Subclasses

SpiritKitten

So you have to keep 1 skill line from your original class. So you can only swap out 2.

HappyTheCamper

Sub classing is very much an Elder Scrolls take on SWTOR’s ability to earn a second discipline. When you reach max level in SWTOR (80), you can unlock a second “class.”

This is very much that but more like TES games such as Skyrim, Morrowind or Oblivion. There are no strict classes in TES games. You can make a character a sorcerer or bard or whatever you want, but you’re not hard-locked out of learning or using any spells. You can mix and match anything in single player TES games (even ones that have “classes” like Morrowind or Oblivion.)

Does this potentially eliminate class diversity? Yes, objectively the way it has been presented that’s obvious. Is that good or bad? That’s the real question.

And how will they dole this out? Will our characters be allowed full a la carte options after they’re level 50? Or will Sub-classing be drip fed to us, and we can only use one or two additional skills from other classes at first?

In the famous words of Abnur Tharn, “Too many unknowns and not enough information.”

Edit: I should add that as I’m typing this I have not seen the post-show. Only the main 45 minute show.

SpiritKitten

The face on the dev when they asked her about this for PVP, I mean, she froze. That told me everything I need to know.

Naltanir

I bet the decided that cause they dont want to take time to try balancing class anymore

SpiritKitten

HappyTheCamper wrote: »

Sub classing is very much an Elder Scrolls take on SWTOR’s ability to earn a second discipline. When you reach max level in SWTOR (80), you can unlock a second “class.”

This is very much that but more like TES games such as Skyrim, Morrowind or Oblivion. There are no strict classes in TES games. You can make a character a sorcerer or bard or whatever you want, but you’re not hard-locked out of learning or using any spells. You can mix and match anything in single player TES games (even ones that have “classes” like Morrowind or Oblivion.)

Does this potentially eliminate class diversity? Yes, objectively the way it has been presented that’s obvious. Is that good or bad? That’s the real question.

And how will they dole this out? Will our characters be allowed full a la carte options after they’re level 50? Or will Sub-classing be drip fed to us, and we can only use one or two additional skills from other classes at first?

In the famous words of Abnur Tharn, “Too many unknowns and not enough information.”

Edit: I should add that as I’m typing this I have not seen the post-show. Only the main 45 minute show.

It's 2 skill LINES, not skills. You keep 1 from your original class. You will always be that class. You have access to 2 other LINES.

HappyTheCamper

SpiritKitten wrote: »

HappyTheCamper wrote: »

Sub classing is very much an Elder Scrolls take on SWTOR’s ability to earn a second discipline. When you reach max level in SWTOR (80), you can unlock a second “class.”

This is very much that but more like TES games such as Skyrim, Morrowind or Oblivion. There are no strict classes in TES games. You can make a character a sorcerer or bard or whatever you want, but you’re not hard-locked out of learning or using any spells. You can mix and match anything in single player TES games (even ones that have “classes” like Morrowind or Oblivion.)

Does this potentially eliminate class diversity? Yes, objectively the way it has been presented that’s obvious. Is that good or bad? That’s the real question.

And how will they dole this out? Will our characters be allowed full a la carte options after they’re level 50? Or will Sub-classing be drip fed to us, and we can only use one or two additional skills from other classes at first?

In the famous words of Abnur Tharn, “Too many unknowns and not enough information.”

Edit: I should add that as I’m typing this I have not seen the post-show. Only the main 45 minute show.

It's 2 skill LINES, not skills. You keep 1 from your original class. You will always be that class. You have access to 2 other LINES.

Thanks for clarification! I came home from work and have just been swimming through an information dump lol.

That’s a very interesting way to do it. Guess it doesn’t holistically change my point, just the wiggle room.

SpiritKitten

For those who didn't watch the stream follow-up, you talk to an npc, do their quest, and from then on whenever you do a skill respec you can swap out 2 skill lines. Skill progression will be account-wide which is AWESOME.

SpiritKitten

Oh BUT the penalty is, you must use 2 skill points and not 1 per swapped skill. Better get skyshard hunting.

Sindarin

after 10 years ESO will look closer to TES at last!

