Share Your Thoughts on ESO's Classes with Us

SneaK · September 26

Avoids relevant feedback.

Sorry ZOS but the info you’re looking for is everywhere except the survey.

Here’s a dumbed down summary you won’t read:

Subclassing kills class identity.

Certain class skill lines are far beyond others, and then Arc is farther beyond that for PvE.

Hybridization needs to be fixed or go away.

Stop with paywalls, Monomyth/Arc are great examples of what feels like pay to win. It’s shameful.

PvP is in a constant broken state because of balance but also needs events or something to get new player engagement. The vets aren’t teaching noobs cause the thrill of the objective is gone. Zone chat is dead cause no one cares about winning/losing. Which oddly enough would probably tie back in to subclassing and class identities. Why grind a GO Arc when you already have a GO Sorc that can just slot the desired skill line from them.

spartaxoxo · September 26

One thing that I don't see in this poll, and that I'm fearful of, is class ability to handle different DPS situations. In particular, I am worried that you're going to come to the wrong conclusion about beam and then we'll go back to not being able to find trials groups as the vast majority of players go back to being excluded from content. This has happened before when a bunch of top players complained about heavy attack builds constantly, got them nerfed, and then participation cratered until people got comfortable with Arcanist. The majority of your play base does not enjoy sweaty weaving rotations and would rather stop doing trials content than do that. This is why eveytime an alternative becomes viable, people flock to it. Then it gets nerfed to the ground and people quit until the next time the content becomes actually accessible again. I hope we can avoid that happening again.

Most classes cannot adequately handle situations where cleave damage is needed. You gutted cleave with Update 35. You later gutted heavy attack build variety, including the lightning staffs cleave.

Yet, a lot of newer content requires heavy cleave damage.

So people slot fatecarver because it's easier than trying to use those other skills that are low damage and high cost. Stuff like liquid lightning and jabs cannot compare to fatecarver not just because that skill is strong (although it probably is still a little too strong) but because of the extreme nerfs to AOE damage.

Other AOE skills feel awful to use and they felt awful to use even before the Arcanist was introduced. A lot of people quit this game over the AOE rework before that class came into the picture.

Other class skill lines need to be brought up to a standard people want to use. They need options that will feel good to use in fights. Because regardless if they are doing what you want on some spreadsheet, they feel completely awful and tons of players dislike using them.

StihlReign · September 26

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Most classes cannot adequately handle situations where cleave damage is needed. You gutted cleave with Update 35. You later gutted heavy attack build variety, including the lightning staffs cleave.

Yet, a lot of newer content requires heavy cleave damage.

So people slot fatecarver because it's easier than trying to use those other skills that are low damage and high cost.

We need a better combat team if the solution is to focus all of this damage into one class and skill. Someone is clearly doing a poor job designing NPCs, item sets, and player skills.

Leighlaa · September 26

Thank you for this survey. I really needed a place where I could share just what the subclassing has done to classes. I feel, personally, that it has ruined my game. I feel like I no longer want to even play ESO because of subclassing. Classes do not feel special. I have played since closed beta. I LOVED my dragonknight. THEN I fell in love with templar. Through the years I fell in love with each class for the things that made it special. I have 20 characters on my first account, all different builds and classes and feels and vibes. Now? I feel like I can't play ANY of them in content and keep up with people. SURE. I can DO all the content- but there is some new BiS I feel I have to reach for. There is some new silly build I have to do because I don't NEED all 3 of MY skill lines because TIMMY is running my 3rd skill line so I don't need it. You've made what is special, redundant. You've made everyone have to be everything at once.

That being said, I'm 100% aware this is MY opinion and others are LOVING subclassing. Plenty of guild members and my husband have offered to level up my skill lines in brp or give me new builds. That's great and fine and wonderful and all that, but like... I no longer feel like it is MY game and that I have the ability to play it MYSELF. You've made this game too sweaty for me.

I find myself in cozy mmos that aren't ESO a lot more than ESO anymore and that saddens me more than I can say.

