Class masteries have helped a lot in the PvE side of things.

Good question. I think diversity is appreciated in this game. Hybridization, subclassing, the continuous adding of sets are all intended to increase player options.

The problem is the demographic split within the ESO community.

For the more casual solo questing crowd, the options are endless. That’s where I think the “play it your way” marketing comes from. I see the devs use the term “power fantasy” a lot as well which from my understanding is more of a roleplay concept. So if you wanted to be a vampire archer who uses dark magic or whatever, you can do that in overland and as a solo quester. I think that’s more in the spirit of the solo elder scrolls games.

That sort of thing really doesn’t appeal to me or matter. So if you’re like me and you do PvP or endgame PvE, then there’s less real diversity than ever. Someone more casual just claims you don’t “have” to use meta, but that’s hardly true when you’re fighting another player who is using the meta, or you’re DPSing in a trial and trying to do the most damage possible.

As they keep adding more “options” they will continue to shrink diversity for content where performance against other players matters. This is cause certain skills or sets are so good at what they do that they become non negotiable.

One example of a non negotiable skill is Vigor. It’s probably the best heal over time for PvP, so naturally most people will slot it. However, you’ll be at a huge disadvantage if you fight those people and don’t use vigor. They’ll be able to remain on the offense much better than you can granted you’re both in damage builds.

So that alone basically killed the way most pure magicka specs were played since those builds didn’t use vigor. Same thing goes for a lot of skills and now skill lines.

Another thing that’s becoming non negotiable is major evasion. If you fight someone while they have major evasion and you don’t have it in say a DK v DK fight where there’s lots of AOE, you are at a pretty significant disadvantage. So you end up basically having to slot it.

One thing that would help is of course not having some options that are drastically better than others, but I don’t think that would fix things completely.

I’m very anti subclassing and anti hybridization for this reason. Both shrink player choice in more competitive scenarios despite technically adding more “options”. The same thing goes for a massive set roster.

A lot less stuff is effective when you have to factor in what other players will bring to the table. If they bring the best option, as many would, you probably won’t have a good time till you switch too (if competitive that is).

Gabriel_H wrote: »

1) There are other class reworks coming

Yeah, I guess I´ll come back in 3 years then, if the servers are still active, kekw.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

2) There are dozens, if not hundreds of builds, that are viable at end game - the curation of those is done by the player base themselves. That isn't ZOS design choice. It's gatekeeping by players.

In PvP at least the curation is mostly done by "What is most effective?", not players "gatekeeping" anything. What´s good is good and people will use it. And ZoS design choices are absolutely the main factor there as to what is actually good and what isn´t.
As for PvE, I´m still using my Pillar of Nirn and clear any content I play, so yeah, I guess.

There are a billion video games where diverse game play is a core focus of development.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

BioBitter100 wrote: »

In PvP at least the curation is mostly done by "What is most effective?", not players "gatekeeping" anything. What´s good is good and people will use it. And ZoS design choices are absolutely the main factor there as to what is actually good and what isn´t.

However, when you start getting into the more organised groups, and especially for ballgroups you slam right back into the gatekeeping by players.

I´m not sure why you portrait it as players being "evil gatekeepers". The "gatekeeping" as you call it happens because these organised groups wanna win, aka beat as many players as possible in PvP and get the highest damage possible in PvE.
When "The Blind" monster set came out we tested it in the ball group I ran with but it was simply not good enough to use, despite it´s cool concept. So we dropped it and used the typical Ozezan, Symphony, Earthgore etc.. Not because the raid lead or any other player gatekept us, but simply cause the numbers were bad.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

BioBitter100 wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

BioBitter100 wrote: »

In PvP at least the curation is mostly done by "What is most effective?", not players "gatekeeping" anything. What´s good is good and people will use it. And ZoS design choices are absolutely the main factor there as to what is actually good and what isn´t.

However, when you start getting into the more organised groups, and especially for ballgroups you slam right back into the gatekeeping by players.

I´m not sure why you portrait it as players being "evil gatekeepers". The "gatekeeping" as you call it happens because these organised groups wanna win, aka beat as many players as possible in PvP and get the highest damage possible in PvE.
When "The Blind" monster set came out we tested it in the ball group I ran with but it was simply not good enough to use, despite it´s cool concept. So we dropped it and used the typical Ozezan, Symphony, Earthgore etc.. Not because the raid lead or any other player gatekept us, but simply cause the numbers were bad.

Your premise is that you need those to win - you don't. Neither do you need the highest damage possible for PvE.