HappyTheCamper

SpiritKitten wrote: »

For those who didn't watch the stream follow-up, you talk to an npc, do their quest, and from then on whenever you do a skill respec you can swap out 2 skill lines. Skill progression will be account-wide which is AWESOME.

I feel like the wiser decision should have been to only let us unlock *one* new skill line. That way you still have a dominant class locked to your character with 2 unchanged skill lines, but we still get some more diverse “TES” style flair by adding a new one.

Either way, this is further cementing the game toward a pro-TES game and less traditional MMO (which I personally love but understand the hate.)

Stx

HappyTheCamper wrote: »

SpiritKitten wrote: »

For those who didn't watch the stream follow-up, you talk to an npc, do their quest, and from then on whenever you do a skill respec you can swap out 2 skill lines. Skill progression will be account-wide which is AWESOME.

I feel like the wiser decision should have been to only let us unlock *one* new skill line. That way you still have a dominant class locked to your character with 2 unchanged skill lines, but we still get some more diverse “TES” style flair by adding a new one.

Either way, this is further cementing the game toward a pro-TES game and less traditional MMO.

Yes, this would have been a little more practical and still exciting.

Malyore

HappyTheCamper wrote: »

SpiritKitten wrote: »

For those who didn't watch the stream follow-up, you talk to an npc, do their quest, and from then on whenever you do a skill respec you can swap out 2 skill lines. Skill progression will be account-wide which is AWESOME.

I feel like the wiser decision should have been to only let us unlock *one* new skill line. That way you still have a dominant class locked to your character with 2 unchanged skill lines, but we still get some more diverse “TES” style flair by adding a new one.

Either way, this is further cementing the game toward a pro-TES game and less traditional MMO (which I personally love but understand the hate.)

Yes this is why I'm excited, because it's closer to TES. My character can finally feel more like my character.

Pevey

I like the idea of being able to unlock and switch out class skill lines, but only as a package. All 3 class lines at once, not mix and match. Otherwise, it seems like this will be impossible to balance properly.

I predict within one patch cycle, every good class skill will be spreadsheeted into uselessness, and everything will just end up homogenized even more.

HappyTheCamper

Malyore wrote: »

HappyTheCamper wrote: »

SpiritKitten wrote: »

For those who didn't watch the stream follow-up, you talk to an npc, do their quest, and from then on whenever you do a skill respec you can swap out 2 skill lines. Skill progression will be account-wide which is AWESOME.

I feel like the wiser decision should have been to only let us unlock *one* new skill line. That way you still have a dominant class locked to your character with 2 unchanged skill lines, but we still get some more diverse “TES” style flair by adding a new one.

Either way, this is further cementing the game toward a pro-TES game and less traditional MMO (which I personally love but understand the hate.)

Yes this is why I'm excited, because it's closer to TES. My character can finally feel more like my character.

And I agree as well! but I understand where doomers are coming from. SWTOR for example makes a different story depending on your class. ESO it’s just going to be the first 50 levels.

Rkindaleft

I honestly don't think this is good for anyone who isn't a solo PvE player or people who make builds for RP.

If you actually play the game at the level where builds/combat matter this just makes things even less diverse then they are already. This is just an illusion of choice because now everyone will just run basically the exact same setup regardless of class.

adamsmith42 wrote: »

All damage dealers will now be Arc beam 100->40, plar beam 40->0 with DK standard for an ult

Done, we've fixed class identity everyone!! (There's only one class)

Tandor

Naltanir wrote: »

I bet the decided that cause they dont want to take time to try balancing class anymore

I'm not surprised, as you can never please everyone with class balancing. This way they maximise the options for everyone, which is much better (as well as offering a really cool feature for those not affected by things like class balancing). It's taking the original idea of theorycrafting to a whole new level, and provided they implement it well it will be hugely popular and a major draw back to the game for past players.

Moreover, they've done it within the base game with no real money or crown store purchases involved. Interesting that none of the monetisation critics have mentioned that!

tomofhyrule

HappyTheCamper wrote: »

SpiritKitten wrote: »

For those who didn't watch the stream follow-up, you talk to an npc, do their quest, and from then on whenever you do a skill respec you can swap out 2 skill lines. Skill progression will be account-wide which is AWESOME.

