, but they already started moving many things to account wide which is my point. Wasn't that the big pve achievement update 35 hooplah already? I thought they already took away the replayability for lategame pve. PvP itself with subclassing wouldnt really be affected, other than the QoL hassle of logging in and out and meta change niches.

The multicharacter model worked well in a growing mmo for replayability, where there really wasnt any. However ESO certainly has enough content for thousands or tens of thousands of hours. I just imagine they would be far more stable or make way more income making it easy for new players to stay in the game.

It's not about replayability, or wanting to complete things on all characters as a player.

It's about needing to complete things on multiple characters to keep people playing the game.

Look at Scribing: You only need to do the full quest line once, so ZOS could've just as easily made scripts account wide as well. They didn't so that you have to play and farm the game on multiple characters. It forces you to spend more time in the game.

Yes, there are multiple things that have moved to being account wide, but keeping specific things character based forces players to sink more time into the game. It’s how MMOs work. "The chase" needs to exist in some way in order to keep players hooked.

Oh yes I understand, im just pissed of dealing with the terrible QoL issues that come with the system after 10 years and having every character basically fully setup. For people at this stage it just seems a bit silly now I have 20 characters that all have access to the same stuff. So changing around one or two things on a build involves a goofy amount of management logging in and out repeatedly.