Official Discussion Thread for "ESO Dev Updates—February 2026"

SeaGtGruff · February 20

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

dcrush wrote: »

I like this improvement in communication.

@ZOS_Kevin - I see this stream has additional drops. With people from all over the world playing ESO, would it be possible to have reruns of these kind of streams where drops are turned on? This particular one is, for example, 2AM in my timezone. I already missed out on the 8 crates that dropped during the special stream earlier this year simply because it was at 4AM for me. It would be nice if there’s a way for people in other time zones to be able to get things like this too.

Yeah, totally understand how missing drops due to time zone doesn't feel good. This is something we can look into. Thanks for the suggestion.

best way around this is to just host a replay of the stream on local language channels at various times so people can watch it during their timezone if required

I think this is a great idea, and it's been done in the past after most of the big reveal streams.

My only suggestion as far as drops is that it might be best if the drops were specific to the stream, by which I mean we can't earn the same drop a second time by watching one of the local recaps. Full disclosure, I've done that before, but I do think it's a bit unfair if someone can watch the original stream plus a recap and get two crates, whereas someone who can only watch either the original stream or one of the recaps will get only one crate.

Techwolf_Lupindo · February 20

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, thanks to everyone who tuned into our Dev Stream today. Let us know what you thought of the format and general impressions of what we showed of today, as we plan to have more of these in the future. Thanks in advance!

Stream VOD
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2702125838

While I do think the Class Mastery is a step in the right direction to fix the subclassing issues, there is no way it will fix things with *that* combat lead. It is going to take a lot more then an bandaid fix to start fixing the huge balance issues.

WerewolfMoonHunter · February 20

Looks very promissing ^^

Fata1moose · February 20

Abadoning zone refreshes and only updating certain locations is a huge miss if true. The zone refreshes did not do enough but that does not mean they should just drop it, rather they should be looking to improve on their first attempt and actually bring vanilla zones in line with chapters. This is especially crucial if they're going to be doing new content in these old zones. I don't want to look at low resolution, dated assets.

Kyzeragon · 12:52AM

Loved the stream content and format, especially Alec's explanation about refreshed abilities feeling slow. That kind of in-depth technical discussion is what I'd enjoy seeing in a dev stream; announcements already have plenty of their own spotlight. Even if I don't understand all of it, it's interesting to hear about the details of what goes into the game, and it's cool to listen to someone nerd out about what they're interested in.

Emeratis · 1:53AM

My random thoughts in no particular order:
I really liked the stream and all the details about development. It's really cool to hear some of it as someone who is interested in game design philosophy.

Overall I'm very excited about a lot of what's coming up. I'm most curious about favors and rumors and have been doing some silly speculation with friends on what those all will entail. I'm very excited for more exploration and puzzle related things coming to eso as someone who very much enjoys that. I'm very curious about Sage's Vault as I have several things in other games that I wish would see their way into eso in some form and I'm wondering if this is one of them but I'll just have to wait and see.

I'm a little nervous about class mastery passives but I'm going to take a wait and see approach there. The previews did not give me enough to feel right commenting on them at this time but I hope they are implemented in a fun and creative way and not swinging the pendulum the other way in terms of balance.

I am mildly curious about various QOL threads/suggestions that have been cropping up and/or if systems that do not seem to have any updates planned will at least get a reassurance we get something new down the line. I know dungeons and new zones got reassured but those who like tales of tribute, companions, scribing, etc would like to see updates too. Also giving systems like antiquities more than just new leads.

Great stream, please do more of these.

Grafahel · 7:23AM

Looks good and rewarding pure classes is a good idea as well. I love subclassing for RP reasons and making interesting builds with it, but it's rather obvious that a lot of people just go for the 'strongest' combination (and then of course complain about lack of variety) and bringing back reasons for picking specific classes will be a good addition imo. Always excited about new quest content the most, but I also want to see as little as possible of it before I actually get to play it so I'll wait and see there.
Favors, rumors and Sage's vault all make me incredibly curious and excited, that sounds like the exact sort of content I will love as a solo player who is always looking for ways to make my characters 'live' in the world besides the questlines. And adding new content to existing zones is awesome, we already have so many cool zones and expanding on them will be refreshing.
Some very good stuff there, looks like this is shaping up to be a great year!

Faulgor · 7:35AM

code65536 wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Kevin you guys are making a bad turn with Class Mastery Passives, I get that the values are subject to change, but this cannot exist post-Refresh.

Could you be more specific? Happy to send your thoughts and feedback on this to Alec and Brian. But we need a bit more information so they have something actionable to potentially address.

@ZOS_Kevin Based on their earlier post in this thread, they are saying that the plans to make skill lines not role-oriented will significantly decrease the effectiveness of subclassing. Right now class mastery passives make sense, to bring pure class in line with subclassing.