I feel like the wiser decision should have been to only let us unlock *one* new skill line. That way you still have a dominant class locked to your character with 2 unchanged skill lines, but we still get some more diverse “TES” style flair by adding a new one.

Either way, this is further cementing the game toward a pro-TES game and less traditional MMO (which I personally love but understand the hate.)

See, I love TES and it’s great to be able to build however you want. I can already think of a few things my characters should have based on their lore.

But…

The standard TES games are single-player. It doesn’t matter if you have some busted game-breaking godmode build (or want to take fifteen self-nerfs) because it doesn’t affect anyone else. But in an MMO, the fact that players need to play competitively and cooperatively needs to be taken into account.

I’m scared. Hybridization was intended to govern more options, and it instead made those options “the objectively better one” and the “I want or nerf myself” one. This, I fear, will go the same way to a much greater extent.

Hope everyone liked the number of “nobody’s letting me join trials because they are biased against my build” threads, because now anyone who doesn’t have the one setup will be excluded. Because some else will use it.

Finedaible

I like that ZoS is finally taking some chances. It has potential to be interesting, maybe. I just worry that this will further lead to hyper-optimized loadouts (cookie cutters) and further gatekeeping from both the community and content design.

Another point of concern is how class passives will work because many classes are designed around their passives' power budgets and what buffs they provide. Sounds like this could lead to skill line combos that do not work, and combos that work so well it will cause unnecessary nerfing to singular skill lines.

PvP is a whole other can of worms though, I'm not sure how this will work in face of their challenges to get Cyrodiil performant again.

Would have been even more interesting if you could swap racial perks imo.

Drazorious

I'm reinstalling ESO because of this announcement.

SilverBride

I'm not the least bit interested in subclasses. I have a hard enough time now figuring out what skills to use and turn to the Internet to find builds for my characters. Once I have them set up I don't want to change things.

SalamanNZ

Pvp will have a front bar of executes and stuns. Back bar defensive. I'm kind of glad you can have a selection of all abilities. And only 3 skill lines

Rungar

well done zos! people forget that your class lines are only a part of your total skills given weapons, mages, and other skill lines. They also forget that in order to get a line you have to give one up, which will include passives and important abilities.

i think itll be alot of fun! Better late than never lol.

Vaqual

This is the coolest thing ever. I loved it in GW1 and I was pretty much ready to jump onto Ashes of Creation just for this, but now I might just as well skip that. Are people really scared about what other players may combine? The stuff that is overpowered now in PvP will be overpowered then. There will be less excuses for not adjusting problematic abilities and even less reason to cry about it, if you can slot it yourself. And the PvE Meta? When DPS per player is exceeding 100 % of the encounter requirement I am sure it will be forgivable to slot something that isn't fatecarver. This has the potential to make builds viable that were otherwise giving up core class synergies. Of course there is likely going to be one best class/combination for any given job, but this is how it is currently anyway. I don't need class restrictions to provide an illusion of replayability.

And it isn't invalidating any existing build, so why would lazy players worry about it? Because they might miss out on some extra 10k DPS for that nCR+0 run or on overland mobs?

I can't take any of the concerns here seriously. This will be a huge buff to the RPG/TES side of the game.

Red_Feather

Vaqual wrote: »

This is the coolest thing ever. I loved it in GW1 and I was pretty much ready to jump onto Ashes of Creation just for this, but now I might just as well skip that. Are people really scared about what other players may combine? The stuff that is overpowered now in PvP will be overpowered then. There will be less excuses for not adjusting problematic abilities and even less reason to cry about it, if you can slot it yourself. And the PvE Meta? When DPS per player is exceeding 100 % of the encounter requirement I am sure it will be forgivable to slot something that isn't fatecarver. This has the potential to make builds viable that were otherwise giving up core class synergies. Of course there is likely going to be one best class/combination for any given job, but this is how it is currently anyway. I don't need class restrictions to provide an illusion of replayability.

And it isn't invalidating any existing build, so why would lazy players worry about it? Because they might miss out on some extra 10k DPS for that nCR+0 run or on overland mobs?

I can't take any of the concerns here seriously. This will be a huge buff to the RPG/TES side of the game.

Yeah! Guild Wars 1 was so addictive to me because of it's class system. I loved playing as a Mesmer/Assassin and Mesmer/Ritualist.