Ridiculous. If two teams of equal skill are squaring off the theorycraft will determine the victor.

You're beating an absolutely dead horse. Ninety percent of the sets being added exist for one reason: to keep people grinding the same dungeons over and over while clogging the loot pool, making the 10% of sets that are actually useful harder to acquire.

At one point, the developers at ZOS seemed to understand how the game was actually played. Back in the 2015–2018 era they made meaningful reworks that revived forgotten sets or completely redesigned them with sensible, practical changes. Sure, plenty of sets were still garbage, but a healthy number had a purpose. They filled the gap between craftable gear and endgame BiS, giving players logical progression. Balancing that middle ground was never ZOS's strongest suit, but at least it existed.

Now we're flooded with bizarre sets nobody asked for, packed with convoluted proc conditions and effects so niche they'll never see real use. Someone is spending time designing, coding, testing, and balancing these things—or maybe AI is doing half the work by now—and almost nobody equips them outside of the occasional roleplayer who likes a flashy visual effect.

The biggest problem isn't even that bad sets exist. It's that they get abandoned. They aren't revisited as the game evolves, while systems like Scribing, class mastery, and reworked class passives continue to hand out the same or better effects with virtually no opportunity cost.

Why wear a five-piece set for an effect that Scribing can replicate as a single affix—often with higher uptime, immediate activation, and two additional effects attached?

Instead, you get sets that read like this:

"Cast an ability while facing away from the target to spawn a circle three meters away. Run into the circle before it expires, activate a unique synergy to gain Minor Courage for four seconds. When Minor Courage expires, receive Holy Blessing for three seconds, which can be consumed with a fully charged heavy attack to apply Minor Cowardice to the target for four seconds."

Nobody wants to read a novella just to understand what a set does, and nobody wants to perform circus tricks for an effect that's barely noticeable in practice. Complexity isn't depth, and tedious activation requirements don't make a set interesting they just make it unappealing.

INM wrote: »

Funny that it was their attempt to bring diversity, but frankly, real diversity lies in differences and limitations. When everyone can do everything, choices cease to matter, and the illusion of freedom collapses into a rigid meta.

Do you remember when only Dragon Knights had chains to pull enemies, or when only Templars could provide stamina sustain to their teammates? That was real functional diversity. Sure, sharing some of those features with more classes has opened up more possibilities, but they shouldn't have based their entire design philosophy on equalizing everything.

ZoS standardized everything, so every class now has access to almost identical tools and functions in almost the same way. The value a class brings now lies almost entirely in numbers rather than unique utility. ZoS wanted to make hybrid builds a viable playstyle, but in doing so they erased the functional difference between Stamina and Magicka and killed pure builds instead. What a choice between blue or green mana, huh?

ZoS allowed people to use skill lines of any class for opening many possibilities, well, they ended up with everyone cherry-picking the same lines and collapsing pure class balance, because lines were designed in context of their classes. (No-one could see that, trust me).

It might be good for casual players who want to satisfy the "play as you want" fantasy, but as long as you care about efficiency even a little (and a lot of people, despite the sentiment about the player base), you'll naturally gravitate toward the strongest choice. Ironically, by lifting almost every restriction in the name of player freedom, they have only reduced meaningful choices.

Very much agreed. Before hybridization, in a 1v1 fight a stam build would almost always win against a mag build. But in group fights mages had the advantage due to better group support, and the best groups had a combination of both. Hybridization removed that dynamic. Subclassing was just a giant mistake from its conception and I'm glad to have Class Masteries to somewhat correct that, since there is likely no going back now.

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

2) There are dozens, if not hundreds of builds, that are viable at end game - the curation of those is done by the player base themselves. That isn't ZOS design choice. It's gatekeeping by players.

Up until the point ZOS becomes aware of how severe the gatekeeping is and doesn't address it. ZOS has to have been aware of the death of Magica builds (for one example close to my own heart) since about a week after hybridization went live. They've only doubled down on hybridization in the meantime. At that point, accident becomes intent.

What can they do realistically? Nerf DPS, the gatekeeping tightens. Buff, gatekeeping tightens. Also, Stamina/Magicka division was one of the gatekeeping tools. Want to run a certain class with a certain role? Well, too bad, you ain't playing a spec you want then. (i.e. you can only play Stamblade because Magblade DPS is atrocious and you have to hit this DPS level to get in the group but you also prefer Magblade). If anything, hybridization eliminated that factor. When it is players gatekeeping, devs can only do so much.