Varana · September 26

Agreeing with all the others that the survey is strangely fallen out of time with it barely mentioning multiclassing* at all.
That severely diminishes its usefulness.

"Can I play [class] as [role]?" - Well, who really cares, you can multiclass. I have characters where I really struggle to place a single ability of their original class on my bar. Does that still count as "playing that class"? I can play my Sorc as a damage dealer, I just need to slot Arcanist, Nightblade, Weapon, and Guild abilities...

---

Second point: Please give me the ability to change language. The survey defaults to German for me, and I didn't find an option to change that. I play the game in English, and don't use the German terminology. I could identify most terms, but it's a bit annoying. (I have no idea what "Vorstöße" in the overworld are supposed to be.)

Which also means you'll get a German-language survey with English in the open text boxes back. I hope that's fine.

---

* What you did is multiclassing, dammit.

Subclassing is something different.
At least it's consistent with the Arcanist beam not being Damage over Time, in that it's wrong.

rsciw · September 26

tinythinker wrote: »

Unlike adding a skill line from another class, a specialized skill line is more about doubling down on a core part of class identity. The active and passive skills (and unique appearance options) for a specialization would give some additional flavor but not radically alter or diminish class identity.

That's how sub-classing should've been done and not this multi-class crud sold as sub-class...

tomofhyrule · September 26

menedhyn wrote: »

AcadianPaladin wrote:

I have always wished ESO would move away from classes

This.

AcadianPaladin wrote:

Adding additional skill lines instead of additional classes would be welcome

Very much this.

I completely disagree, actually.

With Subclassing, each Class is a series of skill lines you can pick and choose at will. You only have a limited number of skill slots in the first place, so more skill lines in isolation essentially just means more skills that are never used in anyone's build. The thing here is that players do still need to make some decisions as to giving up certain lines in order to take others.

I realize what people want are "all passives all the time," and that's actually a bad thing. ESO is not Skyrim. With other people around, you have to worry about balance, and that's actually the major frustration lately is the fact that people are stacking passives and ending up with such a difference between the meta builds and the 'for fun' builds. Solo RPGs like Skyrim can allow players to be as unbalanced as they wish because one player's gameplay doesn't affect another's. But when other people are around, then balance does need to be considered (and as we see right now, poor balance does drive people away).

ESO is a game in the Elder Scrolls series, but it is not a solo RPG like the others. As such, it necessarily does need to have a few different mechanics to account for that fact. Trying to turn ESO into TES6 (which it's not) may sound fun to people who only want to play solo RPGs in Tamriel, but will only lead to problems down the line.

MMOs and Live Service games need players to keep interacting with them in order to survive. Look at the difference between Morrowind and Legends for example - one is a 23-year old game that you can still pop into an old computer and boot up whenever you want, and the other is a game that was literally killed off after existing only 8 years and is no longer playable without a time machine. Why? One was a live service game and required server space, but since it was no longer profitable it was deleted from the world.

ESO depends on servers. If Microsoft decides one day that there are not enough players and ESO is no longer profitable, it'll go the way of Legends. It's in ESO's best interest, therefore, to keep giving people a reason to log back in for some reason. And that means grinding (bad) or replayability on alts (good).

Let's also consider Skyrim, which is the typical "I can have all the skills I want!" game. How many people play Skyrim intending to make a character with a certain set of skills... and then end up with a stealth archer by the time they finish Bleak Falls Barrow? That's the problem with an utterly open-skill setup is that it naturally feeds into everyone building the same character every single time. That means that when you finish your Skyrim playthrough, you don't really have that itch to go back and say "but what if I did it as an [X]?" since you always end up only playing one way. Contrast to something like Baldur's Gate 3, which has a Class system (and an incredibly branching story), and now there are so many people who want to try so many different builds because you can't do everything at once.

