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

Kalik_Gold · June 2019

ESO has been the most freeing MMORPG I personally have played since Shadowbane (which had a plethora of classes).
You can practically build a character as you want (for solo play, normal dungeons or pvp) based on what you desire.

The only time "meta" and rotations gets involved is Veteran Dungeons, Veteran Arena and Trials.

Massacre_Wurm · June 2019

Sansoul wrote: »

Facefister wrote: »

wishlist14 wrote: »

Wow died and is no more...just bones and dust. Most of its denizens packed up,and braved the long ardurous and dangerous trek to our Tamriel shores. The ones you call wow refugees now live among us.

All rpg mmos suffer from the same fate in the end.....it is inevitable...the pvp vrs pve nerf tog-o-war. Until a game developer is willing to keep pvp and pve as two separate entities then I never see there being hope for rpgmmos to move forward and succeed long term.

Where are those WoW refugees? The ones who came are long gone. WoW isn't a "Quest" game, it's an endgame aka Raids and Dungeons game. The majority of the so-called refugees are failed players who couldn't keep up or enter that endcontent.
Class variety in ESO is even lesser than in WoW.
Dungeons and Raids in ESO are primitive in comparison to WoW.
Only crafting and questing is where ESO excels.

When WoW classic drops everything will be right again. All the people who are rotating between every other game out there right now will be going back to classic. Even the population on Elysium has exploded in recent months as people are chomping at the bit for wow classic... just wait until classic hits BC and LK, the point in time WoW had the most active subscribers at any given time of any MMO ever. I can't wait for 3.3.5 WoW classic.

Yep. And all that crowd will leave after one month. Because you cant get that time back and you are 10+ years older now.

kylewwefan · June 2019

Wait a minute. The class buffs don’t really count. Everything is fire damage. You have to use fire stick. Even Sorc. Known for lightning damage. And warden with ice and magic buffs. Necros seem to have some affinity to ice as well. Doesn’t matter. Use fire.

The bow bar setup looks the exact same on every stam toon I play. I like it though. It’s easy.

The unique skills, like Whip, Relentless, Sub Assault, Blastbones, Crystal Frag, Power of the Light, ; well basically rotations kind of revolve around them. Or they did at one time. Maybe it’s coming back again?

I got a headache. Gonna go lay down.

Shantu · June 2019

Fun is not equal to balance.

The old sorc shields are a good example. In PVE they hurt no one. The MagSorc was a blast to play. No, I didn't take it to PVP and stack shields. But because of this ZOS saw fit to decimate shields across the board. The result? What was fun became an annoyance and disappointment. Yeah, we adjust, but the fun doesn't.

Balance has become about numbers...which doesn't equate to enjoyment. And if you strip the fun out of playing, what's the point?

But hey, while classes are being homogenized and game performance has never been worse (at least in my 2-1/2 years of playing) I just got a new non-combat pet in a free Crown Crate I'll never even look at. So, what do I have to complain about?

Veinblood1965 · June 2019

It's just the PVP versus PVE issue again. I would also like classes to be truly unique, the necro is unique in it's own way. The more cookie cutter they get the more mashabuttonable they get. Problem is the unique abilities don't mesh well with PVP, I don't think there can be a balance between uniqueness and PVP/PVE. Personally I don't PVP so would like more individualism for my toons but I understand how those that PVP get upset when a class is OPed and next thing you know everyone starts playing theirs and are playing whack a mole with them.

Drachenfier · June 2019

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

Sergykid · June 2019

the standardization is very important and healthy. Classes are each unique, sorc streaks, nb cloaks, each spell aoe dot has another side effect, magplar dot gives major prophecy, magden dot has more damage next cast, etc.

i don't have to enumerate all the uniquenesses from the classes, just go search it yourself, something you clearly haven't done already. I would actually say ESO has the most unique playstyle, thanks to the many sets you can build yourself around (more than half useless, but still)

Tigerseye · June 2019

Ugh, Blizzard say a lot of things, most of them pretty stupid... ><

Much as retaining class flavour is important, if DPS (for example) builds allow for wild deviations in DPS, purely from that choice of build (as opposed to player skill/rotation), something is very wrong there.

