Uncommondoor wrote: »

I believe it will devalue certain classes, namely Warden.

Exactly how does it devalue Warden?

99.999% of combat in eso is so ridiculously easy -- including most non-hm vet dungeons and trials -- that subclassing is practically irrelevant. It's just a flavor thing because everything melts and dedicated healers are optional.

It only really matters in pvp and vet trials, mainly hm and trifectas.

I'm not worried about it from a pvp pov because pvp is already completely broken. At some point the degree of broken stops mattering and that was probably years ago.

I'm worried about how it will work out in the aspect of the game I currently play. I'm a mid-tier trial player who was, until recently, into hard modes and just getting started in trifecta progs.

The more competitive a group is, the more optimized the builds will become. It gets to the point where players have multiple trash and prebuff builds in addition to unique builds for each boss encounter.

If one is in multiple hm/tri cores, it can already be a huge headache managing all of the gear, builds, cp/scribing configs, etc...

On top of that technical challenges and addons add more dimensions of complexity. *SO* many trials have technical issue dead zones while we help someone with an addon issue or wait for someone who crashed to come back online.

At the level I play at, I won't be the one figuring out any of the metas. So this is just another level of granularity that will make end game trials more tedious to prepare for -- and I'm already at the breaking point of tedium in eso.

So to me, subclassing is a new layer of complexity that doesn't offer any tangible improvements.

I'll also say that it's unfair for zos to leave players relying on addon authors to manage builds. The armory is not sufficient for that purpose.

Desiato wrote: »

99.999% of combat in eso is so ridiculously easy -- including most non-hm vet dungeons and trials -- that subclassing is practically irrelevant. It's just a flavor thing because everything melts and dedicated healers are optional.

It only really matters in pvp and vet trials, mainly hm and trifectas.

I'm not worried about it from a pvp pov because pvp is already completely broken. At some point the degree of broken stops mattering and that was probably years ago.

I'm worried about how it will work out in the aspect of the game I currently play. I'm a mid-tier trial player who was, until recently, into hard modes and just getting started in trifecta progs.

The more competitive a group is, the more optimized the builds will become. It gets to the point where players have multiple trash and prebuff builds in addition to unique builds for each boss encounter.

If one is in multiple hm/tri cores, it can already be a huge headache managing all of the gear, builds, cp/scribing configs, etc...

On top of that technical challenges and addons add more dimensions of complexity. *SO* many trials have technical issue dead zones while we help someone with an addon issue or wait for someone who crashed to come back online.

At the level I play at, I won't be the one figuring out any of the metas. So this is just another level of granularity that will make end game trials more tedious to prepare for -- and I'm already at the breaking point of tedium in eso.

So to me, subclassing is a new layer of complexity that doesn't offer any tangible improvements.

I'll also say that it's unfair for zos to leave players relying on addon authors to manage builds. The armory is not sufficient for that purpose.

Very well put. I especially relate to the "I am already at the breaking point of tedium in ESO" part. That reflects my PvE thoughts on this quite well.
Minor disagree on the PvP part because I am worried about how this will affect the enjoyment of PvP moreso than the balance. If you are fighting someone using Warden skills, you know they aren't going to hit you with a Grim Focus out of nowhere. That's not going to be the case anymore and the skill/knowledge check of knowing what your opponent is capable of from the skills they are using, is part of the fun. Having to relearn what common combos look like because classes don't exist anymore doesn't excite me, it just sounds like more tedium.

Initially I was just worried. Now I'm truly disappointed.

I was prepared to simply ignore subclassing should I determine that it's not for me, and just keep on keepin on. But now it appears that my characters will take a hit should I choose the purist route, and I will be required to participate in subclassing if I wish to keep my characters at the same performance level.

That IMO is unacceptable.

[Edit] And to be clear, I'm not a meta chaser by any means.

As a brand new player, I find it appealing that I can maybe try other classes while sticking to one character

Prism_ADC wrote: »

As a brand new player, I find it appealing that I can maybe try other classes while sticking to one character

That's not quite what this is though. Would be cooler if it was, but you can't experience "another class". Just one skill line per class. So at best 1/3 of one, which depending on which class we are talking about, is not even true to the real experience. We all wanted to experience other classes on the same character through class change tokens, or being able to respec into another class. What we are actually getting is throwing classes into a blender. Some people would like a blended class smoothie, but about as many seem to dislike that yet will be getting served the smoothie all the same.

ragnarok6644b14_ESO wrote: »

The "extensive list of nerfs" also includes a whole lot of buffs, if you actually read it... I mean heck, I was nodding along with most of the changes.

I do find the crooning about "the meta will change" from the crowd that also croons about "the meta is too stale" to be hard to believe. You get your BIS pet/potion/food/class/set 1/set 2/ arena or monster set /mythic/rotation/buffs...