Inspiring people to make new characters and replay content is a good thing. But, as a lot of players are reporting, even Subclassing as it is currently has made people only care about one single character, and the rest have never been logged into in ages since they're all the same. It gets boring... and then they start to leave.

Another thing for ESO - yes, I get that a lot of people hate seeing others in the game, but that's also a way to keep the game alive. If someone is playing exclusively solo (which is totally possible in ESO unlike most other MMOs), then there's really nothing holding them into the game and they can come and go as they please. Players who compete or cooperate with others are the ones keeping the game alive, since then there's a social pressure to continue returning to the game since you have social connections in the game, which is a safety net to keep it active.

Again, I would support a freer version where there were no restrictions on needing to keep an original line or disallowing taking multiple lines of the same parent Class, at which point this completely becomes "pick any three Class lines" for those who want it... but stays Classes for those who want that version. I just don't understand why some people are so adamant about getting a version of "take any three lines" that removes things from people who do like the current system.

So my question is: what benefit would you get from "no classes" that you wouldn't get from "Subclassing without limits" in the first place? Especially considering that the Class system is pretty well their only handle for balance (which admittedly they need to focus on doing right now).

Gabriel_H · September 26

Wait, there are classes in ESO? I thought it was only one class per role? A Dragonden for tanking, a Warplarblade for healing and a Arctempknight for DD. Huh, who knew?!

Ingenon · September 26

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Let's also consider Skyrim, which is the typical "I can have all the skills I want!" game. How many people play Skyrim intending to make a character with a certain set of skills... and then end up with a stealth archer by the time they finish Bleak Falls Barrow?

Off topic, sorry. But my favorite for Bethesda games (either Fallout or Elder Scrolls) is a two handed wielding stealth character. Like the Fallout 4 Rockville Slugger. I enjoy sneaking up on the big bad and sending them flying. I would be so happy if ZOS added a mythic two handed weapon that had a chance of sending an enemy flying on a sneak attack. Play as you want, right?

Lysorris · September 26

There is a lot of feed back that was posted on forums and reddit that Devs could refer to. Which usually is way more in depth. I was open minded when coming into this survey, but the questions were very bare bones. If this is just a "first step" and in coming weeks we can see more dialogue/surveys etc - sure, I am okay with that. But if this survey really wanted to gather feedback on classes, subclassing and generally then it my eyes it is a fail.

tomofhyrule · September 26

Ingenon wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Let's also consider Skyrim, which is the typical "I can have all the skills I want!" game. How many people play Skyrim intending to make a character with a certain set of skills... and then end up with a stealth archer by the time they finish Bleak Falls Barrow?

Off topic, sorry. But my favorite for Bethesda games (either Fallout or Elder Scrolls) is a two handed wielding stealth character. Like the Fallout 4 Rockville Slugger. I enjoy sneaking up on the big bad and sending them flying. I would be so happy if ZOS added a mythic two handed weapon that had a chance of sending an enemy flying on a sneak attack. Play as you want, right?

This is absolutely a thing and it's glorious.

I love the Knockback Script. Totally useless in most content, but the unbridled joy I get from using it is palpable. I have it right now on a bunch of my characters' builds just for fun. And if I get a new Class, I already have a plan to give him the 2H knockback above since his design is to be one of those bruiser types with a 2H.

My absolute favorite is that I have it on Shield Toss on my main for my overland screw-around build. The first time I did this and managed to thunk some enemy off the edge, I definitely spend 5 minutes just laughing. Scribing has been wonderful for making builds fun.

Krayl · September 26

A survey/poll doesn't seem like a very useful way to go about this. Your player base is so diverse with so many different expectations that I feel like a lot of these responses are going to cancel each other out and not be super useful data to feed into your spreadsheet machine.

It's unfortunate that ZOS has had such a rocky relationship with it's content creators. That lack of communication has driven away a lot of useful and free feedback for you guys. I'm not assigning any blame, except to say that your work with the community hasn't always been handled well from an outside perspective and you've driven away some useful minds that could have contributed to this discussion in very constructive ways.