EvilGoatKing

Naltanir wrote: »

I bet the decided that cause they dont want to take time to try balancing class anymore

not a time constraint,.. they are incapable of figuring out a decade of spaghetti code.

supabicboi

many of you will start to love this subclass thing a lot less, when you cant figure out what the combos were when getting one shot, pulled into oblivion, out of nowhere 2% to 100% health heals.. im seeing massive potentials to reach an even higher peak. This is going to discourage a lot of people from walking into pvp in my mind.

but who knows, maybe by enabling everyone, theres gonna be less complaints overall, since everyone can theoretically access what everyone else can have, no more complaints should be coming from how this and that class is busted now right? maybe by then, with all these class skills accessible, many will come to realize its not a game issue they perform bad.. its an 'individual' issue lmao.

subclasses will inevitably make the skill gap even wider lol, hope yall can catch up to the progress.

Destyran

This will lead to everyone having player having the same meta build.

Elvenheart

Rungar wrote: »

well done zos! people forget that your class lines are only a part of your total skills given weapons, mages, and other skill lines. They also forget that in order to get a line you have to give one up, which will include passives and important abilities.

i think itll be alot of fun! Better late than never lol.

This. If I’m understanding it correctly, to get a line from another class you give up one of your own, and THEN to get another line from a different class you give up a SECOND line of your own. AND you can’t trade two of your skill lines for two other lines in the same class.

I think instead of everyone in the game using some sort of “meta class” consisting of just the three alleged best skill lines in the game (and I think different people have different views as to what those skill lines are based on their preferred playstyle) I think a lot of people will come up with different skill lines combinations that they like and are effective for them. I think some people will continue to play just like they are and have the same amount of fun they’ve always had, I think some people will only swap out one skill line and keep two of their class skill lines, and some people will have three different class skill lines, and yes, of course some people will keep experimenting until they think they have figured out the absolute best three skill lines to put together that would rival the power of an Aedra or Daedric Prince, and that’s ok. “Everyone” is not going to do exactly the same thing ever in an mmo. And if some groups start requiring players to have “X” skill line or lines, then find a group that doesn’t.

Gaebriel0410

I am super mega excited, this is exactly what I wanted since forever! I am stunned that they're actually doing it, never expected this in the slightest.

I think ESO never had much of a class identity to begin with, at least not in comparison to other MMORPG's I've played.
Classes work best when you have like 12 or more to choose from, but with ESO it always felt more like general vague archetypes, at least for the majority of them. So ultimately it was a bit of a restriction imo, I am very glad to see them remove that last hurdle to true freeform character building. Now, you can build that identity yourself and I am all here for it.

The classes never made too much sense to me anyways, especially from a lore perspective, as most names were taken from the skill preset quickstart builds in older TES games and were barely ever referenced.

They did an attempt to include the class names in some lorebooks, but it always sounded very forced and gamified to me. Like, it was nice to try and include them in that way, but it was the one thing I could never take too seriously, as it was so obviously a game thing.

But yeah every single character I have is gonna use this, as they are usually very specific regarding their place / role / culture within the setting, so for me this new feature is just perfect.

My Breton knight (templar) can pick up some forest vibes from the warden class, my traditional Breton wizard (sorcerer) can finally ditch all the unused daedric lines and exchange them for elemental ones, my Breton druid (warden) can swap ice for the much more appropriate lightning, my Imperial necromancer can pick up some daedric summoning, my Nord dragonknight can actually get that ice storm ultimate.. I could go on and on and on, shaking things up with unpredictable new stuff like this was exactly what this game needed!

Elvenheart

Gaebriel0410 wrote: »

My Breton knight (templar) can pick up some forest vibes from the warden class, my traditional Breton wizard (sorcerer) can finally ditch all the unused daedric lines and exchange them for elemental ones, my Breton druid (warden) can swap ice for the much more appropriate lightning, my Imperial necromancer can pick up some daedric summoning, my Nord dragonknight can actually get that ice storm ultimate.. I could go on and on and on, shaking things up with unpredictable new stuff like this was exactly what this game needed!

Those are some great ideas! The only one I had thought of was my no pet sorcerer getting a more useful skill line, but I love some of those other ideas you have!