Yes, now your 2 key may be bound to a Warden skill instead of a Templar skill, or visa versa, or whatever. Relequen's will still be the best stamina DPS set... I don't know. I really just don't understand what's so scary about it.

"Balance" is a worry for PVP, I will grant. And difficulty is a worry for hardcore endgame trifecta trial players, maybe. I can grant that too.

But they already grind out the meta until it tastes like ash. I *could* be a endgame trifecta player. But I was in 2 guilds at different times and just... Got bored. Same old ***, same old day. New patch? Change *** real quick go go go - ah, finally, meta again.

The meta will always meta, and choices will always plummet to near-zero.

The other concerns:
- Class identity? You know you are in the Elder Scrolls universe right?

- nerfs? Sure, or buffs, idk..the actual list is pretty mixed. Things do change in live service games as a rule.

Can someone explain to me why subclassing is a bad thing, while also explaining how their objection doesn't literally apply to any non-minor-adjustment ever?

@ragnarok6644b14_ESO Alright, non-minor-adjustment: Third morph option on all class abilities.

Because these new and exciting morph options come at the cost of not being able to slot the morphs you'd previously pick, they can be quite powerful and just as exciting as existing skills. For the sake of the argument, let's assume the balancing of those morphs is fine. Will the meta shift? Yes. Is that a problem? No, not unless the functionality of those skills doesn't add anything game breaking or threatens to make a certain class obsolete in trials (leading to people being uninvited from raids).

One of the reasons why subclassing is bad is that this threatens to make certain classes obsolete in trials. You are stuck to at least one of your core skill lines, so subclassing into something else won't fix that - aside from the whole issue that the new skill lines cost twice the skill points. People are already posting legitimate parses with 170k dps and previously 130k dps was already considered exceedingly good. As you can imagine, things will be nerfed. And because things will be nerfed, this means that anyone who wishes to play the way they want - as a purist - will likely be subjected to major damage loss. If you are a top tier player, that damage loss doesn't really mean anything, because you will still clear the content. But if you aren't, then this damage loss could mean the difference between getting that next veteran dungeon hardmode achievement or not.
The bigger the imbalance, the harder the fall.
Another reason why this isn't like other major updates is that, unless ZOS would copy and paste the Cloak skill and make it into a World or Guild skill, nothing could ever turn a Dragonknight or Sorcerer into an invisible menace in PvP. Do you know how hard it is to track down a cloaking Nightblade in PvP? Even with detection potions and reveal skills it's not that easy. Now think about what it would mean to give a Nightblade access to Streak on top of that. Good luck catching that guy. No amount of number changing is going to make that not be the most annoying thing ever in PvP - unless of course ZOS nerfs these skills to the point of unusability - which will make Sorcs or Nightblades very upset, depending on which skill was made unusable, perhaps both.
All of this couldn't happen in the third morph option scenario. It almost happened with Scribing. It did happen with Hybridization which is why everyone is now using a mix of magicka and stamina skills, but because nobody is a "staff main" nobody is actually upset about using dualwielding on their magicka builds, but even that took years of balancing to get it right.
Subclassing is also a convenient excuse for ZOS to stop caring about certain aspects of balance. You can hear it in their talk about non-pet Sorcerer. Their suggestion to Sorcerers who don't like playing with pets is "swap that skill line for something else". Except Haunting Curse is also in that skill line and so is Bound Aegis/Armaments. And the Atronach is vital for raids because Major Berserk is still not easy to come by. In fact, ZOS just nerfed non-pet Sorcerers using this very logic as justification. They turned the passives from that skill line into purely pet related passives again, which hits every Sorcerer that decided to keep Daedric Summoning for their raid group. Does that sound fair to you?

ragnarok6644b14_ESO wrote: »

The "extensive list of nerfs" also includes a whole lot of buffs, if you actually read it... I mean heck, I was nodding along with most of the changes.

I do find the crooning about "the meta will change" from the crowd that also croons about "the meta is too stale" to be hard to believe. You get your BIS pet/potion/food/class/set 1/set 2/ arena or monster set /mythic/rotation/buffs...

Yes, now your 2 key may be bound to a Warden skill instead of a Templar skill, or visa versa, or whatever. Relequen's will still be the best stamina DPS set... I don't know. I really just don't understand what's so scary about it.

"Balance" is a worry for PVP, I will grant. And difficulty is a worry for hardcore endgame trifecta trial players, maybe. I can grant that too.

But they already grind out the meta until it tastes like ash. I *could* be a endgame trifecta player. But I was in 2 guilds at different times and just... Got bored. Same old ***, same old day. New patch? Change *** real quick go go go - ah, finally, meta again.

The meta will always meta, and choices will always plummet to near-zero.

The other concerns:
- Class identity? You know you are in the Elder Scrolls universe right?

- nerfs? Sure, or buffs, idk..the actual list is pretty mixed. Things do change in live service games as a rule.

Can someone explain to me why subclassing is a bad thing, while also explaining how their objection doesn't literally apply to any non-minor-adjustment ever?