Equally, in my opinion, if a DPS is allowed to build to have no defence and no self heal at all, so is completely at the mercy of healers to survive, there is also something very wrong there.

There are ways and means of retaining plenty of class flavour and a certain amount of choice, without inserting red herrings, or allowing new players to completely wander off track.

There is a middle road between removing class flavour and people's ability to be somewhat unique and insuring no one does low DPS (purely due to their build), or is a glass cannon.

It's called balance.

Nemesis7884 · June 2019

if you make classes more unique people complain about balance and viceverca.... this is just really difficult if you want to have pvp and pve in the same game within the same skill framework

david_m_18b16_ESO · June 2019

Wing wrote: »

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

It must have been a really old quote since they moved away of class rotations eyars ago and went for a skill priority instead (something ESO should really consider doing).

They also favor "fun" over a lot of thing. Especialy in PvP. Something can be balanced but if its too unfun they will remove it.

Sure you can argue their what they think is fun can be different from what you think is fun but at least its the general idea.

Class identity is what they hammered for WoD so severals years old too. Sadly the problem is they shifted class identity from the old view to the new devs in charge view.

david_m_18b16_ESO · June 2019

Sansoul wrote: »

Facefister wrote: »

wishlist14 wrote: »

Wow died and is no more...just bones and dust. Most of its denizens packed up,and braved the long ardurous and dangerous trek to our Tamriel shores. The ones you call wow refugees now live among us.

All rpg mmos suffer from the same fate in the end.....it is inevitable...the pvp vrs pve nerf tog-o-war. Until a game developer is willing to keep pvp and pve as two separate entities then I never see there being hope for rpgmmos to move forward and succeed long term.

Where are those WoW refugees? The ones who came are long gone. WoW isn't a "Quest" game, it's an endgame aka Raids and Dungeons game. The majority of the so-called refugees are failed players who couldn't keep up or enter that endcontent.
Class variety in ESO is even lesser than in WoW.
Dungeons and Raids in ESO are primitive in comparison to WoW.
Only crafting and questing is where ESO excels.

When WoW classic drops everything will be right again. All the people who are rotating between every other game out there right now will be going back to classic

Classic had the population of ESO at lunch. I doubt that it will beat 1M sub for more then a month or 2.

Even in the beta many got disapointed when blizzard told them what they were repporting as BUGS, were just how the game worked in classic.

Tigerseye · June 2019

The problem with what Bizzard did, was they went from just adding more and more abilities all the time and having complete freedom of build, to the point where complete inequality existed (which was insane), to reducing it down to a very few choices and removing some much loved abilities in the process, just so they had room to keep adding more.

The balance part was good, the removing favourite abilities part was not.

Perhaps a compromise would have been to just accept that perpetually adding new abilities, forever, when people already have more than enough of them and like what they already have, might be a mistake and once balance had been found, to just leave well alone?

After all, do people buy the new xpac for a new ability?

Especially if one of their favourite old ones had to be removed to make room for it?

Tigerseye · June 2019

I will also just add that there is no actual freedom in builds, if almost everyone (who plays, even vaguely, competitively) goes and copies a build online.

So, there is a lot to be said for just giving people a few different options, at each stage, that add the same amount of DPS boost (for example), just in different ways.

Because, at least then there is the potential for true choice, rather than just the illusion of it.

Yes, most people will still copy guides, even then, but if they don't, they won't be left at a significant disadvantage.

The issue was more that they removed some core abilities, that people loved, just to add endless new ones (just for the sake of it) that people had never even said they wanted.

DjMuscleboy02 · June 2019

The other direction is everyone just playing the same class. We clearly see that in both PvP and PvE with Necros being so strong right now. I'd argue that's even worse than what you're suggesting.

People don't seem to understand that you can play whatever you want in ESO and it won't matter unless you're in the top .05% pushing for scores in trials. If you aren't competing for the #1 spot then your class/build hardly matters.

Royaji · June 2019

In my opinion, in a balanced combat system strength and uniqness can only come through restrictions and extreme oportunity cost. You want that super badass ability? Sure. But you will have no access to that other one which is also totally great. And vice versa. And having that ability also leaves you with a major weakness. In a system like that, things can be unique without being overpowered.