What this game really needs is some stability, structure, and most of all a commitment to actually FINISHING a plan. I've been playing since PC beta and I have trauma and whiplash form how this game has changed over the years. Everything about it seems ephemeral and quite frankly that in turn makes my commitment to the game largely as ephemeral.

To be honest this just sounds like more incoming whiplash.

salander7 · September 26

Given how I think we should try to stay positive: it's great that you attempt getting feedback. It's definitely better than some responses given in the recent Reddit AUA.

That's all the nice things I have to say, sadly.
First, please, do not throw the data it into a couple LLMs and make up a PowerBI presentation with whatever they regurgitate. Because LLMs are not reliable when it comes to extracting criticism, but mostly because the graded questions are terribly stated, and the survey is flawed because how it misses to consider the current situation with subclassing and class identity.
I will speak only from a group PvE point of view, because this will get too extense otherwise.

You can't even value the current state of any pure-class in any role without comparing it to subclassed alternatives.
For example, arcanist pure class dd is an 8 or 9, compared to other pure class dd. When you compare it to the best subclassed options, it won't even reach a 5. Which one of the answers did you intend to get?

Another example is the "X class is useful for subclassing" question. All classes can get a "Strongly Agree" grade or "Agree" at least. Warden's Winter's or Green Balance are arguably unmissable in high end content. However, Animal Companions is the weakest DD oriented skill line.
However, Warden is great compared to Nightblade, where Assassination and Siphoning are even more prevalent than the two "good" ones from Warden, but Shadow is in such a terrible state that it'll never be picked if one wants some competitive performance from it. Which class fares better, the one that has two regularly picked but one underpowred one, or the one that has two of the best, but a last useless one?

The class identity right now is reduced to being stuck with a skill line from that class, class mastery script and two class sets, which at least in pve are not competitive in a huge majority. That changes the last example:
Is a Dragonknight a better base char than Nightblade for a DD, if you're picking both Ardent Flame and Assassination (two among the best). It definitely is, since class mastery is way better.
However, Ardent is not always picked, Earthen Heart is only used by some tanks, and Draconic Power is not competitive at all, even when having 2 good skills for tanks, and 2 good skills for DDs. However, which class fares better? The one you may pick as a main class, or the one you'll likely always have, but avoid picking as main if you're looking at class mastery.

I could keep going on, but I hope you get the gist. You may as well understand "Assassination is to blame that Animal Companions is mediocre, let's nerf it", but that's not it, it got nerfed last patch, and unless you want to make it as bad as the rarely picked ones, that's not the answer.

The tricky thing with feedback is that if you ask for input, but people feel the questions are skewed and their feedback is misunderstood, they'll stop answering, because it doesn't make a difference. Not saying both have happened, but as many people said, the idea of getting feedback is great, but this attempt, aka the survey, is not worth of much praise.

As a last thing, quantity is not quality. There's certain players that have publicly proven their game knowledge for many years and are a rightfully undoubted reference in the community. Their feedback will likely be more accurate and valuable than that of a random player. They've offered giving input many times privately to different important people in ZoS, being often dismissed. I'm not saying their opinions are everything, but they'll give data that will be cheaper to collect, easier to process and clearer to understand, and a greater general feeling of community feedback actually mattering.

Destai · September 26

I took the survey and added some feedback. The questions are too simplistic in this survey and I'm not sure what information you're actually trying to capture. Most of the details have been expressed here, and in more detail. Is it just too hard to aggregate that data and a survey is better? I'm trying to understand what issues this is supposed to address.

Classes need to be analyzed in different contexts - overland/questing, pvp, dungeons, end-game, IA. They also need to analyzed in how they're used in subclassing. Obviously there's a ton of metrics showing that Herald of the Tome is being used in most top performing builds.

I would rather have a matrix for providing feedback per skill and passive per game mode and per role. Even it's just providing a number value to how strong a skill is in a given game mode, it's better than this "disagree/agree" methodology. That doesn't measure anything. For a company so focused on data, it's bit surprising to see this.

