WoW says they messed up building classes around a dps rotation rather then class feel. hmmmmm ESO?

darkblue5

There are more actually unique rotations for DPS than there have been in a long time. Even more skills making the actual act of going through your rotations more based on skills in the rotation as opposed to DOT length. The fact that Wardens and Necros share basically the same rotation game is a tad boring, but in the same patch magDK got an interesting rotation changer in Molten Whip. (Poor stamDKs.) vMA daggers came back in a way and they have their own sorta cool mechanic. The necro colossi ultimates even have their own wrinkles for when to use them in group play.

Rather, each class as far as dps is concerned has generally gained mechanics that change their rotations over the years. None of the standardization of DOTs touched those skills. So basically the opposite is happening as far as PVE dps is concerned. Rotations in ESO have generally gotten more differentiated and interesting as the game has evolved. So essentially the opposite.

Insco851

The “class feel” comes down to different specs “mini games” now.

It’s really not all bad.

Wing

Drachenfier wrote: »

ESO was doomed to be this way from the start when they went with the limited hotkeys decision.

GW2 is just as limited, and if you play a pet necro in GW2 its pretty identical, 5 slots, 2 weapons bars. but through the specializations provide far more diverse gameplay then ESO

imagine if each class had say 5 skill tress rather then 3, and you had to pick 3, and you only get the skills and passives from those 3.

lots of options, and then being locked out of some when you pick others is the heart of interesting RPG progression, this is not the same as 12 bar slots.

eso gives you everything, and build design and RPG mechanics come from what color your spamable, aoe, dot, major armor buff, self heal, etc come in.

its one of the reasons people love the RPG aspect of borderlands over destiny. desinty gives you tiny flavors of difference. borderlands gives you massive skill trees where you cannot possibly get everything.

Adernath

One big reason that we end up with jack-of-all-trades classes is the CONSTANT QQing in forums from players who figured out that their class is not what they had in mind end-game wise and demand nerfs and buffs to remove or gain other classes abilities -- and some folks on the dev side actually believe in this QQing.

Adernath

... and of couse the devs want to make everyone happy (the tank-character, the healer-person and the DD) with introducing a new class. Not really smart in the long run if you ask me.

rfennell_ESO

There was a point in WOW where the next expansion and new abilities and skilltree options were what you were still playing for.

Unfortunately, you can't add new abilities and expand skill trees perpetually. Just like you can't just increase item levels and player levels perpetually.

Wow has been forced to do their item squishes every expansion (basically make earlier gear progressions squished to make room for upcoming expansion gear progression). Now they are looking at enacting a level squish on characters.

So... Wow has culled abilities and skills, squished item levels, and are looking to "squish" levels entirely.

It was exciting (for me) to be constantly getting new skills/abilities and progressing until Mists of Pandaria (again, for me) and after that it was full on squishes and ability pruning and "rotation" trimming and changes. With that many expansions (and level increases and skill tree additions and new abilities) it just became necessary for them to do.

I raided on an elemental shaman from when I did nothing but cast lightning bolt (over and over) until when they added a "rotation" to it (less and less of lighting bolts). Oddly I liked lightning bolt spam more...

dennissomb16_ESO

WoW messed up by changing from all classes bringing something unique to a group to all classes essentially being pared down until they really no longer mattered. There is very little difference between tanks or dps or healers. They essentially all do pretty close to the same dps, healing mitigation etc. and offer almost nothing unique that would make a difference in a group.

Part of that of course is players demanding that their class does as much (insert, healing/dps/mitigation) as any other class. Over time it really matters very little which class you bring to a group as long as they have the right gear level

Grandma

It's a very fine line. While it's true that that is what a lot of meta rotations boil down to, that's more because of the meta and how the end game works rather than how classes work. The recent trend of dps/tank/heal tree strictness is not favorable for this though.

Sorcs have tons of unique skills including transportation, pets, temporary block buffs that involve daedric armor, etc... templars have tons of cool skills including charges and knockbacks that there aren't a ton of alternatives to. I feel like most class base skills are the superior alternatives to the "everyone gets a knockback" skills like clench or whatever. That's how it should be, too. The older classes have a lot of good design and flavor aspects to them, while still being viable in most roles, which is the perfect balance. Warden and Necromancer got too caught up trying to appeal to the meta instead of having the meta form around it, which is how the original classes started.

Jeremy

Wing wrote: »

*preface, ZOS calls unique skills or skills that deviate from standardization "rule breakers", yup*

I don't play wow, but I do keep up with the industry and noticed that wow essentially said:

"instead of building a class for a feel or giving options that highlighted what it means to *ESO TERMS FOR EVERYONE* to be sorcerer, or be a templar, they instead removed options and just made sure everyone had an easy an comparable ability rotation (dps, etc) flavored to that class (lightning, fire, etc.)

I cannot help but comment after hearing that. . .

that's EXACTLY what is happening to classes in ESO

everything is being designed around test dummy parses, unique gameplay abilities and class options are being removed / nerfed / homogenized.
its all just:
-here is your spamable, it has a stam / magicka morph, its flavored to whatever damage type your class does
-here is your armor buff, it lasts for 15-20 seconds
-here is your aoe attack, it lasts roughly 10 seconds, its flavored to whatever damage type your class does
-here is your self heal, its flavored to your class.

its really disappointing. (funny enough this is really what happened to 4e DnD. everything was *described* as being different but the mechanical benefit to a lot of stuff was the same. that addition was trashed early, and now we have 5e)

ESO has actually gotten ALOT right, and compared to the problems other major MMO's are having have actually designed the game and its system to avoid a lot of those problems (im holding my breath on the CP rework though)
but this is something its gotten very wrong over time, classes have become less interesting and less important as the game goes on.

soon in ESO class will only determine the color of your abilities, and everyone will be the same.

very sad.


EDIT: wanted to point out that the great "class overhaul" of 2019 was actually a broad homogenization of mechanics. unique abilities were removed, all dots were standardized in cost, duration, damage, etc. expedition was standardized in cost, duration, etc.

in fact ESO has gone so far as to label unique skill or skills and effects that deviate from this as "RULE BREAKERS!" that's right, unique skills are now rule breakers.

Yeah the whole"rotation" thing was a mistake. You didn't have that on older MMO's.