Every game with significant player freedom in character builds end up being bland and sterile. Because players quite often understand the game better than devs. And given enough time they will always find that one combination of skills/passives/sets or whatever that is just brokenly good. So devs have to be careful and make sure no major outliers exist in the system. While in a more restrictive system devs can come up with "presets" (and I use this word very roughly) which are really powerful in some aspect but also have an exploitable weakness that keeps them in check. And no amount of tinkering a clever player does will be able to disrupt this balance.

RavenSworn · June 2019

Can't think much else but agree. Been saying it from the start, differentiate the abilities from pvp and pve, or at the very least limit the gear or the abilities according to their placements.

It's hard to state logic when you have people foaming in their mouths about nightblade 'ganking' gameplay, or how dks are unkillable or how streak was just annoying as hell...

Class identity were stripped, chapter after chapter. I mean, I support the fact that they want nightblades to be better at certain roles than previously but sometimes, you just got to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

Kawall · June 2019

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

You're right, but this is not about dummy parses, it's mostly about PVP balancing.

Same problem exist in pve. And i would even say it's bigger issue in pve. Every stam dps = poison injection, rearming trap, endless, caltrops, rending, vigor and front ult as flawless dawnbreaker.

Mettaricana · June 2019

Massacre_Wurm wrote: »

I love threads like this. And mmo commutity demanding classes being unique , universal and competitive at the same time.

Classes could be if bosses and content weren't immune to everything except damage. Boss can't be stun, reflect, snare, knockback, disable, disorient,etc basically washes all flair down to dps spam...

Emmagoldman · June 2019

I COMPLETELY agree that the mentality of only thinking of a class through dps parses instead of context and game play is an issue. MAGDEN is a DEAD CLASS ITS DEAD, then someone else’s is posting that it’s broken and op. So which is it? I’m ok with some classes performing better in different events, trials, bgs, pvp, and whatever.

Everything should dps the same, tank the same and heal the same........good luck with that

CambionDaemon · June 2019

And the main reason for all class/races becoming the same, is all of the people on the forums screaming that their class cannot do (insert whatever here).

West1389 · June 2019

The rotation is fine here. We are all equal and plus we can learn our rotation on YT. If it changes then we will be different and some would be stronger. I'm not for that. I wish we could nerf few more things and be hybrids. If we learn anything from Wow it's what not to do.

It's been 5 years and we are way ahead right now. By next year we may take half of the wow players. We need easy for more people to play not hard.

idk · June 2019

Turelus wrote: »

This is what happens when people scream about balance and making classes perform closer together.

ZOS is just doing what the large vocal part of the community keeps demanding, that everything be balanced.

This exactly and Zos showed how important it is to them when they noted a recent change was made because people were asking for it.

However, Zos does not have the management vision to do this well anyhow. It should bring the dps closer together and instead the high end is getting higher and a wedge has been driven between the high end and low end since Zos falsely stated they were lowering the ceiling and raising the floor.

Zos yes, Zos is homogenizing the game and has been for a couple years now but their combat vision is managed so pitiful that it is going in the opposite of their stated vision and consistently so.

West1389 · June 2019

They are doing well, what is wrong with all of us being the same. Equality and easy is what we want. I have never seen bad nerf from them, it's all part of a better plan. Wow is losing players faster then ea firing employees. Plus what's the competition anthem ha.

Noxavian · June 2019

andreasv wrote: »

Class identity has been ignored especially for the last two additions. Both, Warden and Necro, are intended to be a Jack of All Trades. I assume it's easier to sell that way, but I prefer to choose a class and then focus on a specific role and try to be good in it, instead of having the option to cover other roles take away from excelling in one.

This. I can't help but feel they really messed up a lot with Necro's identity in ESO. People say they love that the class can do healing, dps, and tanking. Meanwhile I'm over here like: "Okay, but where is the necromancer flavor exactly?" Even their summons are basically glorified dots. IMO it should of primarily been either a dps/healing or a dps/tank class, not all 3.

If they went with a dps/healing class, I'd expect the tank skill tree to be replaced with a tree more focused on supportive dark magic along with maybe 1-2 extra summons.

If they went with a dps/tank class, I'd want the tanking tree to be more focused around summoning big-large minions that tank/taunt for you for a duration and the healing tree be focused on not only summoning supportive summons for your party, but providing your summons with channeled buffs.

