Class Identity: 5 Points

I_killed_Vivec

You only went and said it!!

I don't understand how they can morph what they say, "class identity", into what they do, which is to make all class skills essentially the same but with a different appearance.

And that usually means taking something good and archetypal and making it bland and generic. And then they take something good, water it down and give something better to a new class (DK wings and Warden's shield).

Unfortunately I think that the problems with the game are more fundamental and all come from the use of magica to power class skills.

Even right at the start it was apparent that magica classes could do more damage, and provide better defences and better healing for themselves, than stamina classes could. Even with the soft caps and diminishing returns, magica builds made more sense.

Then they took away the caps and geared everything off the points you have in the skill. And magica builds became even more powerful - sorcs shield stacking, magDKs with perma wings - with the obvious complaints that followed... and the endless nerfs. On the stamina side you had the perma blockers and the dodge rollers, and more recently the speedy builds.

All unforeseen consequences, all nerfed to bring everyone back to the same level. All resulting in bland, generic builds, because at the same time they made hybrid builds nonviable.

So they are starting from a bad place and are taking the easiest option by trying to level everything out. Each class gets an AOE, a heal, a shield, a spammable... then make them all last for a similar amount of time, do similar damage and cost the same. Iron out discrepancies over time with with a sequence of "correcting" nerfs.

And then there are the decisions that just puzzle. I'm by nature a DK, I'll get in your face and slug it out with you. You might out heal my attacks, you might out shield them, you might be more manoeuverable, your attacks might have more of a sting... I'll take my chances and win or die. I'll throw magical chains of fire at you to pull myself slamming into you...

And get Major Expedition so I can run away???

Yeah, you can keep the Empower and Major Expedition and the damage, if I can have the stun the Templar's Toppling Charge gets. (I won't even mention the greater damage, the 3s stun, the Major Maim and the greater range that the Warden's Frozen Device gets for 20% less magica).

oXI_Viper_IXo

I agree with pretty much everything stated in the OP and I appreciate the thoughtfulness and time you put into writing it up.

Unfortunately, I fear it will fall on deaf ears as ZOS seems completely stuck in their ways and committed to pushing out their vision of the game (even though it is contradictory to what they previously stated about combat being fast-paced and unique).

Everyone used to love hating on Wrobel, but this new combat team has made the game FAR less enjoyable in my opinion. They seem to prefer homogenization and dumbing down combat to unique and fast paced combat.

Raising the floor and lowering the ceiling is a horrible approach to balancing combat and it's very disheartening to see a game I once enjoyed immensely to keep going down this path.

Drdeath20

To date orbs is better than shards. Its pretty dissapointing.

Its cheaper, runs on the same cooldown and basically steals a synergy away from templars toolkit.

Sabune

Very good read. I agree on all points.

dazee

I wish ZOS would fully embrace the elder scrolls aspect of the game and forget about trying to make it a Tank/Healer/DPS raiding MMO. then the game would actually have a niche to thrive in.

Rahar

As much as I hated DK wings, it was tolerable with a good frags. It was the in-between state where frags was gone and wings was still at its peak that really sucked. I'd still give DK wings back for the promise of more impactful abilities, though, because I agree that it seems we're on a vicious downward spiral of progressively blander and blander abilities.

Overall, good post. I think you're voicing something that not only needs to be said, but that the majority of us feel very strongly.

Nord_Raseri

Very well written. All of your points is why I am whole-heartedly against all the heavy handed nerfs cast out on us the last few years and cringe at the amount of nerf threads I see pop up on the forums on a daily basis. Thank you for taking the time to put down ESO's biggest pain points to class identity and I hope someone at ZOS reads your post and takes it to heart.

ESO_Nightingale

I believe that solo players should have the tools they need in pvp. You're not always with a group and it's awesome knowing you are the source of your own power.

kojou

I had a hard time reading this... not because it was badly written, Joy Division writes very well and I can sign my name on every one of his posts, but because so many skills went through the same process as the 2 he mentions and as someone that started playing this game from the beginning I know exactly what he is talking about and can name most of the skills.

One point I would like to make is that even though Morrowind was by far the worst patch IMO with the number of things that were butchered, 1.6 (Champion System) was the beginning of the downward trend. I would give so much money to have a game with the combat system as it was in 1.5 with the bug fixes, and content that we have now. Pre 1.6 was the golden era of combat in ESO in my opinion. It was before we had to start trading unique skills for the raw "power" of the champion system and it was great.

I don't know if there will ever be a moment where the Combat team finally "gets it", but I guess we can hope...

Finedaible

This post touches on so many points which ZoS seems incapable of understanding (perhaps they are stubborn with their own ideas? Who knows).