But if the plan is for the class refresh to move away from role-oriented skill lines, then that should suffice for bringing subclassing in line with pure classes, and in such a case, then class mastery passives will represent an overcorrection of the current problem. (Note that his post does specifically say "post-Refresh".)

So, in short, class mastery is a nice fix for subclassing balance right now, but after all the class refreshes are done, it might result in the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction.

Well said.
I also doubt that, after the refresh, people would be fine with seeing these "pure" class bonuses removed again. So they are probably here to stay.

In a post-refresh game where skill lines are no longer role-oriented (and you therefore can no longer combine e.g. 3 DPS skill lines because there no longer is such a thing as a DPS skill line), it seems there will be too many strikes against subclassing:

you have to spend more skill points on your subclassed skills
you can't pick 2 subclassed skill lines from the same class
most synergies between skill lines will probably be intra-class (there's already little reason to separate Ardent Flame from Draconic Power in the refreshed DK)
you lose the new pure class bonuses

The limitations to subclassing seem to be based on wanting to rein in (unintended) synergies between cross-class skill lines, but when these synergies are gone and subclassed characters lose out on bonuses, why would anyone subclass? That's the concern.

Ideally, the class refresh would have lead to a situation where every skill line could stand on its own, and no particular combination of skill lines would need a crutch. But if pure classes are supposed to be better under any circumstance, subclassing needs to find a new design niche and have some of its restrictions eased up.

Small suggestion:

This is just theoretical because none of us know what the post-refresh class balance is going to look like.

But given that people would be really disappointed to see these class mastery bonuses removed, I think they could eventually be changed to apply always instead of when pure-classing. So they would work like class sets and class mastery scripts for scribing (or the reworked DK whip that works along the lines of "if you are a Dragonknight").

This would mean that, say, as a Sorcerer, my Storm Calling skill line would always have a little (optional) bonus compared to when I subclass into Storm Calling from another class. And I would not lose that bonus when I subclass my Dark Magic skill line for something else.

Keeping the rule that you can only pick 2 out of 5 class mastery passives, this could also effectively replace the current somewhat arbitrary restriction that you can only have 2 skill lines from a class if you are that class. We are already incentivizing keeping at least 2 of your class skill lines this way (most class mastery passives seem to benefit a particular skill line), so this restriction could be lifted to allow for more experimentation.

Overall, this would

manage to keep the new class mastery bonuses instead of eventually removing them altogether for "balance"
boost people's identification with "their" class whether they subclass or pureclass
give more build complexity (e.g. a Nightblade with Storm Calling and Siphoning is slightly different from a Sorcerer with the same skill lines)
not upset the balance towards pure classing too much because everyone retains access to "their" class mastery bonuses (you don't lose out on all bonuses when subclassing just one skill line)
still incentivizes keeping your class skill lines
feel more intuitive as it is in line with other class-based bonuses (sets and scripts)

anadandy · 12:17PM

I was excited to hear Jason talk about more puzzle type content and content that "uses your brain". When I was replaying some of the old vanilla quests, I remembered how much more of that there used to be.

Turtle_Bot · 1:54PM

This stream was great to see (finally got a chance to catch up on it). Always love seeing little peeks behind the curtains so to speak on the dev process and ideas that are being thought about and/or worked on and the passion of the team behind the game.

Personally, I would love to see some of these streams leading up to the PTS release of each class refresh, giving some insights into where ZOS feels the class is heading/wants it to move towards, things the team is trying/looking into to try and solve the pre-refresh feedback, and to potentially collect some very early feedback before things hit the PTS and it becomes very time sensitive to make changes.

SkaiFaith · 7:37PM

I've read many times "Pure classes should be more powerful than subclassed".
I hope Devs know very well that in order to Subclass they made us REgrind every line of every class at half the speed...
NO - Subclassed should NOT be less powerful than pure classes. It makes no sense.
Everything balanced? Sure. Pure Classes stronger? Would be a joke to every player who worked their arse off to level everything AGAIN.

Rev Rielle · 7:40PM

Kyzeragon wrote: »

Loved the stream content and format, especially Alec's explanation about refreshed abilities feeling slow. That kind of in-depth technical discussion is what I'd enjoy seeing in a dev stream; announcements already have plenty of their own spotlight. Even if I don't understand all of it, it's interesting to hear about the details of what goes into the game, and it's cool to listen to someone nerd out about what they're interested in.

Yes, this was the first time I've really heard Alec talk, I was impresssed by their articulation.

anadandy wrote: »

I was excited to hear Jason talk about more puzzle type content and content that "uses your brain". When I was replaying some of the old vanilla quests, I remembered how much more of that there used to be.

Yes, likewise. My mind immediately went to those amazing 'investigation missions' (I forget their proper name) in The Secret World. If ESO's puzzle quests could even just begin to approach the quality of those then they're going to be a great addition to the game.