I also think they could of done so much more with the DPS tree if they stopped trying to do a little bit of everything. Firstly, I'd like to state that Necromancer's main class gimmick should of been summoning undead FROM corpses, instead of whatever it is now. I dunno, I'm glad to finally be able to play a necromancer, but it feels like they kind of forgot what made necromancers, well, necromancers. Don't give me that "But Nox, necromancers in eso arent all about just SuMmOniNg". Yes. Yes they are. That is literally what makes them a necromancer, whether that be summoning zombies to defend their hideout while they do a more complex ritual or whether they call upon spirits to assist them with something. They use dark magic as well, but I cannot FATHOM the design philosophy by denying Necromancer's most unique theme: It had the potential to be a step in the right direction in fixing summoning mechanics in the game, but instead they basically made it like every other class. Why on earth does a class that revolves around mainly summoning the undead only have 2 very short not even real summons abilities?

Also some of the abilities I really hate and you can tell they took inspiration from.....other game's necromancer classes instead of focusing on their own damn universe. I absolutely despise the scythe, bone armor, and bone totem abilities. Also not a fan of the corpse siphoning abilities, I just those 2 are lazy tbh.

Marginis · June 2019

Well, I personally prefer class balance to people telling me to get out or that I'm bad because I'm not playing the right class, but that's just me. Not saying there can't be both class balance and class individuality, but if I had to choose one? Plus I think right now there's a pretty good mix, but hey, that's just my opinion.

berzerkdethb14_ESO1 · June 2019

Despite my recent arguments that magcro is so bad (it is) I agree. The problem is that everything is being tuned now to squeeze out every single point of DPS, so we HAVE to request dps parses from people and expect a certain number.

I had a lot more fun with ESO when nobody cared about this stuff fairly early on.

Hyperion616 · June 2019

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.

I read your post and I liked it, but you need to give the Developers of ESO 10 more years, plus Z.O.S time to really screw things up before you can expect change or statements like the one Ion gave.

It takes time to really go full on ham.

Hyperion616 · June 2019

Sansoul wrote: »

Facefister wrote: »

wishlist14 wrote: »

Wow died and is no more...just bones and dust. Most of its denizens packed up,and braved the long ardurous and dangerous trek to our Tamriel shores. The ones you call wow refugees now live among us.

All rpg mmos suffer from the same fate in the end.....it is inevitable...the pvp vrs pve nerf tog-o-war. Until a game developer is willing to keep pvp and pve as two separate entities then I never see there being hope for rpgmmos to move forward and succeed long term.

Where are those WoW refugees? The ones who came are long gone. WoW isn't a "Quest" game, it's an endgame aka Raids and Dungeons game. The majority of the so-called refugees are failed players who couldn't keep up or enter that endcontent.
Class variety in ESO is even lesser than in WoW.
Dungeons and Raids in ESO are primitive in comparison to WoW.
Only crafting and questing is where ESO excels.

When WoW classic drops everything will be right again. All the people who are rotating between every other game out there right now will be going back to classic. Even the population on Elysium has exploded in recent months as people are chomping at the bit for wow classic... just wait until classic hits BC and LK, the point in time WoW had the most active subscribers at any given time of any MMO ever. I can't wait for 3.3.5 WoW classic.

I do agree with you that a lot of players will be making their return once classic hits shelves but my fear is that all these other MMO's on the market will fade away with little or no choice between which games to play.

I played from November 24, 2004 all the way to this year February 2019 so for me returning to play classic isn't something I'm in a rush to do, but I do enjoy having the ability to pick and chose which MMO I want to play.

It would stink to say stick it out here in ESO land only to watch the Player Base dwindle down to nothing as everyone runs back to Classic WOW.

Skwor · June 2019

West1389 wrote: »

They are doing well, what is wrong with all of us being the same. Equality and easy is what we want. I have never seen bad nerf from them, it's all part of a better plan. Wow is losing players faster then ea firing employees. Plus what's the competition anthem ha.

It is stupidly boring. At the moment it is the trade game that keeps me here. Combat is a big snooze fest.

anatole1234 · June 2019

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.

Class identity disapeared in 2016