They also need to buff the heck out of class skills because ever since they buffed the purchasable skill-lines, those skills have become a lot more important than class skills to the point you are gimping yourself if you dedicate too many slots to your chosen class... Like, why even have class distinction if it's more powerful and efficient to use Two-handed and Fighter's Guild skills as a stamblade over my own class line? What kind of Power Fantasy is that?

Hyzock

Great post, although I don't get why you were blaming solo players for a little bit. The devs really don't cater to solo players at all, 1vX becomes worse almost every single patch, and most solo players have quit the game at this point. But still, great post overall.

Rikumaru

Agree with your entire post other than the nerfs being resultant from solo players. Maybe they are now recently, but definitely not with the changes made pre-morrowind and morrowind.

Doubt ZOS will do anything regarding class identity, they have gone way too far down the rabbit hole of repetitive nerfs to classes. There would need to be a giant combat update for skills and passives across classes, which would undoubtedly result in balance issues (which I don't mind if it its the first step towards making combat fun and interesting again).

Joy_Division

Hyzock wrote: »

Great post, although I don't get why you were blaming solo players for a little bit. The devs really don't cater to solo players at all, 1vX becomes worse almost every single patch, and most solo players have quit the game at this point. But still, great post overall.

Just to clarify I'm not blaming solo players. Most of them are gone because it's just so hard to play like that. Those people who do legit solo very rarely come onto these forums and ask for nerfs because they don't die to stuff PuGs do and know what's up with the game. Respect here and wish there were more of them. Re-reading the post I can see how my message was not clear. Edited for clarity.

The comment was more directed to the zerg surfer type who rarely challenges themselves and thus does not have the experience, knowledge, or skillset to survive the things that solo players do. They are the ones that come to the forums and ask for nerfs. That's what I meant by not being really solo.

I do appreciate those folks who read that. I felt it very important to list every single change made to Spear Shards and Death Stroke for all folks to see just how exactly ZOS updated these skills and in doing so created the very problems with them that led to changes that have gutted the original identity of both abilities.

GrumpyDuckling

There was this developer who used to work for ZOS (and no longer does) who once said on an ESO Live episode that the way he approached the process of creating the skills in this game was to create something awesome and unique first, then figure out how to balance it. As a result, we had unique skills that felt different, and they gave classes some fun flavor and identity.

Now, there is a current developer who decided to segregate all of the skills into his own rigidly categorical, standardized vision of how he thinks the game should be played, and the result is that we now have Elder Dummy Test Online with classes simply offering different animations.

sha-ext

I have been with this game since beta and my interest and involvement has been on a steady decline (on a break). That is of course normal to some extend (games get stale after a while), but you exactly pointed out what sped up that process.
Very nicely done!

My hope is that this sparks some more discussion about class identity!

pieratsos

We need the timeline for more skills. Frags, rune prison, pets, wings etc.

Hotdog_23

Couple of thoughts here. One the issue is balancing for both pvp and pve at the same time. This is something they ZOS is committed to for good or bad. ZOS is taking the harder course here in doing both together.

Two PVE is where the money is and not what the focus was to be at the beginning. ZOS pivoted like any other company and goes where the money is. Continuing to try and bring more people in to make more money is what it is all about and they are trying to make ESO as friendly as possible to do it. You cannot fault ZOS for this because you and everyone else would do the same. I know I wouldn’t show up for work unless they where paying me to do it and if the place across the road paid more, I would work there.

Do I like all the changes no of course not, but I do think the game is in a better place overall and balanced better then at the beginning.

newtinmpls

CassandraGemini wrote: »

A TL;DR would be nice..

Okay I will add one:

TL;DR ZoS quit "fixing" what isn't broken because of a whiny few.

Edited to add: this in no way is meant to disrespect OP - and I give kudos to the folks who stood up for her quality posts.
.

VaxtinTheWolf

Dang. I didn't realize when I mud balled you the other day you had so much on your mind. I feel like I should read through this Great Wall of Text now.

colossalvoids

Pretty much why people we know mostly log in just to manage their guilds or sell stuff, not really to play anymore.

Beardimus

newtinmpls wrote: »

CassandraGemini wrote: »

A TL;DR would be nice..

Okay I will add one:

TL;DR ZoS quit "fixing" what isn't broken because of a whiny few.

Edited to add: this in no way is meant to disrespect OP - and I give kudos to the folks who stood up for her quality posts.
.

@newtinmpls HIS posts.

Tommy_The_Gun

- ESO Community: Class Identity.
- ZOS new combat team: What ? Identical Classes ? Ok, here goes...

sekou_trayvond

First time I've ever hit the insightful, like and awesome all in one post. Bravo! This was adult analysis of a game many of us quite enjoy. So refreshing.

