Player Power vs Class Fantasy

Mr_Stach

Now before I jump into this. This is Anecdotal. Because the game happens outside of a Dummy Parse. Sometimes how things feel is more important than what shows up on a spreadsheet.



I think that Warden falls victim to being half-baked. And it's not the only one I think there are aspects of other classes as well that lack vision and the ebb and flow of balance changes reinforce that idea.

I think there are players that don't care about class fantasy as long as their class performs well. That's where the Player Power comes in, nothing matters except for the Output, "as long as I can hit such and such dps or do X content, my class can be a potato for all I care."

I would argue that Class Fantasy is more important than ever and having both Passive and Active skills that mesh well together is very important and a class with great Class Fantasy will in most cases out perform one without.

I think among all the classes Dragonknight has the best Class Fantasy and in both PvE and PvP, they performed super well because everything meshes well together.

I really think Zos should take their heads out of the Spreadsheets and look at the Fantasy of each class and the feedback from the community as well.

That's my 2 cents.

FlamingBeard

It definitely hinders Class Fantasy when Templar's and Warden's most iconic skills (jabs/shalks) are drastically changed after years of being tweaked conservatively (by literal decimal point values) once in a blue moon.

Lughlongarm

I actually joined ESO with the release of Morrowind due to the announcements of the Wardens(Nature theme classes are my favorite in RPGs). Warden was a strange beast from the beginning, Zos tried to achieve many different things with it without any focused design consistency.

-They wanted to add the the Ice mage theme which was highly requested among players.

-They wanted to integrate the Morrowind theme to class which honestly makes no sense.

-They wanted to create a thematic skill line approach which will help new players(tank/healing/damage) which contradicted the first bullet.

-They wanted to introduce the "Bear bow" play style who is so popular in many RPG games which never really happened(Warden were the first class to have a real range class spammable).

Players from day one didn't like the birds and shalks, not the theme, not the animations and not really the design. Players wanted more Ice theme damage skills. What Warden lacked in design it got compensated in power(In PvP) which got nerfed over the years.

Now add to that the all standardization process for skills and the unification process between Magicka and Stamina, all classes sacrificed much of their core flavor values for the 'Play as you want' approach.

If you ask what Wardens are now?

Thematically - Mid range brawler class that specialize in frost and and bleed damage types and healing support capabilities.

Mechanically - I either build for frost damage due to all related passives, or max health builds. In both cases Warden can do some things better than other classes.

Jazraena

I honestly think all classes have quite a few issues with their power fantasy, especially with their relation to TES Lore. And the result is the weird dichotomy where you can't really have class identity because people don't want to commit to the funky ESO Class concepts and retain more freedom of choice instead, and you can't get fully rid of it either because some have learned to like and commit to the funky ESO class concepts.

Warden is certainly a prime example with it's strange combination of frost, mushrooms, Vvardenfell animals and... a... bear? Meanwhile, we're still missing basic concepts like just a warrior without magic, and even ye olde fire mage only comes with dragon baggage.

MacRibs

Not even Race Fantasy let alone class.
In the quest to level the playfield, which I truly believe comes from a place of good intention, no one can truly deny that with each patch class identify has been fading away. Skills, classes, races feel more like skins than anything else.
The focus on test and spreadsheets blinds them and has a negative impact on gameplay.
In a such lore and story filled game it's a shame really.