SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

redlink1979 wrote: »

Blackyack wrote: »

(...) Why even have classes? why have stats? why have gear? If we're all gonna wear the same stat, the same 4 sets, the same spells from the same 3 different lines...like what is going on? (...)

And just to add that, yet again, I’ve been seeing more old players returning, & players running about all through every zone (PSEU) but I’ve been told that my ‘anecdotal’ observations don’t count - whatever. 🤷🏻‍♀️

again, you can keep saying you see x y or z, but there are real metrics on this, and people left and continue to leave as evidenced by ACTUAL NUMBERS. So, yeah, your anecdotal reports do not count, and frankly, are ridiculous, this game is a ghost town.

I don't think the game's in a great place right now either, but it seems like... not worth it to get this worked up about it. It's clear that nothing's changing for another 4-5 months. And so far at least, we've been told nothing that should give unhappy players any hope for that patch either. Maybe better to take a break. That's a long time to be worked up.

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

redlink1979 wrote: »

Blackyack wrote: »

(...) Why even have classes? why have stats? why have gear? If we're all gonna wear the same stat, the same 4 sets, the same spells from the same 3 different lines...like what is going on? (...)

Unless you are going for trial trifectas, you really don’t have to use the meta. And as someone posted above, blame the raid leads for slavishly following the meta rather than opening their mind & being more adaptable. (And removing subclassing or whatever else you think is an issue won’t make a difference, as there always has been & always will be the meta. It just how it is. Apparently. Few dare to challenge it.)

yes, trial trifectas is in fact what I play the game for, mostly. I appreciate the challenge, effort, and coordination required to play this game at the highest level, as did the gajillion people who dont play anymore.

again, if you want to run around as an argonian vamp sorcden from apocrypha, that's totally you. Nice tail. has nothing to do with any lore ever in this game, but whatever. As I said from the get go, I'm not gonna "blame the raid lead" for anything about game design, that's not their job. their job is to coordinate successful runs, and at the trifecta level, they will use available tools. I cannot make that more clear. So, while I appreciate the "play how you want" mentality, it is not a practical reality at that level.

When you are putting yourself and your eleven digital besties up against the hardest stuff the game has to offer, there is a very real pride that comes with it. "Clean" "sloppy" "35/36" we all want good clean pulls, proper coordination, clean mech handling etc etc. its a challenging symphony, the coordination and skill, and that's what makes endgame so attractive. Making that endeavor monochromatic (GREEN) and totally overpowered no matter what class you start with is the absolute lamest. Like, how does manageing actual mechs with a constant free shield and heal that does great damage to boot even feel rewarding? Like I beam, mk? Boss die now, give loot plz. oh look, another trial with 8 stam and 8 beams.

Trials used to see competetive numbers from other classes and skills, and you had to do mechs to survive encounters. Metas always existed, but you could perform close enough with alot of classes that bringing a parse (x) that was perhaps second tier and killin it was a huge point of pride. That Z'en DK that just posted 2nd? what a legend. it offered real variety, and even encouraged it in the way of class specific buffs, and wanting a variety of classes for comps. But now, its just too good to have a couple NB base healers pumpin out ults and covering all the buffs, 8 DDs wearing beam...like come on. this is so dumb.

They've neutered the challenges, given everyone access to a silly toolkit that should not be in the first place, and called it variety. Of course the irony is that certain combinations are just coded waaaaay too strong, and have led to insane levels of homogeneity in the endgame community.

I'm going to continue to play this game, and shame on me for not putting my money where my mouth is, but I am very not happy about it.

Blackyack wrote: »

This game objectively sucks right now. I'm sure people will wanna chime in and white knight it, but numbers don't lie. Every major hub is a deadzone no matter when you log in, and at a cursory glance, steam logins haven't been this low since like 2017. I took 6 months off cause I got sick and tired of arcanist everything, and then you go and make literally everyone able to beam.

I'm not gonna blame the raid leads for wanting the best available option, I blame you, ZOS for making there be no other option. "Please have a beam build" is literally everywhere.
Beam sucks. Arcanist sucks. Subclassing sucks. You've made wildly overpowered kits available with no tuning on the other side, or at least, insufficient tuning. Who the hell wants to meta hump the same 8 DDs, pushing the same incredibly powerful, free shield beam that loops with a healing AOE flail? like...what the ***? its so, so boring. There aren't even enough people left to mount a non-beam raid. and before someone chimes in with 'play how you want' it's not just how I want, it's the literal hundreds of thousands of players who have given up on this formerly amazing game entirely.