Is it really this difficult to understand? Regardless of whether you think classes should've been a thing in this game or not, we've had them for eleven years, and some of us actually enjoy playing as those classes (special shout-out to the Necro mains who've stuck with it even though Necro's been languishing in the doldrums for awhile.) The fact that you see no problem with "big deal, you've just got a Warden skill on a character you've been playing as Templar for years now" is part of the problem.

@Wereswan - Who's forcing you to change your selected skills on your toon?


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OldStygian wrote: »

Who's forcing you to change your selected skills on your toon?

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8297152/#Comment_8297152

We're already hearing "just swap the skill line out if you don't like the changes" from ZOS now. Can you understand our concern about that?

Edit to add: And I misunderstood exactly what the change to the Daedric Summoning skill line is doing; they are, in fact, eliminating the non-summoning skills. So if you used those, you'll be looking for a replacement when/if this goes live.

OldStygian wrote: »

[Removed Tag] - Well I disagree, your arguments can just as easily apply to your side of the subject.

In every TES game I've played since Daggerfall, I've almost always created custom adventurers with the skills that fit the character concept I've had in mind.

Since I first tried it, I've seen the limitation of skill lines in TESO as a minus.

I look forward to our new subclass overloads etc etc



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This would have been fine 11 years ago. It's the fact that we've had 11 years with classes and ZOS decides to do this now. Is this game still in the beta playtest? What are they going to change next? Are they going to merge magicka and stamina into one bar, like in Dark Souls? Nothing in this game is truly sacred to the devs and they are willing to change it all up, no matter how many people liked the way it was before. At this point they could undo hybridization next update and happily present it as the cool new feature that delivers on the fantasy of being a powerful mage or a hardened warrior, allowing players to truly play the way they want!
The problem with changes like these this late into the lifetime of the game is, that new players won't be checking out a game that's 11 years old just because the lines between classes got a bit blurry. Meanwhile people will put down the game as a result of these heavy nerfs that are coming. Morrowind had a huge exodus over sustain changes, update 35 was another big exodus, unless ZOS puts some major guard rails on subclassing this will be another.

Damn looks like pure classes are done. Not everyone wants to subclass and they shouldn’t be forced to.

Allowing pure classes to still thrive in conjunction with subclasses is what will truly allow players to express themselves in battle. Whether it’s for roleplaying purposes or the most endgame content.

Looking forward to trying subclasses!

I'm honestly dreading it and think it's a terrible idea.


ESO has ridiculous power creep in many ways. They don't have a good track record of combat design and balancing and adding subclassing is going to make a bad situation a million times worse. I'm mostly talking about PvP as I don't do hard PvE group content. PvP is already extremely unwelcoming for new players, or players that prefer a more casual war type game mode. This is going to make it even more discouraging for them. I have little confidence in their ability to handle and manage this. PvP is gonna do something I didn't think possible. It's gonna get even worse than it currently is.


I've been playing my characters on and off for nearly 10 years. I have one of most classes, mainly focus on three of them. I've become attached to them over the years for their theme/flavour/class. Now this is moot. They're introducing a change that will impact characters that we have been playing for years. I still fully intend not to subclass. But as we already have seen, some of the core functionality of the classes are starting to be gutted due to the subclassing system (beam, executes etc).

Pure classes will fall behind in performance. They're sacrificing classes we've been play for a decade to this low cost system. You shouldn't just introduce a change like this. You can't just suddenly change a class system that the entire game has been designed around for 10 years.


I'm getting the feeling this was a low hanging fruit. I think it's obvious more internal focus is on other projects so less time for ESO. Rather than developing a new system, new class, subclassing takes a lot less work. I think subclassing is a way to lessen the work they need to do now and in the future.

Even though it won't happen, a tiny part of me hopes they abandon this. Or extensively cut it back (something like allowing one skill from another class). This completely changes the ESO I've known for a decade and tbh, I've lost most of my desire to keep playing because of this. It reminds me of SWG NGE. I don't think they realise how huge a change this is. I've lost the little bit of confidence I've had in them.

So the objections are "we don't like change, and because it came out wrong it has to stay wrong?"

I *am* a necro main. I have played for 11 years (I was Templar before that). I am not loyal to the Necromancer Class, though, I am loyal to my *character* who, for years, has been unable to learn the cool tentacle spell or the neato frost mage spell or the neato poison breath.

Now that she can, people want to stop her because they're scared that those things will be nerfed? And they're shaking an actually pretty awesome list of changes in my face going "see"? Forgive me for being unconvinced.

Not using subclassing is like using one one-handed weapon going forwards. It may be cool, but it will be weaker than the alternatives. And that's fine! It's okay to not be at 170k or 250k or 1e86k DPS, unless you are ALSO trying to compete for endgame trifecta content, in which case, you already have your "allowed options" truncated to a very specific few builds.