Faulgor

Joy_Division wrote: »

Are Nightblades somehow supposed to believe they are elite assassins because they have the same minor vulnerability debuff that one can get by playing a Warden, using a lightning staff, wearing the Infallible Mage set, or by equipping poisons?

Minor/Major buffs were the first mistake in a long line towards homogenization, IMO.
Does anyone remember the original Surge? It gave you weapon power based on your spell power, so you could make a basic mage, use Surge and become a rather proficient melee char. It was completely unique and allowed for a lot of roleplaying for a battlemage/spellsword type character. It reminded me of some skills in Lineage 2 from the ... I want to say Orc Overlord class.
Anyway, come the Minor/Major system, all of that, gone. Now you can get the same effect from a simple potion. In whose mind would that lead to anything interesting? How could you possibly establish class identity when every buff has to be identical?

The only disagreement I have with the OP is that I don't think the original game was that incredibly well designed. ESO's character and class system has always been a directionless mess. So, so many skills were downright useless, weak, irrelevant. Individually, some skills were better designed, like the mentioned Spear Shards or Surge. But classes as a whole seemed to be built around specific roles (Templar: Healer, DK: Tank, Sorcerer: Ranged DD, Nightblade: Melee DD) which, during beta, were considerably loosened once every class could equip every armor and so on, resulting in a kind of mushy identity for just about everything. At no point in 6 years did I get a firm impression of what they were trying to do with their classes.

reiverx

That was a fantastic post but unfortunately I think it's too late to do anything about it. The runaway watering down of classes has long gone past the tipping point of no return.

casparian

This may be the best post I've read on the forums.

Grianasteri

Wow that was a long read mate. I admit I only made it half way, and I love writing and reading insightful text. I did read your final few paragraphs also. Excellent work in general. I agree with plenty. Disagree with some.

My tuppence worth...

This

And for what? Because some PvPers whined. Why is this tiny part of the community being catered to?

And this...

Stop mollycoddling PvP players and give us back our distinctive abilities

Pretty much sums up the issues with the direction of travel for over a year now. The attempts to balance PvP have destroyed a lot of class identity (not entirely) and have ruined some very interesting and fun skills both for PvE and PvP. There have also been some successes. But the drive to make every class basically equivalent to each other seems to have been ill conceived and poorly executed, at least in part.

That said, I sill love ESO, its still the best MMO on the market for me, and despite the direction of travel I doubt I will be leaving any time soon.

ps, my goodness zos, STOP the nerf/buff cycle. The last year or so has been horrendous. Decide how its going to be, implement it and then for the most part, leave things be, let us enjoy things without having to constantly rebuild our characters.

TheRealCherokeee3

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

There was this developer who used to work for ZOS (and no longer does) who once said on an ESO Live episode that the way he approached the process of creating the skills in this game was to create something awesome and unique first, then figure out how to balance it. As a result, we had unique skills that felt different, and they gave classes some fun flavor and identity.

Now, there is a current developer who decided to segregate all of the skills into his own rigidly categorical, standardized vision of how he thinks the game should be played, and the result is that we now have Elder Dummy Test Online with classes simply offering different animations.

There was this developer who used to work for ZOS (and no longer does) vs Now, there is a current developer who decided to segregate all of the skills into his own rigidly categorical, standardized vision of how he thinks the game should be played

newtinmpls

Beardimus wrote: »

newtinmpls wrote: »

CassandraGemini wrote: »

A TL;DR would be nice..

Okay I will add one:

TL;DR ZoS quit "fixing" what isn't broken because of a whiny few.

Edited to add: this in no way is meant to disrespect OP - and I give kudos to the folks who stood up for her quality posts.
.

@newtinmpls HIS posts.

Thanks for the correction! I usually try to avoid gendered pronouns, but I slipped up on that one.

Skjaldbjorn

Incredibly well said. I think you hit on something there that just...Zos misses. The "everything shouldn't be solo" point. That hit me in the feels. In no other MMO I have played did every class need to have an "answer" for everything. Each class had clear, distinct weaknesses and strengths, both in PVE and PVP, and it made the games so dynamic and fun. Knowing where you are weak and finding ways to compensate through gear, skills or bringing friends is the whole damn POINT of an MMO. This isn't a single-player title. This isn't Skyrim.

I never thought i'd say I missed the days of Wrobel, but I genuinely do. In recent patches, every unique element is being stripped away for half-assed garbage that exists under the guise of "class identity" without actually bringing any meaningful identity at all.

One thing people in ESO simply don't seem to grasp is that a weakness can in essence BE identity. It can't exist as the sole identity because that feels bad, but if Templars could do let's say "Holy" damage and it dealt additional damage to Necromancers, that IS identity. For both classes. It's really not this hard.