Now the lore of a class is dead as well. Forget stam/mag hybridization, this is total hybridization. Why even have classes? why have stats? why have gear? If we're all gonna wear the same stat, the same 4 sets, the same spells from the same 3 different lines...like what is going on? did you intend 8 arc trials?

This game had the most flavor, the most cool, accessable gear systems, tons of variety, I felt like I could play it in so many different ways. Endgame was hard, and you earned it. PVP made some kind of sense, and was full of ***. now it makes no sense, and is full of ***. Yes I suck at pvp, and yes I (used to) love doing it.

I guess I'll do some writs or something. Maybe the jokes on us and Housing IS the real endgame.

But I'm not gonna wear a f@#%&ing safe space nuclear deathray beam like a b*$#% and then flail when I feel sick. God.

F#$%.

100% ZOS’s fault. I agree with every word you said!
This game has completely lost the “fun” part and turned into nothing more than a mess of frustration and toxicity.

Well by breaking the barrier that separated builds and now classes ZoS did open the floodgate to the one trick pony meta build to every class

Now that all tools are at your disposal the community would have inevitably gonna end up pushing the few meta one because the path of least resistance is the universal natural one

Causing a spike in powercreep by allowing to take the best skill lines from across every class for each role

While it killed build diversity further the real victim are the classes themselves, being X Y Z class is meaningless now outside saying you have at least 1 class specific skill line locked to the character out of 3

PDarkBHood wrote: »

Yeah, sounds like a potential rage quit. Dude you need more time off and a cookie. Beam me up Mr. Scott!!

A snickers maybe

Zos needs to pin this take the advice, swallow their pride and roll this *** back for good.

Suddwrath wrote: »

I still can't believe they called it "subclassing" when it is clearly multiclassing...

Subclassing would require actually making something new, unfortunately that didn’t align with their goals, apparently.
How cool actual subclassing would be though

There always will be a meta build. Having more ways to get there it should be a good thing, shouldn't it?

The issue with meta is two-sided, though: Raid groups blindly following the scriptures of the most exalted web site and banishing all blasphemers is only one part, the real issue begins when the meta makes content too easy according to some metric and the devs balance the difficulty accordingly, either by nerfing the classes/skill trees, or by making the content harder (and thus inaccessible for anyone ignoring the meta)

What's the alternative? Only 3 classes? Tank, Healer and Dps with a fixed weapon and skillset?

Artem_gig wrote: »

[snip] The only ones to blame are those who don't see anything but the meta and force others to use it, but I'll tell you a secret: TESO isn't about the meta. It's about the uniqueness of characters. And the more opportunities there are for diversity, the more likely it is that you'll find the most effective one. Are the developers to blame? No, because balance is impossible. [snip] The division into classes didn't allow you to be who you wanted to be. When will you understand what this game is about, stop aiming for the meta! Play for fun and collect what you want to be.

Consider this. In end game content, when a player needs to get a reasonable amount of power out of their character, if the most effective tactic available features a long range, high damage ability that also offers a large amount of survivability, how might ZOS develop that content? More ambient damage to challenge Fatecarver shields, more cleave demanding fights to buffer the beam's damage. And if ZOS keeps making content that is intended to be challenging, and this meta remains in place with this much of an advantage over all other builds, how might non-meta builds fair in those new pieces of content? If your build doesn't have that level of cleave, that level of innate survivability without sacrificing damage, how enjoyable is the content for you? The meta isn't just how players play the game, it's how ZOS designs the content, you can be casual in much of the game's content, but in the serious content this is very important, and those design decisions will trickle down to easier difficulties.
[edited to remove quote]

Artem_gig wrote: »

[snip] The only ones to blame are those who don't see anything but the meta and force others to use it, but I'll tell you a secret: TESO isn't about the meta. It's about the uniqueness of characters. And the more opportunities there are for diversity, the more likely it is that you'll find the most effective one. Are the developers to blame? No, because balance is impossible. [snip] The division into classes didn't allow you to be who you wanted to be. When will you understand what this game is about, stop aiming for the meta! Play for fun and collect what you want to be.

it WAS about the uniqueness of characters, and classes but that is simply not the case anymore. You're calling it an opportunity for diversity, I'm calling it an arms race to a single, wildly overpowered conclusion. Also, we definitly aren't talking about the same part of the game. "Choose the meta over their identity..."? are you serious? what identity? all the class lore? bunk. Balance is not impossible, it just clearly hasn't been a priority. We used to trial with almost all the classes involved, involved now, what's a class even?

