tomofhyrule wrote: »

I do completely agree that, at minimum with all of the Class changes that have happened, that a Class Change token would be a good thing for them to put in eventually. A lot of players no longer feel as strongly a connection to the Class they started with for one reason or another.

I don't think that a paid token like this would really change the landscape much, at least not as much as Subclassing did. Yes, people would be pressured to change to the meta. But if the meta required pulling out a credit card, that would give people more ammunition to push back on gatekeeping, unlike right now where the only reason not to go all in for the meta with Subclassing is essentially saying "I don't care enough about my teammates to bring my A-game," which understandably is not cool.

But I do want to make a point about the argument of "metachasing" versus "play the way you want" re: these two quotes:

peacenote wrote: »

Now, people who are against frequent class changes could, of course, just choose not to swap classes, while those who want it could use the feature, and that is often the argument used for "compromise." "Just don't use it and let everyone else have their fun." What's rarely understood is how once a major feature gets into the culture and the game world, it changes the overall feel of the game for everyone, permanently. You can try not to use it, and ignore it, but eventually the game just won't be the same. If you're on a competitive team, there's pressure to be the best you can be and adapt for your role. Even if you have, say, a super flexible raid leader who understands your philosophy, you still have to fight the conflict within yourself about staying true to one thing you enjoy (separate classes) vs. another thing you enjoy (being a good teammate).

Emeratis wrote: »

Min maxers are going to min max regardless, people who want to do it for rp reasons or other reasons are not more or less valid than others. If groups try to gatekeep and pressure you into rerolling when you don't want to you can walk away and find groups that are more accepting. I've done it for years. I found groups that like playing with me and don't mind that I don't want to min max or change my characters' races or classes or subclass if I don't want to or what have you. Most people won't be playing in groups where it matters anyway, even if you want achievements like tris, you can get them with a lot of wiggle room.

Yes, high-level endgamers (trial HMs and above) are going to have to minmax because the HMs are balanced around the high level. But the problem is that there is the canyon between "my group has a 50% success rate on standard vets" and "my group churns out Godslayers every other week" that we currently have - that entire middle section of training for HMs barely exists at present, and update after update has been consistently driving them off (see U33, U35, U46). As such, anyone who has the skill to get into HMs can't get into groups because those groups are pushing the highest of the high-level content with the sweatiest strats... and that precludes some amount of "I want to do HMs, but I want to bring my main who I like playing."

After all, it seems there are a lot of players at the high end who actually like playing without Subclassing. It feels like that's the main reason we see ZOS so awkwardly walking Subclassing back, right? So if so many people like to play without Subclassing... where are all the logs showing people playing without it?
Because those groups which allow you to bring a more off-meta build aren't really capable of doing the high-tier content, and the groups that are capable of that content don't want to use strategies that are not hyperoptimized. It's easy to say "well, then just find a group that allows it!"... until you go looking for the groups that do and realize how few there actually are.

This does bring up a larger topic that I see: the completely and utterly incorrect idea that "someone who likes playing pure class can't be a real Elder Scrolls fan, because the real Elder Scrolls fans all want to mix and match everything for ultimate freedom!" Besides that being a classic logical fallacy, that idea really annoys me, mainly because I love my characters as pure classes, and I wrote their stories specifically around their abilities and honed them that way. I have a minimum of 6+ pages of fully-researched backstory for each of my characters, and they all fit perfectly into the world and its lore as is.
And heck, when I do go back to Skyrim (which I'm overdue for yet another playthrough), I absolutely play it in a way that most other people wouldn't - the buff Orc with zero magic spells whatsoever and only an axe and shield to wreck dragons with. Why? Because I like to play that way. There is room in Skyrim for the stealth archers and the mages and the stonewall tanks and every build style inbetween... so why is it so inconceivable that some Elder Scrolls fans may actually enjoy their rock-stomping, fire-breathing, dragon-hearted warriors just the way they are?

M0ntie wrote: »

Players with 1 character can, you know, play the game and make more characters!
Just get over it. Base class DK currently only has a small advantage over other base classes - not enough for people casual enough to only have 1 character to worry about.
Why should players who have invested hours and $$ to make one of each class lose any benefit they have?

Emeratis wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I do completely agree that, at minimum with all of the Class changes that have happened, that a Class Change token would be a good thing for them to put in eventually. A lot of players no longer feel as strongly a connection to the Class they started with for one reason or another.

I don't think that a paid token like this would really change the landscape much, at least not as much as Subclassing did. Yes, people would be pressured to change to the meta. But if the meta required pulling out a credit card, that would give people more ammunition to push back on gatekeeping, unlike right now where the only reason not to go all in for the meta with Subclassing is essentially saying "I don't care enough about my teammates to bring my A-game," which understandably is not cool.