Krayl wrote: »

It's unfortunate that ZOS has had such a rocky relationship with it's content creators. That lack of communication has driven away a lot of useful and free feedback for you guys. I'm not assigning any blame, except to say that your work with the community hasn't always been handled well from an outside perspective and you've driven away some useful minds that could have contributed to this discussion in very constructive ways.

I'm actually watching SkinnyCheek's video on U47 Warden feedback, and there's such a wealth of ideas there. He made some good points about how most skill lines have superfluous morphs where the skill could be condensed. So like Green Balance has a bunch of morphs never used that could be repurposed to be a damage-dealing morph. I'll never understand why they didn't hire him. He's so strong.

Four_Fingers · September 26

I just want to know why Arcanist seems to be the strongest class in Vengeance mode, more so than the other classes.
edit: Just took my Arc into vengeance to see why, wow I cannot believe the arc vengeance skills are twice as strong as my Templar vengeance skills especially shields and healing. smh

alpha_synuclein · September 26

How to avoid any meaningful feedback in 3 simple steps:

1. Ask questions about esthetics while ignoring balance:
There is a clear design inspiration behind the ..... class.
The ..... class skill lines match the class theme.
The ..... class has a unique appearance (e.g., visuals, animation, sound).
The ..... class has opportunities to form a unique playstyle, distinct from other classes.
The ..... class abilities and passives match the class theme.

(Yes, classes are somewhat esthetically coherent. No, this is not the problem.)

2. Ask subjective/biased questions while ignoring balance:
There are ways to work around your weaknesses and enhance the strengths that the ..... class offers.
I have the tools to play ..... as a tank.
I have the tools to play ..... as a healer.
I have the tools to play ..... as a DPS.

(Yes, there are workarounds for everything, but we wouldn't need them if the classes were working well.
And yes, I theoretically have the tools to play any class as any role, but the fact that I could use a hammer to mash my potatoes doesn't mean I want to....)

3. Ask about a controversial update, but include a question that'll allow you to conclude that everything is fine (while ignoring balance

)
The ..... has abilities and passives within its skill lines that are effective while subclassed.
How effective is the ..... class at tanking without subclassing?
How effective is the ..... class as a healer without subclassing?
How effective is the ..... class as a damage dealer without subclasing?

(The fact that most classes have one skill line that can be useful for one of the roles doesn't mean we're not deep in .... ya know.)

Actually useful parts:

In your opinion, the ..... class is best at...?
Tanking
Damage dealing
Healing
Something else (e.g., open world PvP, small scale PvP, exploration, questing, etc.)

BUT 1:"Something else" screams for a option for specification. Questing and PVP are not exactly comparable activities.

Are there any ..... abilities that you would never want to change?
Are there ..... abilities that you would like to see rethought or reworked?
Do you have any other feedback on the ..... class that you'd like to share?

BUT 2: Since the responses from this part cannot be easily gathered and presented in a tidy graph, I kinda doubt It will even be read. And it really should.

TL;DR: For the love of Vivek, NERF FATECARVER.

acastanza_ESO · September 26

Radiate77 wrote: »

Aedric Spear passives are wayyy too overloaded, Sun Shield sounds like it belongs in Dawn’s Wrath with all of the other sun skills that for some reason do not do Flame Damage, even though the sun is a ball of fire.

Small fact check, in the Elder Scrolls universe the Sun is not, in fact, a ball of fire. It is a hole in reality caused by Magnus fleeing creation that allows the magicka of Aetherius to pour into the Mundus.

Radiate77 · September 26

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Aedric Spear passives are wayyy too overloaded, Sun Shield sounds like it belongs in Dawn’s Wrath with all of the other sun skills that for some reason do not do Flame Damage, even though the sun is a ball of fire.

Small fact check, in the Elder Scrolls universe the Sun is not, in fact, a ball of fire. It is a hole in reality caused by Magnus fleeing creation that allows the magicka of Aetherius to pour into the Mundus.