You trial with 11 other people. I can't make decisions for them, they can play with whatever the game allows. MY complaint is that you can't ask a community that is pushing on the hardest content in game to just ignore powerful tools that are in game. If YOU want to make an orc sorcden who only eats stamfood and casts high cost magikka abilities while wearing a Dark seducer sword and board, go right ahead. But that is not the content I'm here to address. Stop telling me the rules of the game aren't significant and I can just do whatever I want. that's what YOU want. That's not what I want. If you don't want to find the limit of what the game provides, that's cool, you don't have to. But when we take away from all the players that are trying for trifectas and score, when we take real parameters and just throw them out the window and say 'just mash up all the most significantly powerful things we've ever offered in whatever way you see fit' I would say that is a seismic change in the fabric of the game, and truly deprives the endgame community of some of the challenges it came here for. Being able to just stand in bad and beam through it isn't good play, its ignoring mechs and just standing still. Did we think Arcanist was underpowered? just needed to give that little boost? it's insane.

"Hey guys, you know that class that was utterly dominating the scoreboards for a couple patches? we think it should be able to equip Assasination passives, you know for balance."

Be whoever you want to be, but stop saying I should give up the way I PLAY THE GAME to be you. I don't want that. Also, before multiclassing, I had never heard a single person mention it as something they thought the game really really needed. It's just throwing crap at a wall because you don't want to do creative hard work.
[edited to remove quote]

Artem_gig wrote: »

[snip] The only ones to blame are those who don't see anything but the meta and force others to use it, but I'll tell you a secret: TESO isn't about the meta. It's about the uniqueness of characters. And the more opportunities there are for diversity, the more likely it is that you'll find the most effective one. Are the developers to blame? No, because balance is impossible. [snip] The division into classes didn't allow you to be who you wanted to be. When will you understand what this game is about, stop aiming for the meta! Play for fun and collect what you want to be.

Out of curiosity, how much experience do you have for the "you can bring any build you want to high-level content and it'll be great!" idea? Particularly when thinking about "high-level content" as vRG HM and above?

Honestly, I don't feel like responding to same argument time and time again. Lemme just quote from a different thread:

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I’m over the “but but but you don’t have to play meta!” argument we see everywhere, even from the devs. It reeks of someone who doesn’t touch endgame content trying to explain endgame content to people who are very experienced in that.

The meta build is obscenely more powerful than anything else, full stop. If you are not bringing the meta, you are coming to your group admitting that you are playing in self-nerf mode and that you don’t care about them enough to contribute properly.

There is a difference between "perfect balance is impossible" (which is true) and "the balance is so bad that one single setup is easily 50% more effective than the second best" (which is currently also true). Are you implying that it's impossible to narrow that gap? And the Combat Team, since Subclassing dropped, has tried the following to balance the game:

• neuter DK sustain
• force Sorcs to use pets (partially reverted)
• disallow ultigen passives from stacking
• throw a single bone to Necros in U48

...that's about it. Are you suggesting that this is a sufficient amount of work done to balance the game because "lol it's impossible"

If the game wasn't made for people who play endgame, then why does it have endgame activities!?!?! The game is made for all of us. Balancing Subclassing would not have made your life any different, and you could still have picked and chosen whatever build you wanted. But the way it came out completely decimated endgame and started driving them off.

...I'm sure you don't care about the exodus of endgamers though. Because you think that ESO, like Skyrim, will always be there for you to solo with. So go ahead, try to play Legends right now and tell us how that goes.
Because ESO, like Legends, is a live-service server-based game, unlike the TES mainline games. That means once enough players leave and Microsoft decided it's unprofitable, that they'll pull the plug. I'm shocked to see the number of people who play ESO exclusively solo who celebrate endgamers getting fed up and leaving, because every person who leaves is one fewer thread keeping ESO active. It's like you're celebrating the very thing that'll kill what you love too.
[edited to remove quote]

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

.