But I do want to make a point about the argument of "metachasing" versus "play the way you want" re: these two quotes:

peacenote wrote: »

Now, people who are against frequent class changes could, of course, just choose not to swap classes, while those who want it could use the feature, and that is often the argument used for "compromise." "Just don't use it and let everyone else have their fun." What's rarely understood is how once a major feature gets into the culture and the game world, it changes the overall feel of the game for everyone, permanently. You can try not to use it, and ignore it, but eventually the game just won't be the same. If you're on a competitive team, there's pressure to be the best you can be and adapt for your role. Even if you have, say, a super flexible raid leader who understands your philosophy, you still have to fight the conflict within yourself about staying true to one thing you enjoy (separate classes) vs. another thing you enjoy (being a good teammate).

Emeratis wrote: »

Min maxers are going to min max regardless, people who want to do it for rp reasons or other reasons are not more or less valid than others. If groups try to gatekeep and pressure you into rerolling when you don't want to you can walk away and find groups that are more accepting. I've done it for years. I found groups that like playing with me and don't mind that I don't want to min max or change my characters' races or classes or subclass if I don't want to or what have you. Most people won't be playing in groups where it matters anyway, even if you want achievements like tris, you can get them with a lot of wiggle room.

Yes, high-level endgamers (trial HMs and above) are going to have to minmax because the HMs are balanced around the high level. But the problem is that there is the canyon between "my group has a 50% success rate on standard vets" and "my group churns out Godslayers every other week" that we currently have - that entire middle section of training for HMs barely exists at present, and update after update has been consistently driving them off (see U33, U35, U46). As such, anyone who has the skill to get into HMs can't get into groups because those groups are pushing the highest of the high-level content with the sweatiest strats... and that precludes some amount of "I want to do HMs, but I want to bring my main who I like playing."

After all, it seems there are a lot of players at the high end who actually like playing without Subclassing. It feels like that's the main reason we see ZOS so awkwardly walking Subclassing back, right? So if so many people like to play without Subclassing... where are all the logs showing people playing without it?
Because those groups which allow you to bring a more off-meta build aren't really capable of doing the high-tier content, and the groups that are capable of that content don't want to use strategies that are not hyperoptimized. It's easy to say "well, then just find a group that allows it!"... until you go looking for the groups that do and realize how few there actually are.

This does bring up a larger topic that I see: the completely and utterly incorrect idea that "someone who likes playing pure class can't be a real Elder Scrolls fan, because the real Elder Scrolls fans all want to mix and match everything for ultimate freedom!" Besides that being a classic logical fallacy, that idea really annoys me, mainly because I love my characters as pure classes, and I wrote their stories specifically around their abilities and honed them that way. I have a minimum of 6+ pages of fully-researched backstory for each of my characters, and they all fit perfectly into the world and its lore as is.
And heck, when I do go back to Skyrim (which I'm overdue for yet another playthrough), I absolutely play it in a way that most other people wouldn't - the buff Orc with zero magic spells whatsoever and only an axe and shield to wreck dragons with. Why? Because I like to play that way. There is room in Skyrim for the stealth archers and the mages and the stonewall tanks and every build style inbetween... so why is it so inconceivable that some Elder Scrolls fans may actually enjoy their rock-stomping, fire-breathing, dragon-hearted warriors just the way they are?

That's not what I said. I'm not saying who is real or a fake fan, that kind of discourse is silly to me. I'm asking why is my geomancer build I've put together to replicate a class less valid than the base game classes to some people when NPCs can be geomancers as a class? Is class identity only allowed for those who are playing the original classes the devs created? Do those of us who want to play elementalists, geomancers, rangers, etc just out of luck because the class wasn't conceived for player characters? When I bring this up with subclassing discourse I have never gotten a satisfying answer and a lot of people dance around the question. Seriously, why are there dozens of classes that NPCs only get access to, some of which many of us really want? We've discussed before both publicly and privately about classes, subclasses, characters, ttrpgs, tes, mmos so you know where I stand more or less even if we don't always agree. That's why I want to reiterate that isn't what I said and I'm not using the logical fallacy you're assuming. I don't want my words to be made to be something they absolutely aren't in a public space.

• My main is a DK Tank who's all in on armor and shields. I guess he's most similar to a Paladin, but with powers derived from dragonfire instead of an oath or deity. But I guess Fighter would make sense, but he's more defensive than offensive. And again, the dragonblood idea even lends him to a bit of Sorcerer, which is just a weird thought to me.
• I have a werebear who looks and acts like a Barbarian down to a T, but a lot of his stuff is having animal buddies (so Ranger?) and even tapping into a bit of ice and nature magic when the task calls for it (Druid?). But he does rage and hit things with a greataxe when he's in his slightly-less-hairy form.
• His brother is a whip-smart mage with a photographic memory who learns spells from seeing them once (Wizard?). But he's the shaman of the nature-worshipping Skaal and has a lot of ice magic up his sleeves (Druid?), until he goes into an imposed self-exile after he finds a Black Book and is marked by it, forcing him to steal the powers of Mora to escape. But even though he uses the skills of an Eldritch being, he's not Pacted to it (and in fact he actively works against Mora), so Warlock doesn't feel right either.

LunaFlora wrote: »

as much as i want Class Change, i doubt it will happen as Subclassing was added as an alternative.
i still hope ZOS is trying to figure out how to add it