The races don’t tan in Nirn?
Oops. 😂

acastanza_ESO · September 26

Radiate77 wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Aedric Spear passives are wayyy too overloaded, Sun Shield sounds like it belongs in Dawn’s Wrath with all of the other sun skills that for some reason do not do Flame Damage, even though the sun is a ball of fire.

Small fact check, in the Elder Scrolls universe the Sun is not, in fact, a ball of fire. It is a hole in reality caused by Magnus fleeing creation that allows the magicka of Aetherius to pour into the Mundus.

The races don’t tan in Nirn?

This is getting wildly off topic, but, what, precisely, does tanning have to do with fire, at all? (Nothing)

Radiate77 · September 26

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Aedric Spear passives are wayyy too overloaded, Sun Shield sounds like it belongs in Dawn’s Wrath with all of the other sun skills that for some reason do not do Flame Damage, even though the sun is a ball of fire.

Small fact check, in the Elder Scrolls universe the Sun is not, in fact, a ball of fire. It is a hole in reality caused by Magnus fleeing creation that allows the magicka of Aetherius to pour into the Mundus.

The races don’t tan in Nirn?

This is getting wildly off topic, but, what, precisely, does tanning have to do with fire, at all? (Nothing)

Brother, you changed the topic, what?
Fact checked it and you’re right about the tanning, but heat radiates from the sun in Nirn.

So the premise may be correct that it’s not a ball of fire, but it has the same impact, there are several conversations about how hot Alik’r is with the NPCs in the region.

mdjessup4906 · September 26

For dps:
I love arc.
Id love necro if it weren't so janky to play.
I want to love sorc but streak and hurricane, and atro I guess, are the only thing good about it. Heal bird is nice but takes up more slots than just putting on vigor.
I like nb aesthetics but its so hard to play well.
I fuching hate everything else. Though templar execute is dang nice where it can be used.

acastanza_ESO · September 26

Radiate77 wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Aedric Spear passives are wayyy too overloaded, Sun Shield sounds like it belongs in Dawn’s Wrath with all of the other sun skills that for some reason do not do Flame Damage, even though the sun is a ball of fire.

Small fact check, in the Elder Scrolls universe the Sun is not, in fact, a ball of fire. It is a hole in reality caused by Magnus fleeing creation that allows the magicka of Aetherius to pour into the Mundus.

The races don’t tan in Nirn?

This is getting wildly off topic, but, what, precisely, does tanning have to do with fire, at all? (Nothing)

Brother, you changed the topic, what?
Fact checked it and you’re right about the tanning, but heat radiates from the sun in Nirn.

So the premise may be correct that it’s not a ball of fire, but it has the same impact, there are several conversations about how hot Alik’r is with the NPCs in the region.

You made a claim to support a mechanical change to the game; Dawn's Wrath skills should be fire damage because the sun is a ball of fire. I made a lore based refutation of the premise; they should, in fact, be magic damage, because the "sun" is not a ball of fire in Elder Scrolls. This was, at this point, on-topic. The "what about tanning" and the response, is now deviating off-topic. "But what about how Alik’r is hot", is also off topic.

mdjessup4906 · September 26

For subclassing dps:
Dk meh its the best but I dont like having to use it. For dumb rp reasons but still.
Nb soul harvest

but now I may have to switch to aedric, blegh.
Still love my arc shield beam go brrr. Wish I could use runeblades build without having to respec though.
Rest same as above.

mdjessup4906 · September 26

salander7 wrote: »

Given how I think we should try to stay positive: it's great that you attempt getting feedback. It's definitely better than some responses given in the recent Reddit AUA.

That's all the nice things I have to say, sadly.
First, please, do not throw the data it into a couple LLMs and make up a PowerBI presentation with whatever they regurgitate. Because LLMs are not reliable when it comes to extracting criticism, but mostly because the graded questions are terribly stated, and the survey is flawed because how it misses to consider the current situation with subclassing and class identity.
I will speak only from a group PvE point of view, because this will get too extense otherwise.