I do, maybe you don't understand sarcasm? I didn't mean to say subjectively, because that wouldn't be nearly clownish enough for my taste. The oxymoronic nature of saying something "objectively sucks" is funny. Here, the author is somewhat echoing a type of vaguely toxic gamer culture hoping it helps convey the ridiculous nature of the subject matter. I cannot believe that we are having this conversation, both you and I in this forum, and also about this game at all.

its all too ridiculous.

kargen27 wrote: »

Blackyack wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

I decided to use an alternate character to level up some lines for subclassing. I picked one that hadn't done any public dungeon quests and then went around doing them. It is rare I go into a public dungeon and don't see at least a couple of other players running around.
Maybe population is down but I'm still seeing quite a few players when I'm out doing my thing. I'm still having fun and it seems so are quite a few other players.
Sorry you are not.

thanks for the sympathy, but your anecdotal evidence is spurious at best. population is way down, off preceding lows. Saying your still enjoying it is fine for you, but its also loaded if your trying to assess statistics and evidence. Of course the people remaining have stayed for their own reasons, and i would never try to take that from you, but you're not who i'm talking about at all. I'm talking about all the people that aren't here anymore, and some of the obvious reasons why.

I don't go into public dungeons for anything really, and while that's cool that is your challenge level, it's not mine, nor the literal legion of people who have left and are phasing out of this game. you can be happy with it, I am not. I've leveled all the lines I want, I have a bazillion hours into this game with 2 or 3 of every class. Gilded sets of everything from meta DD through all the supports. a respectable number of trifectas for my efforts, a few gaps still that I would have liked to check off, but not like this. not at all. and I'm hardly alone, as evidenced by the continual population decline. the endgame is so tweaked right now its ridiculous.

So, again, I'm truly happy for you, but please don't present this situation as fine, and everyone agrees its fine, when its not. the numbers speak volumes. the lack of people complaining isn't a good indication of a problem, but the lack of people at all is.

Other than seeing players in game there are no statistics or evidence. Steam is just a very small part of the population and no other data is made public. So all we have to go on is what we see in game. I see players in game. And you are assuming quite a bit. I said I was using an alternate character to level sub class skill lines and decided to do it with public dungeon quests. I also PvP and was in a top PvP guild and ran with their elite group. I've finished hard mode in most trials and dungeons and still enjoy doing all that. Have a few trifectas but not many. Will probably get more but for now am helping with a progression team. On one account I have twenty characters all geared and skilled out for at least two roles and have several characters on my 2nd account at various levels.
I've had friends leave the game for a variety of reasons but I also have added friends. Sorry you are having a different experience but your experience doesn't prove a decline in the game any more than my experience proves it is thriving. I didn't say everything is fine or that all others think the game is fine. I pointed out my experience is different than yours and the game might not be bad just because you are having a bad time. Maybe you just reached the point where you need a break.

ok sure. the population is fine and thriving! The guild traders are certainly making as much as they ever did! Hakeijos are everywhere for purchase and do not require searching TTC online. Grahtwood has at least as many players as ever on a Sunday afternoon! The endgame discords are definitely as full as ever!
( i have to lol slightly at myself, as i type this, in grahtwood, someone is offering 88 hekiejo in zone)

I'm in a small PVE guild that focuses on DLC HM/trifecta dungeon and trial achieves. I miss seeing non-beam DPS in groups, and many of our members voice the same. I miss seeing cool class abilities that I'm sure dozens of developers and artists worked on for years. Such a waste. The monotony of beam beam beam beam beam beam beam beam beam beam beam beam beam beam beam.....................................................please Alkosh, make it stop.

I miss a bunch of players who left the game when muliclassing was released. They didn't leave for seasonal reasons or all the other off-topic excuses some people uselessly left as comments. Such a waste. I only play one character, she used to be a Sorcerer, super fun for me, but now I have to use a bunch of skills that don't fit the mindset/theme I want when I play the game, what is my character now? Why can't pure classes be on par with multiclasses, or, *gasp*, even slightly superior in some situations?!?!?!

I'm still playing, I'm still having fun, but it's because of the people I raid with. I wish ZOS would care about this, but I've lost faith.