You can't even value the current state of any pure-class in any role without comparing it to subclassed alternatives.
For example, arcanist pure class dd is an 8 or 9, compared to other pure class dd. When you compare it to the best subclassed options, it won't even reach a 5. Which one of the answers did you intend to get?

Another example is the "X class is useful for subclassing" question. All classes can get a "Strongly Agree" grade or "Agree" at least. Warden's Winter's or Green Balance are arguably unmissable in high end content. However, Animal Companions is the weakest DD oriented skill line.
However, Warden is great compared to Nightblade, where Assassination and Siphoning are even more prevalent than the two "good" ones from Warden, but Shadow is in such a terrible state that it'll never be picked if one wants some competitive performance from it. Which class fares better, the one that has two regularly picked but one underpowred one, or the one that has two of the best, but a last useless one?

The class identity right now is reduced to being stuck with a skill line from that class, class mastery script and two class sets, which at least in pve are not competitive in a huge majority. That changes the last example:
Is a Dragonknight a better base char than Nightblade for a DD, if you're picking both Ardent Flame and Assassination (two among the best). It definitely is, since class mastery is way better.
However, Ardent is not always picked, Earthen Heart is only used by some tanks, and Draconic Power is not competitive at all, even when having 2 good skills for tanks, and 2 good skills for DDs. However, which class fares better? The one you may pick as a main class, or the one you'll likely always have, but avoid picking as main if you're looking at class mastery.

I could keep going on, but I hope you get the gist. You may as well understand "Assassination is to blame that Animal Companions is mediocre, let's nerf it", but that's not it, it got nerfed last patch, and unless you want to make it as bad as the rarely picked ones, that's not the answer.

The tricky thing with feedback is that if you ask for input, but people feel the questions are skewed and their feedback is misunderstood, they'll stop answering, because it doesn't make a difference. Not saying both have happened, but as many people said, the idea of getting feedback is great, but this attempt, aka the survey, is not worth of much praise.

As a last thing, quantity is not quality. There's certain players that have publicly proven their game knowledge for many years and are a rightfully undoubted reference in the community. Their feedback will likely be more accurate and valuable than that of a random player. They've offered giving input many times privately to different important people in ZoS, being often dismissed. I'm not saying their opinions are everything, but they'll give data that will be cheaper to collect, easier to process and clearer to understand, and a greater general feeling of community feedback actually mattering.

I regret that I can only give 1 up vote.
Forum needs pins so devs actually see this.
Not that it would matter, especially if some suit is the one really hamstringing them. Or certain leads perhsps *cough*

Radiate77 · September 26

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Aedric Spear passives are wayyy too overloaded, Sun Shield sounds like it belongs in Dawn’s Wrath with all of the other sun skills that for some reason do not do Flame Damage, even though the sun is a ball of fire.

Small fact check, in the Elder Scrolls universe the Sun is not, in fact, a ball of fire. It is a hole in reality caused by Magnus fleeing creation that allows the magicka of Aetherius to pour into the Mundus.

The races don’t tan in Nirn?

This is getting wildly off topic, but, what, precisely, does tanning have to do with fire, at all? (Nothing)

Brother, you changed the topic, what?
Fact checked it and you’re right about the tanning, but heat radiates from the sun in Nirn.

So the premise may be correct that it’s not a ball of fire, but it has the same impact, there are several conversations about how hot Alik’r is with the NPCs in the region.

You made a claim to support a mechanical change to the game; Dawn's Wrath skills should be fire damage because the sun is a ball of fire. I made a lore based refutation of the premise; they should, in fact, be magic damage, because the "sun" is not a ball of fire in Elder Scrolls. This was, at this point, on-topic. The "what about tanning" and the response, is now deviating off-topic. "But what about how Alik’r is hot", is also off topic.

You’re right I shouldn’t have tried to be respectful to you while I was scattered at work and should have provided a more thoughtful response to your correction.

And my apologies for assuming someone who speaks so eloquently about their perceived problems with Sorcerer could deduce that sand stores energy AKA heat, from the sun, or in the case of ESO… Alik’r Desert absorbing heat from the “Magnus hole” that the game universally refers to as the sun, it is also why the desert is then becomes cold when the moons are out.

Estin · September 26

The Disagree/Neutral/Agree questions were kind of generic and doesn't help much for providing feedback, especially if you don't do specific roles on a class like tank or heal, but I felt like the 3 text boxes at the end were more than enough to provide feedback about each individual class. I did 5 classes and I wrote a lot about what shouldn't change, what should change, and general feedback about the class through the lens of pure class dd and pvp only. I'm surprised that this type of survey came out because I've never seen one like this before, and judging how between here and the subreddit having a large majority of negative comments regarding subclassing, I'm hoping ZOS takes the hint and reworks it entirely so pure classes are no longer obsolete in content where it matters.

Krayl · September 26

So I keep trying to reply to this post with something constructive but really it feels like it would be wasted time. Your players shouldn't have to do your jobs for you. Good lord, can you imagine how many people would LOVE to be employed by your company solving this problem?

Fact of the matter is that you unleashed subclassing into the wild seemingly without any foresight into the fact that some broken builds would push right past power creep into power explosion and the only way to put it back now is to nerf basically all your players. No amount of class identity discussion can be had without addressing the elephant in the room that taking power away from your players feels bad.

What you're really asking us to do is tell you what we'd be happy with settling for when you should have asked us what we wanted a long time ago.

Someone needs to manage you better. I think ya'll just restructured. Maybe that will help.

Finedaible · September 26

Krayl wrote: »

A survey/poll doesn't seem like a very useful way to go about this. Your player base is so diverse with so many different expectations that I feel like a lot of these responses are going to cancel each other out and not be super useful data to feed into your spreadsheet machine.

It's unfortunate that ZOS has had such a rocky relationship with it's content creators. That lack of communication has driven away a lot of useful and free feedback for you guys. I'm not assigning any blame, except to say that your work with the community hasn't always been handled well from an outside perspective and you've driven away some useful minds that could have contributed to this discussion in very constructive ways.

What this game really needs is some stability, structure, and most of all a commitment to actually FINISHING a plan. I've been playing since PC beta and I have trauma and whiplash form how this game has changed over the years. Everything about it seems ephemeral and quite frankly that in turn makes my commitment to the game largely as ephemeral.

To be honest this just sounds like more incoming whiplash.

I'll echo this commenter. Lately it feels like ZoS has been trying to preemptively understand what the community wants instead of having a more frank, and direct communication with ESO's player base that should have been the norm since beta.

Those in charge of ESO's direction in the past have always had the bad habit of thinking they have this new marvelous, ingenious spin on an idea that turns out to be inherently more cumbersome than whatever the competition has already doing; Only then to realize halfway through implementing it that they can't finish it because of some arbitrarily, self-imposed restrictions which we only ever hear about through some corporate-speak comments at the end of every year. Warframe may have a balance problem right now, but the amount of communication that Digital Extremes has with its player base is honestly leagues beyond what I have ever seen with Zenimax, and I think they could take notes from how they engage with their community over there.

Kalle_Demos · September 26

Just adding my 2c that will ultimately be ignored as usual but to echo what a few others have already posted; I find it interesting that there is a survey on Classes all of a sudden when, thanks to sub-classing if we're still calling it that, Classes in ESO are effectively dead. Poached out of existence, just like the Bosmer. With predictable negative consequences to the overall environment. So...Feedback collected. Months pass. Then what?

MafiaCat115 · September 26

While we're thinking about classes, it'd be a great time to get some answers about the weird ways class set auras work! Here's the thread with my questions, a year later and no word on it: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/664317/class-auras-working-as-intended-or-bugged#latest